Just not true. Convienient for those who want to make the argument but not really true. Yes it did divert resources, but not to the extent "analysis made by so many military analysts"*rolling eyes* have concluded. We balance resources all the time and make decisions accordingly. There is no direct coorelation. Iraq was a mistake (tactical error), but extrapolating to a reduction on the war on terror is nonsense. HD is right. Then wasting time on Libya or any other area requireing troop or resource deployment is the same thing.
You don't like Bush. Me neither. But get a grip. The man lived and breathed the terrorism boogieman. If anything too much so. To suggest otherwise dilutes all the other solid arguments about his ineptness. Its just silly. It is just a really absurd path taken by anyone who would profess to be logical and not driven by blind partisan thought. It is birther like.
teedubbya wrote:
While I am fairly certain that no amount of evidence will convince the righties here, I give more:
The historians say resistance to providing more robust resources to Afghanistan had three sources in the White House and the Pentagon.
First, President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had criticized using the military for peacekeeping and reconstruction in the Balkans during the 1990s. As a result, “nation building” carried a derogatory connotation for many senior military officials, even though American forces were being asked to fill gaping voids in the Afghan government after the Taliban’s fall.
Second, military planners were concerned about Afghanistan’s long history of resisting foreign invaders and wanted to avoid the appearance of being occupiers. But the historians argue that this concern was based partly on an “incomplete” understanding of the Soviet experience in Afghanistan.
Third, the invasion of Iraq was siphoning away resources. After the invasion started in March 2003, the history says, the United States clearly “had a very limited ability to increase its forces” in Afghanistan.
The history provides a detailed retelling of the battle of Tora Bora, the cave-riddled insurgent redoubt on the Pakistan border where American forces thought they had trapped Osama bin Laden in December 2001. But Mr. bin Laden apparently escaped into Pakistan along with hundreds of Qaeda fighters.
The historians call Tora Bora “a lost opportunity” to capture or kill Mr. bin Laden. But they concluded that even with more troops, the American and Afghan forces probably could not have sealed the rugged border. And they deemed the battle a partial success because it “dealt a severe blow to those Taliban and Al Qaeda elements that remained active in Afghanistan.”
The history also recounts well-known battles like Operation Anaconda, in eastern Afghanistan in spring 2002. The history ends in the fall of 2005, when many American officials still felt optimistic about Afghanistan’s future. Postponed parliamentary elections were held that fall, but Taliban attacks were also on the rise.
“It was clear that the struggle to secure a stable and prosperous future for Afghanistan was not yet won,” the history concludes.
The historians say resistance to providing more robust resources to Afghanistan had three sources in the White House and the Pentagon.
http://documents.nytimes.com/a-different-kind-of-war#p=1 An actual study published by the Combat Studies Institute at Forth Levenworth.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday that it is too soon to say whether Obama will authorize more troops for Afghanistan, and that McChrystal's report has not yet reached the president's desk. Still, he asserted, for years the war had been neglected.
"I think there's broad agreement that for many years, our effort in Afghanistan has been under-resourced politically, militarily, economically," Gibbs said. He called the mounting U.S. casualties and other problems in Afghanistan a consequence of the Bush administration's strategy there.
Gates said McChrystal's upcoming "resource recommendations" will be carefully examined, but he noted that "there are larger issues" to be considered.
"I have expressed some concerns in the past about the size of the American footprint, the size of the foreign military footprint in Afghanistan," Gates said on a trip to Fort Worth. "And, clearly, I want to address those issues. And we will have to look at the availability of forces; we'll have to look at costs. There are a lot of different things that we'll have to look at, once we get his recommendations, before we make any recommendations to the president."
In an interview with The Washington Post last week, Mullen said it might not be possible to fill requests from McChrystal for new troops.
If the demand for troops in Afghanistan goes up and is not offset by reductions in Iraq, it would delay the ability of the Army and Marine Corps to give heavily deployed ground troops more time at home between combat tours.
"That's a huge concern that I have," Mullen said in the interview. He noted that the concern was shared by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, as well as by other service chiefs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/31/AR2009083101100.html 
