State Department Official Slams Pentagon [View All]

AP Wire

October 28, 2003, 8:03 PM EST

WASHINGTON -- A top State Department official criticized the military Tuesday for agreeing to a wartime cease-fire with an Iranian rebel group based in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

"We shouldn't have been signing a cease-fire with a foreign terrorist organization," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The military signed an April 16 cease-fire with the Mujahedeen Khalq after warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition invading Iraq and bombed Mujahedeen Khalq sites. The group agreed to disarm and was not attacked again.

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Pentagon officials have defended the cease-fire decision, saying the military's focus at the time was to defeat Iraq, and American troops could not afford to be fighting another heavily armed group at the same time.


WTF? First, I thought we were going after the terrorist and smoking them out not signing ceasefire agreements with them? Second, "we could not afford to fight another heavily armed group at the same time"? This is coming from the same people who claim we could fight three major conficts at the same time? Just some more bs from the biggest bs'ers in the world.