Pentagon Rebukes Sen. Clinton on Iraq

The Pentagon told Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton that her questions about how the U.S. plans to eventually withdraw from Iraq boosts enemy propaganda. In a stinging rebuke to a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman responded to questions Clinton raised in May in which she urged the Pentagon to start planning now for the withdrawal of American forces.

A copy of Edelman’s response, dated July 16, was obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

“Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia,” Edelman wrote. He added that “such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks.” (emphasis added)

YES! It’s high time this has been highlighted instead of supinely accepting Hil’s seditious (if not treasonous) conduct.

Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines called Edelman’s answer “at once outrageous and dangerous,” and said the senator would respond to his boss, Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Yeah. Dangerous to her image as a responsible candidate for the office of President.

Clinton has privately and publicly pushed Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace two months ago to begin drafting the plans for what she said will be a complicated withdrawal of troops, trucks and equipment. “If we’re not planning for it, it will be difficult to execute it in a safe and efficacious way,” she said then.

First, planning ANY military maneuver is NOT a part of the responsibility of Congress collectively, or any individual member thereof, no matter what sort of demi-god status is granted by the MSM.

Second, there is no way to withdraw from Iraq under current conditions in “a safe and efficacious way” as far as the US national security is concerned, to say nothing of the probable fate of our in-country allies and associates after a US retreat.

Edelman’s letter does offer a passing indication the Pentagon might, in fact, be planning how to withdraw, saying: “We are always evaluating and planning for possible contingencies. As you know, it is long-standing departmental policy that operational plans, including contingency plans, are not released outside of the department.”

Quick! Somebody get the cluebat out and slap her to MAYBE get a clue about a concept she is apparently incapable of understanding: “operational security”.

Of course since she evidently doesn’t care about homeland security, or national security, why should the troops actual operational security be any different.