"The United States has the biggest national economy in the world, with a GDP for 2006 of $13.3 trillion dollars."

Well lets get real here. The US is also by far the world's largest
debtor nation, with trillions of $ of debts.

Lets take a look where the US was, when Bill handed over to
George. Bill had nearly solved the ME crisis, the US budget
deficit was in fact a surplus, things were looking rosy.

Along came what no doubt history will judge as the America's
biggest idiot president, by virtue of a stacked supreme
court. The people had actually voted for Gore. In 6 years
he's managed to bog the US down to be seen as a global idiot,
with huge debts, huge deficits, hated by tens of millions,
with no people skills in sight anywhere, thanks to the arrogance
of Cheney and others.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans have died,
in order to get rid of one man and his two boys. Sounds like
intelligent to you? Think again !

Bring back Bill I say, and pay Monika a good wage to keep him
happy :)

Propaganda from the "leftie" press:

On Iraq, U.S. Turns to Onetime Dissenters
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran

"Timothy M. Carney went to Baghdad in April 2003 to run Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Minerals. Unlike many of his compatriots in the Green Zone, the rangy, retired American ambassador wasn't fazed by chaos. He'd been in Saigon during the Tet Offensive, Phnom Penh as it was falling to the Khmer Rouge and Mogadishu in the throes of Somalia's civil war. Once he received his Halliburton-issued Chevrolet Suburban, he disregarded security edicts and drove around Baghdad without a military escort. His mission, as he put it, "was to listen to the Iraqis and work with them.""

"He left after two months, disgusted and disillusioned. The U.S. occupation administration in Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), placed ideology over pragmatism, he believed. His boss, viceroy L. Paul Bremer, refused to pay for repairs needed to reopen many looted state-owned factories, even though they had employed tens of thousands of Iraqis. Carney spent his days screening workers for ties to the Baath Party."

"Planning was bad," he wrote in his diary on May 8, "but implementation is worse."

“ … Iraq's government-run businesses employed more than 100,000 people before the U.S. invasion. To Carney, it was a no-brainer: Fixing the factories would allow thousands of Iraqis to get back to work, not only allowing them to provide for their families, but also keeping them occupied. He knew from his time in other post-conflict societies that the idle and unemployed are the best recruits for insurgencies."

"But Bremer and his chief economic adviser, Peter McPherson, didn't want to pour money into inefficient state-run firms. They believed private investors would buy Iraq's government factories and set up new businesses to employ the populace. …”

"The day before he left, Carney sent a note to McPherson titled "Fatal Flaws in Budget Policy towards State-Owned Enterprises." He argued that the CPA was violating the Geneva Conventions by undermining "assets of the Iraqi people." He also accused McPherson of drawing up policy "without adequate Iraqi participation.""
(snip)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/13/AR2007011301372_pf.html

Hey Sir Vivor. Way to stay current.

L. Paul Bremer. In his role as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, he reported primarily to the U.S. Secretary of Defense and exercised authority over Iraq's civil administration. He served in this capacity from May 11, 2003 until limited Iraqi sovereignty was restored on June 28, 2004.

Lets blame Australian history on Gough Whitlam. He is currently the oldest living Australian Prime Minister. Certainly he must of made an error or two while in office.

Aqva get real. Bremer was the one who liquidated the Iraqi army,
result was hundreds of thousands of people with no income. What
do you think they are going to do to feed their families?

Bremer was a disaster, not 30 years ago, just recently.
George W carries the responsibility for that, he's the big
chief and was the big chief then. He was Bremer's boss in
the end.

The Yanks, or some of them, still don't get it, after all this
time. Just owning lots of planes and lots of bombs, does not
mean you can rule the world. They were defeated by the Vietnamese
and now by bin Laden and co, a bunch of crazy Arabs. A dose
of humble pie is well overdue in Washington, perhaps they
are too stupid to even understand that. But then George is
no Bill, so the American people are paying a heavy price for
putting a casual blow job ahead of the intelligence of their
prez. Voting for an idiot has consequences, as they are finding
out the hard way.

"Aqva get real. Bremer was the one who liquidated the Iraqi army,
result was hundreds of thousands of people with no income."

Um, that's what invading armies do dude. They disband that countries army. See WWII Germany. See WWII Japan. See North Vietnam disband the Army of South Vietnam etc. etc..
Bremer was credited and later heavily criticized for officially disbanding the former Iraqi Army. But according to Bremer, there were no armies to disband. The brutality of Saddam's rule over his people and his own Iraqi soldiers led to many just leaving after the fall of Baghdad to go home.

"What do you think they are going to do to feed their families?"

Anything they can that doesn't have access to fire arms. Once they were vetted for pro Saddam Baathist sentiment many found work as soldiers in the new army and as policemen.

L. Paul Bremer was not a disaster and had a very distinguished career going back to the '70s.

On the day terrorists of Al-Qaeda crashed two hijacked American commercial jetliners into the World Trade Center in New York City, Bremer and 1,700 of his employees at Marsh & McLennan had offices in both towers. Bremer's office was in the South Tower. He and his people occupied floors at and "above where the second aircraft hit." At the time of his television interview with CNN on September 14, 2001, 450 of his people were unaccounted for. 295 were eventually counted as dead.

As the top civil administrator of the former Coalition Provisional Authority, Bremer was tasked with a challenging job of overseeing the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq until the country was deemed to be in a state in which it can be self-governed, he was empowered to issue decrees to modify Iraq's infrastructure. Some notable decrees have included removing all restrictions on freedom of assembly, suspending the use of the death penalty, uphold Saddam Hussein's anti-worker union laws, and establishing a Central Criminal Court of Iraq.

Yabby, wipe the blood off your chin. You must have really smashed it with that compulsive anti-American knee-jerk of yours

re
"The Yanks, or some of them, still don't get it, after all this
time. Just owning lots of planes and lots of bombs, does not
mean you can rule the world. They were defeated by the Vietnamese
and now by bin Laden and co, a bunch of crazy Arabs. A dose
of humble pie is well overdue in Washington, perhaps they
are too stupid to even understand that. But then George is
no Bill, so the American people are paying a heavy price for
putting a casual blow job ahead of the intelligence of their
prez. Voting for an idiot has consequences, as they are finding
out the hard way. "

What's so anti-American about this? I would not be surprised to discover that many Americans would agree with Yabby's sentiments, once they got past the cobbles.

My experience of Americans is that (like Australians) they range across a very broad spectrum of attitudes and dispositions, from little Hitlers to little Ghandis, and, in political discussions, are best taken one or two at time (like aspirin).

Maybe the accusation of knee-jerk anti-Americanism is a reaction to Yabby's implied attack on Aqvarivs' assumptions about the correctness of current US foreign policy toward Iraq and the Middle East, and Aqv's evident support of Mr Bremer's track record.

Maybe Aqv thinks that his/her opinions are neither right nor left, green or pink, piebald or brindle, but entirely unbiased and neutral. But I say that the inability to recognise one's own bias leaves one entirely neutered. Will Aqvarivs tell us to which side he dresses?

And as another absurd aside, I note that a coupla more of the real bad guys got strung up in Iraq the other day. Maybe Mr Bagaric can inject some more life into the topic - How were they hanged?