President Obama Speech -- Excerpts

The White House sent these excerpts from President Obama’s pending address to the nation on ending of combat operations in Iraq:

“But this milestone should serve as a reminder to all Americans that our future is ours to shape if we move forward with confidence and commitment. It should also serve as a message to the world that the United States of America intends to sustain and strengthen our leadership in this young century.”

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“At every turn, America’s men and women in uniform have served with courage and resolve. As Commander-in-Chief, I am proud of their service. Like all Americans, I am awed by their sacrifice, and by the sacrifices of their families.”

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“Tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country. This was my pledge to the American people as a candidate for this office. Last February, I announced a plan that would bring our combat brigades out of Iraq, while redoubling our efforts to strengthen Iraq’s Security Forces and support its government and people. That is what we have done. We have removed nearly 100,000 U.S. troops from Iraq. We have closed or transferred hundreds of bases to the Iraqis. And we have moved millions of pieces of equipment out of Iraq.”

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“Ending this war is not only in Iraq’s interest – it is in our own. The United States has paid a huge price to put the future of Iraq in the hands of its people. We have sent our young men and women to make enormous sacrifices in Iraq, and spent vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home. We have persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people – a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it is time to turn the page.”

***

“Today, our most urgent task is to restore our economy, and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work. To strengthen our middle class, we must give all our children the education they deserve, and all our workers the skills that they need to compete in a global economy. We must jumpstart industries that create jobs, and end our dependence on foreign oil. We must unleash the innovation that allows new products to roll off our assembly lines, and nurture the ideas that spring from our entrepreneurs. This will be difficult. But in the days to come, it must be our central mission as a people, and my central responsibility as President.”

- Jake Tapper

Making the most of Obama's speech tonight

In the rankings of artificial events created solely for public relations or marketing purposes, tonight's speech by President Obama on Iraq ranks just above the Golden Globe Awards and considerably below Mother's Day.

It bears all the hallmarks of these other events (some of which I believe were actually created by the Hallmark Card company): It takes an arbitrarily chosen day and then uses a combination of deception and hoopla to turn it into prime time television or an occasion that warrants sending flowers. In the case of the Obama administration, tonight's address may prove worthy of both.

This date was chosen by the president eighteen months ago. There is very little evidence that it relates to anything specific happening on the ground in Iraq. Rather it seems much more driven by election year politics than anything else. Certainly no one who is paying any attention to Iraq can conclude that something has transpired in that country in the past several months that warrants a change in the stance of our military in that country. In fact, despite absurd pronouncements by the man who presides over Iraq's non-functioning non-government, Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, that Iraq is now "its own master" and on an equal footing with the U.S., the political situation in the country is gradually metastasizing into something much more unsettled than it was when Obama took office. Indeed, civil war or a military coup -- and a choice between chaos or renewed autocracy -- seem like the next big decisions for the Iraqi body politic.

Given that, the Pentagon can rename the operation on the ground anything it wants, the U.S. troops who remain in country will be at the same or even greater risk than they were before and their tasks will seem very similar to those they have been performing for the past several years. (Personally, I think "Operation New Dawn" sounds more like something designed to keep a woman feeling "fresh" even during those difficult days of the month than it does a military exercise.)

In anticipation of the president's speech, the press has wondered aloud whether Obama would fall into the "mission accomplished trap." That seems unlikely. What Obama is trying to do is to claim credit for a campaign promise kept and, even more importantly, to play up the one area in which public opinion for him is strongest, his "management of Iraq." Admittedly, this is pretty low hanging fruit since it is clear the only "management" sought by the American public was getting the heck out of Dodge, consequences be damned. But when recent polls show that the president's signature accomplishments -- health care reform and the stimulus -- are increasingly disdained by the public at large, you claim credit where you can, even if the facts suggest it is all low-grade political theater.

Perhaps something can be learned from the other sham events with which our lives are increasingly filled. If you plan to watch the president's speech tonight, take a page out of the book of the Golden Globes and ... assuming you can't actually get Ricky Gervais to sit with you and offer live commentary on the proceedings ... do the other thing that sets that show's proceedings apart and drink as heavily as the assembled stars and starlets do while they wait for their essentially meaningless awards. Or, perhaps better still, if that doesn't suit you, instead of watching the solemn and insincere posturing, do what you do on that wonderful fake holiday in May and give your mother a call. I'm sure she'd like to know how you are doing.

Style Over Substance In Obama Speech

Style Over Substance In Obama's Iraq Speech

He said what he had to say. He read his Teleprompter well and without stumbling. He lined up all the used-to-death clichés in an orderly line. And that was all there was to the president’s nationally televised address on Tuesday night.

We haven’t left peace and success behind in Iraq. We’ve left a fiasco of a failure. For more than five months the president and his administration have signally desisted from knocking together the heads of the Iraqi politicians who still haven’t been able to even form the pretense of a new national government. Bombings in Iraq and fatalities from them are accelerating to a level not seen since before Gen. David Petraeus launched the surge strategy in January 2007.

And as for the withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq that the speech applauded, that was all smoke and mirrors too. In a rare embarrassing fact that he allowed to intrude into his rhetoric, the president admitted that 50,000 Americans are staying in Iraq. He didn’t specify what they will be doing there, but rest assured, they are all now prospective targets for Al Qaeda, the rising Shiite militias and the force to really watch – Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army.

Of course the president nowhere talked about why it made more sense to commit scores of thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a country without any serious strategic significance or major resources whatsoever, while stripping them from Iraq, which for all the mess he and his predecessors made of it, at least has the second largest reserves of easily accessible, high quality oil on earth.

But facts have never got in the way for Barack Obama before and they didn’t on Tuesday night.