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April 24, 2003

Bloodbath at Foggy Bottom -

Bloodbath at Foggy Bottom - Newt Gingrich spoke to the American Enterprise Institute about the successes and failures in the war - and, more germanely, the diplomatic tapdance that led up to it.

Guess how the State Department comes out?

From President Bush's clear choice between two worlds, the State Department had descended into a murky game in which the players were deceptive and the rules were stacked against the United States.

The State Department communications program failed during these five months to such a degree that 95 percent of the Turkish people opposed the American position. This fit in with a pattern of State Department communications failures as a result of which the South Korean people regarded the United States as more dangerous than North Korea and a vast majority of French and German citizens favored policies that opposed the United States.

As the State Department remained ineffective and incoherent, the French launched a worldwide campaign to undermine the American position and make the replacement of the Saddam dictatorship very difficult. This included twisting Turkish arms to block a vote in favor of the United States using Turkish soil to create a northern front and appealing to the other members of the Security Council to block a second resolution.

Gingrich juxtaposes this with the Department of Defense:
Fortunately the Defense Department was capable of overcoming losing access to Turkey, losing public opinion support in Europe and the Middle East and turned those disadvantages into a stunning victory working in concert with our British allies and with support largely secured by Centcom and DoD among the Gulf States. Had Centcom and DoD been as ineffective at diplomacy as the State Department (which is supposedly in charge of diplomacy) Kuwait would not have been available, the Saudi air base would not have been available, and the Jordanian passage of special forces would not have been available, etc.

The military delivered diplomatically [emphasis added] and then the military delivered militarily in a stunning four week campaign.

The DOD does a better job at diplomacy!

Read the whole thing.

Posted by Mitch at April 24, 2003 08:26 AM
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