Gold Star Mom: Obama Disingenous in Taking Credit for Iraq Success

President praises troops for winning, but fails to admit he was wrong about war strategy

Gold Star Mother and Move America Forward Spokesperson Debbie Lee, whose son Marc Alan Lee was the first US Navy SEAL to be killed in the war in Iraq, had this to say in response to President Barack Obama’s Oval Office speech on Iraq. Obama's 20 minute address was delivered last night to the 1.5 million heroes who served in Iraq, their families, and millions of Americans across the country, Move America Forward, the nation’s largest pro-troop organization, issued the following statement:

Veterans and military families were shocked and appalled at the blatant manner in which President Barack Obama took credit for success in Iraq in his oval office address last night. Obama boldly tried to take credit by stating it was his policies that resulted in the ending of hostilities in Iraq and the pullout of combat troops.

In reality, the phased drawdown of troops and equipment and transfer of security to Iraqi forces began well before Obama took office. The troop drawdown and transfer of authority to the Iraqi government began long before Obama was even elected president. In July of 2008 there were already 10 Iraqi provinces that had been transferred to Iraqi responsibility, and on September 1st, 2008, Anbar province, once one of the most dangerous places in the country, was stabilized enough to be transferred over to Iraqi security forces. On December 31, 2008, President Bush signed a “Status of Forces Agreement” with the Iraqi government that eventually led to the pullout of troops from Iraqi cities and set a deadline for eventually removing all U.S. troops from the country by 2011. President Obama and his administration had nothing to do with any of these factors, so his claim that these were his campaign promises is an outright fabr ication.

All of our troops deserve credit for their service. Without them, the war would not have been won and our troops, collectively deserve the most credit for success in Iraq. But the one individual singly most responsible for the victory in Iraq, President Bush, was mentioned only briefly by President Obama, but was never given credit for leading the country through the darkest months of the war, until eventually a new day dawned on Iraq and the United States of America.

President Bush deserves credit for standing by our troops when politicians like Obama were calling for retreat, cut-and-run, and defeat. Even as security gains in Iraq were becoming apparent, our current President Obama, then a senator, said, “President Bush [said] that the Surge is working, when we know that’s just not true.” Vice President Joe Biden foolishly added, “This whole notion that the surge is working is fantasy.”

It is now obvious that the surge did accomplish something: victory in Iraq. We know now that all these statements made by Obama and his friends on the left were dead wrong, yet Obama doesn’t dare admit that he and many of his cohorts on the left were wrong about Iraq.

The audacity of Obama’s shameful perspective on the war expressed in his oval office speech could not be more crystallized by his ironic telling of the story of the Army’s 4th Stryker Brigade, which Obama described in his closing words as “just a convoy of brave Americans, making their way home. This time, no shots were fired,” he said.

If America had taken Obama’s cut-and-run advice, the Army’s 4th Stryker Brigade would have left Iraq in utter retreat, being chased out by shots fired from Kalashnikovs and RPGs the whole way. Thanks to the leadership of President Bush, that shameful scene was never realized, and those troops can now come home proud of their victory.