"We owe you"

[storehouse]

December 1, 2011

In Iraq, Biden Says Tide of Conflict Is Receding

By MARK LANDLER

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq — As the United States prepared to turn over this optimistically named military base to Iraq, leaders of both countries held a solemn commemoration here on Thursday of the sacrifices of American and Iraqi troops during eight years of war, marking the moment in a garish marble palace built by Saddam Hussein.

With verses from the Koran and the words of President Harry S. Truman, Iraq’s top officials and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. paid tribute to each other’s soldiers, pledged friendship, and celebrated an orderly departure by the United States that many in both countries would not have predicted even a few years ago.

“The tide of war is receding, and the soul of Baghdad remains, the soul of Iraq remains,” Mr. Biden said to an audience of about 300 American and Iraqi troops. Citing Truman’s speech after Germany surrendered in World War II in 1945, he said the end of war was a “solemn but glorious hour.”

In a day of hopeful statements that tried to cast the war in its most positive light, Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, said that in moving beyond dictatorship Iraq served as a beacon for the political upheavals of the Arab Spring.

“History will record that the liberation of our country was not only an important turning point in Iraq itself,” he said, “but it was an important beginning for the region.”

The ceremony on Thursday was not, strictly speaking, a handover. The war — which has been winding down in phases with a drawdown of troops that started in 2009 — will not end definitively until the last American soldier leaves Iraqi soil in the next few weeks.

Still, the ceremony was freighted with the symbolism of a foreign power leaving, and an occupied country reclaiming its sovereignty. Iraq’s red-white-and-black flags were hung from balconies, unfurling grandly as a military band played the Iraqi national anthem. An Iraqi honor guard, in crimson uniforms, lined the entrance to the palace, which was festooned with yellow and red tinsel, strung on barbed wire.

Mr. Talabani, who bestowed medals on Mr. Biden; the American military commander, Gen. Lloyd Austin III, and ambassadors from other countries that contributed troops to the coalition, pledged that Iraq would remain a friend of the United States.

The vice president, as he has throughout his visit, portrayed the withdrawal as evidence that the United States keeps its promises. American soldiers, he said peering at those present in the audience, were leaving Iraq, “taking nothing with you but your experience.”

“Because of you,” he said, “and because of the work you have done, we are now able to end this war.”

Mr. Biden also addressed the criticisms, leveled by Senator John McCain of Arizona and other critics, that the United States was abandoning Iraq to a potentially dangerous fate. He talked of the progress he had seen from his earliest trips here, when, he said, bodies piled up daily in Baghdad’s morgue and driving on its highways, riddled with roadside bombs, was a test of faith.

Now, Mr. Biden insisted, Iraq has a thriving, if unruly, political system and well-trained security forces, capable of guarding its borders and putting down continuing insurgency.

Neither side dwelled on the many challenges facing Iraq, including the lack of a law to split oil riches in a way that minimizes a poisonous ethnic divide, and the lingering sense of disenfranchisement on the part of some Sunnis that is fueling a deadly insurgency.

Camp Victory, the sprawling military headquarters in Baghdad that became emblematic of American power, will be officially handed over to Iraqi control on Friday.

But even before then, evidence of America’s new civilian presence abounded. Mr. Biden’s staff and reporters were flown from the huge American Embassy to Camp Victory in helicopters emblazoned with the State Department’s seal.

Speaking of the criticisms that the United States should have left troops in Iraq longer for security, Mr. Biden said, “In my view, and the president’s view, those arguments not only misunderstand Iraqi politics, but they underestimate the Iraqi people.”

In an interview after the ceremony, Mr. Biden said the pivot from military strategy to forging a political settlement was the Obama administration’s major contribution to the war effort.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki expressed thanks to former President George W. Bush for signing the 2008 agreement that set the timetable for the departure (though he did not thank him for his role in toppling Mr. Hussein) and to President Obama for sticking to that timetable. He also issued what appeared to be an oblique warning to Iran not to destabilize Iraq by backing insurgent groups that carry out deadly attacks.

“The withdrawal operation will take away all the slogans that some countries hide behind in order to interfere in the internal affairs of Iraq,” Mr. Maliki said.

In many ways, Mr. Biden embodies America’s anguished history with the war. As a senator, he voted in 2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq, a decision he later said he regretted. In 2007, he took a decidedly different stance on engagement, opposing the troop surge and declaring that its architect, Gen. David H. Petraeus, was “dead, flat wrong.”

Mr. Biden also wrote a seminal essay in 2005, along with Leslie H. Gelb, of the Council on Foreign Relations, that called for decentralizing Iraq to give some autonomy to its Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs. The proposal was dismissed by the Bush administration, and Mr. Biden complained that it had been misconstrued as a plan to partition the country.

Still, Mr. Biden kept at his commitment to Iraq, turning himself into an avid student of the country’s tribal politics. He has traveled to Iraq 16 times as a senator and vice president, building relationships that have allowed him to act as a go-between with the country’s ethnic leaders. He relishes, for example, analyzing the rivalry between Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, and Massoud Barzani, the president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, whom he met with later on Thursday.

Iraq also has deep personal resonance for the vice president. Mr. Biden’s son Joseph R. Biden III, known as Beau, was deployed here as a member of the Delaware National Guard in 2008 while his father was running for vice president. He returned home in 2009, when Mr. Biden was directing Iraq policy at the White House.

The vice president spoke Thursday of his son, as well as to the 4,486 Americans who died in Iraq and whom he called “fallen angels.” Many others, he added, bear scars from their experience.

“We owe you,” Mr. Biden said, his voice thick with emotion. “We owe you.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/world/middleeast/in-iraq-biden-says-tide-of-conflict-is-receding.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

[zigmeister]

Thanks for the post. It was an emotional day I am sure for many. All good, but still shadows of concern hover over this country, Iraq.

[Francie26]

December 1, 2011

In Iraq, Biden Says Tide of Conflict Is Receding

By MARK LANDLER

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq — As the United States prepared to turn over this optimistically named military base to Iraq, leaders of both countries held a solemn commemoration here on Thursday of the sacrifices of American and Iraqi troops during eight years of war, marking the moment in a garish marble palace built by Saddam Hussein.

With verses from the Koran and the words of President Harry S. Truman, Iraq’s top officials and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. paid tribute to each other’s soldiers, pledged friendship, and celebrated an orderly departure by the United States that many in both countries would not have predicted even a few years ago.

“The tide of war is receding, and the soul of Baghdad remains, the soul of Iraq remains,” Mr. Biden said to an audience of about 300 American and Iraqi troops. Citing Truman’s speech after Germany surrendered in World War II in 1945, he said the end of war was a “solemn but glorious hour.”

In a day of hopeful statements that tried to cast the war in its most positive light, Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, said that in moving beyond dictatorship Iraq served as a beacon for the political upheavals of the Arab Spring.

“History will record that the liberation of our country was not only an important turning point in Iraq itself,” he said, “but it was an important beginning for the region.”

The ceremony on Thursday was not, strictly speaking, a handover. The war — which has been winding down in phases with a drawdown of troops that started in 2009 — will not end definitively until the last American soldier leaves Iraqi soil in the next few weeks.

Still, the ceremony was freighted with the symbolism of a foreign power leaving, and an occupied country reclaiming its sovereignty. Iraq’s red-white-and-black flags were hung from balconies, unfurling grandly as a military band played the Iraqi national anthem. An Iraqi honor guard, in crimson uniforms, lined the entrance to the palace, which was festooned with yellow and red tinsel, strung on barbed wire.

Mr. Talabani, who bestowed medals on Mr. Biden; the American military commander, Gen. Lloyd Austin III, and ambassadors from other countries that contributed troops to the coalition, pledged that Iraq would remain a friend of the United States.

The vice president, as he has throughout his visit, portrayed the withdrawal as evidence that the United States keeps its promises. American soldiers, he said peering at those present in the audience, were leaving Iraq, “taking nothing with you but your experience.”

“Because of you,” he said, “and because of the work you have done, we are now able to end this war.”

Mr. Biden also addressed the criticisms, leveled by Senator John McCain of Arizona and other critics, that the United States was abandoning Iraq to a potentially dangerous fate. He talked of the progress he had seen from his earliest trips here, when, he said, bodies piled up daily in Baghdad’s morgue and driving on its highways, riddled with roadside bombs, was a test of faith.

Now, Mr. Biden insisted, Iraq has a thriving, if unruly, political system and well-trained security forces, capable of guarding its borders and putting down continuing insurgency.

Neither side dwelled on the many challenges facing Iraq, including the lack of a law to split oil riches in a way that minimizes a poisonous ethnic divide, and the lingering sense of disenfranchisement on the part of some Sunnis that is fueling a deadly insurgency.

Camp Victory, the sprawling military headquarters in Baghdad that became emblematic of American power, will be officially handed over to Iraqi control on Friday.

But even before then, evidence of America’s new civilian presence abounded. Mr. Biden’s staff and reporters were flown from the huge American Embassy to Camp Victory in helicopters emblazoned with the State Department’s seal.

Speaking of the criticisms that the United States should have left troops in Iraq longer for security, Mr. Biden said, “In my view, and the president’s view, those arguments not only misunderstand Iraqi politics, but they underestimate the Iraqi people.”

In an interview after the ceremony, Mr. Biden said the pivot from military strategy to forging a political settlement was the Obama administration’s major contribution to the war effort.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki expressed thanks to former President George W. Bush for signing the 2008 agreement that set the timetable for the departure (though he did not thank him for his role in toppling Mr. Hussein) and to President Obama for sticking to that timetable. He also issued what appeared to be an oblique warning to Iran not to destabilize Iraq by backing insurgent groups that carry out deadly attacks.

“The withdrawal operation will take away all the slogans that some countries hide behind in order to interfere in the internal affairs of Iraq,” Mr. Maliki said.

In many ways, Mr. Biden embodies America’s anguished history with the war. As a senator, he voted in 2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq, a decision he later said he regretted. In 2007, he took a decidedly different stance on engagement, opposing the troop surge and declaring that its architect, Gen. David H. Petraeus, was “dead, flat wrong.”

Mr. Biden also wrote a seminal essay in 2005, along with Leslie H. Gelb, of the Council on Foreign Relations, that called for decentralizing Iraq to give some autonomy to its Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs. The proposal was dismissed by the Bush administration, and Mr. Biden complained that it had been misconstrued as a plan to partition the country.

Still, Mr. Biden kept at his commitment to Iraq, turning himself into an avid student of the country’s tribal politics. He has traveled to Iraq 16 times as a senator and vice president, building relationships that have allowed him to act as a go-between with the country’s ethnic leaders. He relishes, for example, analyzing the rivalry between Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, and Massoud Barzani, the president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, whom he met with later on Thursday.

Iraq also has deep personal resonance for the vice president. Mr. Biden’s son Joseph R. Biden III, known as Beau, was deployed here as a member of the Delaware National Guard in 2008 while his father was running for vice president. He returned home in 2009, when Mr. Biden was directing Iraq policy at the White House.

The vice president spoke Thursday of his son, as well as to the 4,486 Americans who died in Iraq and whom he called “fallen angels.” Many others, he added, bear scars from their experience.

“We owe you,” Mr. Biden said, his voice thick with emotion. “We owe you.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/world/middleeast/in-iraq-biden-says-tide-of-conflict-is-receding.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

It sounds more like they owe us.

[usndiver]

We do owe are service men and women a debt of gratitude and much more.

[MrFnHappy]

Let me first say that I would just as soon spit on Biden as shake his hand.

Having said that, you aren't reading the statement correctly, Biden is sayin we owe our troops, both those alive and dead who served in Iraq.

I would like to personally thank all those who serve, and have served this country.

Edited December 2, 2011 by MrFnHappy

[tommy17]

It sounds more like they owe us.

Thats what he meant to say but old timers kicked in.

[MrFnHappy]

[Doctor Smith]

It sounds more like they owe us.

He was talking about the service men and women.

Some of the Iraqis did a great job of helping to stabilize Iraq in order for our soldiers to leave though.

We owe them. But our government doesn't seem to take care of the expenses of those with serious injuries, in a lot of cases.

I walked out of a market the other day and seen a women walking on metal legs from the knees down.

[GotSix]

Let me first say that I would just as soon spit on Biden as shake his hand.

Having said that, you aren't reading the statement correctly, Biden is sayin we owe our troops, both those alive and dead who served in Iraq.

I would like to personally thank all those who serve, and have served this country.

Regarding Biden, let me be the second to say the same, but I would include some dip in that spit.

Edited December 2, 2011 by GotSix

[zigmeister]

Let me first say that I would just as soon spit on Biden as shake his hand.

Having said that, you aren't reading the statement correctly, Biden is sayin we owe our troops, both those alive and dead who served in Iraq.

I would like to personally thank all those who serve, and have served this country.

I too would like to personally thank all those who serve and have served this country. However you would rather spit on Joe Bidens hand is weird. His son is in Iraq, his son is serving, he is proud of it. Sometimes political beliefs should be put to the sidelines, I think Vice President Joe Biden was expressing from his heart. You should respect that.

[storehouse]

I too would like to personally thank all those who serve and have served this country. However you would rather spit on Joe Bidens hand is weird. His son is in Iraq, his son is serving, he is proud of it. Sometimes political beliefs should be put to the sidelines, I think Vice President Joe Biden was expressing from his heart. You should respect that.

Well said, honor for those who served and those who still serve.

Maybe this quote by the Iraq's president “History will record that the liberation of our country was not only an important turning point in Iraq itself,” he said, “but it was an important beginning for the region.” is what Biden meant by "we owe you", thanking them for trusting the US.

And or maybe he meant "we owe you", thanking Iraq for paying the US back by bringing on an RV of the IQD to pay for the war and our national debt?

[zigmeister]

Well said, honor for those who served and those who still serve.

Maybe this quote by the Iraq's president “History will record that the liberation of our country was not only an important turning point in Iraq itself,” he said, “but it was an important beginning for the region.” is what Biden meant by "we owe you", thanking them for trusting the US.

And or maybe he meant "we owe you", thanking Iraq for paying the US back by bringing on an RV of the IQD to pay for the war and our national debt?

I like that! Plus for you!

[tyron]

I too would like to personally thank all those who serve and have served this country. However you would rather spit on Joe Bidens hand is weird. His son is in Iraq, his son is serving, he is proud of it. Sometimes political beliefs should be put to the sidelines, I think Vice President Joe Biden was expressing from his heart. You should respect that.

I don't know about that Zig. When a politician's son who is also the Attorney General of Delaware is sent to Iraq I would assume he would not be positioned directly in the line of ANY fire. I guess it is the same deal as when our English press makes a great fuss of the fact that Prince Harry served in Afganistan! Or the way royalty are generally decorated with medals they have not earned in service.

[littlefeet]

I have had friends and family go to this War, and am glad each and every one of them have come home alive and well. The United States of America Soldiers

should all know that we truly appreciate all they have sacrificed. We know those families that haven't had their Son or Daughter, Mother or Father come home, but when they speak of 'their Soldier', the look of being so proud is overwhelming. Those that made it, Welcome Home !!!! USA !!!

[Sanssouci]

We do owe are service men and women a debt of gratitude and much more.

Yes, if one reads the article to the end, it should be clear that that is what Mr. Biden meant. But was "fallen angels" really an appropriate term for the war dead?

[elmstreet61]

Let me first say that I would just as soon spit on Biden as shake his hand.

Having said that, you aren't reading the statement correctly, Biden is sayin we owe our troops, both those alive and dead who served in Iraq.

I would like to personally thank all those who serve, and have served this country.

Yes I THOUGHT something was up...but now it makes sense. Cheers.

Let me first say that I would just as soon spit on Biden as shake his hand.

Having said that, you aren't reading the statement correctly, Biden is sayin we owe our troops, both those alive and dead who served in Iraq.

I would like to personally thank all those who serve, and have served this country.

Yes I THOUGHT something was up...but now it makes sense. Cheers.

[zigmeister]

I don't know about that Zig. When a politician's son who is also the Attorney General of Delaware is sent to Iraq I would assume he would not be positioned directly in the line of ANY fire. I guess it is the same deal as when our English press makes a great fuss of the fact that Prince Harry served in Afganistan! Or the way royalty are generally decorated with medals they have not earned in service.

Good point Tyron. Still Iraq is a dangerous place, you could be selling vegetables and have suicide bomber show up. As I understand it that is the nit and gritty of Iraq pretty much the daily grind. Not a place I would want my son to be, no matter how special politically he was, and or protected.

[despain]

He was talking about the service men and women.

Some of the Iraqis did a great job of helping to stabilize Iraq in order for our soldiers to leave though.

We owe them. But our government doesn't seem to take care of the expenses of those with serious injuries, in a lot of cases.

I walked out of a market the other day and seen a women walking on metal legs from the knees down.

I want this money, but that changes things. I was a Marine...years ago. That post will change the way I use this gift. That picture in my mind will never go away. My 87-year-old Grandmother told me and my Father that this was blood money. My Grandfather fought in the Pacific in WWII. He died shortly after returning to the states. I don't know...I guess we all just need to make sure we don't use it for anything else but good. Never forget that people lost their lives for this. I admit, I forgot...and I was one that could have been killed for this kind of operation.

[Aqua Dude]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HogCxeJ-XHo

[countryroads]

I think that we have shown once again that we can be a wonderful friend or a terrible enemy.

[Anti This Anti That]

It sounds more like they owe us.

They got liberated from a mad man by the US and we owe them. WOW! What a stupid statement by this liberal clown Biden.

[Anti This Anti That]

A lot of military personel don't realise they are being used by evil doers who instigate wars for profit, and power. If you serve in the US military beware that you are serving under an illegal regime, and you are in violation of your oath by allowing foriegn and domestic enemies to usurp the US government. When will your orders come to kill your brother and sister citizens, all in the name of a communist police state?

[MovieMaker]

I too would like to personally thank all those who serve and have served this country. However you would rather spit on Joe Bidens hand is weird. His son is in Iraq, his son is serving, he is proud of it. Sometimes political beliefs should be put to the sidelines, I think Vice President Joe Biden was expressing from his heart. You should respect that.

AGREE

[Francie26]

Thats what he meant to say but old timers kicked in.

Thanks, Tommy. You are right. That's what I meant to say. Just that some others got between me and the comment I was replying to.

P.S. I'm not a "he," but a "she." lol I've noticed a couple times recently that people have made that mistake, but I guess my name doesn't sound feminine as much as I thought.

It sounds more like they owe us.

I thought Biden was saying that we owe the Iraqis. So my reply was both wrong and inappropriate because we do owe our servicemen and woman an enormous debt, one America will simply not have enough time to repay in their lifetimes.

To all our military personnel who are returning from Iraq, Welcome Home!!!

[Saved]

Let me first say that I would just as soon spit on Biden as shake his hand.

Having said that, you aren't reading the statement correctly, Biden is sayin we owe our troops, both those alive and dead who served in Iraq.

I would like to personally thank all those who serve, and have served this country.

Agreed ! , but lets not forget their Familys ............Thank you, Thank you , Thank you for your Scarifice as well