respect in the absence of americans that had the overwhelming force to drive it down everyone s throat. enormous relief here that these troops will be coming home given the vast sacrifices made financially and indeed in terms of the lives of people. what do you think ordinary families are thinking? are they celebrating the document by the president? that depends on who you ask. iraq has paid a heavy, heavy price. 100,000 iraqis have died. iraqis have paid dearly and some of them are going to say is america s involvement after nine years brought about a better iraq? that s a very tough question. is it on the right path? some will be concerned. we can say that today s document by president obama did not come as a result of agreement, but came as a result of the absence of an agreement which is that the iraqis could not provide
are losing some credibility. they are so ungracious in this, there is no reason they couldn t say president bush deserves credit and if you feel like you have to say that and president obama deserves credit, but let s keep the most credit on the troops. they are so ungracious. it will be interesting as we go forward in the presidential election as the republican candidates hopefully get further embedded on their foreign policy ideas. rick perry s communications director saying something ignorant about how he said that president obama s strategy in the mideast has been so incoherent when actually i think it has been coherent and understood that you can t take a cookie cutter approach. libya is not egypt and they didn t seem to understand that. i hope we get to that in this election cycle. a final question. do you think herman can spell the word iraq? i m sure he can spell iraq, but i m not certain he knows
he shared with prime minister maliki. was this really about a conflict over agreeing to provide immunity for american personnel that they couldn t agree on? i can tell you that there has been wrangling for months over how exactly that this drawdown would occur. would they leave them to help with the transition. as you say, the iraqi parliament was making the point that they could not provide legal immunity for the troops who were going to remain in the country. that has been the sticking point all along and as of today, president obama announcing that all troops are leaving. it appears there was never an agreement on that much, president obama stressing the fax that they are on the same page. we learned in the briefing this afternoon that they had a poignant conversation this morning with the prime minister
much, but france and fwlaenglan. i especially appreciate the leadership of the british and the french in this. what the [ bleep ] is wrong with you, people? honestly. what? what is wrong with you? as a candidate for president, i pledge to bring the war in iraq to a responsible end. after nearly nine years, america s war in iraq will be over. i hope that you grant us a little levity at the end of a long week, but still serious questions about what this means for the president abroad and his agenda at home. let s bring back in goldie taylor and karen finney. karen, can i ask you this question? just as the president has been, in effect, made impotent as he s tried to pass his jobs bill through the congress, do you think that republicans were also hoping, hoping that his foreign policy would also fail? absolutely, no question. which is why, again, they ve
i ll say, i don t know. the president wial candidate was saying, i don t know the leaders of all these. as president of the united states, i will be respected of the world. we ve had political objectives, instead of objectives for success, and that s why we haven t succeeded. what?! are you kidding my. just look at the kill list. it s thursday, october the 20th, and moammar gadhafi is no more. wow. we ve been waiting for this moment a very long time. more than 40 years. he put us in libya. he is now putting us in africa. we ve taken out al qaeda leaders, we ve put them on the path to defeat. the cockroaches will eventually scatter. you rub shoulders with more military personnel sources than i have cups of tea. america spent $2 billion total and didn t lose a single life. let s give credit where credit is due. it s the french and the british that led on this fight. not the united states so