RUSH: I want to get this news in during our first hour today, because this is the hour broadcast around the world on the Armed Forces Radio network. It’s from the Times of London. ‘Al-Qaeda Leaders Admit: ‘We are in Crisis. There is Panic and Fear’ — Al-Qaeda in Iraq faces an ‘extraordinary crisis.’ Last year’s mass defection of ordinary Sunnis from Al-Qaeda to the US military ‘created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight’. The terrorist group’s security structure suffered ‘total collapse.’ These are the words not of Al-Qaeda’s enemies but of one of its own leaders in Anbar province — once the group’s stronghold. They were set down last summer in a 39-page letter seized during a US raid on an Al-Qaeda base near Samarra in November. The US military released extracts from that letter yesterday along with a second seized [letter] in another November raid that is almost as startling. … US intelligence officials cautioned, however, that the documents were snapshots of two small areas and that Al-Qaeda was far from a spent force.’
PELOSI: There haven’t been gains, Wolf. The gains have not produced the desired effect, which is the reconciliation of Iraq. This is a failure. This is a failure! The troops have succeeded. God bless them. We owe them the greatest debt of gratitude, the sacrifice, their patriotism, and for their courage, and to their families as well. This is a — a disaster, and we cannot perpetuate it. We have to make decisions. And this is — the loss of life of nearly 4,000 of our troops, an average of 800 a year, tens of thousands injured; some of them permanently, blind, amputations.
RUSH: Thank goodness. I’m so happy the Democrats are back on page on this. Here we are in the middle of Iraq. I want to send out a hearty congratulations with sincere love and devotion and awe and respect to all of you wearing the military uniform of this country, in whatever branch in which you serve. Those of you in Iraq, those of you in Afghanistan, those of you who have been, those of you who are back, those of you who are back and going back; God bless you. You are succeeding. You are achieving victory — and let it be heard, the Democrat Party leadership today has no desire for your victory to be known. They have no desire for your victory to be proposed and accepted by the American people. You keep on, because Americans understand that you are succeeding and we understand this because Iraq is not even on the table as an election issue. Nobody is even talking about it on the Democrat side here. Now, one thing about this. Bill Kristol wrote a piece, his most recent piece in the Weekly Standard, and he really took after Rick Santorum in this piece, and I have to bring this up.
To excoriate Santorum for losing by 17 points when he was using the same issue McCain has used to get the nomination, is disingenuous. It is unfortunate, and it’s unfair. It was not just Senator McCain, by the way, if I can insert myself here who supported the president during the surge. Those of us on talk radio who are being excoriated by members of our own party led the way in supporting the president throughout the Iraq war. Throughout four years of Democrats attempting to destroy it, to secure defeat, to own defeat, to prevent the president from succeeding, trying to bog the president down when it comes to his prosecution of the war, who was there every day defending it, supporting the president, and encouraging him to go on, despite what the media was saying, despite what Democrats were saying, despite Harry Reid, despite Pelosi? It was those of us on talk radio. Yet somehow Senator McCain is getting singular and sole credit for having supported the surge and seeing to it that it was successful. Don’t forget Rick Santorum. He went down in defeat trying to alert the people of his state what was most important.