Army general: 'No reason to doubt' Obama's story

Socrtease

Socrtease

Verified User
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Army chief of staff Gen. George Casey, testifying on troop strain before the Senate Armed Forces Committee Tuesday, said there is "no reason to doubt" Sen. Barack Obama's military shortage story during CNN's debate in Austin, Texas, last week.

"You know, I've heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon -- supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq," Obama told CNN moderator Campbell Brown.

"And as a consequence, they didn't have enough ammunition, they didn't have enough Humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief," he added.

War supporters have challenged the story, but Casey said he had "no reason to doubt what it is the captain says."

"We acknowledged and we all worked together to correct the deficiencies with equipment that we saw during that period, not only Afghanistan but in Iraq," he said in response to the question posed by Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham, a longtime supporter of GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.

Casey told the general Obama had not contacted Army officials about the story before using it in the debate.

Casey testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee along with Peter Geren, the secretary of the Army, on how the strain overseas could affect troop levels in the near future.

Casey said the goal is to reduce combat tours from 15 months to 12 months by midsummer
Click to expand...

Rush and others have made a HUGE deal out of this. NOW the Army Chief of Staff says that he does not doubt the story so I wonder if all the right wing Bush sucking pundits will shut the fuck up about it now?
 
Beyond Rush & the usual band of idiots, there were HUGE headlines on all the news websites, to the ominous effect of "Pentagon casts doubt on Obama story," which - to me, anyway - strongly implied that he basically made it up.

Like most "corrections," this one will be suitably buried....
 
And completely ignored by the right wingers in the talk radio world. They alleged he lied but they won't come back and say "oops, Gen Casey said there is no reason to doubt it."
 
Actually, ABC News tracked down the Army captain in question and the captain confirmed Obama's account of the story. The response from the knownothings was that the captain must have been lying. This confirms that not only was Obama's recounting of what the captain told him correct, but that the captain's story was indeed entirely plausible.
 
Well, if that SCHIP kid is any guide, the wingnuts will track this captain down, research his property and tax records, stake out his house, harass his wife by phone, and publish his address on their wingnut websites.
 
Socrtease said:
Rush and others have made a HUGE deal out of this. NOW the Army Chief of Staff says that he does not doubt the story so I wonder if all the right wing Bush sucking pundits will shut the fuck up about it now?
Click to expand...

Right about there is where you should have assumed it was bullshit and stopped worrying about it.
 
Socrtease said:
Rush and others have made a HUGE deal out of this. NOW the Army Chief of Staff says that he does not doubt the story so I wonder if all the right wing Bush sucking pundits will shut the fuck up about it now?
Click to expand...

If the underlined was supposed to be a link, it was missing. Can we have it please?
 
Kathianne said:
If the underlined was supposed to be a link, it was missing. Can we have it please?
Click to expand...
No it wasn't meant to be a link. I was listening to Rush when the story came out and he was questioning the veracity of the story and he was alleging that if it were really true Obama should give the name of the Captain that said it. He didn't but it turns out it was true anyway.
 
Army Chief of Staff, I'm seriously not being partisan here, but General Casey took over command of Iraq, and it went to the toilet, this is one of the area's I have real disagreements with Bush on. Casey should have been gone long before he had three years to sit back in comfort zones leaving Iraq lawless, he was then promoted. It's taken General Petraeus 9 months to turn things around almost completely, Violence in Baghdad down 80%, 60% across Iraq.


Another point of View...

Pentagon doubts Obama account of equipment problem


"I find that account pretty hard to imagine," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters.
"Despite the stress that we readily acknowledge on the force, one of the things that we do is make sure that all of our units and service members that are going into harm's way are properly trained, equipped and with the leadership to be successful," he said.
Whitman's remarks were unusual as the Pentagon often declines to talk about comments from political campaigns.

http://www.reuters.com/article/poli...Type=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true
Click to expand...
 
WRL said:
Army Chief of Staff, I'm seriously not being partisan here, but General Casey took over command of Iraq, and it went to the toilet, this is one of the area's I have real disagreements with Bush on. Casey should have been gone long before he had three years to sit back in comfort zones leaving Iraq lawless, he was then promoted. It's taken General Petraeus 9 months to turn things around almost completely, Violence in Baghdad down 80%, 60% across Iraq.


Another point of View...
Click to expand...

I agree Larry, that Casey was out of his league. He didn't know how to handle iraq, but that's not his fault. This war has been waged from the White House, not from the ground. Casey, as overwhelmed as he was, was not calling the shots. The strategy comes from the W administration, the tactics come from the generals. If the strategy is bad, the tactics are meaningless.

This surge, perhaps it can be argued that it is a different strategy, because its not the one that failed from the beginning, but it is not a success. You can take the liberty of calling it a "success" when we bring this thing to a resolution, but it doesn't look like that's in the cards for the near future.

In other words, when things get so badly fucked up that fucking things up less looks like a success, you have to reevaluate where you stand.
 
WRL said:
Army Chief of Staff, I'm seriously not being partisan here, but General Casey took over command of Iraq, and it went to the toilet, this is one of the area's I have real disagreements with Bush on. Casey should have been gone long before he had three years to sit back in comfort zones leaving Iraq lawless, he was then promoted. It's taken General Petraeus 9 months to turn things around almost completely, Violence in Baghdad down 80%, 60% across Iraq.


Another point of View...
Click to expand...
your "other" point of view came on the 22d of February. Since then the Army Chief of Staff has said that it is not doubtful. The soldiers I have talked to from the 4/1 cav at fort bliss, including now and E-7 that I talked to on Saturday ALL said they went to Mosul at 78% of combat strength. 78% Larry! Is that the Army you remember? It isn't the one I remember. When I was in Units went in able to meet the requirements of their T/O & E. At 78% they were placing troops in danger. And though I haven't seen a link to it someone in this post said ABC actually found the capitain in question and he confirmed the story.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top