Americans say finish the job in Iraq...

Granted it's at 57%, down from last year. But still, the vast majority of Americans want the job finished in Iraq as opposed to cutting and running. This article courtesy of Newsmax.

A solid majority of Americans oppose immediately pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, citing as a main reason the desire to finish the job of stabilizing the country, an AP-Ipsos poll found.

Some 57 percent of those surveyed said the U.S. military should stay until Iraq is stabilized, while 36 percent favor an immediate troop withdrawal. A year ago, 71 percent of respondents favored keeping troops in Iraq until it was stabilized.

In an effort to build public support for his Iraq policy, President Bush planned an Oval Office address for Sunday night to discuss the U.S. mission and what lies ahead in 2006.

The speech will be his first from the Oval Office since March 2003 when he announced the invasion of Iraq. In the past two weeks, the president has given four speeches on Iraq.

In the poll, when people were asked in an open-ended question the main reason the U.S. should keep troops in Iraq, 32 percent said to stabilize the country and 26 percent said to finish the rebuilding job under way.
Only one in 10 said they wanted to stay in Iraq to fight terrorism; just 3 percent said to protect U.S. national security.

"You've got to finish the job," said Terry Waterman, a store manager from Superior, Wis. "The whole world is looking to us for leadership. We can't have another Vietnam."

Other recent polling has found that when given additional options, many people favor a step somewhere in between having troops leave immediately and staying until the country is stabilized.

After months of unrelenting violence, millions of Iraqis turned out this past week to choose a parliament. Early estimates placed the voter turnout close to 70 percent of 15 million Iraqis voting.

Some 49 percent of Americans now say the war with Iraq was a mistake, according to the poll of 1,006 adults conducted Tuesday through Thursday. That compares with 53 percent in August. Two years ago, only 34 percent of those surveyed said the war was a mistake.
Two years ago, after ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was captured, 64 percent of respondents said the war was the right thing to do. Now, 42 percent say it was the right decision.

Over the past two years, some of the biggest shifts on whether the war was a good decision or a mistake have come among married people with children, those with low incomes and those with a high school education or less.

"Whether the war is a mistake is less relevant than what we should do now," said John McAdams, a political scientist at Marquette University in Milwaukee. "A fair number of people may think it's a mistake, but still don't want to lose."

2 days until the Iraqi elections...

Let's hope that it all goes off without a hitch like it did before. This is a huge step for the Iraqi people.

64 years ago today...

We were attacked at Pearl Harbor. Let us never forget that tragic day in American history.

National title game...

Hats off to USC and Texas for going undefeated this year, I can't wait for the title game, the month wait will be worth it.

Joe Liberman comes to terms...

This is good news, it is showing divison in the democratic party. They can't seem to agree on anything anymore.

Following up on his Wall Street Journal article Tuesday defending the Iraq war, Sen. Joseph Lieberman is reminding Bush administration critics that it's wrong to claim that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. attacked in 2003.

"The so-called Duelfer Report, which a lot of people read to say there were no weapons of mass destruction - concluded that Saddam continued to have very low level of chemical and biological programs," Lieberman told ABC Radio host Sean Hannity on Wednesday.

"[Saddam] was trying to break out of the U.N. sanctions by going back into rapid redevelopment of chemical and biological and probably nuclear [weapons]," Lieberman said, calling the Iraqi dictator "a ticking time bomb."

"I have no regrets" that the U.S. toppled Saddam, the former vice presidential candidate explained. "I think we can finish are job there, and as part of it - really transform the Arab-Islamic world."


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Lieberman said that his fellow Democrats haven't taken kindly to his decision to buck his party on Iraq.
"There's been some grumbling," he told Hannity. "In Connecticut there's a 'Dump Joe' web site that has cropped up."

But Lieberman added, "I've been here long enough where, at this stage in my career, I'm going to do what I think is right."