He is also slamming Bush pretty hard on the Iran issue, going so far as to call the Presidents posturing about a possible military response to Iran as "foolish" and and "empty threat."
In an interview with Israeli television last week, Bush said "all options are on
the table" if the Iranians refuse to comply with international demands to halt
their nuclear program, and noted that he has already used force to protect U.S.
security.
EMPTY THREAT
Hagel's response to that implied threat was completely dismissive. "Quite frankly, what is the military option, what are we talking about here? We lose credibility in the face of the world when we say things like, 'Well just don't forget what happened to Iraq could happen to you Iran. We could invade you, we could bomb you.'
"Oh come on now. First of all, where are we going to get the troops? Who's going to go with us? Where are our partners going to be with Iran?" The United States has been working through its allies, France, Britain and Germany, in an effort to persuade the Iranians to freeze their nuclear program. This week, the Iranians resumed operations at their uranium conversion facility at Isfahan.
Hagel, who has also been highly critical of the Bush administration's Iraq policy and would like to see Washington end its embargo of Cuba, said the current policy of working through surrogates made no sense. "I don't understand how we think we're going to make progress by staying on the outside using surrogates, our allies France,
Britain and Germany, to go to the table and work with them while stand back and
don't want to get our hands dirty," he said. "You need to move toward
something and what are we moving toward here? I don't see where we're moving
toward anything. In fact, I think we're eroding a base of strength that we still
have here. We have got to get inside this thing, because this is a very
dangerous problem," Hagel said. "I think we're actually losing altitude, I think
we're actually making it more dangerous."Well Put, Senator. I could not agree more, and it is high time that the rest of the country woke the hell up and started listening to you, a man who knows war, rather than a punk-ass little prick determined to out-do his daddy in a dick-measuring contest.
"The casualties we're taking, the billion dollars a week we're putting in there, the kind of commitment we've got, we're not going to be able to sustain it," Hagel told CNN Thursday. "Public opinion won't allow it."
