Barack Obama

Obama: "The Tide Of War Is Receding"

Susan Crabtree | October 21, 2011, 4:00PM

President Barack Obama

President Obama announced a full withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of the year, a decision he said fulfills a campaign promise to bring the war to a responsible end.

"After taking office, I announced a new strategy that would end our combat mission in Iraq and remove all of our troops by 2011. As commander-in-chief, ensuring the success of this strategy is one of my highest national security priorities," he said Friday, addressing the White House press corps.

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Barack Obama

Obama: 'America's War In Iraq Will Be Over'

Eric Kleefeld | October 21, 2011, 1:14PM

President Barack Obama

President Obama addressed the White House press corps Friday afternoon, announcing that United States forces will fully withdraw from Iraq by the end of the year:

"As a candidate for president, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end, for the sake of our national security and to strengthen American leadership around the world," Obama began. "After taking office, I announced a new strategy that would end our combat mission in Iraq and remove all of our troops by 2011. As Commander-in-Chief, ensuring the success of this strategy one of my highest national security priorities.

"Last year, I announced the end to our combat mission in Iraq, and to date we've removed more than 100,000 troops. Iraqis have taken full responsibility for their country's security.

"A few hours ago I spoke with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki. I reaffirmed that the United States keeps its commitments. He spoke of the determination of the Iraqi people to forge their own future. We are in full agreement about how to move forward."

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Jay Carney

White House Denies Report That Pentagon Plans To Reduce Troops In Iraq To 3,000

Susan Crabtree | September 6, 2011, 4:56PM

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

The White House denied initial reports that the Obama administration is moving forward with a plan to radically reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to 3,000 by the end of the year.

Fox News on Tuesday reported that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had signed off on the troop-reduction plan despite an angry reaction from generals and senior commanders.

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CBS

Economists: GOP Cites Deeply Flawed CBS Report To Blame Debt On Obama

Brian Beutler | August 24, 2011, 6:15AM

Top Republicans couldn't be happier with a Monday CBS News report logging the growth in the national debt under President Obama.

The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $14.639 trillion.

It's the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president.

The national debt increased $4.9 trillion during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush. The debt now is rising at a pace to surpass that amount during Mr. Obama's four-year term.

But this is politically powerful only because it's equally analytically flawed.

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John Boehner

Boehner's Debt Limit Plan Slashes The Deficit By...$1 Billion Next Year

Brian Beutler | July 26, 2011, 6:06PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

Whelp, Congress' official budget scorekeeper has weighed in on House Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) debt limit plan and if you're a Republican, it's a very mixed review.

The goodish news for conservatives is that relative to projections based on current spending, the Congressional Budget Office estimates Boehner's plan would reduce non-war discretionary spending by $710 billion over 10 years. That's if his discretionary spending caps were to hold in the out years, and future Congresses didn't change the law to allow themselves to appropriate more money. Over the course of a decade, CBO estimates the plan would reduce deficits by $851 billion. Those are big numbers. But they're less than Boehner's $1 trillion in promised cuts, and would thus make it hard for him to stand by his demand for a dollar-for-dollar match between deficit reduction and new borrowing authority. That's a look at the full budget window.

What would it do right away? Not much at all.

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Debt Ceiling

Pelosi Outlines Revenue-Free Path Forward On Debt Limit Fight

Brian Beutler | July 22, 2011, 2:28PM

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi acknowledged Friday that Democrats may reluctantly accept a last-minute compromise to avoid a default that involves up to $2.5 trillion in spending cuts -- without agreed-upon new tax revenues -- if Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are protected from the debt limit brinksmanship.

[TPM SLIDESHOW: Debt Ceiling Negotiations At The White House]

The plan would place a firewall between entitlement spending and the threat of default, upsetting GOP plans to force deep, immediate cuts to those programs. And if, as a result, the GOP declined the offer, Democrats would agree to punt the questions of entitlement spending and tax revenues to a future, streamlined legislative process.

The potential endgame, Pelosi said, would meet an arbitrary GOP requirement that Congress must only grant President Obama as much new borrowing authority as he's willing to accept in spending cuts, and leave for a later date a twinned fight over revenues and social insurance programs.

"We're willing to bite the bullet and make serious cuts in discretionary spending," Pelosi told a small group of reporters and bloggers. "That could go to a trillion dollars or more. And the interest saved on that can take us to like a trillion and a half dollars saved."

We could go even further with non-health mandatories, could take us almost to two trillion. We could use the offshore -- the Overseas Contingency [the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan] -- could take us to two-and-a-half trillion dollars. Which is the dollar-for-dollar for the lifting the debt ceiling. I don't think we have to have dollar-for-dollar, but for those who think they do, there's a path to get there.

That's not a great deal for Democrats, she noted, but it protects key programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. "[T]hat's a non-revenue path. I don't like it at all but it doesn't go near our entitlements," Pelosi said.

There's one big problem: "I don't think the Republicans are going to accept that. So whatever they would want to accept over-and-above that would have to be something, I think, down the road. And that would be treating entitlements and revenue."

This framework is compatible with a plan Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have written, and will deploy if President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) can't reach a consensus on an even farther-reaching package. But they have precious little time. "The moment of truth is now, Harry Reid says he needs eight days to take anything to the floor," she said.

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Deficit

Most Americans Blame Wars For Federal Debt; Few Cite Tax Cuts

Jon Terbush | June 8, 2011, 6:45AM

By a wide margin, more Americans think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have inflated the national debt than the percentage who blame domestic spending or the tax cuts enacted in the past decade for doing the same, according to a Pew poll released Tuesday.

Those beliefs actually run counter to data recently released by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which showed that the Bush-era tax cuts have been the single biggest factor in ballooning the federal deficit. While the wars have also contributed greatly to the deficit, Pew's findings illuminate how Americans more readily perceive the visceral aspects of federal budgetary policy.

And with both parties drawing a line in the sand over whether tax increases should factor into future deficit reduction talks, the Pew report offers some insight as to what proposals will hit home hardest with voters when the messaging war heats up.

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Dennis Kucinich

Speaker Boehner Concedes GOP Is Conflicted On Libya After Abruptly Pulling Anti-War Resolution

Benjy Sarlin | June 2, 2011, 11:46AM

House Republicans will huddle on Thursday to discuss their members' position on Libya a day after unexpectedly withdrawing a resolution disapproving of the conflict. Speaker John Boehner conceded to reporters that many House Republicans are concerned by the military operation and called on President Obama to "step up" his explanations for the conflict.

On Wednesday schedulers abruptly canceled a vote on a resolution calling on the US to withdraw all forces from the conflict. The measure's sponsor, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), told reporters he believed House leaders pulled the legislation after realizing it might succeed with Republican backing.

"They changed their mind," he said after it was withdrawn on Wednesday. "They felt, well, it's going to pass."

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CBPP

CHART: Bush Policies Dominant Cause Of National Debt

Brian Beutler | May 25, 2011, 12:33PM

Fmr. President George W. Bush

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer made this argument in broad strokes on Monday. Hard numbers back it up.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has updated and refined a widely cited chart, laying out the origins of the country's current fiscal trajectory. And as before, the lion's share of the problem comes from ongoing George W. Bush-era policies -- particularly deficit-financed tax cuts, which eliminated Clinton-era surpluses and left the Treasury poised for a huge hit when the financial crisis and economic downturn further eroded federal revenues.

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Robert Gates

Gates: Gov't Shutdown Could Delay Paychecks To Troops

Eric Lach | April 7, 2011, 9:26AM

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that if the government shuts down, American troops' paychecks could be affected.

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Paul Wolfowitz

Obama Makes Bedfellows With Neocon Boffins On Libya

Brian Beutler | March 28, 2011, 5:33PM

Paul Wolfowitz

Few would have bet, back in late 2007, that by 2011 Barack Obama would make common cause with key architects and supporters of the Iraq war -- including Hillary Clinton adviser Michael O'Hanlon, and Paul Wolfowitz, a neocon godfather who needs no introduction -- over a regime change mission in another Muslim country.

The odds on that bet would have been somewhere between a lightning strike, and picking a winning bracket in this year's college basketball tournament.

But less than four years later, those counter-intuitive few would be poised for a hefty payoff.

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'Obama's Wars'

Obama Doctrine Emerges: International Support Critical To Military Missions

Susan Crabtree | March 27, 2011, 9:38AM

After weeks of withering criticism of the White House's delayed response in Libya, as well as his decision to authorize air strikes, President Obama is beginning to articulate his philosophy for the use of military force overseas.

The President plans to lay out the strategy behind his foreign policy decisions in Libya in a prime-time address to the nation Monday night at 7:30 ET, something his critics say he should have done before missile launches began in the North African country last Friday.

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David Petraeus

Dem Rep Accuses Petraeus Of Using 'Charlie Sheen' PR Strategy On Afghanistan

Susan Crabtree | March 16, 2011, 1:50PM

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) accused Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, of employing a "Charlie Sheen" strategy in trying to convince the American public to stay the course in Afghanistan.

"General Petraeus is giving us the Charlie Sheen counter-insurgency strategy, which is to give exclusive interviews to every major network, and to keep saying 'we're winning' and hope the public actually agrees with you," Woolsey said during a speech on the House floor Wednesday.

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David Petraeus

Petraeus on Afghan War: 'We Have To Remember Why We're There'

Susan Crabtree | March 15, 2011, 12:42PM

General David Petraeus

Gen. David Petraeus urged the American people to remember the reasons why U.S. forces continue to fight in Afghanistan in the face of a new poll showing the lowest level of American support for the longest war in U.S. history.

Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that he understands the level of American frustration with the Afghan war, but warned of the growth of al Qaeda in the country and region if the U.S. abandons its mission and allows the Taliban to regain control.

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John McCain

While Talking Libya No-Fly Zone, McCain Says 9/11 Prompted Iraq War (VIDEO)

Eric Lach | March 8, 2011, 10:37AM

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)

On CBS's "The Early Show" Tuesday morning, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) spoke about his support for a no-fly zone over Libya. And as part of his argument that a no-fly zone need not lead to a ground war, he appeared to say that it was 9/11 that prompted the invasion of Iraq.

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Commission on Wartime Contracting

U.S. Needs To Improve Safeguards To Avoid Rehiring 'Bad Actor' Defense Contractors

Susan Crabtree | February 28, 2011, 1:58PM

The U.S. government's dependence on private contractors for work in Afghanistan and Iraq has hampered competition and favored incumbent contractors regardless of whether they have a record of criminal or fraudulent activities, according to a new report from the Commission on Wartime Contracting.

That finding was a focus of a Commission on Wartime Contracting hearing Monday that discussed methods to exact more accountability from private contractors, including recording incumbent contractors' performance assessments into a federal database accessible to all government agencies. Michael Thibault, the former deputy director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, and former Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) chair the commission.

"If you hired somebody to paint your house and they tracked paint all over your carpet, you probably wouldn't use them again and you might even negotiate a price that was less than you originally agreed to," said Wartime Contracting Commissioner Grant Green.

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Iraq

Report: U.S. Has Wasted Tens Of Billions Of Dollars On Contractors In Iraq And Afghanistan

Susan Crabtree | February 28, 2011, 10:05AM

private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A new report from a bipartisan commission set up to scrutinize the unprecedented use of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan concludes that the United States has wasted tens of billions of the nearly $177 billion that has been spent on those contracts and grants since 2002.

The report, titled "At What Risk? Correcting Over-reliance on Contractors in Contingency Operations," said its estimate may even understate the problem because it may not take into full account ill-conceived projects, poor planning and oversight by the U.S. government, as well as criminal behavior and blatant corruption by both government and contractor employees.

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Iraq

Gates: GOP Spending Cuts Could Turn Iraq Into Afghanistan Circa 1990

Brian Beutler | February 18, 2011, 6:02PM

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

I wrote earlier this month about the GOP's plan to lump State Department funds in with "domestic discretionary spending," and, thus, subject it to massive cuts. At the time, Democrats were warning that this could upend the strategy in Iraq, which involves winding down Defense Department involvement and ratcheting up State Department operations.

I don't know how common it is for cabinet secretaries to protect departments other than their own from spending cuts. But Robert Gates did that yesterday.

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CPAC

Paul Supporters Hijack Cheney-Rumsfeld Reunion (Video)

Evan McMorris-Santoro | February 10, 2011, 4:52PM

Dick Cheney just popped up here at CPAC to introduce his old pal and Bush administration colleague Donald Rumsfeld. Fans of Ron Paul turned what should have been a friendly moment before an audience of fellow conservatives into a screaming match and protest action that resembled what a Cheney-Rumsfeld hug at the Netroots Nation convention might look like.

Rumsfeld is being given CPAC's "Defender Of The Constitution" award, a concept that apparently rankled Paul supporters in the crowd. Many of them got up and walked out en masse at the mention of Rumsfeld, though some stayed behind in the conference hall to heckle the architects of the invasion of Iraq.

One shout of "where's Bin Laden?" rang out as Cheney spoke of Rumsfeld.

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Iraq

Rumsfeld: Still No Apologies For Iraq

Andrew Jones | February 8, 2011, 3:38PM

Donald Rumsfeld

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld continued his reappearance to the media world for his new book Known or Unknown: A Memoir. And he continued to defend his decisions on Iraq with little to no regrets.

On ABC's Good Morning America earlier today, Rumsfeld took a series of tough questions from George Stephanopoulos, including one which led him to deny that calls for increasing troops from top officials -- including Coalition Provisional Authority administrator Paul Bremer -- were ever made.

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Donald Rumsfeld

Rumsfeld: 'It's Possible' We Didn't Send Enough Troops To Iraq -- But 'It's Hard To Know'

Eric Kleefeld | February 7, 2011, 9:56AM

Donald Rumsfeld

Former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld is starting to allow for the idea that maybe, just maybe, he and the Bush administration should have sent more troops to Iraq -- though he's not ready to say that it's true.

Rumsfeld sat down for an interview Diane Sawyer of ABC News. He said of the troop level question that he was not ready to agree with the criticism, but that it was "possible." He also added: "You know, the path you didn't take is always smoother."

Pressed on the fact that President Bush has written that cutting troop levels in Iraq was "the most important failure in the execution of the war," Rumsfeld called that "interesting."

"I don't have enough confidence to say that that's right. I think that it's possible. We had [an] enormous number of troops ready to go in. They had -- we had off-ramps, if they weren't needed."

"It's hard to know," Rumsfeld continued. "You know, the path you didn't take is always smoother."

Rumsfeld was also asked about whether he would have gone to war if he had known about the lack of actual weapons of mass destruction. He said that he did not know -- and offered these words of wisdom: "What you know today can help you on things you're thinking about tomorrow. It can't help you with things you were thinking about back then."

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Iraq

Top Dem Says GOP Spending Cuts Will Screw Up Iraq Strategy

Brian Beutler | February 4, 2011, 11:46AM

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)

A House GOP plan to carve State Department spending out of the sacrosanct pool of "security" appropriations, and lump it in with "non-security" appropriations could upend the Obama administration's strategy in Iraq, says the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"I'm not sure the House folks [considered] it runs flat into our strategy in Iraq," Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) told me Thursday after an evening vote.

The House took its first step in executing the plan Thursday, when Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan introduced spending limits that would leave the State Department with $9.7 billion -- or 17 percent -- less than Obama requested.

The timing couldn't be worse.

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John McCain

McCain Fears Sadr's Influence In Iraq Ahead of U.S. Withdrawal

Susan Crabtree | February 3, 2011, 1:18PM

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is expressing concern about the movements of radical Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr in and out of Iran and Iraq ahead of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq later this year.

"I'm very concerned about Sadr's activity -- and his followers...I'll be pretty blunt," McCain said Thursday at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

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George W. Bush

Will Bush's 'Mission Accomplished' Banner Hang In His Presidential Library?

David Taintor | November 19, 2010, 8:36AM

Former President George W. Bush aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003.

Former President George W. Bush and members of his administration broke ground on the new George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas earlier this week, but at least one question about the decor remains unanswered: will the infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner be put on display?

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Ilario Pantano

NC GOPer Clips Murder Allegation Out Of NBC Video Used In His TV Ad (VIDEO)

Evan McMorris-Santoro | September 24, 2010, 1:48PM

Ilario Pantano campaign ad, "Warzone"

Let's say you're running for Congress as a war hero. And let's say you want to run a TV ad showing some interviews you did with national news outlets talking about your heroism. There's only one problem -- the interviews also mention the heinous double murder you were accused of committing while wearing a Marine Corps uniform in Iraq.

What do you do? If you said "cut out all the murder stuff and just go with the parts that make me look good," you might be Ilario Pantano, the Republican nominee for Congress in North Carolina's 7th District.

As Daily Beaster Benjy Sarlin pointed out in this opus earlier this year, Pantano is actually running on the fact that he was once brought up on murder charges for while serving in Iraq. Here's what went down, as Sarlin told it:

In April 2004, Pantano killed two unarmed Iraqi detainees, twice unloading his gun into their bodies and firing between 50 and 60 shots in total. Afterward, he placed a sign over the corpses featuring the Marines' slogan "No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy" as a message to the local population.

Pantano admits the killings and turned the story into a huge net positive, writing a book about the tale that earned him rabid support from conservatives and even, as Sarlin writes, "sympathetic treatment from Jon Stewart on The Daily Show." Pantano contends the shooting was in self defense and the military dropped its murder charges against him after a witness' testimony could not be corroborated.

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Bob Woodward

Top 5 Leaks In Obama's Wars: Secret Armies, Terrorist Attacks And Political Strategizing

Christina Bellantoni | September 22, 2010, 1:00PM

Author Bob Woodward

News outlets that got a sneak peek Bob Woodward's latest book found that President Obama fretted that, without a timetable for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, he would lose support from his Democratic base. Woodward's Obama's Wars, out Monday, reveals an administration sparring over policy for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an Obama shaken by the potential of a terrorist attack and a secret CIA army helping fight terrorism in Pakistan.

Woodward, who wrote three books about President George W. Bush, interviewed administration officials, Cabinet members, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden for the book. Obama's Wars focuses mostly on Afghanistan and Obama's decision to send a surge of 30,000 troops there as he pulled combat troops from Iraq.

Here are the top 5 revelations out today.

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Barack Obama

Obama Addresses The Nation At End Of Iraq War (VIDEO)

Megan Carpentier | August 31, 2010, 11:28PM

Tonight, President Barack Obama addressed the nation to mark the end of combat operations in the Iraq war. For full TPM coverage of the speech, click here.

[TPM SLIDESHOW: Goodbye, Iraq: Many American Soldiers Come Home After U.S. Drawdown]

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Barack Obama

Obama: 'The American Combat Mission In Iraq Has Ended'

David Kurtz | August 31, 2010, 8:02PM

President Barack Obama

The White House provided a copy of the text of President Barack Obama's August 31, 2010, Oval Office address on Iraq, as prepared for delivery:

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Iraq

Under Fire From Critics, Obama Hails End Of Official Combat Operations In Iraq

Brian Beutler | August 31, 2010, 7:00PM

President Barack Obama

Updated: 8:25 p.m. ET

In an Oval Office speech tonight, President Obama heralded the official end of combat operations in Iraq. But it was not an entirely triumphant moment for the White House, as it continues to be assailed in all directions over the war and the U.S. economy.

"Tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended," Obama said in prepared remarks. "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."

[TPM SLIDESHOW: Goodbye, Iraq: Many American Soldiers Come Home After U.S. Drawdown]

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John Negroponte

Negroponte: I Would Have Waited Longer Before Invading Iraq

Brian Beutler | August 26, 2010, 11:41AM

Former U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte

Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte now says if he'd had his way, the invasion of Iraq wouldn't have proceeded quite like it did. In fact, he would have waited until weapons inspectors finished their job and the U.N. had passed a resolution backing the war before sending U.S. troops to Iraq.

In an interview with Mainichi Shimbun, one of the largest newspaper's in Japan, Negroponte took issue with part of the Bush administration's conduct.

According to a translator, Negroponte essentially acknowledged that the Bush administration "didn't give proper justification" for the war and "was too optimistic about what would happen after the fall of Saddam."

Reached by email, Negroponte took issue with Mainichi Shinbun's characterization, but effectively confirms much of it.

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