RUSH: Now that we’ve had to go back in it’s insult to injury with the way Obama’s explaining this. Let’s go to sound bite seven. This is Saturday morning at the White House. The president’s speaking about the Iraq air strikes before getting on the helicopter to fly to Martha’s Vineyard. Oh, yeah, and the media is all hot to trot about that. (imitating media) “Oh, wow, it’s so cool. Barry’s going to the Vineyard. Yeah, we get to go to the Vineyard, think we’ll see Skip Gates? Wow, how cool, you think we’ll see Larry David? Man, we get to go to the Vineyard. Obama’s going to the Vineyard. You think we’ll run into William Styron? Wait. He died. What about his wife? Think we’ll run into William Styron’s wife? Oh, man, cool.
“Do you think we’ll run into Dershowitz? Dershowitz hangs out there. Wow, this is cool. Barry’s going to the Vineyard. He’s gotta make a speech first on Iraq. After he finishes that, then we get on the helicopter with him or Air Force, we go to the Vineyard, yeah, man. We’re going to the Vineyard, ’cause Obama’s going to the Vineyard. Man, it’s cool.” Yeah, ticks me off. This is nothing but a bunch of frat boys. Hell, I wouldn’t even give ’em that credit. Anyway, here’s Obama before getting on board Marine One and heading off to the Vineyard.
OBAMA: What I just find interesting is the degree to which this issue keeps on coming up, as if this was —
RUSH: Wait just a second. Stop that a second. My bad. He’s answering a question here and I should have read the question. Here’s the question he was asked by a reporter who couldn’t wait to get to the Vineyard with him. “Mr. President, do you have any second thoughts about pulling out all ground troops from Iraq?” Key question. Do you have any second thoughts about pulling all ground troops out of Iraq, because — hint, hint — he did.
Folks, he got elected in large part because of that promise, because by the time he was elected the American people had been talked into hating everything about Iraq. And getting us out of Iraq was gonna restore us as a whole nation, and we could party again, and we could get down, and we could get back to living as we did without the body counts and George Bush and Cheney and the news every day that America could be loved. It was key and Obama was gonna do it, and he promised to do it. And close Gitmo, too. All of this stuff. “So, Mr. President, do you have any second thoughts about pulling all ground troops out of Iraq, and does it give you pause as the US is doing the same thing in Afghanistan?”
OBAMA: What I just find interesting is the degree to which this issue keeps on coming up, as if this was my decision. Under the previous administration we had turned over the country to a sovereign, Democratically elected Iraqi government. When you hear people say, “Do you regret, Mr. President, not leaving more troops?” that presupposes that I would have overwritten this sovereign government that we had turned the keys back over.
RUSH: You hated ’em!
OBAMA: And said, “You know what, you’re democratic, you’re sovereign, except if I decide that it’s good for you to keep 10,000 or 15,000 or a 25,000 Marines in your country, you don’t have a choice.”
RUSH: He stood right there, that’s on the White House lawn, he lied in front of God and the country and the world saying that (imitating Obama), “Well, you know what, everybody acts like it’s my decision to pull out of Iraq, uh, you know, there’s a sovereign government.” You hated the sovereign the government. You hated Maliki. You hated — who’s the other guy they hated? They all hated this other guy, preceded Maliki. I’m having a mental block. I’ll think of his name. Cheney’s buddy. Can’t remember his name. Mental block. He was trying to take over Iraq or become its president before Maliki slithered in there.
Anyway, so he says we had to get out because Iraq made us. We’ve had this back and forth on the Status of Forces Agreement I don’t know how many times, and Obama hasn’t found the truth on this yet. Let’s go back, here he is again, same Saturday morning, repeating this lie.
OBAMA: So let’s just be clear. The reason that we did not have a follow-on force in Iraq was because the Iraqis were — a majority of Iraqis did not want US troops there, and politically they could not pass the kind of laws that would be required to protect our troops in Iraq. That entire analysis is bogus and is wrong, but gets frequently peddled around here by folks who oftentimes are trying to defend previous policies that they themselves made.
RUSH: This is just psycho-something. Still blaming Bush. This man got elected promising to get every evidence of any American presence out of there, and he did. And when he did, he very proudly proclaimed it. And now he’s blaming the Iraqis and Bush for what he did. I can understand it. It’s worked for him for five years. Why stop now? Nobody’s gonna defend the Iraqis, and there aren’t too many people that are gonna defend Bush. So if people still blame Bush for the economy, let’s go ahead and blame Bush for this. Yeah, Bush screwed up. Yeah, that’s exactly right. The Iraqis, they so hated America, they didn’t want any American troop presence, and they wouldn’t agree to us in a Status of Forces Agreement.
Let’s just play one of many sound bites that I can play for you of Obama bragging about getting out of Iraq single-handedly, forecasting that he was gonna get out of Iraq single-handedly, promising he was gonna get out of Iraqi single-handedly, sound bites of him bragging about it. But here, let’s go to Boca Raton, Florida, October 22nd, 2012, the third presidential debate between Obama and Mitt Romney. This goes by kind of quickly, 14 seconds.
ROMNEY: You and I agreed, I believe, that there should have been a Status of Forces Agreement.
OBAMA: That’s not true!
ROMNEY: Oh, you didn’t? You didn’t want a Status of Forces Agreement?
OBAMA: No. What I — what I would not have done is left 10,000 troops in Iraq that would tie us down!
RUSH: See?
OBAMA: That certainly would not help us in the Middle East!
RUSH: He’s running for reelection in 2012 and he’s gotta tell this deranged base of his that he got us out of there. There weren’t gonna be any remaining American troops. Not 10,000, not 2,000, not 1,000. No Status of Forces agreement ’cause there weren’t gonna be any troops, and he’s making this point running for reelection ’cause his base is out there and they’ve got to hear it.
They’ve got to hear we’re totally out of Iraq; they’ve got to hear we’re not going back. This Iraq business is as fundamental to Obama as tax cuts is to a conservative candidate. He’s got no wiggle room. You can’t do a George H. W. Bush and say, “Read my lips.” He’s got to stick to it. Even in this debate, “No, I would not have done it. I wouldn’t have left 10,000 troops.” Now he’s blaming it on everybody else, but he was taking credit for it there in the debate, taking credit for leaving no troops there.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The name I was trying to think of was Ahmed Chalabi. Ahmed Chalabi. He goes way back as one of the early allies — well, quote/unquote. Ally’s a strong word. But back in the early 2000s he was one of the potential future Iraq leaders who would happily be allied with the United States. He never was. He ended up being corrupt like everybody else over there is, and it didn’t work out.
But, ladies and gentlemen, let me go back to this business of Obama. We talked about this last week. How do you deal with this, when somebody’s lying right to your face and you want so desperately to demonstrate that other people? I think the best thing I could do is this. I sandwiched two stories here. The first one is from the Cybercast News Service but this story is everywhere.
“Obama: Pulling All Troops Out of Iraq was Not My Decision.” (snorts) He got elected promising to do it; he got reelected affirming that he did it. He has sought credit for this every which way but Sunday, and now all of a sudden it’s Bush’s problem, and he also says, well, he couldn’t get the Iraqis to guarantee security for American troops. That’s what he just told Romney.
He said, “What I would not have done is left 10,000 troops in Iraq that would tie us down. That certainly would not help us in the Middle East.” Romney said, “You and I agreed there should have been a Status of Forces agreement,” and Obama did say that but he couldn’t let Romney get away with it because that would have meant Obama agreeing with some troops staying, and Obama’s base would not tolerate even a uniform staying.
So he had to tell Romney he was wrong. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! I never signed on for a Status of Forces Agreement! Never, never, never! I would never leave 10,000 troops! Never.” New York Times, June 23rd this year, a little over a month ago. “Diplomatic Note Promises Immunity From Iraqi Law for US Advisory Troops.” Now, what this Status of Forces Agreement really is…
What Obama’s trying to say is, “I’m not gonna leave American troops over there if they aren’t granted immunity from Iraqi law.” Meaning: “I don’t want our troops charged with war crimes or whatever trumped-up phoniness unless the Iraqis give us immunity in the status of forces agreement.” Well, the New York Times ran a story a little over a month ago that says the Iraqis did indeed promise immunity; Obama rejected it.
The reason is: Obama didn’t want Bush’s war in Iraq to have resulted in a stable democracy there.
This wasn’t supposed to happen, either, but Iraq was never supposed to be secure. That’s why Obama didn’t want to leave any troops there, so he used this phony Status of Forces Agreement. But the Iraqis did promise immunity, and the New York Times reported that in June of this year. Obama’s just making it up or lying about it. I don’t know how to say this. But he didn’t want a stable Iraq because he couldn’t afford for anything Bush did to look like it worked.
Ergo, “Bush is responsible for this,” is how it all flows together.