You'd think if they were so gung ho, they'd be championing a 'stay the course' strategy.
To be fair to Leon Panetta, he was griping about the cost in terms of lives and shittily defined mission more than two years ago:
http://www.panettainstitute.org/Commentaries/091204.htmFACT: The Iraq War has turned into a deadly quagmire that is killing Americans on an average of two a day and there is no clearly defined mission about the length and level of commitment, the cost or the future of U.S. involvement.
Both say they would still have gone to war in Iraq even knowing all of the terrible intelligence failures confirmed by the September 11 th Commission. Nonsense. Does anyone really believe that we would have charged into war knowing that there were absolutely no weapons of mass destruction and no ties to al Quaeda; that we would have spent $200 billion and nearly a thousand of our most precious American lives just because Saddam Hussein was a bad dictator … something that happens to be true about most dictators in the world.
A little honesty would admit to the mistakes of the past. A little honesty would make clear that U.S. troops may have to be in Iraq for another five to ten years before stability is achieved and that all of us will have to continue to bear the financial and human costs necessary to straighten out this mess.
FACT: The war on terrorism really may not be winnable. It is a sad commentary on the state of politics that when the President finally says something that is true but controversial, both his campaign and opponents force him to back off to the political shelter of “of course we will win!”
As we have seen over the last few weeks, terrorists do not just respond to the cause of al Quaeda. They use terror to advance their ideologies and beliefs in Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, Africa, Asia and everywhere else. Terror is not a cause, it is a tool of war on behalf of a cause. To say that we can win the war on terrorism is to say that we can resolve every religious, cultural, racial, economic and social conflict in the world. Not likely.
What we can do is to confront the underlying causes and frustrations that breed terrorists. ....