Check out this little gem in the speech:
"But still we are not winning, and we cannot win."
I emailed John Walcott and asked if he stood by his prediction. Walcott emailed me back, saying the quote was accurate as written, but he modified the statement when he delivered the speech. Walcott told me he told the audience the Iraqi people had to win, not the US military. He denied saying the US cannot win.
I have trouble believing Walcott's email denial. Scan farther down in Walcott's speech and you see he repeats the same prediction: "But I think that we're in the mess we're in Iraq - can't win and can't afford to lose...." If he really meant to say the Iraqi people, not the military, need to win, that's what he would have said.
With the benefit of a successful surge behind us, Walcott's prediction seems almost shocking because the US has routed Al Qaeda and the war's tide has turned. But it wasn't obvious at the time Walcott made the quote.
In fact, a lot of defeatists had already been saying the war was lost. Harry Reid: "The Iraq war is lost." Howard Dean: "US can't win Iraq war." In one poll, more than half of Americans had doubts the US would prevail. Even Henry Kissinger joined the Defeatist Chorus: "US can't win war in Iraq."
Thank God G. W. Bush ignored the Washington elites and know-it-alls like John Walcott.
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