A Speech That's No Joke: "The war in Iraq, said Mr. Gore, in an interview on Wednesday, 'is the worst strategic fiasco in the history of the United States. It is an unfolding catastrophe without any comparison.'
In an echo of the growing chorus of criticism here and around the world, he said the war has not only damaged 'our strategic interests' and isolated the U.S. from its allies, it has also made the country more - not less - vulnerable to terror.
In a widely covered speech earlier in the day, Mr. Gore said that Iraq had not become, as President Bush has asserted, ' `the central front in the war on terror.' ' But he said it has become, unfortunately, 'the central recruiting office for terrorists.'
The speech was extraordinary � blunt, colorful and delivered with the kind of passion you seldom see in politics anymore. The former vice president described Mr. Bush as incompetent and untrustworthy, and said his policies had endangered the nation.
The president, said Mr. Gore, had 'planted the seeds of war, and harvested a whirlwind.'
... the essential problem has been the triumph in the Bush crowd of ideology over reality. The true believers knew everything better than everybody else, and the arrogance born of that certainty led, step by tragic step, to the war with no exit doors that we are locked in today."
- posted by geoff @ #