Dick Cheney recently criticized Vice President Biden for giving credit to the Obama administration for withdrawing troops from Iraq and reallocating troops to Afghanistan or in essence taking credit for success in Iraq.  First, lets establish that the United States should never have gone to Iraq in the first place but thanks to you Mr. Cheney we are there.  This is YOUR mess sir, the current administration is just cleaning it up.  Now lets establish what success is in Iraq…getting out of Iraq as soon as possible and reallocating America’s resources to America for Americans.  Now that we have established some facts take a look at what Cheney said yesterday on This Week regarding the role of the Bush administration in the success of the Iraq troop withdrawal:

Cheney: “Its being done in accordance to the timetable that we initiated (??? the Iraqi Prime Minister initiated) that we inau..that we negotiated with a…with the Iraqis…I mean that was our policy.”

Really Mr. Cheney?  That was your policy?  We respectfully disagree.  In fact the Bush policy was exactly the opposite of  a timetable for withdrawal as evidenced by Bush  himself in 2008:

Bush Orders Halt in Iraq Withdrawals  4/2008:  The president said that only as conditions in Iraq improve will he bring more troops home, a policy he calls “return on success.”

Bush Emphasizes His Opposition to Timetable for Iraq Withdrawal  7/16/2008:  [Bush] reiterated his opposition to what he called “an artificial timetable for withdrawal.”

For those who see continuity between the Bush administration and the Obama administration on this issue it is because the Bush administration reactively changed its position at the tail end of 2008 due to a decision by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government and pressure from the American public then being informed and persuaded by presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama.  Candidate Obama campaigned on an Iraq timetable for American troop withdrawal from the genesis of his presidential campaign in 2007.  At such time, George W. Bush repeatedly railed against an ”artificial timetable for withdrawal”  and was intent on achieving “victory” before withdrawing troops. It was only when the Prime Minister of Iraq said that he endorsed a timetable for U.S withdrawal [then being advocated by Sen. Obama] that President Bush was forced to acquiesce to such a timetable three days after stating his strong opposition to the measure.

Bush, in a Shift, Accept concept of Iraq Timeline7/19/2008:   “Under pressure from political parties wanting a diminishing American role, Mr. Maliki began demanding something in the agreement that would make it clear that American troops were on the way out. Iraq’s statement on Friday, reflecting those internal sensitivities, referred more specifically than the American version to ‘a time frame for the complete transfer of the security responsibilities to the hands of the Iraqi security as preface to decrease the number of the American forces and withdraw them later from Iraq.’ ”

“It came on the eve of a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama, who has vowed to pursue a strict phased timetable for withdrawing most combat troops from Iraq over 16 months beginning next year. He has cited Iraq’s eagerness for a timetable as support for his strategy.”

So Mr. Cheney, withdrawing from Iraq was not  the George W. Bush administration policy.  The Bush administration simply co-opted the policy of candidate Barack Obama.  In addition, it is the Obama administration that planned and is implementing the Iraq exit strategy from January 2009 to present day.  All the Bush administration did was make stole the announcement.  That dear sir is why the Obama administration deserves credit for withdrawing troops from Iraq and reallocating such resources to Afghanistan.

The White House investigation of the botched terror plot may reveal that intelligence may have been intentionally withheld or the “systemic failure” may have been due to a turf war between agencies.  These inquiries are at a very early stage with no concrete evidence that either aspects of this reported direction will bare any fruit.

Lets hope that neither of the above turns out to be true.  But to be honest the way that the former Vice President Dick Cheney seems to appear after every foreign policy event merely to criticize the President and knowing that there are Bush/Cheney holdovers in the current administration not to mention the way the GOP members are using the terror plot to boost their fundraising efforts a mere three days after the plot was foiled tend to give me pause.  Check out John Brennan’s, Deputy National Security advisor, statement from Meet The Press last Sunday in response to Dick Cheney’s criticism that the President is pretending that we are not at war:

Either the Vice President [Cheney] is willfully mischaracterizing this President’s position both in terms of the language he uses and the actions he’s taking or he’s ignorant of the facts…

Brennan went further in the New York Times:

What they’re doing is just playing into al Qaeda’s strategic effort, which is to get us to battle among ourselves instead of focusing on them.

John Brennan has worked for the past five administrations including both Bush 41 and Bush 43.  Mr. Brennan also lead the effort that created the National Counterterrorism Center.

Many on the Republican side of the isle have criticized the current administration on its handling of the Christmas day bomber.  You know, the continued and tired meme that Democrats are soft on terrorism.  There are however some very inconvenient facts working against the GOP in this instance.  Lets examine those facts by taking a look at what was suppose to happen on Christmas day.  Al Qaeda had actually staged a multi-prong attack on the U.S. for Christmas day that was prevented thanks to our brave men and women in the military and the intelligence community under the leadership of the President.  According to David Martin, CBS national security correspondent, in addition to the attempted attack on the Northwest flight 253 there was also a specific plot by al Qaeda to attack the U.S. Embassy in Yemen on Christmas day but the attack was prevented by way of preemptive strikes by the United States* via jets and cruise missiles off-shore one day prior.  The U.S. military struck two terrorist training camps in Yemen killing senior al Qaeda operators.  General Patraeus also said that the U.S. intercepted FOUR suicide bombers who were on their way to the Capitol. So the U.S. conducted, controlled, and initiated a strike based on its gathered intelligence that preempted an attack on United States targets all according to the instruction of the current Commander in Chief, Barack Obama.  Tell us again who is soft on terrorism and who is the effective and strategic leader in the fight?

Real world to GOP:  lets keep some perspective shall we?  This is not to say that there were not serious lapses that need IMMEDIATE attention which the President is rightly addressing but lets also keep in mind the larger picture.

*Though the article cites Yemen as the instigator of the preempted strikes, David Martin, CBS national security correspondent, corrected the record on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday.