The War in Iraq

[ablarc]

Read the article. What's your point?

[ZippyTheChimp]

Aytatollah Ali Khomeni is the absolute ruler of Iran. His is not an elected office. Popular reforms that were begun in the late 1990s have been nullified through Islamic law.

My point is that elections don't always mean democracy.

Now what's your point.

[ablarc]

My point is that elections don't always mean democracy.

Now what's your point.
That was my point too.

[ZippyTheChimp]

No, my point is quite different from yours.

The outcome doesn't naturally support your confidence in that electorate.In my view, it's the political system that I have no confidence in, not the Iranian people.

It may help you if you knew something about the recent history of Iranian politics.

From the WSJ, Dec 1997
Absolute ruler

Mr. Montazeri's demise as Khomeini's successor provides the key to understanding the conflict now raging in Iran, and says much about the nature of the so-called "Islamic" Republic established by Iran's revolutionary clergy. Westerners will find the language and the issues obscure, yet they should make no mistake about the statkes, which are nothing less than the future of Iran, its oil reserves, and the peace and security of the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea region.

Under the 1979 Constitution, Ayatollah Khomeini became absolute ruler of Iran. He could single-handedly overturn laws drafted by the elected Parliament, overrule decisions by the elected President, and take the nation to war - as he did against Iraq in September 1980. He could also reverse course without challenge, as he did in 1988 by suing Iraq for peace. Khomeini argued that the ultimate source of his authority came from God, and that obedience to him was every Iranian Muslim's holy duty.

His designated successor, Hossein Ali Montazeri, believed that no man, no matter how learned, could pretend to such awesome power - and he said so. His reward was the loss of his job as "Supreme Guide-designate" three months before Khomeini's death. Mr. Montazeri was confined to Qom, where he has been allowed to teach and occasionally address students and followers.

Khomeini then appointed a lesser cleric, Hojjat-ol Islam Ali Khamene'i, as his successor. While the senior Shiite clergy initially went along with this political appointment, they vigorously resisted attempts by Mr. Khamene'i to assume Khomeini's spiritual mantle. Many senior Iranian Shiite clerics began to question the wisdom of maintaining the system of Velayat-e faghih, the notion that one cleric, invested by God, could lead Iran in all its religious and political matters. This questioning has become so widespread that one of Iran's most senior clerics, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Rouhani, pointedly refused to meet Mr. Khamene'i last year when the Supreme Leader sought to win his endorsement.

A few months later, Grand Ayatollah Rouhani died under mysterious circumstances at his home in Qom . His family alleged that he had been poisoned. Two of his brothers - Grand Ayatollah Sadeq Rouhani, who has been under house arrest in Qom since 1985, and Ayatollah Mehdi Rouhani, who lives in exile in Paris - are now spearheading the fight within Iran's mainstream clergy to withdraw support for the regime.

Into this imbroglio, enter the Iranian people. In May, Iranian voters rejected the regime's hand-picked candidate to become president, Parliament speaker Nateq-Nouri. Instead, they voted 70%-30% for a moderate cleric, Hojjat-ol Islam Mohammad Khatami, who promised to respect women's rights and to lead Iran into the 21st century as a modern nation. Because of the massive vote in favor of Mr. Khatami, the regime was apparently concerned that a popular revolt would occur if they rejected the results.

While Mr. Khatami does not have the power - or the inclination - to change things overnight, the Iranian people spoke with remarkable clarity. Their vote went for cultural, social, and political moderation, and an end to the policies that have alienated Iran from the West. Mr. Khatami's victory as president was also a defeat for the regime's system of Velayat-e faghih.

In a speech in Qom on November 14, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri brought this all home, chastising the current "Supreme Leader," Mr. Khamene'i, for his taste for luxury and absolute authority, and reminding listeners of the need to separate church from state. He concluded with a stinging personal rebuke of Mr. Khamene'i: "Don't try to imitate the Imam [Khomeini] because you are not him," he said. "So stop dealing with religious matters and content yourself to supervise" political affairs.

To stem the tide of revolt within the clergy, the regime apparently dispatched its brown-shirted thugs, known in Iran as the "friends of the Party of God," against Ayatollah Montazeri, ransacking his residence and assaulting his followers on November 19. Then on Nov. 26, in a speech broadcast live by the state-run radio and television, Mr. Khamene'i ordered the Judiciary to start proceedings against Mr. Montazeri and to prosecute those "who have committed treason," a capital offense in Iran.

[ablarc]

^ Old article.

[ZippyTheChimp]

What's your point?

[ablarc]

What's your point?
You can't educate me about recent history with an article that's almost ten years old. When I was in Iran it was nothing like what I read these days. Times change.

You're right that there's a liberal yearning among some Iranians; I noticed that when I was there. Oddly enough perhaps, that's a legacy of the Shah's years.

[ZippyTheChimp]

The article refers to the beginnings of a process that was not stamped out until a few years ago. You don't consider the social attitiues of a population a mere decade ago recent history? Spoken like an American with a short attention span.

Your statement that
The election in Iran was contested, it was close, and it was monitored. It was an expression of the will of Iran's cosmopolitan electorate. is not supported by any evidence that it is the people who have moved away from reform.

Or do you think that a theocracy presided over by an unelected cleric, who can suspend laws, is representative government?

The outcome doesn't naturally support your confidence in that electorate.You have shown me nothing.

[ablarc]

The article refers to the beginnings of a process that was not stamped out until a few years ago. You don't consider the social attitiues of a population a mere decade ago recent history?
It's like posting an article on the Weimar Republic in 1937.

Spoken like an American with a short attention span.
I guess "American" is turning into an epithet.

Or do you think that a theocracy presided over by an unelected cleric, who can suspend laws, is representative government?
I said that? Oh.. you said that.

You have shown me nothing.
Like you, I have nothing much to show.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I said that? Oh.. you said that. I asked if you thought it.

Sorry for the boldtype, but you are being obtuse. Deliberate? An effective tool, but impolite in a discussion.

I guess "American" is turning into an epithet.No, maybe a reflection of your mindset.

It's like posting an article on the Weimar Republic in 1937Straw man.

Still nothing.

[ablarc]

The only substantive point of disagreement between us, Zippy, is: "Is the Iranian electorate trustworthy?" You think it is. I think it's not.

There's no scientific answer to the question, neatly wrapped in facts --as there is to the question, "When is the next solar eclipse?"

There's room for disagreement on the very meaning of the question. My perspective on it is what I think is good for us, while Ahmedinejad thinks the Iranian electorate is trustworthy right now.

[ZippyTheChimp]

My first remark on this subject:

The population has always been more cosmopolitan than what is typical in the Mideast. If I had to pick a Middle East country that had the most potential for becoming a stable democratic state, it would be Iran.

It is you who have attempted a "scientific answer to the question, neatly wrapped in facts" by pointing to the last election. The only fact I have provided is the political reality in present day Iran - it is a religious dictatorship.

My support for my contention:Into this imbroglio, enter the Iranian people. In May, Iranian voters rejected the regime's hand-picked candidate to become president, Parliament speaker Nateq-Nouri. Instead, they voted 70%-30% for a moderate cleric, Hojjat-ol Islam Mohammad Khatami, who promised to respect women's rights and to lead Iran into the 21st century as a modern nation. Because of the massive vote in favor of Mr. Khatami, the regime was apparently concerned that a popular revolt would occur if they rejected the results.I find it remarkable that, given the events in Iran over the previous two decades, they were on the verge of true reform.

This happened 9 years ago. That is sooooo long ago.

[ablarc]

Judging from the number of forumers who have leaped avidly into this discussion, we're boring people, Zippy. :)

Anyway, we're way off-topic here; we should have had this discussion in the Ahmedinejad thread, but someone locked it. ;)

[ZippyTheChimp]

The lesson for Iraq is that removing the power structure does not guarantee a move toward democracy, unless the people want it. I think the situation would be quite different in Iran.

The Ahmedinejad thread was becoming an embarrassment. And he's not the one we should trust or not:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Iran

[Capn_Birdseye]

The only democratic state in the Middle East is Israel. There is much we can and should learn from this fact.

Shouldn't we cosy up to President Bashar Al-Assad and get him on side? He used to be a practising GP in North London not too many years ago. He is a Ba'athist, runs a secular state, and theres more chance getting him on baord than many others in the region.

[ablarc]

The only democratic state in the Middle East is Israel. There is much we can and should learn from this fact.
There is indeed, but do you dare say what that might be?

Shouldn't we cosy up to President Bashar Al-Assad and get him on side?
There you go, advocating what you elsewhere decry we do with the Saudis.

[Capn_Birdseye]

There is indeed, but do you dare say what that might be?
What I mean by my comment is that we are naive in the extreme if we believe we can convert Middle East states into Western-style democracies. Islamic culture does not necessarily lend itself so readily to our concept of "democracy" as say does the Jewish state of Israel. I believe we should face up to the fact that many, if not all of the Middle East Arab states will be Islamic theoracies or ruled by "secular dictators", although I see the former in the ascendancy. Once we get the idea of "bringing democracy" to the Middle East out of our system we can then begin to operate in the real world.
There you go, advocating what you elsewhere decry we do with the Saudis.
Syria is ruled by a strong secular leader with a Ba'athist infrastructure that efficiently runs the country - generally the pluses outweigh the minuses as far as the West is concerned.
In Saudi we have an unholy alliance - a society that mainly belongs to the more extreme Islamic sect, the Wahhabi's, governed by a "Royal Family" who are utterly corrupt and despised by most Arabs, and who are only kept in power by US support. They are seen as lackeys of the US and one day the regime will topple and the Wahhabi's will gain power. The US should take the initaitive now whilst it still has the chance rather than wait for the inevitable to happen and then be faced with an unsympathetic regime.
What have Iraq and Saudi Arabia got in common - OIL, lots of it. Where are the US military forces today in the Middle East - IRAQ & SAUDI ARABIA. Coincidence or what???:)

[lofter1]

An Abu Ghraib Offender Heads Back to Iraq

Exclusive: A military dog handler convicted for his role in the prisoner abuse scandal
has been ordered back to help train the country's police

http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2006/0611/abu_ghraib_recrop1102.jpg
AP
Sgt. Santos Cardona, second from right, using his dog Duco
in an attempt to control Abu Ghraib prisoner Mohammad Bollendia

www.time.com (http://www.time.com)
By ADAM ZAGORIN
Nov. 02, 2006

As if the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal weren't bad enough for America's image in the Middle East, now it may appear to much of the world that one of the men implicated in the scandal is returning to the scene of the crime.

The U.S. military tells TIME that one of the soldiers convicted for his role in Abu Ghraib, having served his sentence, has just been sent back to serve in Iraq.

Sgt. Santos Cardona, 32, a military policeman from Fullerton, Calif., served in 2003 and 2004 at Abu Ghraib as a military dog handler. After pictures of Cardona using the animal to threaten Iraqis were made public, he was convicted in May of dereliction of duty and aggravated assault, the equivalent of a felony in the U.S. civilian justice system. The prosecution demanded prison time, but a military judge instead imposed a fine and reduction in rank. Though Cardona was not put behind bars, he was also required to serve 90 days of hard labor at Ft. Bragg, N.C.

Before Cardona boarded a plane at Pope Air Force Base this week for the long flight to his unit's Kuwait staging area, he told close friends and family that he dreaded returning to Iraq. One family member described him as "depressed," though stoic about his fate. According to a close friend with whom Cardona spoke just before his departure, the soldier is fearful that he remains a marked man, forever linked to the horrors of Abu Ghraib — he appears in at least one al-Qaeda propaganda video depicting the abuse — and that he and comrades serving with him in Iraq could become targets for terrorists. To make matters worse, his 23rd MP Company has been selected to train Iraqi police, which have been the target of frequent assassination attempts and, according to US intelligence are heavily infiltrated by insurgents. Attempts to reach Cardona directly were unsuccessful.

But Cardona?s physical well-being is not the only issue of concern connected to his transfer. According to former senior U.S. military officers and others interviewed by TIME, sending a convicted abuser back to Iraq to train local police sends the wrong signal at a time when the U.S. is trying to bolster the beleagured government in Baghdad, where the horrors of Abu Ghraib are far from forgotten. "If news of this deployment is accurate, it represents appallingly bad judgment," says retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who commanded a division in the first Gulf War. "The symbolic message perceived in Iraq will likely be that the U.S. is simply insensitive to the abuse of their prisoners."

Retired Major General John Batiste was likewise surprised at the decision to send a soldier convicted of abuse at Abu Ghraib back to Iraq. His only comment: "You just have to wonder how far up the chain of command this decision was made."

Army public affairs specialist Major James Crabtree, who is assigned to the 18th Airborne Corps at Ft. Bragg, which has responsibility for Cardona's unit, said that Cardona, is a military policeman whose "unit happens to be deployed to Iraq, so he went with them." Crabtree said the Army commander overseeing the transfer of Cardona and other members of his unit said "there were no issues associated with [Cardona's new] deployment." He added that although a military judge ordered a reduction in rank for Cardona following his court martial, Cardona has since regained his previous rank of Sergeant.

The military jury acquitted Cardona of seven charges, including alleged attempts to harass a second prisoner with his dog. Cardona's lawyers argued that their client's actions at Abu Ghraib were condoned, if not approved in each case, by officers in charge of the prison, as well as senior officials in the Army command.

Shortly before he left for Iraq, Cardona told a close friend and family members that he was returning against his will. "He loves the Army and has deep respect for the chain of command," said a family member, who asked not to be identified by name, but who described Cardona as feeling duty-bound to accept his Iraqi deployment. The friend said that Cardona had described trying to attach another soldier?s name tags to his uniform in hopes of concealing his identity from Iraqis, but was told by an officer to desist. According to this friend, Cardona said he had told at least one of his superiors that he feared for his safety in Iraq, especially because of his presence in the al-Qaeda video, but was told by an officer, "We need bodies [in Iraq]" and that he shouldn't worry about it.

Cardona's fears may be well founded. The Abu Ghraib scandal is still a fresh subject in Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim world. The episode is still used in Jihadi propaganda, and is featured on Islamist websites. As for Cardona, his name can be referenced almost instantly on the Internet, along with news of his conviction and photos of him holding his large tan Belgian Malinois dog, as an Iraqi prisoner cowers against a concrete wall at Abu Ghraib prison. Dogs, which are considered unclean by many Muslims, have been used in U.S. detention facilities in both Iraq and Guantanamo to intimidate prisoners.

When the recently slain terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi executed American Nicholas Berg, he went out of his way to specify that the gruesome murder was an act of revenge for crimes committed by the U.S. military against Muslims at the prison. Both Osama bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, use events at the prison to explain their calls for Holy War against the U.S. "Al-Qaeda and other Jihadis still cite Abu Ghraib to demonstrate what they call U.S. crimes against Muslims," notes Rita Katz, director and co-founder of the SITE Institute, who has made a study of terrorist videos and other propaganda. "Some of the videos actually feature the dogs used at Abu Ghraib." After his conviction, Cardona's dog was removed from his care and control. But if the Army has its way, the former Abu Ghraib MP may soon be training Iraqi police in how to maintain security and proper conduct amid the country's chaos.

http://img.timeinc.net/time/images/blank.gif
Copyright © 2006 Time Inc. All rights reserved.

[lofter1]

"You Broke It, You Own It"

http://www.thenewyorkerstore.com/assets/2/123128_l.jpg

November 13, 2006 by Barry Blitt (http://www.thenewyorkerstore.com/search_results.asp?mscssid=VMVXCGVP6NET9PTE8K8Q2AQ VFSQ26RF1&sitetype=1&advanced=1&section=all&artist=Barry+Blitt)

[lofter1]

These jerks really do think we are stupid ...

White House Caught Doctoring "Mission Accomplished" Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u2ITs4yIAE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u2ITs4yIAE)

Apparently the Bush administration has taken the Winston Churchill quote
"History is written by the victors" into the video age.

The official White House website is now sporting a very different version
of President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech.

In this exclusive video, Inside Minnesota Politics' Mike McIntee shows
how the "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln
has apparently been crudely cropped out of the video.

[lofter1]

Iraqi official: 150,000 civilians dead

yahoo.com (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061109/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq)
By STEVEN R. HURST
Associated Press Writer
November 9, 2006

A stunning new death count emerged Thursday, as Iraq's health minister estimated 150,000 civilians have been killed in the war — about three times previously accepted estimates.

Moderate Sunni Muslims, meanwhile, threatened to walk away from politics and pick up guns, while the Shiite-dominated government renewed pressure on the United States to unleash the Iraqi army and claimed it could crush violence in six months.

After Democrats swept to majorities in both houses of the U.S. Congress and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld resigned, Iraqis appeared unsettled and seemed to sense the potential for an even bloodier conflict because future American policy is uncertain. As a result, positions hardened on both sides of the country's deepening sectarian divide.

Previous estimates of Iraq deaths held that 45,000-50,000 have been killed in the nearly 44-month-old conflict, according to partial figures from Iraqi institutions and media reports. No official count has ever been available.

Health Minister Ali al-Shemari gave his new estimate of 150,000 to reporters during a visit to Vienna, Austria. He later told The Associated Press that he based the figure on an estimate of 100 bodies per day brought to morgues and hospitals — though such a calculation would come out closer to 130,000 in total.

"It is an estimate," al-Shemari said. He blamed Sunni insurgents, Wahhabis — Sunni religious extremists — and criminal gangs for the deaths.

Hassan Salem, of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, said the 150,000 figure included civilians, police and the bodies of people who were abducted, later found dead and collected at morgues run by the Health Ministry. SCIRI is Iraq's largest Shiite political organization and holds the largest number of seats in parliament.

In October, the British medical journal The Lancet published a controversial study contending nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war — a far higher death toll than other estimates. The study, which was dismissed by President Bush and other U.S. officials as not credible, was based on interviews of households and not a body count.

Al-Shemari disputed that figure Thursday.

"Since three and a half years, since the change of the Saddam regime, some people say we have 600,000 are killed. This is an exaggerated number. I think 150 is OK," he said.

Accurate figures on the number of people who have died in the Iraq conflict have long been the subject of debate. Police and hospitals often give widely conflicting figures of those killed in major bombings. In addition, death figures are reported through multiple channels by government agencies that function with varying efficiency.

As al-Shemari issued the startling new estimate, the head of the Baghdad central morgue said Thursday he was receiving as many as 60 violent death victims each day at his facility alone. Dr. Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaidi said those deaths did not include victims of violence whose bodies were taken to the city's many hospital morgues or those who were removed from attack scenes by relatives and quickly buried according to Muslim custom.

Al-Obaidi said the morgue had received 1,600 violent death victims in October, one of the bloodiest months of the conflict. U.S. forces suffered 105 deaths last month, the fourth highest monthly toll.

At least 45 Iraqis were killed or found dead in continuing sectarian violence Thursday, with 16 of the victims killed in bombings at Baghdad markets. For the fifth straight day, insurgent and militia mortar teams traded fire in the capital's northern neighborhoods.

Al-Shemari, while not explaining the death toll estimate, was more precise about the government's increasingly public and insistent demands for a speedier U.S. transfer of authority to Iraqi forces and the withdrawal of American troops to their bases and from Iraq's cities and towns.

"The army of America didn't do its job. ... They tie the hands of my government," said al-Shemari, a Shiite.

"They should hand us the power. We are a sovereign country," he said, adding that the first step would be for American forces to leave population centers.

Al-Shemari is a controversial figure and a member of the movement of radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Some U.S. officials have complained that the ministry has diverted supplies to al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.

In August, U.S. troops arrested seven of al-Shemari's personal guards in a raid on his office. The U.S. never explained the raid, but Iraqi officials said Americans suspected the guards were part of a militia.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who also has close ties to al-Sadr, told Bush in a video conference last month that he would make renewal of the U.N. mandate under which the U.S. keeps forces in Iraq conditional on a rapid handover of power.

Al-Maliki also said at the time that U.S. forces should clear out of Iraq's cities, according to top aide Hassan al-Suneid. He said the White House agreed, although that was never confirmed in Washington.

Last week, al-Maliki rejected a demand by a visiting top administration official that he move to disband Shiite militias by year's end. A senior al-Maliki adviser, who refused to be identified by name because of the sensitive nature of the talks, said the prime minister told U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte it would be suicidal for the Iraqi leader to move against the heavily armed militias.

The militias are a key player in the sectarian conflict in Iraq, having taken to the streets with extreme vengeance against Sunni insurgents and civilians after the February bombing of a Shiite shrine north of Baghdad.

The militias and their death squads are the armed wings of rival Shiite political parties. One of the militias, known as the Mahdi Army, is loyal to al-Sadr; the second, larger group is known as the Badr Brigade and answers to the SCIRI.

Al-Maliki's hold on power depends on the support of both political organizations and their fighters, hence his reluctance to move against the armed groups.

He also has balked at U.S. demands for passage of a series of laws that would favor minority Sunnis, a group that makes up the bulk of the insurgency that has been fighting U.S. forces and has killed tens of thousands of Shiites.

Sunni members of parliament over the past two days have threatened to walk out of the legislature and take up arms. They charge the Shiite-dominated government with refusing to meet their demands for a fair division of power and natural resources.

The dean of the Sunni politicians in parliament said Thursday there were attempts by Iran to run Sunnis out of the country. Adnan al-Dulaimi then called Arab countries to support Iraq's Sunni minority.

"There is a Safawi (Iranian) plan to root the Sunnis out of this country, and we are confronting it," al-Dulaimi said. "We call on our Arab brethren to support us and confront this Safawi plan."

His political group has five ministers in al-Maliki's Cabinet and al-Dulaimi again threatened to pull them out of the government.

AP writer Veronika Oleksyn in Vienna contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press

[ablarc]

A couple of hours ago someone I presume was an Islamic zealot posted a message from Al Qaeda on this thread. It was crazy and spooky but it allowed an intimate and first-hand glimpse into the mind of the beast.

Moderator must have removed it. That's his prerogative, but was it the best thing to do? Equally impassioned posts are allowed to stand nearly every day from such diverse folks as Russians or Republicans.

Or was it classified as spam because it might have come from an organization? Would we ban a message from an anti-defamation league or a gay rights group on those grounds?

Just wondering.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I was moving the post to "The War on Terrorism," but I clicked the wrong choice from the menu, and when the second screen came up, I continued without thinking.

Like a doctor, I don't say oops when I make a mistake.

I've removed many posts and threads from this forum, covering a wide range of views. They get equal treatment.

[ZippyTheChimp]

November 17, 2006

Diplomatic Memo

On to Vietnam, Bush Hears Echoes of 1968 in Iraq 2006

By DAVID E. SANGER

HANOI, Vietnam, Friday, Nov. 17 — During the presidential campaign in 2000, George W. Bush, who served out the Vietnam War in the Texas Air National Guard, was asked whether he ever considered volunteering to fight when he graduated from Yale in 1968.

“Did I think about going to the Army post and saying ‘Send me to Vietnam?’ ” Mr. Bush asked, describing his own outlook in 1968. “Not really. I wanted to fly, and that was the adventure I was seeking.”

Thirty-eight years later, at age 60, Mr. Bush finally arrived in Vietnam Friday morning. His motorcade sped into the city past roads that Americans once bombed, at the start of a 72-hour visit linked to an annual Asian summit meeting that the Communist government in Vietnam is playing host to for the first time.

In private, some White House officials concede it is spectacularly poor timing. Just as Lyndon B. Johnson did in 1968, Mr. Bush has ousted his longtime defense secretary and nominated a realist with “fresh eyes” to replace him. Just like President Johnson in 1968, he is conducting a broad rethinking of strategy, and is hearing options he does not like.

His aides argue that the analogies between these wars are mostly false. The comparisons will nonetheless be the unavoidable subtext of Mr. Bush’s every move as he travels in Hanoi and then stops in the city that in his youth was known as Saigon, and that became the scene of an American military debacle. And he will have to convince his allies, ordinary Americans, and perhaps himself, that Iraq will end differently.

If Mr. Bush is privately thinking about the war he missed, the White House is not letting on. Asked aboard Air Force One about “the lessons of the war,” Tony Snow, the president’s press secretary, said, “What’s interesting is that the Vietnamese are not particularly interested in that.” He added: “This is not going to be a look back at Vietnam. It really is going to be a looking forward to areas of cooperation and shared concern.”

He went on to talk about the growing trade relationship, and declined to say whether Mr. Bush was betting that deeper economic integration with the world would undermine Vietnam’s Communist government.

Until now, when asked what he had learned from Vietnam, Mr. Bush has almost reflexively reached for the same line: That he does not micromanage his generals, the way Mr. Johnson did. It is a response drawn from conservative orthodoxy about what went wrong in Vietnam, underlying an argument that had the generals been allowed to fight their way, the United States might have won.

But he may feel compelled to say more in Hanoi. Mr. Bush will find himself inside government halls adorned with paintings of Ho Chi Minh. He will be talking about the future of Asia with Ho’s Communist successors who, Washington once warned, could not be allowed to win.

He will be sleeping just a mile or so from the open-air equivalent to the Situation Room where Ho Chi Minh managed his generals, from a single telephone at the end of a conference table. (It is now part of a museum, but Mr. Bush’s schedule reveals no plans to visit.) His motorcade will zip past the lake where John McCain was pulled to shore after bailing out.

With such emotional imagery to deal with, it is no surprise that Mr. Bush’s national security team has spent an enormous amount of time drawing distinctions between the war that their generation grew up with, and the one that they ordered.

“Historical parallels of that kind are not very helpful, and I don’t think they happen to be right,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters the other day. “This is a different set of circumstances, with different stakes for the United States.”

Stephen J. Hadley, the president’s national security adviser, struck a similar note last week when he suggested that the “domino effect” that Americans worried about in the 1960s and 70s — the fear that neighboring countries would fall to Communism’s lures — was nothing compared to the problems today.

“There were discussions about dominoes, some which fell, some which didn’t fall,” he said. But, he added, “Most men and women in America believe that it is important that we not fail in Iraq; that the consequences of an Iraq that descended into chaos would be an Iraq that would be a safe haven for terrorists.”

Ultimately, he said, that “could result in 9/11-type attacks against the United States.”

In private, Mr. Bush says there is another big difference between then and now — the draft. There is little question that by signing up to be a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard, the risk was low that he would end up in Vietnam as a 23-year-old. But according to an academic called into the White House recently, Mr. Bush said the administration could never have sustained this effort in Iraq, politically, without an all-volunteer force. He declined to be named because he was relaying a private conversation.

The argument that Vietnam is very different gets some backing from Stanley Karnow, the Vietnam historian. “There are differences and similarities, of course,” he said. “We got lied into both wars.”

But, he added: “The easy summation is that Vietnam began as a guerrilla war and escalated into an orthodox war — by the end we were fighting in big units. Iraq starts as a conventional war, and has degenerated into a guerrilla war. It has gone in an opposite direction. And it’s much more difficult to deal with.”

U.S. Seeks Korea Nuclear Step

HANOI, Nov. 16 — The United States is working with China and other Asian nations to pressure North Korea to take a visible step toward dismantling its nuclear program before starting a new round of nuclear disarmament talks, American officials said Thursday.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, here for a meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, said that while she was hopeful the talks — begun in 2003 — would resume in December, it was pointless to return to the bargaining table without a show of good faith from both sides.

She refused to expand on what those steps would be. But American officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said an acceptable move might be for North Korea to dismantle one of its nuclear facilities and to readmit inspectors.


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[ZippyTheChimp]

December 6, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist

Goodness Gracious! The Truth!

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

First Junior took over the house with grandiose plans to remodel it and make it the envy of the neighborhood. But then he played with matches and set the house on fire. So now he’s frantically trying to stop the flames from torching the whole block.

The Bush administration has gone from a breathless plan to change the Middle East to a breathless plan to preserve it, from democracy promotion to conflagration avoidance.

That was the cold shower offered yesterday by Robert Gates, the former C.I.A. chief, on his way to being unanimously endorsed as the new defense secretary by a Senate panel craving a cold shower.

He told the Armed Services Committee, peppered with wannabe future presidents, that the American occupation could lead to a Baghdad as hostile as Tehran, and set off “a regional conflagration” if Iraq is not deftly handled in the next couple of years.

Mr. Gates asserted that if America left Iraq in chaos, Iran and Syria could encroach more, and Turkey and Saudi Arabia might jump in to stop the ethnic cleansing of Sunnis by Shiites. “We’re already seeing Hezbollah involved in training fighters for Iraq,” he said. “I think all of that could spread fairly dramatically.”

It was the sort of realistic assessment that never came from Rummy, except when he privately admitted in a classified Nov. 6 memo that their Iraq strategy was “not working well enough or fast enough,” offering a silly hodgepodge of wildly tardy or dubious options, like telling the Iraqis to “pull up their socks.”

It was chilling to see in print that the man who spent nearly four years overseeing the war did not have any idea what to do in Iraq; his basic plan was not so much to fix the problem as to lower expectations. The memo, reported by Michael Gordon in The Times on Sunday, offered the following lame-brained prescriptions to manage perception:

“Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. decides on, the U.S. is doing so on a trial basis. This will give us the ability to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not ‘lose.’ ” And this: “Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist.”

So with the Pentagon deciding whether to Go Big, Go Long or Go Home, Rummy urged the White House to Go Minimalist and simply streamline the spin.

Junior took the advice to manage perceptions by minimizing Rummy two days after he sent the memo. The walls had closed in on W.; he could no longer minimize the war, which was escalating, or the perception that it was not going well, which had spread into Republican ranks. Even Gen. Peter Pace, yes man that he is, acknowledged on Monday that “We’re not winning but we’re not losing.”

The old criticisms of whether Mr. Gates massaged intelligence were forgotten; the senators would have embraced an ax-murderer if he had seemed sensible about Iraq.

There was no blathering yesterday about “known unknowns” or “Henny Penny” pessimists. The soft-spoken, vanilla Mr. Gates offered a sharp contrast from the finger-wagging, flavorful Rummy. In a remarkable shift from the mindless bellicosity and jingoism of the last few years, Mr. Gates said he did not favor military action against Iran or Syria.

Even though he was a member of the Iraq Study Group, Mr. Gates conceded that there would be no silver bullet. “It’s my impression that, frankly, there are no new ideas on Iraq,” he said. Asked by Robert Byrd who was responsible for 9/11, Saddam or Osama, Mr. Gates did not try to fudge. “Osama bin Laden, Senator,” he replied. Asked who has represented a greater threat to the U.S., he repeated “Osama bin Laden.”

W. insisted to Fox News’s Brit Hume on Monday that his “objective hadn’t changed” and that “we’re going to succeed in Iraq.” Asked by Carl Levin if America was winning in Iraq, Mr. Gates answered, “No, sir.”

After lunch the nominee clarified his remarks, saying he had not meant to criticize the troops, that the reversals in Iraq were not their fault. They don’t lose battles in Iraq because there are no battles. There’s just a counterinsurgency that they can’t see and that they weren’t prepared or equipped to fight.

Gates’s friends from the old Bush 41 gang have been watching closely to see if 43 brought the old Washington hand back for “cosmetic reasons,” as one put it, simply to try to change the perception that W. has been stubborn and deaf on Iraq. Or whether 43 really will give his new defense chief the parameters he needs to make real changes in strategy. Will he let him Go Maximalist?

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[ablarc]

^ Well put.

Yet there's no prescription for a future.

Is relief in sight?

Or only failure?

[OmegaNYC]

OMG! THE TRUTH!!! :eek:

Now, if only if we can hear the truth from this guy:



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d4/George-W-Bush.jpeg/160px-George-W-Bush.jpeg

Ha! That will be the day!!!

[ZippyTheChimp]

Is relief in sight?

Or only failure?Success now is only avoiding a regional war. Iraqis never saw themselves as Iraqis, just as many experts predicted, and were ignored, years ago.

Iraq is predominately Shiite. Hezbollah is also Shiite. Iran is 90% Shiite, and if they enter Iraq, Sunnis would be overwhelmed. The rest of the Middle East, mostly Sunni, wouldn't stand for it.

It's Christianity in the 17th century. That makes us the Ottoman Turks.

[Punzie]

We don't have enough troops and equipment to have the "glory" that the Ottoman Empire claimed at its apogee. This piece asserts that our military readiness is actually the lowest since Vietnam War.:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/12/08/troop_levels/?source=whitelist

[ZippyTheChimp]

We are the Turks in the sense that they were the only issue that united Roman Catholics and Protestants.

[ZippyTheChimp]

December 8, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist

They Told You So

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Shortly after U.S. forces marched into Baghdad in 2003, The Weekly Standard published a jeering article titled, “The Cassandra Chronicles: The stupidity of the antiwar doomsayers.” Among those the article mocked was a “war novelist” named James Webb, who is now the senator-elect from Virginia.

The article’s title was more revealing than its authors knew. People forget the nature of Cassandra’s curse: although nobody would believe her, all her prophecies came true.

And so it was with those who warned against invading Iraq. At best, they were ignored. A recent article in The Washington Post ruefully conceded that the paper’s account of the debate in the House of Representatives over the resolution authorizing the Iraq war — a resolution opposed by a majority of the Democrats — gave no coverage at all to those antiwar arguments that now seem prescient.

At worst, those who were skeptical about the case for war had their patriotism and/or their sanity questioned. The New Republic now says that it “deeply regrets its early support for this war.” Does it also deeply regret accusing those who opposed rushing into war of “abject pacifism?”

Now, only a few neocon dead-enders still believe that this war was anything but a vast exercise in folly. And those who braved political pressure and ridicule to oppose what Al Gore has rightly called “the worst strategic mistake in the history of the United States” deserve some credit.

Unlike The Weekly Standard, which singled out those it thought had been proved wrong, I’d like to offer some praise to those who got it right. Here’s a partial honor roll:

Former President George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, explaining in 1998 why they didn’t go on to Baghdad in 1991: “Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.”

Representative Ike Skelton, September 2002: “I have no doubt that our military would decisively defeat Iraq’s forces and remove Saddam. But like the proverbial dog chasing the car down the road, we must consider what we would do after we caught it.”

Al Gore, September 2002: “I am deeply concerned that the course of action that we are presently embarking upon with respect to Iraq has the potential to seriously damage our ability to win the war against terrorism and to weaken our ability to lead the world in this new century.”

Barack Obama, now a United States senator, September 2002: “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.”

Representative John Spratt, October 2002: “The outcome after the conflict is actually going to be the hardest part, and it is far less certain.”

Representative Nancy Pelosi, now the House speaker-elect, October 2002: “When we go in, the occupation, which is now being called the liberation, could be interminable and the amount of money it costs could be unlimited.”

Senator Russ Feingold, October 2002: “I am increasingly troubled by the seemingly shifting justifications for an invasion at this time. ... When the administration moves back and forth from one argument to another, I think it undercuts the credibility of the case and the belief in its urgency. I believe that this practice of shifting justifications has much to do with the troubling phenomenon of many Americans questioning the administration’s motives.”

Howard Dean, then a candidate for president and now the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, February 2003: “I firmly believe that the president is focusing our diplomats, our military, our intelligence agencies, and even our people on the wrong war, at the wrong time. ... Iraq is a divided country, with Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions that share both bitter rivalries and access to large quantities of arms.”

We should honor these people for their wisdom and courage. We should also ask why anyone who didn’t raise questions about the war — or, at any rate, anyone who acted as a cheerleader for this march of folly — should be taken seriously when he or she talks about matters of national security.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company


Adding an old adage, don't know where it came from: You don't send troops off to war; you bring a country into war.

[Punzie]

Troops find safety in silly string

http://www.partybox.co.uk/data/images/sillystring.jpg
BY ERIK GERMAN
New York Newsday Staff Writer
December 7, 2006

(http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usgoo1208,0,1816870.story?track=rss#topix) Silly String has found a deadly serious use among some American soldiers in Iraq, prompting one New Jersey mother to start a drive to collect and send cans of the squirtable plastic party goo overseas.

During a weekly phone call home from Ramadi, Army Spc. Todd Shriver, 28, told his family how he and fellow combat engineers squirt the stuff into booby-trapped rooms to detect nearly invisible trip wires, hidden triggers for explosives.

"If it falls to the ground, there's no trip wire," said Shriver's sister, Jennifer Smith, 34, of Atco, N.J. "If it's hanging, there's a trip wire."

Since that phone call about a month ago, Smith's mother, Marcelle Shriver, 57, of Stratford, N.J., has been gathering as many cans of the stuff as she could find to send to Iraq.

"My mother, she is like a rock," Smith said. "All you have to do is mention something to her. And she gets it done."

Marcelle Shriver, who manages a doctor's office, put her organizational skills to work setting up a collection point at St. Luke's, the Catholic church she attends in Stratford, and at an elementary school.

The maker of Silly String, Just for Kicks Inc., of Watertown, N.Y., says it became aware of military uses for its product only recently.

"This is the first time such a significant application has been associated with it," said spokesman Rob Oran.

The oddness of using Silly Sting in war has struck a chord with the media. Since several local and national outlets ran stories on Shriver's string drive, the cans, donations and offers to help poured in.

"The phone's been ringing like crazy," said the Rev. Joseph Capella, the priest at St. Luke's. "We've gotten calls from ... California. We even got a call from Lima, Peru."

The aerosol, classified as hazardous by the U.S. Postal Service, can't be shipped via mail, Capella said, but several private pilots from out of state have already pledged planes to fly the cargo to the Persian Gulf.

Just a few blocks from the church, the garage attached to the Shrivers' two-story gray Colonial has quickly filled with aerosol cans of Silly String.

"The garage is packed to the gills. It's just unbelievable," said Smith, adding that her mother -- anxious about her son -- has realized another benefit from the project.

"It's definitely helping her keep her mind off the worry," Smith said.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usgoo1208,0,1816870.story?track=rss

You know it's time to pull out of a war when troops are relying on families to send them an essential item that can mean the difference between life and death. (Sound familiar?) I suppose troops whose families can't afford quantities of silly string and shipment are higher candidates for casualty.:(

I wonder if Dick Cheney owns a piece of Just for Kicks, Inc., or any Silly String competitors?

[Punzie]

http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2006/12/07/PH2006120701572.jpg

Marcelle Shriver sprays Silly String from a can as she stands next to some of the more than 1,000 cans stored in the garage of her Stratford, N.J., home, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2006. American troops use it to detect trip wires around bombs, as Shriver learned from her son, a soldier serving in Iraq. After sending some cans to her son, Shriver posted notices in her church and its newsletter. From there, the effort took off, with money and Silly String flowing in. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/photo)

[jovou14]

To Reservists soldiers in the USL army


(Ex USA army)

http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/6926/1aw7.jpg

We present to you the details of the nice trip from America to Iraq

http://img415.imageshack.us/img415/5194/2yd8.jpg

The trip starts from USL

http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/4960/3yf8.jpg

By Plane

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/3006/4tx4.jpg

To Iraq

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/7678/5mj2.jpg

You will have a party once you come and after that you need to have a rest as you will have a packed day after

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/8413/111wl6.jpg

Then you take your positions as per experience

On the air

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/2336/222uo8.jpg

On the ground

http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/2772/6el5.jpg

http://img461.imageshack.us/img461/3024/7zn1.jpg


Or inside base for logistic support


http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/8456/8kh3.jpg

[jovou14]

You must be ready to receive stinger rockets
http://img447.imageshack.us/img447/7282/9eo7.jpg

http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/9827/10oa6.jpg


On the ground you will have more troubles

You should be ready always for the mines and RPG
http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/790/11pj6.jpg

http://img450.imageshack.us/img450/7464/12kh5.jpg

http://img421.imageshack.us/img421/258/13bq8.jpg

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/3550/14ei7.jpg

http://img450.imageshack.us/img450/2744/15vh0.jpg

Logistic teams should be ready to receive rockets and mortars

http://img421.imageshack.us/img421/6097/16xp9.jpg

For back home will be as per the following:

Injured & Disabled

http://img466.imageshack.us/img466/6426/18sj1.jpg

http://img318.imageshack.us/img318/2066/19wb6.jpg

[jovou14]

http://img450.imageshack.us/img450/6703/20ju5.jpg
Or by Coffins covered by USL flag


http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/6346/21kn7.jpg

Or

If we don't find your body, we will not forget you also
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/6443/22js1.jpg
Try to reserve your seat now
http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/2655/23re3.jpg

Maybe you will win a walk with Bush
http://img318.imageshack.us/img318/3528/24wz8.jpg
What beautiful backing home !!!!

http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/5513/25xr0.jpg
Have a nice trip !!!!

http://img454.imageshack.us/img454/8333/26yy7.jpg
http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/9687/27kh9.jpg

[Punzie]

Jovou, I would like to thank you for taking the time and care to put together that presentation.


Powell: We Are Losing In Iraq

Exclusive: Former Secretary Of State Says More Troops Are Not The Answer

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17, 2006

(CBS) The United States is losing the war in Iraq but sending more troops to Baghdad is not the best way to change course, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Face The Nation.

Powell said he agreed with the assessment of the Iraq Study Group co-chairmen, Lee Hamilton and James Baker, that the situation in Iraq is "grave and deteriorating," and he also agreed with recently-confirmed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that the U.S. is not winning the war.

"So if it's grave and deteriorating and we're not winning, we are losing," Powell told Bob Schieffer in an exclusive interview. "We haven't lost. And this is the time, now, to start to put in place the kinds of strategies that will turn this situation around."

President George W. Bush is considering several options for a new strategy in Iraq. The most likely choice would be to send tens of thousands of additional troops for an indefinite period to quickly secure Baghdad.

A 3,500-man brigade from the 82nd Airborne Division will be sent to Kuwait soon after the holidays (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/17/iraq/main2274538.shtml), CBS News correspondent David Martin reported on Friday. The troops would be available immediately should the president order a surge into Iraq.

There are about 134,000 U.S. troops in Iraq now.

Powell, also a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he did not see the military benefit of flooding Baghdad with American troops.

"I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purposes of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work," he said, adding that the Iraqi government and security forces must take over.

"It is the D.C. police force that guards Washington, D.C., not the troops that are stationed at Fort Myer," Powell said. "And in Baghdad, you need a police force to do that, and in the other cities, you need a police force to do that, and not the American troops."

Powell also doubted that the U.S. Army and Marine Corps are large enough to support such an operation.

"The current active Army is not large enough and the Marine Corps is not large enough for the kinds of missions they're being asked to perform," Powell said. "We need to let both the Army and the Marine Corps grow in size, in my military judgment."

Asked directly what the U.S. should do in Iraq, Powell said:

"I think that what we should do is to work with the Iraqi government, press them on the political peace, do everything we can to provide equipment, advisers, and whatever the Iraqi armed forces need to become more competent, and to train their leaders so that those leaders realize their responsibility to the government."

Powell, who as a member of the Bush Administration pushed the international community to sanction the invasion of Iraq, said that we are not safer now after nearly four years of fighting.

"I think we are a little less safe, in the sense that we don't have the same force structure available for other problems," Powell said. "I think we have been somewhat constrained in our ability to influence events elsewhere."

©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/17/ftn/main2274583.shtml


Colin Powell video on Face The Nation:
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2274590n

[lofter1]

Bush Considers Up to 20,000 More Troops for Iraq

nytimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/world/middleeast/29prexy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)
December 29, 2006

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 — The Bush administration is considering an increase in troop levels in Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) of 17,000 to 20,000, which would be accomplished in part by delaying the departure of two Marine regiments now deployed in Anbar Province, Pentagon officials said Thursday ...

***
http://www.harpers.org/art/cartoons/mrfish/PlasticArmyMen_540.jpg
http://www.harpers.org/ArmyMen-20061020.html

© 2006 Harper's Magazine Foundation

[TREPYE]

:(<Sigh>

From Father to Son, Last Words to Live By


By DANA CANEDY (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/dana_canedy/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: January 1, 2007
He drew pictures of himself with angel wings. He left a set of his dog tags on a nightstand in my Manhattan apartment. He bought a tiny blue sweat suit for our baby to wear home from the hospital.



Then he began to write what would become a 200-page journal for our son, in case he did not make it back from the desert in Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo).
For months before my fiancé, First Sgt. Charles Monroe King, kissed my swollen stomach and said goodbye, he had been preparing for the beginning of the life we had created and for the end of his own.
He boarded a plane in December 2005 with two missions, really — to lead his young soldiers in combat and to prepare our boy for a life without him.
Dear son, Charles wrote on the last page of the journal, “I hope this book is somewhat helpful to you. Please forgive me for the poor handwriting and grammar. I tried to finish this book before I was deployed to Iraq. It has to be something special to you. I’ve been writing it in the states, Kuwait and Iraq.
The journal will have to speak for Charles now. He was killed Oct. 14 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his armored vehicle in Baghdad. Charles, 48, had been assigned to the Army’s First Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, Fourth Infantry Division, based in Fort Hood, Tex. He was a month from completing his tour of duty.
For our son’s first Christmas, Charles had hoped to take him on a carriage ride through Central Park. Instead, Jordan, now 9 months old, and I snuggled under a blanket in a horse-drawn buggy. The driver seemed puzzled about why I was riding alone with a baby and crying on Christmas Day. I told him.
“No charge,” he said at the end of the ride, an act of kindness in a city that can magnify loneliness.
On paper, Charles revealed himself in a way he rarely did in person. He thought hard about what to say to a son who would have no memory of him. Even if Jordan will never hear the cadence of his father’s voice, he will know the wisdom of his words.
Never be ashamed to cry. No man is too good to get on his knee and humble himself to God. Follow your heart and look for the strength of a woman.
Charles tried to anticipate questions in the years to come. Favorite team? I am a diehard Cleveland Browns fan. Favorite meal? Chicken, fried or baked, candied yams, collard greens and cornbread. Childhood chores? Shoveling snow and cutting grass. First kiss? Eighth grade.
In neat block letters, he wrote about faith and failure, heartache and hope. He offered tips on how to behave on a date and where to hide money on vacation. Rainy days have their pleasures, he noted: Every now and then you get lucky and catch a rainbow.
Charles mailed the book to me in July, after one of his soldiers was killed and he had recovered the body from a tank. The journal was incomplete, but the horror of the young man’s death shook Charles so deeply that he wanted to send it even though he had more to say. He finished it when he came home on a two-week leave in August to meet Jordan, then 5 months old. He was so intoxicated by love for his son that he barely slept, instead keeping vigil over the baby.
I can fill in some of the blanks left for Jordan about his father. When we met in my hometown of Radcliff, Ky., near Fort Knox, I did not consider Charles my type at first. He was bashful, a homebody and got his news from television rather than newspapers (heresy, since I’m a New York Times editor).
But he won me over. One day a couple of years ago, I pulled out a list of the traits I wanted in a husband and realized that Charles had almost all of them. He rose early to begin each day with prayers and a list of goals that he ticked off as he accomplished them. He was meticulous, even insisting on doing my ironing because he deemed my wrinkle-removing skills deficient. His rock-hard warrior’s body made him appear tough, but he had a tender heart.
He doted on Christina, now 16, his daughter from a marriage that ended in divorce. He made her blush when he showed her a tattoo with her name on his arm. Toward women, he displayed an old-fashioned chivalry, something he expected of our son. Remember who taught you to speak, to walk and to be a gentleman, he wrote to Jordan in his journal. These are your first teachers, my little prince. Protect them, embrace them and always treat them like a queen.
Though as a black man he sometimes felt the sting of discrimination, Charles betrayed no bitterness. It’s not fair to judge someone by the color of their skin, where they’re raised or their religious beliefs, he wrote. Appreciate people for who they are and learn from their differences.
He had his faults, of course. Charles could be moody, easily wounded and infuriatingly quiet, especially during an argument. And at times, I felt, he put the military ahead of family.
He had enlisted in 1987, drawn by the discipline and challenges. Charles had other options — he was a gifted artist who had trained at the Art Institute of Chicago (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/art_institute_of_chicago/index.html?inline=nyt-org) — but felt fulfilled as a soldier, something I respected but never really understood. He had a chest full of medals and a fierce devotion to his men.
He taught the youngest, barely out of high school, to balance their checkbooks, counseled them about girlfriends and sometimes bailed them out of jail. When he was home in August, I had a baby shower for him. One guest recently reminded me that he had spent much of the evening worrying about his troops back in Iraq.
Charles knew the perils of war. During the months before he went away and the days he returned on leave, we talked often about what might happen. In his journal, he wrote about the loss of fellow soldiers. Still, I could not bear to answer when Charles turned to me one day and asked, “You don’t think I’m coming back, do you?” We never said aloud that the fear that he might not return was why we decided to have a child before we planned a wedding, rather than risk never having the chance.
But Charles missed Jordan’s birth because he refused to take a leave from Iraq until all of his soldiers had gone home first, a decision that hurt me at first. And he volunteered for the mission on which he died, a military official told his sister, Gail T. King. Although he was not required to join the resupply convoy in Baghdad, he believed that his soldiers needed someone experienced with them. “He would say, ‘My boys are out there, I’ve got to go check on my boys,’ ” said First Sgt. Arenteanis A. Jenkins, Charles’s roommate in Iraq.
In my grief, that decision haunts me. Charles’s father faults himself for not begging his son to avoid taking unnecessary risks. But he acknowledges that it would not have made a difference. “He was a born leader,” said his father, Charlie J. King. “And he believed what he was doing was right.”
Back in April, after a roadside bombing remarkably similar to that which would claim him, Charles wrote about death and duty.
The 18th was a long, solemn night, he wrote in Jordan’s journal. We had a memorial for two soldiers who were killed by an improvised explosive device. None of my soldiers went to the memorial. Their excuse was that they didn’t want to go because it was depressing. I told them it was selfish of them not to pay their respects to two men who were selfless in giving their lives for their country.
Things may not always be easy or pleasant for you, that’s life, but always pay your respects for the way people lived and what they stood for. It’s the honorable thing to do.
When Jordan is old enough to ask how his father died, I will tell him of Charles’s courage and assure him of Charles’s love. And I will try to comfort him with his father’s words.
God blessed me above all I could imagine, Charles wrote in the journal. I have no regrets, serving your country is great.
He had tucked a message to me in the front of Jordan’s journal. This is the letter every soldier should write, he said. For us, life will move on through Jordan. He will be an extension of us and hopefully everything that we stand for. ... I would like to see him grow up to be a man, but only God knows what the future holds.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/01/us/01charles190.jpg Dana Canedy
“Follow your heart,” Charles M. King wrote in a 200-page journal for his son, Jordan, whom he first held this fall just weeks before he died in Iraq.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/01/us/01charles_drawing_190.jpg (http://javascript<b></b>:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/01/01/us/01charlesdrawing_ready.html', '01charlesdrawing_ready', 'width=476,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,r esizable=yes'))


One of the drawings First Sgt. Charles Monroe King left for his son in a journal.

Copyright 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[Punzie]

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 — The Bush administration is considering an increase in troop levels in Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) of 17,000 to 20,000, which would be accomplished in part by delaying the departure of two Marine regiments now deployed in Anbar Province, Pentagon officials said Thursday ...

How do you ask the last person to die to save the face of a bully?

Between reading this news, and our reaching the 3000 mark in dead American troops, I thought: "AWOLs! -- to come back vogue." That is, the "vogue" of the Vietnam era.

As it turns out, there is already one AWOL'er who has publicly come out against the war:


Ex-Paratrooper Finishes AWOL Sentence

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. Dec 24, 2006 (AP)— A former paratrooper who admitted abandoning his post because he disagreed with the U.S. mission in Iraq was freed from a military prison Saturday, stopping in Raleigh to greet supporters before he headed home to Washington state.

Ricky Clousing, 24, left Fort Bragg without permission in June 2005 after returning from a five-month tour in Iraq, where he worked as an interrogator in a military intelligence battalion.

The Sumner, Wash., native surrendered to the military at Fort Lewis, Wash., in August, and was returned to North Carolina to face a court-martial.

He pleaded guilty in October to going absent without leave and was sentenced to three months' confinement, reduction in rank from sergeant and forfeiture of two-thirds of his pay during his confinement, which ended with a bad conduct discharge from the Army.

The plea allowed him to avoid a more severe sentence for desertion.
"It feels good, but it feels surreal because I don't have to deal with the military anymore," Clousing, who was released 15 days early for good conduct, said Saturday outside of Camp Lejeune, the Marine base where he was imprisoned. "I'm getting out just before Christmas, so it's really great."

Clousing has said he witnessed an American soldier kill an innocent Iraqi man in Mosul, but that unit leaders dismissed his account by saying he was an inexperienced soldier.

"My decision was never personal to my command. I had to honor my own personal convictions," he said. "I'm excited to finally be finished with the military. I've gotten the opportunity to learn a lot about myself and the system I fell under."

Clousing was heading home to spend the holidays with his mother in Washington state, but stopped on the way in Raleigh to meet with peace activists for a wreath-laying ceremony at the city's Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

At a Quaker meeting house in Raleigh afterward, he told about three dozen supporters how his patriotism initially grew after he enlisted in the military in 2002 but was shaken by what he witnessed in Iraq.

He said he decided against declaring himself a conscientious objector because he doesn't believe all wars are wrong.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2748785&page=1

[Punzie]

Soldier's lawyers seek OK to put Iraq war on trial

By Hal Bernton (hbernton@seattletimes.com)
Seattle Times staff reporter
January 4, 2007

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2007/01/03/2003046659.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:PopoffWindow%28%272003508559%27,%27750%27,%27 675%27,%27http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/zoom/html/2003508559.html%27,%27yes%27,%27no%27%29;)
1st Lt. Ehren Watada refused to
deploy to Iraq with his Fort Lewis unit in June.


The opening round in the court-martial of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada could be key to defense hopes of putting the Iraq war on trial along with this Fort Lewis Army officer who refused to deploy to Iraq.

At a pretrial hearing today, Watada's attorneys will try to persuade a military judge that they should be allowed to argue that the war is illegal, in part because it violates military regulations that wars be fought in accordance with the United Nations charter.

That stance is crucial to the defense of Watada, who faces charges of missing a troop movement and conduct unbecoming an officer.

"The entire scope of the trial is going to be pretty much decided by the judge's ruling," said Eric Seitz, Watada's civilian defense attorney.

The hearing, expected to last at least a day, is a prelude to a court-martial scheduled to begin next month.

Watada, one of the first commissioned Army officers to refuse to serve in Iraq, has drawn international attention for his stand. He also has joined with peace groups to attack the Bush administration's handling of the war.

"Though the American soldier wants to do right, the illegitimacy of the occupation itself, the policies of this administration, and the rules of engagement of desperate field commanders will ultimately force them to be party to war crime," Watada said in an Aug. 12 speech to the Veterans for Peace in Seattle. That speech is cited by the Army as evidence of misconduct.

Watada says he is not a conscientious objector opposed to all wars. He has offered to serve in Afghanistan, but the military rejected that offer.
Prosecutors say it's not up to Army officers to determine the legality of a war and have noted that no U.S. court has ever ruled that the Iraq war is illegal. At today's hearing, they are expected to argue that quitting one's unit because of conscience, religion, ethical or other considerations is not a valid defense, and that Watada's views on the war are irrelevant.

A military judge will preside over the hearing. At the actual court-martial, Watada will be judged by a panel of soldiers, the military equivalent of a jury.

If convicted on all charges of missing a troop movement and conduct unbecoming an officer, Watada risks six years in prison.

Since refusing to deploy to Iraq, Watada has worked a desk job at Fort Lewis while his unit served in Mosul, and more recently, Baghdad. In the months after the June deployment, the Fort Lewis brigade of more than 4,000 soldiers has lost 11 soldiers in Iraq.

"People say, 'He is a coward. He deserted his soldiers,' " Watada said in an interview earlier this week. "I am here because I care about my soldiers, the ones who died and the ones who are going to die."

Watada said his refusal to serve in Iraq was based, in part, on his review of the Army Field Manual, which states in a section entitled "Commencement of Hostilities" that "The Charter of the United Nations makes illegal the threat or use of force contrary to the purpose of the United Nations."

Watada said he believes the United States did not get the necessary U.N. approvals to launch the invasion that began in March 2003.

U.S. officials dispute that analysis, saying the invasion was authorized by a November 2002 Security Council resolution, which threatened "serious consequences" should Iraq fail to fully comply with terms of weapons inspections.

That resolution gave the United States full authority to invade Iraq, according to Richard Grenell, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations.

But other diplomats — including former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan — have questioned whether that resolution legalized the U.S. invasion and noted that the United States was unsuccessful in an effort to get a more explicit resolution approved in winter 2003.

Some scholars of international law also have questioned the legality of the invasion. One of the most outspoken has been Francis Boyle, a University of Illinois law professor and vocal critic of the Bush administration.

Watada's attorney wants to call Boyle as a witness at the court-martial.
Boyle said the Army Field Manual references to the U.N. charter were inserted in 1956, by Army attorney Richard Baxter, and reflected the experiences of World War II and the wars of aggression waged by Germany and Japan.

"It is a field manual intended primarily for officers," Boyle said. "It is not intended as a treatise on international law, but it made clear the United Nations charter covers the use of force."

The pretrial hearing also is likely to include some sparring over prosecutors' efforts to compel journalists to testify about the accuracy of their articles.

At least two journalists have been subpoenaed in the court-martial case, including Oakland, Calif.-based Sarah Olson, an independent journalist and radio producer who interviewed Watada in May.

Olson said the government subpoena is a threat to the free press, since it would chill the voices of military personnel who want to express dissenting views to the media.

Olson did not say whether she would comply with the subpoena.

Seattle Times researcher David Turim contributed to this report.

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003508558_watada4m.html?syndication=rss

[Ninjahedge]

Tough case.

While I agree with Watada, it is hard to say whether he was legally correct in his dissention and refusal for deployment in Iraq....

Good or bad, the military is supposed to be a "well oiled machine" that acts on the will of those that direct it. If there are too many squeeky wheels, it loses effectiveness and needs tuning.

Unfortunately, when the governing bodies that are in charge do not know what the hell they are doing, or at least, do not know EVERYTHING about what they are doing, we end up with a problem like what we have in Iraq.....

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

I just thought today, that this is a volunteers' war.

One of the few in recent history in the US.

No one had much of a choice about going to the Pacific or Europe.

No one had much of a choice in Vietnam.

This one is different. But nontheless, like all armed conflict, tragic.

[Punzie]

Bush to Name a New General to Oversee Iraq

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/05/world/600_military.jpg
Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus in Iraq in 2004. He will replace Gen. George W. Casey Jr.,
whose plan for troop reductions has faltered.



By MICHAEL R. GORDON (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/michael_r_gordon/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and THOM SHANKER (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/thom_shanker/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: January 5, 2007

WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 — President Bush has decided to name Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus as the top American military commander in Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), part of a broad revamping of the military team that will carry out the administration’s new Iraq strategy, administration officials said Thursday.

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/05/world/190_military_2.jpg
Bazuki Muhammad/Reuters
Adm. William J. Fallon is likely to be
head of the Central Command.


In addition to the promotion of General Petraeus, who will replace Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the choice to succeed Gen. John P. Abizaid (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/john_p_abizaid/index.html?inline=nyt-per) as the head of the Central Command is expected to be Adm. William J. Fallon, who is the top American military officer in the Pacific, officials said.

The changes are being made as the White House is considering an option to increase American combat power in Baghdad by five brigades as well as adding two battalions of reinforcements to the volatile province of Anbar in western Iraq.

Mr. Bush, who said Thursday that he would present details of his overall strategy for Iraq next week, and several top aides held a video teleconference on Thursday, speaking with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/nuri_kamal_al-maliki/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Iraq and his top deputies about plans to add forces in the capital and other matters. The session lasted roughly an hour and 45 minutes.

“I said that ‘You show the will, we will help you,’ ” Mr. Bush told reporters.
Echoing the comments of both military and political advisers in recent weeks, he added, “One thing is for certain: I will want to make sure that the mission is clear and specific and can be accomplished.”

Senior administration officials said that the choice of General Petraeus was part of a broader effort to change almost all of the top American officials in Iraq as Mr. Bush changes his strategy there.

“The idea is to put the whole new team in at roughly the same time, and send some clear messages that we are trying a new approach,” a senior administration official said Thursday.

In addition to the military changes, Mr. Bush intends to appoint the ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, as the new United States ambassador to the United Nations (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_nations/index.html?inline=nyt-org), a senior administration official said Thursday.

“It was clearly time to move the players around on the field,” said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Mr. Bush had yet to announce the changes. “This helps the president to make the case that this is a fresh start.”

Admiral Fallon would be the first Navy officer to serve as the senior officer of the Central Command, which is managing simultaneous ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Admiral Fallon is regarded within the military as one of its stronger regional combat commanders, and his possible appointment also reflects a greater emphasis on countering Iranian power, a mission that relies heavily on naval forces and combat airpower to project American influence in the Persian Gulf.

General Petraeus, who is now the head of the Army’s Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., helped oversee the drafting of the military’s comprehensive new manual on counterinsurgency. He has served two previous tours in Iraq, and some former officers say he sees the need for additional troops in Baghdad.

He will replace General Casey, whose plan for troop reductions in Iraq faltered last year in the face of escalating sectarian strife and who initially expressed public wariness about any short-term increase in troops in Iraq, a move that is now a leading option under consideration by the White House.

The departures of both General Casey and General Abizaid were expected, though in General Casey’s case it appears to have been moved up several months from the originally anticipated shift in spring or summer. General Abizaid’s tour had already been extended for a full year beyond the typical two-year stint, and he has announced that he will retire soon.

The troop increase option under discussion would focus on improving security in Baghdad. Under this approach, two Army combat brigades would be sent to the capital during the first phase of the operation. A combat brigade generally consists of about 3,500 soldiers. At the same time, a third brigade would be positioned in Kuwait as a reserve, and two more brigades would be on call in the United States.

The expectation is that these three brigades would eventually be sent to Baghdad as well, though the president would have the option to limit the reinforcements. Part of the increase could be achieved by holding some units past their currently scheduled return home.

Scaling up by five brigades would more than double the number of American combat troops involved in security operations in the Iraqi capital. The emphasis on Baghdad reflects the view that stability in the capital is a precondition for any broader effort to bring calm to the whole country. It is also a recognition that the administration sees sectarian violence as a greater threat to Iraq’s stability than the Sunni Arab insurgency.

While Baghdad is the principal focus, the option also provides for sending two battalions of reinforcements to Anbar, where overstretched Marine and Army forces have been battling Sunni Arab insurgents. A basic battalion generally consists of 1,200 troops.

One issue under discussion is how to mesh the emerging American strategy with the Iraqis’ capabilities. Bush administration officials say they want the increase in American troops to be paralleled by a considerable rise in the number of functional Iraqi troops. But the Iraqis failed in the summer to send all the reinforcements that had been requested, and some Iraqi security forces, particularly the police, have been infiltrated by militias.
Another point of contention is that some senior aides to Mr. Maliki have been notably unenthusiastic about an increase in American troops in Baghdad. During his meeting with Mr. Bush in Jordan in November, Mr. Maliki presented a plan that would shift most Americans to the periphery of Baghdad so they could concentrate on fighting Sunni insurgents while the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government asserted more control over the capital. That has left some American officials wondering whether the Maliki government was making a legitimate bid to exercise sovereignty or is committed to a sectarian Shiite agenda.

Bush administration officials believe that their new Iraqi strategy must involve political steps toward reconciliation and reconstruction programs to produce jobs.

In their teleconference, Mr. Bush and Mr. Maliki discussed the Iraqi government’s efforts at political reconciliation and the Iraqi prime minister’s vows to rein in militias, the pace of which American officials have found painfully slow. Discussing the execution of Saddam Hussein (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/saddam_hussein/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Mr. Bush said the Maliki government was right to investigate the circumstances surrounding the hanging.

General Petraeus participated in the initial invasion of Iraq as the commander of the 101st Airborne Division. The division fought its way toward Baghdad and was later sent to Mosul in northern Iraq, where the general focused on political and economic reconstruction efforts.

“We are in a race to win over the people,” read a sign in his Mosul headquarters. “What have you and your element done today to contribute to victory?”

General Petraeus did a second tour in Iraq in which he oversaw the efforts to train the Iraqi Army. At his current post at Fort Leavenworth, he has been involved in the push to change the United States Army’s training and education to emphasize counterinsurgency operations.

Jack Keane, the retired Army general who served as vice chief of the Army, called General Petraeus an “imaginative commander who is experienced and knows how to deal with irregular warfare,” as the Army refers to insurgencies.

The Iraq commander post is considered a four-star general’s command, a promotion that would add a star to General Petraeus’s shoulder.

Officials also said Admiral Fallon received a persuasive recommendation from the Joint Chiefs as one of the military’s stronger commanders of a geographic theater, with his current command including the challenges of North Korea and China.

In that capacity, he also took the unusual and punitive move in December of canceling a large, annual field exercise with the Philippines over a local judge’s failure to honor the bilateral treaty governing protections for American military personnel. The judge refused to honor the agreement’s rule that American military personnel remain in American custody pending final appeal of all criminal proceedings against them, and ordered a marine convicted of rape held in a local jail even though the case was on appeal.

David E. Sanger and Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/world/middleeast/05military.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1


Why did General George W. Casey Jr.'s plan to reduce troops "falter"? Was Casey at fault, or did the Bush administration create a situation where Casey's plans would not work?

[lofter1]

How this will work out only time will tell ...

However it is refreshing to see the the Times refrained from using the word "SURGE" in relation to an increase in troops -- that word was repeated ad infinitum by any number of newspapers / tv commentators over the past few weeks after the administration's linguistic gang seemingly found it to be the preferable verbage and started inserting "SURGE" into everyone's talking points.

[lofter1]

More on the Bush Administration's language games ...

Surge or Escalation in Iraq?

wsj.com (http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2006/12/25/surge-or-escalation-in-iraq/)
Yochi J. Dreazen
December 25, 2006

With administration sources saying that President Bush is increasingly likely to order the deployment of tens of thousands of fresh U.S. troops to Iraq next year, there is a new war of words brewing over the Iraq War.

White House aides and senior Pentagon commanders have chosen an unusual term to describe the addition of the extra troops, referring to it as a “surge.”

The use of the word “surge” by both politicians and many in the news media has meant the sidelining of the more politically-fraught term “escalation,” which is commonly associated with the Vietnam War. That, in turn, is enraging many opponents of the Iraq war, who argue that describing the addition of new troops to Iraq as a “surge” rather than an “escalation” hides the real meaning of what Mr. Bush is considering and may make it more difficult to mobilize public opposition to the move.

“If there’s one thing we’ve learned about (Bush adviser) Karl Rove’s MO it’s that his job number one is to start by figuring out the poll-tested term that has the best chance of selling Bush’s policies to the public and then job number two is making sure that that term is the one everyone in the media uses,” joelspolls wrote on the liberal site myDD.com (http://mydd.com/). “But why on earth is everyone calling it a ‘surge’ when in any other combat situation in history the same shift on the ground would be called an ‘escalation’”?

On DailyKos.com (http://dailykos.com/), meanwhile, the blogger mbayrob argues that opponents of the war should do all they can to describe the addition of new troops as an “escalation.”

“’Surge’ seems to suggest that this is temporary. Which given the lack of any plan by the administration, it certainly is not,” he writes. “’Escalation’ suggests that there would be no end in sight, and that we can expect casualties of both Americans and Iraqis to keep escalating right along with it.”

It’s too soon to tell whether the liberal bloggers will be able to relegate the term “surge” to the history books, but the contretemps serves as a vivid reminder that when it comes to the Iraq War, everything – from tactics to terminology – is up for debate.

***

DON'T CALL IT A 'SURGE'

washingtonmonthly.com (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_12/010469.php)
Steve Benen
December 27, 2006

A surprising amount of the debate surrounding the war in Iraq has been about word choice. We've had debates about whether or not there's a "civil war," whether there's an "insurgency," what the meaning of "last throes" is, whether we're "winning," whether we can characterize the conflict as part of the "war on terror," etc.

This is not to say the rhetorical questions are inconsequential, only that the White House's drive to shape the language of the debate has led to a near-constant, ever-evolving discussion about language, which runs parallel to the debate about the policy itself. The key difference, of course, is that in nearly every instance, the debate over word-choice has been unnecessary -- the answer was fairly obvious.

We're in the midst of yet another (http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2006/12/25/surge-or-escalation-in-iraq/) war of words, and like the others, one word is clearly wrong. It's pretty straightforward: White House aides and senior Pentagon commanders prefer the word "surge" to describe a plan to send tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops to Iraq. "Escalation," a term commonly associated with the Vietnam War, is frowned upon for its political implications.

This need not be complicated. A "surge" suggests a brief increase in troops. Jack Keane and Fred Kagan, leading proponents of the idea, explained today (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/26/AR2006122600773.html) that they want a "surge" that "is both long and large." It prompted Spencer Ackerman to explain (http://toohotfortnr.blogspot.com/2006/12/when-i-get-in-trouble-with-language_27.html):

[T]his is not a surge. This is escalation ... [Keane and Kagan] themselves are half-steppin'. They argue against a surge in substance, but call their plan a surge as well, since they know that what they actually endorse -- escalation -- is vastly more unpalatable to the public.
Well, enough of this. Liberals, journalists, I'm calling on you. We must never talk about a surge unless we're actually talking about a surge -- a temporary infusion of troops. We should resist that as well. But now, if the proponents of escalation have escalation on their agenda, we must bring this out in the open and defeat it. Deal?


Sounds right to me.

***

Surging Vocabulary

LanguageLog (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003975.html#more)
Benjamin Zimmer
December 28, 2006

Geoff Nunberg (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003974.html) is right to point out the semantic novelty of surge in the sense of "a prolonged deployment of additional troops in Iraq," as the Bush administration and others have used the term in recent weeks.

But there's another innovative aspect of surge as it has been deployed (so to speak) in the political discourse surrounding the war in Iraq since the midterm elections. It's not just the noun form of surge that's getting reshaped — the verb is getting a makeover too.

In an op-ed piece in the Wall St. Journal (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=7&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB1163 12571957819412.html%3Fmod%3Dopinion_main_commentar ies&ei=U1STRbNrnfRp0ovN1Aw&usg=__2jJfF3BzZ5J7sptldev8rDWcp9U=&sig2=yb7OwXe9FdrVGcPuRPaxJg)on Nov. 10, former CIA analyst Reuel Marc Gerecht pessimistically previewed the forthcoming release of the Iraq Study Group's final report. (Gerecht was one of the few neoconservative voices on the ISG's panel of experts.) Gerecht's widely (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500886_pf.html) quoted (http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTdjMTlmNDU1M2NhNjQ5NWU3ZjM5ZGRkN2MwMWE4OTc=) assessment went as follows:
We either declare defeat and withdraw completely tout de suite, or we surge troops into Baghdad and fight. The ISG will surely try to find some middle ground between these positions, which, of course, doesn't exist.
A week later, Tim Harper wrote in the Toronto Star (abstract here (http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/thestar/access/1164491841.html?dids=1164491841:1164491841&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT), full text here (http://groups.google.com/group/dfw.singles/msg/f5ebb7d7e3c73f5f)) about the "new buzzword" in U.S. policy in Iraq: "a so-called surge, in one last bid to win a war that looks more and more unwinnable." (In the past I've criticized Harper's inaccurate claims about another putative military buzzword: "transfer tubes (http://www.slate.com/id/2139270/)," supposedly a euphemism for "body bags." But in this case his reporting is right on the money.) In exploring the talk of a possible "surge" of troop levels in Iraq, Harper quotes Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) in a Fox News interview:
I've resisted the call by Senator McCain and some others that we needed to surge troops on a temporary basis, but, you know, I'm beginning to think that he's got a point.
Since then, there's been plenty of talk about plans to "surge troops (http://news.google.com/news?q=%22surge%7Csurging+troop%7Ctroops%22&scoring=d)" (or "troop levels") in Iraq. This transitive usage of surge, meaning 'to introduce (something, esp., troops) quickly, forcefully, and in large numbers (into a region),' has yet to be recorded by the major English dictionaries. The OED lists a poetic transitive sense, meaning "to cause to move in, or as in, swelling waves or billows; to drive with waves," as in this couplet from James Lowell's "A Parable, 'Said Christ Our Lord' (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13310/13310.txt)" (1873):
Great organs surged through arches dim
Their jubilant floods in praise of him.
In Lowell's verse, organs are "surging" metaphorical floods of praise for Jesus, which only vaguely resembles current usage, in which the administration hopes to "surge" floods of soldiers into Iraq to rebuff insurgents. (Is there some sort of cross-pollination between surging and insurgency going on here?) Other than the 'drive with waves' poeticism, the only transitive usage noted by the OED and other dictionaries is a specialized nautical sense, 'to let go or slacken (a rope or cable) gradually,' which doesn't seem related at all.

The military sense of transitive surge may be new to most readers (as it was to me), but it turns out it's been kicking around defense circles since the '90s. The earliest relevant citation I've found so far is a Sep. 7, 1993 article from Defense Daily (http://news.google.com/archivesearch?as_q=&btnG=Search+Archives&as_epq=surge+troops&as_ldate=1993&as_hdate=1993), referring to ships that would "surge troops and equipment to crisis areas." And here is a selection of subsequent cites, mostly from military brass and civilian officials:
NATO has said that it will embrace these countries through interoperability, as they upgrade their forces they will make sure that they -- the plug goes into the West wall rather than the East wall -- and through reinforcement; that is, the ability to surge troops into an area of trouble, as opposed to permanently stationing large numbers of combat forces in these new countries. (Briefing (http://www.fas.org/MHonArc/NATO-L_archive/msg00124.html) by National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, May 31, 1997)

Jackson was worried Slobodan Milosevic might try to retaliate against Macedonia after NATO began its bombing campaign by surging troops across the border. (USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/kosovo/koso162.htm), Apr. 2, 1999)
The bases will be used as training grounds for U.S. forces on six-month rotations, hubs for intelligence gathering, and marshaling yards when the Pentagon needs to "surge" troops to a specific region. (U.S. News & World Report (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/031006/6military_3.htm), Oct. 6, 2003)

Now, there is no question that there's parts of Iraq that we need to surge troops into, and that there's parts of Iraq that may not need the number of troops that at earlier times were in there. (Testimony by Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, Senate Armed Services Committee, Nov. 19, 2003)

Abizaid asked his staff for options for surging troops to Iraq last week as violence in the Sunni triangle stepped up. (UPI, Apr. 12, 2004)

We might need to surge troops in for short periods and to bring them out again to achieve an effect. (Testimony by Maj. Gen. Freddie Viggers, House Armed Services Committee, May 17, 2004)

For example, during the March riots in Kosovo, NATO was able to surge an additional 3000 troops within a few days, the first arriving in less than 24 hours. (Testimony (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_senate_hearings&docid=f:96976.wais) by Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense Mira Ricardel, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, July 14, 2004)

I think there's enough troops right now to do the job. And what they'll do is, they'll surge troops on a temporary basis, Americans, if there's not enough Iraqis trained to cover the elections. (CNN (http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0409/25/smn.03.html) interview with Brig. Gen. David Grange, Sep. 25, 2004)

The United States can always surge troops for specific needs by altering rotation rates or using the theater reserve. (Testimony (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_senate_hearings&docid=f:26137.wais) by Dr. Anthony H. Cordesman, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, July 18, 2005)

We can surge one, two, three brigades for the election. We will probably do that. (Testimony (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_senate_hearings&docid=f:26137.wais) by Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, July 18, 2005)
If we had to surge troops, we could. (Meet The Press (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9064938/) interview with Gen. Montgomery Meigs, Aug. 28, 2005)

So if you have in today's world 18 to 20 brigade combat teams deployed, we can surge, with the army force generation model, another 18 to 20 brigade combat teams. (AFP (http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Army_Can_Surge_Troops_To_Meet_Any_Crisis.html) interview with Army Secretary Francis Harvey, Jan. 18, 2006)
It's been a gradual buildup over the years, but the floodgates have officially opened for the new sense of surge. It might even be a good contender for Word of the Year (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003961.html), though a novel transitive usage of a preexisting verb doesn't exactly have the same P.R. magic as, say, truthiness (http://www.google.com/blogsearch?q=truthiness+blogurl:http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/&scoring=d).

[Ninjahedge]

Um, I know I am not good with math and all, being an engineer and working with computers/calculations all day makes numbers seem so strange to me, but still...

We have people complaining that we have rotated, extended duty, and re-enlisted people back into service due to the lack of bodies needed to fill the ranks in Iraq...

Now we are sending in an Oxymoronic "surge" of 40K or more troops that I suppose come from the uncharted waters of La-La land.

But how doe La-La's goernor feel about this? I mean, that is just about every able bodied La-La-ian out there! I mean, come ON!!!


Seriously though, where are we getting these troops, or is Bush REALLY in La La Land?

[ManhattanKnight]

January 7, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist

The Timely Death of Gerald Ford

By FRANK RICH

THE very strange and very long Gerald Ford funeral marathon was about many things, but Gerald Ford wasn’t always paramount among them.

Forty percent of today’s American population was not alive during the Ford presidency. The remaining 60 percent probably spent less time recollecting his unelected 29-month term than they did James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.” Despite the lachrymose logorrhea of television anchors and the somber musical fanfares, the country was less likely to be found in deep mourning than in deep football. It’s a safe bet that the Ford funeral attracted far fewer viewers than the most consequential death video of the New Year’s weekend, the lynching of Saddam Hussein. But those two deaths were inextricably related: it was in tandem that they created a funereal mood that left us mourning for our own historical moment more than for Mr. Ford.

What the Ford obsequies were most about was the Beltway establishment’s grim verdict on George W. Bush and his war in Iraq. Every Ford attribute, big and small, was trotted out by Washington eulogists with a wink, as an implicit rebuke of the White House’s current occupant. Mr. Ford was a healer, not a partisan divider. He was an all-American football star, not a cheerleader. He didn’t fritter away time on pranks at his college fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, because he had to work his way through school as a dishwasher. He was in the top third of his class at Yale Law. He fought his way into dangerous combat service during World War II rather than accept his cushy original posting. He was pals with reporters and Democrats. He encouraged dissent in his inner circle. He had no enemies, no ego, no agenda, no ideology, no concern for his image. He described himself as “a Ford, not a Lincoln,” rather than likening himself to, say, Truman.

Under the guise of not speaking ill of a dead president, the bevy of bloviators so relentlessly trashed the living incumbent that it bordered on farce. No wonder President Bush, who once hustled from Crawford to Washington to sign a bill interfering in Terri Schiavo’s medical treatment, remained at his ranch last weekend rather than join Betty Ford and Dick Cheney for the state ceremony in the Capitol rotunda.

Yet for all the media acreage bestowed on the funeral, the day in Mr. Ford’s presidency that most stalks Mr. Bush was given surprisingly short shrift — perhaps because it was the most painful. That day was not Sept. 8, 1974, when Mr. Ford pardoned his predecessor, but April 30, 1975, when the last American helicopters hightailed it out of Saigon, ending our involvement in a catastrophic war. Mr. Ford had been a consistent Vietnam hawk, but upon inheriting the final throes of the fiasco, he recognized reality when he saw it.
Just how much so can be found in a prescient speech that Mr. Ford gave a week before our clamorous Saigon exit. (And a speech prescient on other fronts, too: he called making “America independent of foreign energy sources by 1985” an urgent priority.) Speaking at Tulane University, Mr. Ford said, “America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam” but not “by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned.” He added: “We, of course, are saddened indeed by the events in Indochina. But these events, tragic as they are, portend neither the end of the world nor of America’s leadership in the world.”

All of this proved correct, and though Mr. Ford made a doomed last-ditch effort to secure more financial aid for Saigon, he could and did do nothing to stop the inevitable. He knew it was way too late to make the symbolic gesture of trying to toss fresh American troops on the pyre. “We can and we should help others to help themselves,” he said in New Orleans. “But the fate of responsible men and women everywhere, in the final decision, rests in their own hands, not in ours.”

Though Mr. Ford was hardly the unalloyed saint of last week’s pageantry, his words and actions in 1975 should weigh heavily upon us even as our current president remains oblivious. As Mr. Ford’s presidential history is hard to separate from the Bush inversion of it, so it is difficult to separate that indelible melee in Saigon from the Hussein video. Both are terrifying, and for the same reason.

The awful power of the Hussein snuff film derives not just from its illustration of the barbarity of capital punishment, even in a case where the condemned is a mass murderer undeserving of pity. What really makes the video terrifying is its glimpse into the abyss of an irreversible and lethal breakdown in civic order. It sends the same message as those images of helicopters fleeing our embassy in April 1975: Iraq, like Vietnam before it, is in chaos, beyond the control of our government or the regime we’re desperately trying to prop up. The security apparatus of Iraq’s “unity government” was powerless to prevent the video, let alone the chaos, and can’t even get its story straight about what happened and why.

Actually, it’s even worse than that. Perhaps the video’s most chilling notes are the chants of “Moktada! Moktada! Moktada!” They are further confirmation, as if any were needed, that our principal achievement in Iraq over four years has been to empower a jihadist mini-Saddam in place of the secular original. The radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr, an ally of Hezbollah and Hamas, is a thug responsible for the deaths of untold Iraqis and Americans alike. It was his forces, to take just one representative example, that killed Cindy Sheehan’s son, among many others, in one of two Shiite uprisings in 2004.

The day after Casey Sheehan’s slaughter, Dan Senor, the spokesman for the American occupation, presided over a Green Zone news conference promising Mr. Sadr’s woefully belated arrest on a months-old warrant for his likely role in the earlier assassination of Abdel Majid al-Khoei, a rival Shiite who had fiercely opposed Saddam. Today Mr. Sadr and his forces control 30 seats in the Iraqi Parliament, four government ministries, and death squads (a k a militias) more powerful than the nominal Iraqi army. He is the puppetmaster who really controls Nuri al-Maliki — the Iraqi prime minister embraced by Mr. Bush — even to the point of inducing Mr. Maliki to shut down a search for an American soldier kidnapped at gunpoint in Sadr City in the fall. (And, you might ask, whatever happened to Mr. Senor? He’s a Fox News talking head calling for a “surge” of American troops to clean up the botch he and his cohort left behind.) Only Joseph Heller could find the gallows humor in a moral disaster of these proportions.

It’s against the backdrop of both the Hussein video and the Ford presidency that we must examine the prospect of that much-previewed “surge” in Iraq — a surge, by the way, that the press should start calling by its rightful name, escalation. As Mr. Ford had it, America cannot regain its pride by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned and, for that matter, as far as Iraq is concerned. By large margins, the citizens of both countries want us not to escalate but to start disengaging. So do America’s top military commanders, who are now being cast aside just as Gen. Eric Shinseki was when he dared assert before the invasion that securing Iraq would require several hundred thousand troops.

It would still take that many troops, not the 20,000 we might scrape together now. Last month the Army and Marines issued an updated field manual on counterinsurgency (PDF) supervised by none other than Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, the next top American military commander in Iraq. It endorsed the formula that “20 counterinsurgents per 1,000 residents” is “the minimum troop density required.” By that yardstick, it would take the addition of 100,000-plus troops to secure Baghdad alone.

The “surge,” then, is a sham. It is not meant to achieve that undefined “victory” Mr. Bush keeps talking about but to serve his own political spin. His real mission is to float the “we’re not winning, we’re not losing” status quo until Jan. 20, 2009. After that,as Joseph Biden put it last week, a new president will “be the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof.” This is nothing but a replay of the cynical Nixon-Kissinger “decent interval” exit strategy concocted to pass the political buck (to Mr. Ford, as it happened) on Vietnam.

As the White House tries to sell this flimflam, picture fresh American troops being tossed into Baghdad’s caldron to work alongside the Maliki-Sadr Shiite lynch mob that presided over the Saddam hanging. Contemplate as well Gerald Ford’s most famous words, spoken as he assumed the presidency after the Nixon resignation: “Our Constitution works; our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule.”

This time the people do not rule. Two months after Americans spoke decisively on Election Day, the president is determined to overrule them. Our long national nightmare in Iraq, far from being over, is about to get a second wind.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[ablarc]

^ Passionate, well-put, and true.

[Punzie]

The annoying statement that we elders probably analyzed James Brown more than Gerald Ford was overwhelmingly compensated for in the rest of the op-ed piece.

[musicial]

We are the Turks in the sense that they were the only issue that united Roman Catholics and Protestants.

Protestants were protesting Roman Catholic Church because of the Church's heavy financial burdens on it's society. Church was getting app. everything from ordinary people's hand as taxes in Europe. It was actually an exploatation of the catholics society done by the church at those times. And these protests and conflicts had turned into an interior war in Europe. And catholics (some were being called as protestants who were also catholics because of their Church Protest) were killing each other.And in 1555 in Obsburg in Germany both sides had made a peace. but I did not know that this unification was thanks to the ottomans' effect.

Can you tell us why the ottomans was the only issue for this unification? Acc. to my knowledge, both sides (catholics and protestants) could not be dominant in this continuing war to each other but they were continuing killing each other and at the end church had accepted protestants' wishes and led stopping this meaningless war.

And a second question do you take lessons of European history (and of course as a part of Europe, Ottoman history) in schools in USA. I do not know the situation there, I am a Turk and from Istanbul, have never been to USA.
Thanks

[ZippyTheChimp]

Can you tell us why the ottomans was the only issue for this unification?I don't want to take this thread off topic, so I'll make one reply. Hopefully, I can explain my meaning.

I didn't mean to imply a political or military unification, just one of thought.

The Catholics and Protestants were at each other's throats during this period (30 Years and 80 Years Wars). The Ottoman Empire, the region superpower at the time, was generally regarded as a threat to Christian Europe.

This did stop alliances of convenience, as when the Ottomans assisted the Dutch in their war of independence against Catholic Spain.

The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 is generally regarded as the point when Europe began to develop into the secular nation-states we have today.

In the Middle East today, you have nations governed by theological differences within the Muslim religion - similar to Christian Europe in the 17th century. Americans, like the Ottomans, are regarded as the invading superpower by both Muslim factions, and a threat to the Islamic identity of the region. The Israelis, as extensions of American power, are also regarded as Western invaders, and in the present political climate, will never be accepted.

Also like the Ottomans and the Dutch, alliances of convenience were formed by both Shiites and Sunnis with the U.S. Regardless, the U.S. will be seen as an alien invader until the Middle East has its own Treaty of Westphalia.

Which led to my initial observation.

[musicial]

I don't want to take this thread off topic, so I'll make one reply. Hopefully, I can explain my meaning.

Which led to my initial observation.

yes I understand your point of view, thanks

[Punzie]

Bush’s Troop-Increase Plan Is Expected to Draw Six Guard Brigades to Iraq

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/10/world/10military_600.jpg
Photo: Stephen Morton/Associated Press
Armored vehicles were loaded on rail cars in Fort Stewart, Ga., to travel to Iraq with a brigade of the Third Infantry Division later this month.

By DAVID S. CLOUD (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/david_s_cloud/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and THOM SHANKER (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/thom_shanker/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: January 10, 2007

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 — President Bush’s plan to increase troop levels in Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) is expected to require the Army eventually to send as many as six National Guard combat brigades to Iraq, beginning in 2008.

The increased demand on the National Guard in coming years is a likely byproduct of Mr. Bush’s decision, expected to be announced in a speech Wednesday night, to send five active-duty combat brigades, or about 20,000 troops, to Iraq, starting at the end of this month, according to current and former officials.

Two of those brigades are likely to be in place in Iraq by mid-February, with the rest flowing in one a month until May, according to a military official with access to a recent version of the plan. The Bush blueprint also envisions sending two additional Marine battalions to Anbar Province, as well as delaying the departure of 2,200 additional Marines now in the province.

In a government-wide effort to expand the American commitment to Iraq, a program to operate Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq will be doubled and renamed as Provincial Support Teams, a senior administration official said Tuesday. Currently, the United States operates seven of these teams and allies operate three; the Bush plan will call for adding nine more. They will be staffed by personnel from across the government — the Departments of State, Defense, Agriculture and Justice — to help neighborhoods manage economic and political development, the official said.

It remains unclear whether Mr. Bush will discuss the heightened future demand on the National Guard during his much-anticipated address, but identifying the additional units for possible deployment is likely to begin in the days and weeks after he delivers the speech. That process would raise the political stakes for Mr. Bush, since it would highlight the increased contribution his plan would require from reserve units.

The full extent of the National Guard role in future years will also depend on whether conditions in Iraq improve enough to permit significant overall troop reductions. Of the 15 combat brigades now in Iraq, only one is from the Guard. Depending on how it is organized, an Army brigade typically has between 3,500 and 5,000 troops, and a battalion about 1,200.

National Guard combat units that have already gone to Iraq and returned may have to be sent back for second tours in order to relieve some of the stress on the active duty Army, Pentagon officials said Tuesday. Such a move would most likely require revising a Pentagon policy that has limited mobilization of Guard units to 24 months every five years, officials said.

National Guard officials said Tuesday that they had not been notified that Mr. Bush would require a greater combat role for the Guard beginning next year. Guard officials have spent the last several months fighting attempts by some Army officials to have the 24-month deployment limit loosened.

But several Guard officials said Tuesday they would not be surprised to see Mr. Bush make changes in mobilization time limits so that Guard units would be eligible for duty in Iraq sooner.

Maj. Gen. Roger Lemke, the head of Nebraska National Guard and of the association that represents state Guard officials, said in an interview that many guard units were short of equipment and would need to be re-equipped to be useful in Iraq. He also said the Guard would like to shorten the predeployment training in the United States, and do more of it in the units’ home states to lessen the burden on their soldiers, who must leave civilian jobs to serve.

The first active-duty unit that is likely to move to Baghdad would be a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division now in Kuwait, Pentagon officials said Tuesday. The elite light infantry of the brigade is especially useful in urban operations.

Should Mr. Bush want other brigades to accelerate their arrival in Iraq, he then would look to a brigade of the Third Infantry Division, from Fort Stewart, Ga., that is already set to head for Iraq later this month but whose departure could be pushed up. The next brigade in line for Iraq is one from the First Infantry Division at Fort Hood, Tex., military officials said.

Pentagon and military officials said Tuesday that large and continued deployments in Iraq would put particular strain on those performing certain military tasks in the National Guard and Reserve, in particular military police, engineers, civil affairs, and transportation and trucking units. But efforts are under way to fill the need through volunteers from within the Guard and Reserve before resorting to forced remobilizations.

A range of senior Army officials have said since the autumn that the Iraq mission could not be sustained without fuller access to the reserves.

The question of how best to manage them presents the Bush administration with a political conundrum: how to balance the pressing need for troops in the field against promises to limit overseas deployments for the Guard.

While the National Guard’s goal is to guarantee five years at home between foreign deployments, it has been sending units every three to four years, according to Guard officials. The Guard and Reserve were used most extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2004, and have regularly supplied brigades throughout the fighting.

Also presenting a problem is that many Guard members have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan as individuals, and not with their full units, and in that process have come close to fulfilling their 24 months under the president’s current mobilization order.

In what officers call “Swiss cheese units,” some military units have been hollowed out by members who could be off-limits for overseas duty, restricting the ability to send the entire team, unless the restrictions are reinterpreted or erased so that these individual members, who have already deployed, could be sent overseas again with their entire units.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/washington/10military.html

[Punzie]

Democrats Rush to Frame Political Debate Over Troops

By JIM RUTENBERG (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/jim_rutenberg/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
The New York Times
January 10, 2007

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 — “Cut and run” versus “stay the course” is so 2006.

This week has ushered in a new political battle over the language of the war: “Surge,” meet “escalation.”

The Democrats (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/d/democratic_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org) introduced the latter word to portray President Bush’s expected proposal for a troop increase in Iraq in a negative light.

“An escalation, whether it is called a surge or any other name, is still an escalation, and I believe it will be an immense new mistake,” Senator Edward M. Kennedy (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/edward_m_kennedy/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Democrat of Massachusetts, said Tuesday in a speech critiquing Mr. Bush’s as-yet-unannounced Iraq plan.

Should the significance of the word be lost on those too young to remember its loaded usage during the Vietnam War, Senator Kennedy added: “The Department of Defense kept assuring us that each new escalation in Vietnam would be the last. Instead, each one led only to the next.”

On Sunday, the new House speaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/nancy_pelosi/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of California, used “escalate” or “escalation” six times during an interview on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

Asked at his regular briefing on Tuesday about the Democrats’ use of the “E” word, Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, initially said, “I think a lot of times people are going to try to find a one-word characterization that allows them to make a political point without perhaps diving into the details.”

But, pressed further by a reporter to address the new “Democratic Party language,” Mr. Snow said, “Well, ask the guys who do their focus groups.”

Finally, he said, given that President Bush would not announce his new plan until his speech on Wednesday night, “It seems a little silly for me to start quibbling about adjectives without discussing what they purportedly describe, don’t you think?”

Mr. Snow last night said that the president would not be using the word “surge” in his speech, adding that it implied what he called a “rush hour” approach to a serious policy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/washington/10surge.html

[lofter1]

The Speech (http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2007/01/the_speech.html)
"To back this anemic reponse to the escalating civil war requires us to abandon our empirical sense and the lessons of the past four years. To back it requires us to trust this president as a competent, deft and determined leader. Do you? Can you? At this point? After all we have seen?"
Andrew Sullivan (http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2007/01/the_speech.html)
10 Jan 2007 09:56 pm

The premise of the speech, and of the strategy, is that there is a national democratic government in Baghdad, defending itself against Jihadist attacks. The task, in the president's mind, is therefore to send more troops to defend such a government. But the reality facing us each day is a starkly different one from the scenario assumed by the president. The government of which Bush speaks, to put it bluntly, does not exist. The reality illumined by the lynching of Saddam is that the Maliki government is a front for Shiite factions and dependent for its future on Shiite death squads. U.S. support for the government is not, therefore, a defense of democracy in a unified country, whatever our intentions. It is putting the lives of American soldiers in defense of the Shiite side in an increasingly brutal civil war.

What we will discover in the next few months, therefore, is simply whether the entire premise of this strategy is actually true. The president is asking us to find this out one more time. He seems to disbelieve the overwhelming evidence on the ground - that the dynamic has changed beyond recognition.

His intellectual rubric - democracy versus terror - has not changed to deal with fast-changing events, or to take account of the sectarian dynamic that his appallingly managed occupation has spawned. And so his strategy is no surprise. It would have made sense in 2004, when so many of us were begging for more troops, only to be dismissed as fair-weather warriors, terror-supporters, or lily-livered wimps. We were right. This president was disastrously wrong - and clung to his disproved strategy in the face of overwhelming evidence, supported by the Republican right regardless, until it simply became impossible to sustain the lie any longer.

If the president tonight had outlined a serious attempt to grapple with this new situation - a minimum of 50,000 new troops as a game-changer - then I'd eagerly be supporting him. But he hasn't. 21,500 U.S. troops is once again, I fear, just enough troops to lose. The only leverage this president really has left is the looming regional war that withdrawal would bring. Yes, if we leave, the civil war will take off. And if we stay, with this level of troops, the civil war will also take off. One way, we get enmeshed in the brutal civil war in the region. One way, we get to face them another day, and perhaps benefit by setting them against each other, and destabilizing Iran. That's the awful choice this president has brought us to. Under these circumstances, I favor withdrawal, while of course, hoping that a miracle could take place. But make no mistake: a miracle is what this president needs. And a miracle is what we will now have to pray for.

He will do what he wants, of course. Even if the bulk of his own party balks, along with the Democrats. Even if the casualties mount, and the civil war intensifies. Even if failure becomes more and more entrenched. The logic of his speech is that we can never let go of this disaster, that it is our fate for the rest of our lives, and that his job is merely to pass it on - deadlier than ever - to whichever unlucky sap gets to inherit his office.

To back this anemic reponse to the escalating civil war requires us to abandon our empirical sense and the lessons of the past four years. To back it requires us to trust this president as a competent, deft and determined leader. Do you? Can you? At this point? After all we have seen?

[musicial]

To back this anemic reponse to the escalating civil war requires us to abandon our empirical sense and the lessons of the past four years. To back it requires us to trust this president as a competent, deft and determined leader. Do you? Can you? At this point? After all we have seen?
One day in the past, a king (a dictator in a sense) ordered a dress to the most famous tailor of those times in the world. King ordered such an unusual dress for himself that tailor had no idea at first. Not to say "no, I can't", tailor said yes I do. At the end, tailor brought the so called dress to the king, tailor showed nothing in his hands but asked the king whether he enjoyed this unusual dress. King saw nothing of course, after a little bit discussion king said yes wonderful, and dressed this clothes. One day king made a speech to his public with this dress. Nobody could be saying anything that "the King was naked". A small child said it "King is naked, king is naked"....

[lofter1]

Prior to 43's lackluster sales job last evening the vast majoirty of the American Public weren't buying the War in Iraq, as seen in these polls from the first week of January 2007; it will be interesting to see where folks stand post-speech ...

http://www.pollster.com/charles_franklin/iraq_opinion_review.php

http://www.pollster.com/BushApproval20070107large.png

http://www.pollster.com/FourYearsofOpiniononIraqlarge.png

[antinimby]

Tears Are Shed at the White House for a Marine’s Bravery in Iraq


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/12/nyregion/600_medal.jpg
Debra Dunham joined President Bush as her son, Cpl. Jason L. Dunham, left, was posthumously presented
the Medal of Honor.


By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
Published: January 12, 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/nyregion/12medal.html)

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 — In April 2004, Cpl. Jason L. Dunham, an ordinary recruit from a small town in upstate New York, did something extraordinary: he threw himself on a grenade to shield two men in his unit as they battled insurgents on a road in Iraq.

On Thursday, President Bush gave Corporal Dunham, who was 22 when he died, the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award, presenting it to his mother and father in a somber East Room ceremony attended by his relatives and friends.

In an interview on Tuesday, as she was preparing to make the six-hour trip to Washington for the ceremony, Corporal Dunham’s mother, Debra, said she wished her son could “receive it himself.” “But we will receive it for him, and he will be watching us do that,” she said.

Corporal Dunham, who was a rifle squad leader in the Marines, is the second soldier to receive the medal for service in the current war in Iraq. Prior to that, the 1993 conflict in Mogadishu, Somalia, was the last to produce Medal of Honor recipients; two Delta Army Force soldiers died protecting a downed helicopter pilot there in actions later depicted in the movie “Black Hawk Down.”

In presenting the award to the Dunhams, President Bush, who on Wednesday night told the nation he would send 20,000 additional troops to Iraq, cited Corporal Dunham’s uncommon valor and said that he “gave his own life so that the men under his command might live.”

The president shed tears during the ceremony.

“He was the guy who signed on for an extra two months in Iraq so he could stay with his squad,” President Bush said. “As he explained it, he wanted to make sure that everyone makes it home alive. Corporal Dunham took that promise seriously and would give his own life to make it good.”

Corporal Dunham’s story is of a young man from a little-known town called Scio, about 80 miles southeast of Buffalo, who saw the military not just as a way to serve the country but also as an opportunity to pay for college.

He had just enrolled at a college near his battalion’s base in Twentynine Palms, Calif., before being deployed to Iraq, where his actions placed him in a “select group” of the nation’s military heroes, as President Bush put it on Thursday.

Mr. Bush approved Corporal Dunham’s nomination for the medal in November, ending a two-year process that required his commanding officers to investigate his actions in battle.

Since the medal was created during the Civil War, it has been bestowed on more than 3,400 soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coast guardsmen, according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society in Mount Pleasant, S.C.

While recipients include the likes of Theodore Roosevelt (for his charge up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War), it was not entirely an elite medal at first. But the requirements were tightened and only slightly more than 840 medals have been awarded since World War II.

In his hometown of Scio, with a population of about 2,000, Corporal Dunham was considered an accomplished athlete in high school. His batting average in a single season, .414, still stands as a local league record.

His mother, a teacher, said that he was quietly generous and that she learned of one of his acts of kindness only after he had died. In a letter, a childhood friend described how Corporal Dunham went out of his way to console her when other children taunted her on a bus ride home.

“All he did was sit with her on the bus,” his mother recalled. “He had a quiet way about doing the right thing.”

After joining the Marines, he was chosen at 22 to become a squad leader with Kilo Company, Third Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment in September 2003. His mother said he had wanted to continue his college education and also to take the New York State Police entrance exam once he returned from Iraq.

But the events of April 14, 2004, changed everything. That day, Corporal Dunham and his men were in the town of Karabilah, near the Syrian border, when they received reports that insurgents had ambushed a marine convoy. Corporal Dunham and his men boarded Humvees and headed toward the area, where they spotted a convoy of cars filled with Iraqis fleeing, according to various accounts.

The patrol led by Corporal Dunham stopped the Iraqi convoy and began inspecting the vehicles for weapons. As Corporal Dunham inspected one vehicle, a man jumped out and grabbed him by the throat. Two other marines ran over to subdue the attacker, who dropped a grenade, according to the accounts. It was then that Corporal Dunham made a fateful decision: he threw his Kevlar helmet and held it down over the grenade. He died a few days later from his wounds.

In addition to his mother and his father, Daniel, Corporal Dunham is survived by two brothers and a sister: Justin, 23, Kyle, 18, and Katelyn, 14. For a family still deeply in grief, the award presented on Thursday seemed to bring some measure of relief.

“He will be recognized and memorialized in history,” his mother said. “He is in the company of remarkable men.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[musicial]

Bad weather blamed in Iraq crash; US Embassy issues condolences



http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/_newsimages/2702264.jpgDespite the fact that the crash of a Moldavian-owned Antonov-26 airplane which killed more than 30 Turkish workers in Iraq two days ago was near a US-operated air force base in Baghdad, there has still been no official statement on the incident.

The US Embassy in Ankara did however issue a message of condolences yesterday. Though rampant speculation exists as to how and why the airplane, which was mostly carrying workers for the Turkish-owned Kulak Construction firm, went down, Turkish Foreign Ministry officials maintain there is no evidence as to the flight's crash being the result of an attack from the ground. Instead, say Ministry officials, it appears that bad weather appears to have been at fault.

Yesterday, the bodies of 33 on board the crashed flight were returned to Adana for DNA work and funerals. Adana Governor Cahit Kirac and the relatives of the dead awaited the arrival of the flight from Iraq at the Adana Airport, and as the bodies were lifted off the flight to be put into waiting ambulances and funeral carriers, police on duty at the airport stood in an honor formation.

The Beled Airport near Baghdad, where the ill-fated flight was supposed to have landed, was an air force base built by Saddam Hussein. Located 68 kilometers north of Baghdad, Beled now holds great strategic importance for US troops in Iraq. The base is currently being used by US forces as a logistic center for its land forces.

Source:http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/5758316.asp?gid=74
A Final Remark: Iraq Islamic army declared that they fired this plane with medium-ranged guns and the plane lost the control.Turkey is the country which made totally a second big lost in Iraq after USA till now although Turkey is not involved in this war...

[musicial]

Report on Kirkuk: 600,000 Kurds have moved to this northern city post-Saddam



Hurriyet has obtained a copy of the report on the population shifts in the Northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, a report whose contents have underlined in speeches over past weeks by both National Intelligence Agency (MIT) head Emre Taner and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The study on Kirkuk's demographics, and developments related to the rapid movement of Iraqi Kurds into the area, contains the following details:

* An estimated 600,000 Kurdish citizens have been moved to Kirkuk from different areas in Northern Iraq, and have subsequently been registered to vote in elections. There are allegations that money has been promised to many of the Kurds moving to Kirkuk. Some reports note that the promised money has been as much as 10 to 20 thousand dollars per family.

* Most of the Kurds moving into the region are being placed in apartments being built in Suleymaniye or in Rahimova, Iskan, and Shorca near Erbil.

* Other Kurdish families moving into the area are currently staying in tents near the Kirkuk Stadium, many waiting for money promised to them in return for making the move.

* Peshmergas and their families have moved into the military garrisons in Kirkuk built during Saddam Hussein's rule.

* According to United Nations statistics, the number of Turkmenis, Kurds, Arabs, and Suryanis forced to move away from Kirkuk under Saddam Hussein's rule was around 11,800. The number of Kurds estimated to have moved to Kirkuk following Saddam Hussein's overthrow is around 600,000.


-------------------------------------------

http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/

http://www.iraqiturkman.org.tr/tyerles6.JPGDemographic distrubution of the Turkman in Iraq of the ethnic population

http://www.iraqiturkman.org.tr/harita6.JPG

[milleniumcab]

What is the estimate of Turkmen population in Iraq?..

[musicial]

What is the estimate of Turkmen population in Iraq?..


Well I had no idea before. but I found this information from this side http://www.iraqiturkman.org.tr/ . English version of the side is also available. from this side I understand that turkmen population in Iraq is slightly over 2 millions.

"......According to the statistical assumptions of the year 1981 the total population of the cities where Turkmans are living is 3.467.269 including Mosul with 1.227.215, Salah Al-Deen with 402.067, Kirkuk with 567.957, Diala with 637.778 and lastly Arbil with 632.252. population. According to the same assumptions the total population of Iraq is 13.669.689. As for the sources published in Iraq it is claimed that Turkman population is 2% . However, 273.393 Turkmans live in the area and the total population is 3.467.269. That means the percentage is 7.88. That is, in the places where Turkmans live only 8 of 100 people are Turkmans . But, when you visit the region you will see that the figures are absolutely false. Even in some cities the contrary of this more correct and logical . In addition to this, till the year 1960, it was known that 95% of Kirkuk population as Turkmans. How ever because of the assimilation policy of Arabs thousands of Arabic families are being settled in Kirkuk. Another reason why Kurds settled in Kirkuk is destroying of nearby villages . So, Turkman majority in Kirkuk is destroying of nearby villages. So, Turkman majority in Kirkuk in the years of 80's has declined from 95% to 75% . If we take the average proportion of the population of Kirkuk according to the census between 1947-1987 to Iraqi population we find 5.19 %. When it is compared with the total population as of 1987, the population of Kirkuk must be 830.400. If we try to find the estimated Turkman population according to 75% we find 622.800. If it is calculated according to % 4.15 which is found from 1981 statistical datum's the population is 664.000; according to 75 % it is 498.000 so, the insistence of Iraq on 2%, as it is seen above assessment is absolutely wrong not only for the whole area also even for Kirkuk. We can support our claim statistically. In the census held during Kingship in 1957 it was declared that 500.000 Turkomans have been living, and in 1959 the population according to the census was 567.000 . The annual population increase in Iraq is % 3.296. When the year 1959 is taken as base the population of Turkomans in Iraq as of 1994 is :.
P = P (1+t)n P = 567.000 (1+0.03296) P = 1.764.029
This way the claim of Iraq again is proved false . Although, all ruling parties, and present regime has concealed the Turkman population and tried to show lees then as it was, the total figure of Kirkuk, Mosul, Salah Al-Deen, Diana and their villages and including 300.000 Turkomans living in Baghdad proves that Turkomans population in Iraq is at least over 2 millions......."

[ablarc]

^ Reading stuff like this, I realize that for all our faults as Americans, we at least got this part right: immigration doesn't have to guarantee conflict.

[Punzie]

Bush, Cheney will go it alone

January 14, 2007
By BEN FELLER
Associated Press

President George W. Bush, facing opposition from both parties over his plan to send more troops to Iraq, said he has the authority to act no matter Congress wants.

''I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it. But I've made my decision. And we're going forward,'' Bush told CBS' ''60 Minutes'' in an interview to air Sunday night.

Vice President Dick Cheney asserted that lawmakers' criticism will not influence Bush's plans and he dismissed any effort to ''run a war by committee.'
'
''The president is the commander in chief. He's the one who has to make these tough decisions,'' Cheney said.

The defiant White House stance comes as both the House and Senate, now controlled by Democrats, prepare to vote on resolutions that oppose additional U.S. troops in Iraq. Cheney said those nonbinding votes would not affect Bush's ability to carry out his policies.

''He's the guy who's got to decide how to use the force and where to deploy the force,'' Cheney said. ''And Congress obviously has to support the effort through the power of the purse. So they've got a role to play, and we certainly recognize that. But you also cannot run a war by committee.'
'
Any attempts to block Bush's efforts would undermine the troops, Cheney said. He took particular aim at Democratic lawmakers who have blasted the president for increasing troops despite opposition from Congress, military advisers and a disgruntled electorate that in November ousted the Republicans as the majority party on Capitol Hill.

''They have absolutely nothing to offer in its place,'' Cheney said of Democratic leaders. ''I have yet to hear a coherent policy from the Democratic side."

Yet many Republican lawmakers, too, have begun to criticize Bush's war management. Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, for example, said last week he feared Bush's plan would be the worst foreign policy blunder since the Vietnam War.

Responding to that, Cheney said the most dangerous blunder would be to give up on the global fight against terrorism because the United States has decided the war in Iraq is too difficult. That is just what America's terrorist enemies are counting on, he said.

''They're convinced that the United States will pack it in and go home if they just kill enough of us,'' Cheney said. ''They can't beat us in a standup fight, but they think they can break our will.''

Bush announced last week he will send 21,500 more troops to Iraq to halt violence, mainly around Baghdad, as an essential step toward stabilizing the country's government. That plan -- along with economic and political steps -- are meant to allow Iraqis to move ahead with securing the country themselves and allow U.S. troops to gradually return home.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in London for talks Sunday with Prime Minister Tony Blair on Bush's new approach in Iraq and Britain's plan to withdraw troops from southern Iraq.

Like Bush, though, Cheney braced Americans to frame the war in Iraq as part of a much longer effort.

''This is an existential conflict,'' Cheney said. ''It is the kind of conflict that's going to drive our policy and our government for the next 20 or 30 or 40 years. We have to prevail and we have to have the stomach for the fight long term.''

The White House also said Sunday that Iranians are aiding the insurgency in Iraq and the U.S. has the authority to pursue them because they ''put our people at risk.''

''We are going to need to deal with what Iran is doing inside Iraq,'' national security adviser Stephen Hadley said.

Added Cheney: ''Iran is fishing in troubled waters inside Iraq.'
'
The U.S. military in Baghdad said five Iranians arrested in northern Iraq last week were connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard faction that funds and arms insurgents in Iraq.

''We do not want them doing what they can to destabilize the situation inside Iraq,'' Cheney said.

Bush's revised war strategy seeks to isolate Iran and Syria, which the U.S. has accused of fueling attacks in Iraq. The president also says Iran and Syria have not done enough to block terrorists from entering Iraq over their borders.

''We know there are jihadists moving from Syria into Iraq. ... We know also that Iran is supplying elements in Iraq that are attacking Iraqis and attacking our forces,'' Hadley said.

''What the president made very clear is these are activities that are going on in Iraq that are unacceptable. They put our people at risk. He said very clearly that we will take action against those. We will interdict their operations, we will disrupt their supply lines, we will disrupt these attacks,'' Hadley said.

''We are going to need to deal with what Iran is doing inside Iraq.''

Iran's government denied the five detainees were involved in financing and arming insurgents and said they should be released.

Hadley asserted that if Iranians in Iraq ''are doing things that are putting are people at risk, of course we have the authority to go after them and protect our people.''

Hadley sidestepped a question about whether U.S. forces would move across the border to pursue Iranians who are helping Iraqi insurgents.
He said the priority ''is what's going on inside Iraq. ... That's where we're going to deal with his problem.''

Hadley was interviewed on ''This Week'' on ABC and ''Meet the Press'' on NBC. Cheney was on ''Fox News Sunday.''

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

http://www.post-trib.com/news/210624,Bush15.article

[milleniumcab]

Well I had no idea before. but I found this information from this side http://www.iraqiturkman.org.tr/ . English version of the side is also available. from this side I understand that turkmen population in Iraq is slightly over 2 millions.

P = P (1+t)n P = 567.000 (1+0.03296) P = 1.764.029


Thanks musical... By the way, are you a math wizard?...:) .. Thats some equation you put together..;)

[lofter1]

Two Saddam aides hanged

http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/images/2007/1/15/1_210925_1_5.jpg
[GALLO/GETTY]
Al-Tikriti was Saddam's half-brother and a
former head of the intelligence services


ProfilesBarzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4F3842BF-B571-4E27-824C-48D0722C2BB3.htm)Awad Hamed al-Bandar (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DDA87232-1FD6-4ED6-BC19-E3786BD91253.htm)english.aljazeera.net (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E8BE567E-4F00-46DF-BE6E-DC0EECD3D72B.htm)
January 15, 2007

Saddam Hussein's half brother and the former head of Iraq's revolutionary court have both been hanged in Baghdad.

Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, also Iraq's former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, had been found guilty along with Saddam in the killing of 148 Shia Muslims.

"The two convicts have been hanged to death," Ali al-Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, told a news conference.

The hanging took place 16 days after Saddam Hussein was executed in chaotic scenes that drew criticism from around the world.

The government spokesman said that al-Tikriti and Bandar were treated with dignity before the execution and those who attended were asked to sign a document saying they would not taunt or insult the men during the event.

"Their rights were not violated. There was no chanting," he said.

Al-Tikriti's head was detatched from his body during the hanging, al-Dabbagh added. Another official called it was an "act of God".

The bodies have been turned over to police and family members have been asked to retrieve them for burial, a source told the AFP news agency.

The United Nations had urged Iraq not to go ahead with the executions.

Death sentences

The two men were sentenced to death for crimes against humanity on November 5 for their part in the killings of the Shia men and youths in 1982 in retaliation for an attempted assassination of Saddam in the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad.

They had been due to be executed within a month of losing their appeal on December 26.

The pair were to have been hanged along with Saddam on December 30, but Iraqi authorities decided to execute Saddam alone on what Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's National Security adviser, called a "special day".

The executions reportedly occurred in the same Saddam-era military intelligence headquarters building in north Baghdad where the former leader was hanged two days before the end of 2006, an Iraqi general, who declined to be named, told AP.

Talabani had called for a delay in the executions last Wednesday, saying: "In my opinion we should wait ... We should examine the situation."

Talabani - who for two-decades helped lead a Kurdish revolt against Saddam - has few real powers under the Iraqi constitution and had no powers to reduce or block the sentence against the two men.

Unruly scene

Images of Saddam's execution showed an unruly scene that brought worldwide criticism of the Iraqi government.

Video of the execution, recorded on a cell phone camera, showed the former dictator being taunted on the gallows shortly before his death.

The footage angered many in Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, embarrassed the Shia-led government and the US administration and also raised sectarian tensions.

Barzan, one of Saddam's three half-brothers, was the former head of the Mukhabarat intelligence service during the 1980s and one of the most feared men in Iraq.

A witness at his trial said Barzan had personally supervised his torture with electric shocks in Baghdad and had eaten grapes while the man screamed in agony.

Another witness described how Barzan beat her and broke her ribs after she was hung naked from the ceiling by her feet.

Bandar presided over the Revolutionary Court which sentenced the 148 Shia men and youths to death in 1982.

Along, with Saddam, they were convicted of crimes against humanity by the US-sponsored High Tribunal in November.

***

Execution video shown to press

english.aljazeera.net (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8CC1A83F-A370-4BCA-9572-040F02794415.htm)
January 15, 2007

An official video of the hanging of Saddam Hussein's aides has been shown to journalists in Baghdad by the Iraqi government.

The video showed the two men, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, wearing red prison jumpsuits.

Black hoods were put on their heads as they stood on the gallows. Five masked men were surrounding them as they were hanged side by side.

The Iraqi authorities say the video will not be released to the public.

Al-Tikriti, the half brother of Saddam and a former intelligence chief, is shown lying headless below the gallows in the video, his severed head still covered with the hood several metres away.

Police in Awja said that two graves had been opened close to where Saddam is buried in preparation for the burials.

The men are expected to be buried in a building constructed during the 1990s by Saddam as a community centre for religious occasions. Saddam was born in Awja, a small town near Tikrit.

Al-Tikriti, who had cancer, was hanged early on Monday with al-Bandar, the former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, having been found guilty in connection with the killing of 148 Shia Iraqis in Dujail.

The police said the bodies had been transported from Baghdad to the US military base in Tikrit in preparation for burial in Ouja. Tikrit is 130km north of Baghdad.

Speaking to Aljazeera's Arabic channel, Khalaf al-Olayan, a leader of the main Sunni bloc in parliament, demanded to see the video taken during the execution: "It is impossible for a person to be decapitated during a hanging," he said. "This shows that they [the government] have mutilated the body and this is a violation of the law.

"We want to see the video that was taken during the execution of the two men in order for them [government] to prove what they are saying."

EU chief speaks out

Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Union commission president, had spoken out against the death penalty earlier in the day.

Barroso said that he supported Italy's campaign for a moratorium on capital punishment at the United Nations.

"We consider that a man does not have the right to take the life of another man. It's a fundamental question," Barroso told a news conference after meeting Romano Prodi, the Italian prime minister.

The US, however, said Iraq was bringing "justice" to those guilty of crimes.

Judicial system

"Iraq is a sovereign government exercising its judicial system to bring justice to those convicted for brutal crimes against humanity," Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman, said.

Stanzel said he did not know whether George Bush, the US president, had been informed of the latest hangings in advance as he was in the case of Saddam.

After Saddam's hanging on December 30, the Italian prime minister announced Italy's campaign for a moratorium on executions. He was supported by human rights groups.

"I believe in our European values and I take this occasion to thank Italy for all the initiatives that it announced so that, in the framework of the United Nations, we can work together to put an end to death penalty," Barroso said.

Ban Ki-Moon, the new UN secretary general, initially distanced himself from calls for a ban, saying "the issue of capital punishment is for each and every member state to decide".

He changed his stance and urged Iraq to act with "restraint" over the death sentences for Saddam's accomplices.

The death penalty is banned in the EU, but exists in 68 nations around the world.

(C) aljazeera.net

[antinimby]

Second Iraq Hanging Also Went Awry


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/16/world/16hang.xlarge1.jpg
Relatives and supporters with the coffins of Saddam Hussein’s half brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, left,
and ex-judge Awad Hamad al-Bandar.


By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: January 16, 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/world/middleeast/16hang.html)

BAGHDAD, Jan. 15 — Iraq’s turbulent effort to reckon with the violence of its past took another macabre turn on Monday when the execution of Saddam Hussein’s half brother ended with the hangman’s noose decapitating him after he dropped through the gallows trapdoor.

An official video played to a small group of Iraqi and Western reporters more than 13 hours after the hanging showed Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former head of Mr. Hussein’s secret police, standing nervously on the trapdoor in a flame-orange jumpsuit of the kind used at the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, his head and mustache shaved. Beside him, praying feverishly in identical garb, stood the other condemned man, Awad Hamad al-Bandar, the former chief judge of Mr. Hussein’s revolutionary court.

After executioners in full-face balaclavas pulled black hoods over the two men’s heads, tightened nooses around their necks and pulled the lever opening the trapdoors, both fell like weights. But the hangmen’s calculations of weight, gravity and the momentum needed to snap their necks — a grim science that has produced detailed “drop charts” used for decades in hangings around the world — appeared, in Mr. Ibrahim’s case, to have gone seriously awry.

Iraqi officials said their execution procedures had been exhaustively reviewed after the Hussein execution on Dec. 30, which culminated with the former dictator facing a volley of verbal abuse from members of the execution party as he waited with the noose around his neck. The officials said that their goal was to prevent a recurrence of those scenes, which were sectarian in nature and set off a storm of protest around the world, and that they had consulted with Western “humanitarian organizations” to get the procedures right.

Under pressure from American officials, the hanging of Mr. Ibrahim and Mr. Bandar, who were sentenced in November for their roles in the torture and execution of scores of Shiites in the town of Dujail after an alleged assassination attempt against Mr. Hussein in 1982, had been delayed for more than two weeks while the Maliki government drew up new guidelines for executions.

American and Iraqi officials said the aim was to prevent a recurrence of the scenes that turned Mr. Hussein, a mass murderer in the eyes of many Iraqis, into something of a sympathetic figure at his death and, across the Arab world, into an icon of dignity and courage.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had assured the Americans that instead of having 25 witnesses, as at the Hussein hanging, only about half as many would attend. Moreover, he pledged to exclude any known loyalists of the Shiite militia leader Moktada al-Sadr, a polarizing figure whose name was invoked by guards to antagonize Mr. Hussein.

With those assurances, the Americans agreed to release the two men, and flew them by helicopter from the American detention center at Camp Cropper to the same execution spot used for Mr. Hussein, at the former headquarters of the Istikhbarat, the deposed government’s military intelligence agency.

But events at the gallows in the predawn hours of Monday had something of the same surreal and freakish quality that enveloped the Hussein hanging.

Iraqi officials who attended the hanging said the calculation in the case of Mr. Ibrahim, a 55-year-old of medium height and build, had allowed for a “drop” of eight feet — too much, according to at least one United States Army manual — and about that amount of thick yellow rope could be seen coiled at Mr. Ibrahim’s feet before the hanging.

The video showed his head being snapped off as the rope went taut, and ending up, still inside the hood, lying in the pit of the gallows about five feet from his headless body.

Mr. Bandar could be seen dangling from the rope above Mr. Ibrahim, whose body was lying on its chest on the floor of the dark, dank pit, blood pooling beside his severed neck. The silent, three-minute video then ended abruptly, with officials saying they would run it only once, and not show it in public again.

To ensure no illicit copies of the video were made with cellphone cameras, as happened at the execution of Mr. Hussein, reporters attending the showing had their cellphones taken away by hawk-eyed Iraqi security men.

Ali al-Dabbagh, spokesman for Mr. Maliki who supervised the details of Mr. Hussein’s execution, said officials wanted to ensure that Mr. Ibrahim and Mr. Bandar died instantly, and were not left dangling at the end of the hanging rope for 15 to 20 minutes before they were asphyxiated, which he said had been a deliberate tactic used in thousands of hangings under Mr. Hussein.

That seemed to suggest that the executioners had deliberately allowed for a long “drop” for the two men hanged Monday, to be sure their necks were broken cleanly by their fall.

The Iraqis described the decapitation of Mr. Ibrahim as a “rare incident,” but they acknowledged that a similar thing had happened at least once before in the score or more of hangings that have been carried out since the fall of Mr. Hussein. They cited the case of an Egyptian man hanged in the northern city of Mosul for offenses linked to the insurgency, who had also had his head separated as he fell. In Mr. Hussein’s case, an illicit video taken after the hanging showed a bloody, egg-sized gouge in his neck, below his left ear, where the noose had cut into him as he dropped.

An Internet search for manuals on hanging suggested that Mr. Ibrahim was the victim of an overestimate by his executioners. One of the most authoritative manuals, the United States Army’s “Procedure for Military Executions,” issued under the authority of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower when he was Army chief of staff in 1947, gave a chart that recommended that a man of about Mr. Ibrahim’s weight, about 185 pounds, would need a “drop” of five feet seven inches — nearly two and a half feet less than the drop for Mr. Ibrahim — to assure what the manual called “a proper execution.”

The manual added: “A medical officer should be consulted to determine whether any factors, such as age, health or muscular condition, will affect the amount of drop necessary for a proper execution.”

At his trial, Mr. Ibrahim, though second only to Mr. Hussein in his angry declamations against his Iraqi and American captors, mentioned his need for medication on a number of occasions, and complained bitterly about the “disgusting” American cigarettes he said he was given in lots of 10 a day.

Mr. Ibrahim’s decapitation appeared to have badly unnerved the Maliki government. The Iraqis involved were so shaken that they waited more than seven hours after the 3 a.m. executions to formally announce them, and then read a statement that dwelled on the two men’s “big crimes against humanity” while serving as acolytes to Mr. Hussein. The statement made only a passing reference to the severing of Mr. Ibrahim’s head.

“In a rare incident, the head of the convict Barzan Ibrahim al-Hassan” — his name as it appeared on court documents — “was separated from his body during the execution,” it said.

Further details were left to a news conference called six hours later, when rumors were circulating among Sunni Arab loyalists of the former government, and on Arabic-language television channels broadcasting across the Middle East, that Mr. Ibrahim had been deliberately decapitated in an act of revenge by the Maliki government and as an insult to the Sunni Muslim world.

The depth of suspicion, and the readiness among Sunni Arabs to blame the United States for everything grim in Iraq, was reflected in interviews conducted in neighboring countries after the hangings. “The U.S. is 100 percent guilty,” said Turki al-Rasheed, who heads an organization promoting democracy in Saudi Arabia. “It means they cut Barzan’s head in the execution chamber.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Egypt on a Middle East tour, joined the recriminations. “I would be the first to say that we were disappointed that there was not greater dignity given to the accused under these circumstances,” she said, referring to Mr. Hussein’s execution and the two carried out Monday. “I think that passions run high after years of turmoil, under dictatorship, and that is apparently what happened. But it shouldn’t have happened and I think that it did not reflect well on the Iraqi government that it came out that way.”

When officials from Mr. Maliki’s office appeared at the Baghdad Convention Center with the video of the hangings, they were at pains to offer a minutely detailed account of their procedures. Their accounts were about equally apologetic and assertive as they explained how Mr. Ibrahim had come to have his head severed, and how sympathy for the condemned man and his family should be attenuated in the light of the brutalities he had committed when serving his half brother.

Perhaps significantly, the video was soundless, making it impossible to confirm the officials’ assertions that the two condemned men had been spared the verbal abuse that was directed at Mr. Hussein.

Mr. Dabbagh, the official spokesman, said all attending the Monday executions — all Iraqis, as was the case with Mr. Hussein — had been required to sign documents saying they would behave with dignity and restraint. He held up a signed copy of one of the affidavits as another of Mr. Maliki’s aides, Basam Ridha, summarized what he said was the air of restraint at the executions. Mr. Ridha is an Iraqi-American who lived for years in California before returning to Baghdad to a position on Mr. Maliki’s staff that made him the point man for the hangings.

“The whole process was very transparent,” Mr. Ridha said, comparing the hangings favorably with what happened to Mr. Hussein. “No ethnics, no chanting, everything a very smooth transaction, everyone very well behaved.”

Others in the execution party seemed somewhat more taken aback. “When the trapdoor opened, I realized that I was looking at the rope swinging freely, and I asked myself, ‘Where did Barzan go?’ ” said Jaafar al-Moussawi, who was chief prosecutor at the trial that ended with the death sentences for Mr. Hussein, Mr. Ibrahim and Mr. Bandar. He added: “I thought that somehow he had gotten loose. So I moved forward toward the pit and looked down, and saw the convict Barzan lying on the ground without his head.”

After Mr. Hussein’s hanging, his body was kept on the back of a police pickup truck in the parking lot of Mr. Maliki’s office in Baghdad’s Green Zone for 18 hours, while an argument raged over whether to hand it over to members of his Albu-Nasir tribe for burial. That dispute was resolved by the Americans, who insisted that the Iraqi leader hand over the body.

After Monday’s hangings, the bodies of Mr. Ibrahim and Mr. Bandar were handed over more swiftly, and like Mr. Hussein’s, flown by American military helicopter for burial at Mr. Hussein’s — and Mr. Ibrahim’s — home village of Awja, near the Tigris River city of Tikrit.

Officials in the office of the local governor said that Mr. Bandar’s son, Bandar al-Bandar, a defense lawyer at his trial, had accompanied the bodies on the flight from Baghdad, and that Mr. Ibrahim’s body had been delivered. Abdullah Jabara, the deputy governor, said that roads between Awja and the American airbase at Camp Speicher, outside Tikrit, had been sealed off by the police, and that the bodies would be buried under cover of darkness on Monday night, with a special grave for Mr. Bandar next to Mr. Hussein in a marbled reception hall at Awja. He made no mention of a grave for Mr. Ibrahim, who had a stormy relationship with Mr. Hussein.

Mr. Bandar’s fealty to his old boss, Mr. Hussein, was reflected in his decision, said by Iraqi officials to have been written in his will, to be buried at Tikrit, in Iraq’s Sunni heartland, and not in Basra, the predominantly Shiite southern city where Mr. Bandar, a Sunni Arab, was born. After the hangings were announced, Basra residents drove through the city honking car horns and waving Iraqi flags.

“Some people noted that Barzan’s head was separated from his body during the execution, and said that this was God’s punishment for his crimes,” an Iraqi staff member reported from Basra. “They said this punishment was an expression of what a bad man he was during his life.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[ZippyTheChimp]

Well, removing heads seems to be what they do best.

[ablarc]

Another thing they're good at is divining the truth:

... the readiness among Sunni Arabs to blame the United States for everything grim in Iraq, was reflected in interviews conducted in neighboring countries after the hangings. “The U.S. is 100 percent guilty,” said Turki al-Rasheed, who heads an organization promoting democracy in Saudi Arabia. “It means they cut Barzan’s head in the execution chamber.”

[lofter1]

I read that Bush is now perusing a book regarding the French debacle in Algeria 50 years ago -- and which has many reverberations to our current situation in Iraq.

Amazing that the Commander in Chief is only now familiarizing himself with the historical consequences of occupying a country which has neither love for nor interest in what the USA purports to offer.

[lofter1]

Must Viewing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Algiers) ...

The Battle of Algiers (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058946/) at the Internet Movie Database (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Movie_Database)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/05/TheBattleofAlgiers.png

[musicial]

According to the historical papers, Kirkuk is a Turkmen city, has always been a Turkmen city since 1000 years. Kirkuk is famous because of the city's oil resources. Kurds in Iraq have made Iraq invasion easier than otherwise. but Kurds till now could not get anything from their alignmentness to USA(However, English based BP, USA based Exxon and another oil giant in USA have got the authority to exploit Iraqi oil resources for 30 years). Kurds want Kirkuk to control the city and they already changed the demography of the city. It is said that nearly 600.000 Kurds have moved to Kirkuk and kurdish armed militants have made press and oppression on city's native people, mainly turkmen and sunni arabs and many of these people have abandened the city. now kurds are much in number, so in a referandum case Kirkuk will be tied with nordern kurdish iraqi territory and it will mean that after USA and England, Kurds will also get their share of Iraqi cake. The situation is like the cowboy films related to Texas. A couple of cowboys were deciding a bank burglary in 18th century and were doing it, at the successful case they were sharing what they grasped from the bank. This situation make me think that may be George W. Bush's ancestors in Texas were such cowboys and that is why Bush has this instinct, grasping somebody else's goods.....

According to me, Bush should resign from his charge, USA image must be reconstructed because it is extremely bad all over the world, And USA must find a better and peaceful solution next time for it's sometimes unhealty working economy.

[Ninjahedge]

Musical, you need to read up a bit more....

Texas was a different place than what is depicted in most westerns, and a bit of history will help you reconcile that.

Also, Bush is about as Texan as Lobster. His dad was from New EEngland, and I forget how many years he was raised in Texas, but his mannerisms are far from a native.

Most of his behavior is learned and acted and it would do well to try and familiarize yourself more with him, his history, and the actual history of Texas before you become one of those that will believe the act he has been playing for years. (Ex: I don't think he has ever, willfully, cleared brush in his life).

I may sound harsh in text, but that is not my intent. I just do not want you to get the wrong, although MASSIVELY publicized, image of "our" president. (Quotes signifying that, despite my dislike, he is still the elected official)....


'nuff said.

[lofter1]

This situation make me think that may be George W. Bush's ancestors in Texas were such cowboys and that is why Bush has this instinct, grasping somebody else's goods.....


Texas as home was VERY recent ...

The entire family tree -- roots and all:

http://www.wargs.com/political/bush.html

[musicial]

Musical, you need to read up a bit more....

Texas was a different place than what is depicted in most westerns, and a bit of history will help you reconcile that.

Also, Bush is about as Texan as Lobster. His dad was from New EEngland, and I forget how many years he was raised in Texas, but his mannerisms are far from a native.

Most of his behavior is learned and acted and it would do well to try and familiarize yourself more with him, his history, and the actual history of Texas before you become one of those that will believe the act he has been playing for years. (Ex: I don't think he has ever, willfully, cleared brush in his life).

I may sound harsh in text, but that is not my intent. I just do not want you to get the wrong, although MASSIVELY publicized, image of "our" president. (Quotes signifying that, despite my dislike, he is still the elected official)....


'nuff said.

Actually I have to admit that I do not know much about Texas and Mr. Bush. That is why I find your saying is not negligable for me. thanks for your gentile warning. actually I critisize Mr. Bush because I find his politics nonsense in economics sense (I am an economist) but I have respect to him, because he is an elected statesman as you said... anyway, it was just a hard criticism about Mr. Bush.

[musicial]

Texas as home was VERY recent ...

The entire family tree -- roots and all:

http://www.wargs.com/political/bush.html

lofter1, you're really unbelivable, where did you get Bush's history in a second:eek:!!!. I am looking at it. all you must be Mr. Bush experts there! :confused: thanks again. good night. by the way here is nordern Europe. It is unusually too much windy outside may be due to the global warming! anyway, good night everbody

[lofter1]

I googled (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22barbara+bush%22+ancestry&btnG=Search) "Barbara Bush" + ancestry; that link was the first to pop up

[Punzie]

General tells Senate Iraq 'not hopeless'

By Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 24, 2007

WASHINGTON — President Bush's nominee to be the next commander in Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, told Congress on Tuesday that the situation in the war-torn nation was dire and posed "tough days" ahead, but he pleaded for time to begin executing a new strategy.

Petraeus, who developed the Army's counterinsurgency warfare manual, is expected to win Senate approval this week, despite being an architect of Bush's unpopular new strategy. But as Petraeus fielded questions from senators of both parties about the deepening dilemma facing U.S. forces, he was forthcoming and occasionally blunt in his assessment of American odds in Iraq.

"The situation in Iraq is dire. The stakes are high. There are no easy choices. The way ahead will be very hard," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "But hard is not hopeless."

If confirmed as the replacement for Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., Petraeus will represent the first step in a sweeping military restructuring ordered by Bush as part of his strategy that includes deploying 21,500 additional U.S. troops.

Navy Adm. William J. Fallon faces a hearing Tuesday to succeed retiring Army Gen. John P. Abizaid as commander of U.S. forces throughout the Middle East.

Casey, meanwhile, faces a potentially difficult challenge to his nomination as the next Army chief of staff. Blamed by some for America's problems in Iraq, Casey at his Feb. 1 confirmation hearing will confront opposition from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a supporter of the troop buildup, among others.

Petraeus, 54, who has a doctorate from Princeton University, appeared assured and confident at his hearing, answering questions crisply and directly. When senators gave lengthy speeches, he nodded politely. But the general ran afoul of senators over the issue of a potential nonbinding congressional resolution denouncing the Bush strategy.

In response to a question from McCain, Petraeus said passage of a resolution would not have a "beneficial effect" on troop morale. Asked by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) if the resolution would show the enemy that the American people were divided, Petraeus said it would.

After other senators — Republicans as well as Democrats — objected to those answers, Petraeus backed away. When Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) tried to get him to take another swipe at the resolution, Petraeus became more diplomatic.

"Learning that minefields are best avoided and gone around rather than walked through on some occasions, I'd like to leave that one there, Senator," Petraeus said.

Petraeus has served two tours of duty in Iraq, first as commander of the 101st Airborne Division and then as the general overseeing the training of Iraqi forces. For the last 15 months he has been the commanding general at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., supervising much of the Army's education system and developing the military's war-fighting doctrine, including the new counterinsurgency manual.

At Ft. Leavenworth and in the pages of the Army's academic journal, Petraeus has argued that the most important goal in a counterinsurgency fight is making the population feel safe. And on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, he said that would be the cornerstone of the new Iraq strategy.

Petraeus said the sectarian violence in Baghdad amounted to "soft ethnic cleansing" and he described the risks ordinary Iraqis must take every day as "incalculable." The erosion of security, he said, has become the primary challenge for the U.S.

The new strategy will focus on improving security in Baghdad rather than training Iraqi forces. That, Petraeus said, is as important as the additional forces.

"The objective will be to achieve sufficient security to provide the space and time for the Iraqi government to come to grips with the tough decisions its members must make to enable Iraq to move forward," he said.

Skeptics of the troop escalation noted that the counterinsurgency manual argues that one police officer or soldier is needed for every 50 people. Under that formula, securing Baghdad, a city of 6 million, would require at least 120,000 Iraqi and American troops. By Petraeus' count, 85,000 American and Iraqi troops will be in the capital after the additional U.S. forces arrive.

"You wrote the book, General, but the policy is not by the book," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), a member of the committee and a leading presidential contender. "And you are being asked to square the circle, to find a military solution to a political crisis."

Despite Clinton's criticisms of the Bush plan, she said she would support Petraeus' nomination.

"The president is going forward with the policy, the debate is academic," Clinton said outside the hearing room. "I want the very best leadership for the young men and women who will be implementing this strategy, and I have no doubt Gen. Petraeus is the person to try and pull this off."

It will be late May before all five additional U.S. brigades arrive in Baghdad, Petraeus said. He said he would not need all the units to begin executing the new strategy but would like to have many of the extra forces to begin the shift in earnest.

He promised senators he would give them regular updates but cautioned that he would not have a real sense of whether the plan was working until all the new troops were in place.

Although he did not describe his operational plans in detail, he outlined what U.S. forces would do when they moved in to secure individual neighborhoods.

Before moving in, Petraeus said, American units will need to assess their partner Iraqi units, meet the local leaders and learn about the sectarian tensions specific to the locale.

Petraeus said the strategy has worked in other Iraqi cities, including Fallouja and Tall Afar, where the U.S. worked to create "gated communities" to monitor and control the flow of people in and out of an area.

He emphasized that the plan would require patience by Congress and the public.

"None of this will be rapid," he said. "In fact, the way ahead will be neither quick nor easy, and there undoubtedly will be tough days."

{Video of Patraeus' testimony:}

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-petraeus24jan24,1,5723817.story?page=1&track=rss

[Punzie]

Defending Iraq War, Defiant Cheney Cites 'Enormous Successes'

By Peter Baker (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/peter+baker/)
Washington Post Staff Writer
January 25, 2007

Vice President Cheney said yesterday that the administration has achieved "enormous successes" in Iraq but complained that critics and the media "are so eager to write off this effort or declare it a failure" that they are undermining U.S. troops in a war zone, striking a far more combative tone than President Bush did in his State of the Union address the night before.

In a television interview that turned increasingly contentious as it wore on, Cheney rejected the gloomy portrayal of Iraq that has become commonly accepted even among Bush supporters. "There's problems" in Iraq, he said, but it is not a "terrible situation." And congressional opposition "won't stop us" from sending 21,500 more troops, he said, it will only "validate the terrorists' strategy."

The defiant tenor contrasted sharply with Bush's speech Tuesday night, when the president congratulated Democrats on their election victory, offered to work with them on a variety of domestic policies, and told skeptics of his latest Iraq plan that he respects their arguments even as he asked them to give him one more chance to win the war. Bush acknowledged deep troubles in Iraq and made little effort to paint it a success. In a recent interview, Bush said his old policy was heading for "slow failure."

Cheney, on the other hand, rejected the idea that there has been any failure and gave voice to the aggravation many in the White House feel as Democrats step up their attacks on the administration. As leading Democrats lace their rhetoric with words such as "blunder" and "reckless," the White House has tried to calibrate how hard to push back. On a day when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a resolution denouncing Bush's troop increase, Cheney decided not to hold back.

"The pressure is from some quarters to get out of Iraq," he told CNN. "If we were to do that, we would simply validate the terrorists' strategy that says the Americans will not stay to complete the task, that we don't have the stomach for the fight."

Cheney said the administration would disregard the nonbinding resolution opposing the troop increase and suggested it undermines soldiers in a war zone. "It won't stop us," he said. "And it would be, I think, detrimental from the standpoint of the troops."

Cheney has been criticized in the past for presenting what some called an overly rosy view of the situation in Iraq, most notably in 2005 when he said the insurgency was in its "last throes." The view he expressed yesterday seemed no less positive, and he sparred repeatedly with "Situation Room" host Wolf Blitzer, telling him "you're wrong" and suggesting he was embracing defeat.

When Blitzer asked whether the administration's credibility had been hurt by "the blunders and the failures" in Iraq, Cheney interjected: "Wolf, Wolf, I simply don't accept the premise of your question. I just think it's hogwash."
In fact, Cheney said, the operation in Iraq has achieved its original mission. "What we did in Iraq in taking down Saddam Hussein was exactly the right thing to do," he said. "The world is much safer today because of it. There have been three national elections in Iraq. There's a democracy established there, a constitution, a new democratically elected government. Saddam has been brought to justice and executed. His sons are dead. His government is gone."

"If he were still there today," Cheney added, "we'd have a terrible situation."

"But there is," Blitzer said.

"No, there is not," Cheney retorted. "There is not. There's problems -- ongoing problems -- but we have in fact accomplished our objectives of getting rid of the old regime, and there is a new regime in place that's been here for less than a year, far too soon for you guys to write them off." He added: "Bottom line is that we've had enormous successes and we will continue to have enormous successes."

Cheney said Blitzer was advocating retreat. "What you're recommending, or at least what you seem to believe the right course is, is to bail out," the vice president said.

"I'm just asking," Blitzer objected.

"No, you're not asking."

. . .

The remainder of the article is not about the war. For full text of the article and video of Cheney on CNN's "Situation Room":
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/24/AR2007012402066.html

[Ninjahedge]

I always knew Cheney was a ......Richard.

[lofter1]

Wolf Blitzer, in that interview, was scared out of his suit ...

What is it about Dick Cheney that makes people quiver?

[OmegaNYC]

I always knew Cheney was a ......Richard.


Ha. Good one.

[Punzie]

What is it about Dick Cheney that makes people quiver?

I first posted the article in "Evil Dick Cheney," but then I moved it here.:D

Wait, why am I smiling?

I always knew Cheney was a ......Richard.

We used that line with Nixon! (Oy, me is olde.)

[lofter1]

Speaking of which ...

Carl Bernstein: Bush Administraton Has Done “Far Greater Damage” Than Nixon... (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003537212)

[Ninjahedge]

He does not pull any punches with that criticism, does he?

I think he is right in the fact that he has done more damage, but it is hard to say what he did was worse, although the outcome and lack of opposition makes it the worse in terms of its gross effect on the US.


I think one of the biggest things I hate about this administration, aside from the obvious policy differences, is the baldfaced and almost sanctimonious denial of any wrongdoing. When asked in an interview if he was "stubborn" and "hard to deal with" bush strongly denied it.

Instead of just saying he was a strong minded person that was trying his best to get things through that he and his administration genuinely believe to be beneficial to the US and its people (basic BS, but still believable), he just says "no, that's not true".

But unlike Nixon, who did a direct constitutional transgression, even providing for, facilitating the Watergate break-in, Bush and Company has not done one single act that could be seen as egregious as that. They just keep dancing the thin white line of legality and in doing so, bend the American peoples perception of it long enough to try to enact laws and amendments that would permanently bend that line back on all of us.

He should be called on all of this, but how is the question. Cheney runs a pretty tight ship. I just hope something hits him that he was not expecting. Hell, even Al Capone got nabbed on taxes!

Lets hope Dick meets a similar fate.

[ManhattanKnight]

But unlike Nixon, who did a direct constitutional transgression, even providing for, facilitating the Watergate break-in, Bush and Company has not done one single act that could be seen as egregious as that.

I disagree. The principal crimes charged and proven in the Nuremberg trials following World War II were not, as is usually thought today, crimes against humanity (genocide), but waging aggressive war. Hitler made up a pretext for invading Poland and the rest, and Bush invented his for invading Iraq (WMD); that does not make it any less illegal than that other invasion. That's a "high crime" in my book, warrenting impeachment and life-imprisonment.

Separately, I certainly consider Bush's utter disregard of the Warsaw Conventions and wholesale violations of the 4th Amendment to be at least as "egregious" as anything that Tricky Dick did.

[Ninjahedge]

MK, my point is, they are not as clear cut as breaking in and stealing stuff and deliberately tampering with evidence.

All other issues can be debated on context and condition, but having a guy break and enter and be caught is different than invading a country.

Invasions are always difficult though. What if Hitler gave pink fluffy bunnies to the Jews? No concentration camps, no psycho stuff. If hje still lost the war, would his invasion still be seen as as much of a crime?

I really don't know. Feelings and emotions bend the perception of crime in areas like this and they have bent them to near failure, but in the process have shielded themselves from criminal accusations.

You think the Dems would have waited this long if there was anything solid they could have charged them with? I think they already tride with Plame and all they got was a Scooter to ride! ;)


I do not disagree with your sentiment MK, I just cannot see how, LEGALLY, they can be put on the same black and white right or wrong scale.


It all depends on what your definition of the word "is" is. ;)

[ManhattanKnight]

MK, my point is, they are not as clear cut as breaking in and stealing stuff and deliberately tampering with evidence.

I'd hope that you know that those are not the crimes with which Nixon was charged and clearly guilty. The Articles of Impeachment approved by the House Judiciary Committee (before the resignation) are HERE (http://watergate.info/impeachment/impeachment-articles.shtml).

[Ninjahedge]

the Committee for the Re-election of the President committed unlawful entry of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, District of Columbia, for the purpose of securing political intelligence.

That's breaking and entering.

in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede, and obstruct the investigation of such illegal entry; to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible; and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities.


This is more like what Bush is doing, and what they did with Plame...



And the rest of it seems to be the same old. Obstruction of justice, hiding thnigs, etc etc.

It's that first one that was probably the linchpin that made the other charges viable.

If you do not get something like speeding or DUI on a driver, that broken taillight just might not do much in court, you know? (not saying that the crimes are directly comparable...)

[Punzie]

Democrats Try to Increase Leverage Over Iraq Policy

By KATE ZERNIKE (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/z/kate_zernike/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
The New York Times
January 27, 2007

WASHINGTON (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/national/usstatesterritoriesandpossessions/washingtondc/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), Jan. 26 — Representative Steny H. Hoyer (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/steny_h_hoyer/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the House majority leader, said Friday that Congress might consider legislation revising the authorization it gave President Bush in 2002 to use military force in Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo).

Mr. Hoyer set out a road map for the House to exercise more control over Iraq strategy, as he and other Democratic leaders continued on Friday to exert pressure against the president’s plan to send in an additional 21,500 troops.

Senator Harry Reid (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/harry_reid/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the majority leader, moved on Friday to force a debate on a resolution opposing the troop increase that had been offered by Senators Joseph R. Biden (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/joseph_r_jr_biden/index.html?inline=nyt-per) Jr., Democrat of Delaware, and Chuck Hagel (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/chuck_hagel/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Republican of Nebraska.

But Mr. Reid said that he also expected debate on other similar resolutions. Ultimately, he said, he expects the Senate to come together behind one resolution when the debate begins the week after next, with broad bipartisan opposition to the president’s plan.

Public opinion, he predicted, will compel many Republicans (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org) to support a resolution opposing the troop increase.

“Twenty-one Republicans are up for re-election this time,” Mr. Reid said. “If they think this is going to be a soft vote for them, they’ve got another think coming.”

At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/robert_m_gates/index.html?inline=nyt-per) warned Congress against passing any such resolution, saying it “emboldens the enemy and our adversaries.”

“I’m sure that’s not the intent behind the resolutions,” he said, “but I think it may be the effect.”

President Bush told reporters on Friday that he had proposed the increase “in that I’m the decision maker, and I had to come up with a way forward that precluded disaster.”

“I’ve listened a lot to members of Congress,” he added, speaking at a meeting at the White House with Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/david_h_petraeus/index.html?inline=nyt-per), whom the Senate confirmed Friday as the new commander in Iraq. “I’ve listened carefully to their suggestions. I have picked the plan that I think is most likely to succeed, because I understand, like many in Congress understand, success is very important for the security of the country.”

In a speech to the Brookings Institution (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/b/brookings_institution/index.html?inline=nyt-org), Mr. Hoyer predicted that the House would follow the Senate’s lead in backing a resolution against the troop increase, with broad support from Republicans.

Several committees in the House would then convene hearings on the war, he said. To follow that, the House might try to exercise more control over Iraq strategy in legislation regarding spending for the Defense or State Department. Another option, he said, would be a revised authorization for the use of military force in Iraq “that more accurately reflects the mission of our troops on the ground.”

Some Republicans as well as Democrats have said that the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, passed in October 2002, was not intended to allow American troops to police a civil war, as some lawmakers now say is the case.

Mr. Hoyer said in his speech that he would not have supported the resolution allowing the president to go to war “had I known then what I know now: that the United States of America could and would prosecute a war and manage a nation-building effort in such an incompetent, arrogant, unplanned and unsuccessful manner.”

Mr. Hoyer also called for requiring the president to certify to Congress that the government of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/nuri_kamal_al-maliki/index.html?inline=nyt-per), was meeting the benchmarks Mr. Bush said he had set. He also called for greater international involvement in securing Iraq, and peace talks like the ones held in Dayton, Ohio, in 1995 that ended the Bosnian war.

“The president’s so-called new strategy is really little more than stay the course,” Mr. Hoyer said, adding that it “places far more confidence in the leadership of Prime Minister Maliki than his record of competence and cooperation merits.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/nancy_pelosi/index.html?inline=nyt-per) made a surprise visit to Baghdad on Friday with other members of Congress, including the chairmen of the armed services, foreign affairs, and intelligence committees, as well as Representative John P. Murtha (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/john_p_murtha/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Pennsylvania, a leading Democratic critic of the war.

In a statement after her visit, Ms. Pelosi said that she had traveled to Iraq to thank the troops and to express support for them, “as well as our hope that they will come home safely and soon.”

In meetings with the prime minister and other senior American and Iraqi officials, the statement said, “we stressed our belief that it is well past time for the Iraqis to take primary responsibility for the security of their nation.” American forces, Ms. Pelosi said, “should quickly begin to transition from a combat role to one focused on training, counterterrorism, force protection and controlling Iraq’s borders.”

Mr. Maliki’s office released a statement after the meeting saying that the prime minister had “confirmed the resolution of the Iraqi government to challenge the terrorist groups with the full power” of its military force and the political system.

The prime minister also emphasized that Iraqi forces “are ready” to assume responsibility for the country’s security.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/world/middleeast/27cong.html

[Punzie]

Fonda Reprises A Famous Role At Peace Rally

The Actress Speaks Out Against the War in Iraq

By Linton Weeks (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/linton+weeks/)
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 28, 2007

For her next act, Jane Fonda has entered the war against the Iraq war. At the tail-end of yesterday's on-the-Mall rally, organized by United for Peace and Justice, Fonda stood onstage with the Capitol behind her and addressed the sun-drenched thousands. "I haven't spoken at an antiwar rally in 34 years," she said. But, "Silence is no longer an option."

The first time Fonda, 69, spoke out for peace, the country was soul-deep in the Vietnam War. In the ensuing decades, as the nation has gone through a slew of changes, so has Fonda.

As a young woman, the daughter of actor Henry Fonda was an actress, a feminist and anti-Vietnam War activist. She morphed into a workout maven, post-feminist arm candy for billionaire media magnate Ted Turner, a vocal Christian and an autobiographer. With 2005's "Monster-in-Law," she defibrillated her movie career.

Yesterday, with her daughter, Vanessa Vadim, and two grandchildren nearby, she was again front and center as actress, feminist and opponent of war.

Her life has come full circle.

She thanked the tens of thousands of protesters for standing up to a "mean-spirited, vengeful administration" and she said she was glad to discover that the soul of America "is alive and well." One huge difference between protests then and now, she told the crowd, is military families and active service people in the present-day movement.

Children in tie-dyed shirts, grandmothers in flowered hats, kids with frizzy hair and muddy jeans danced and hoisted signs and chanted against the war and for impeachment. Despite her showbiz elegance -- blond hair, sunglasses, camel's hair coat and dark over-the-knee boots -- Fonda seemed to fit right in.

She was first known for campy movies such as "Barbarella," which was directed by first husband Roger Vadim, then for higher-shelf films such as "Klute" and "Coming Home," for which she won Best Actress Oscars. She became involved in the political world in the late 1960s, an involvement that continued with her second husband, activist Tom Hayden.

As a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War, she cut a controversial figure. She spoke at protest rallies and, in 1972, posed for a photograph with a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun. The act was viewed by many as unpatriotic, even treasonous, and some called her "Hanoi Jane."

She has since apologized.

"Those people who would try to undermine her credibility will fail. We welcome her back to the peace community," said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), chairman of the Out of Iraq congressional caucus.

"She's a high-profile, outspoken American," said actor Sean Penn, while smoking a cigarette before the rally. What she means to the antiwar movement "is the same thing any of the rest of us mean to it. She's one more voting American with a conscience who is against this
war."

Getting her to speak at the massive rally was a breeze, organizers said. Leslie Cagan, who works for United for Peace and Justice and is a longtime friend, e-mailed an invitation. Fonda said yes. Fonda has spoken out against the Iraq war at smaller events such as a Canadian lecture series, book signings and the recent National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis. United for Peace spokesman Hany Khalil said yesterday's rally was "one of the first times she has appeared on the national stage."

Kathy Engel, another United for Peace and Justice spokeswoman, said Fonda is important to the cause because through the years, she has been on the wave-crest of women's rights "and a myriad of issues concerning the health of our country. She's a long-distance runner."

Before the march, Fonda spoke briefly to a few hundred people at the Navy Memorial. The event was sponsored by Code Pink, an antiwar group started by women. On the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue, three dozen protesters organized by the conservative Web site Free Republic held up signs calling protesters traitors and terrorist sympathizers.

"Jaaaaannnneeeee Fonda has blood on her hands!" chanted one man with a megaphone.

"Thank you so much for being here," Fonda told the Code Pink folks over the noise. "We're going to get it done." Afterward, she hugged civil-rights activist Dick Gregory.

Asked whether she believed her presence might cause more harm than good to this antiwar movement, she snapped, "No." Then laughed. And was spirited away by handlers to the rally on the Mall.

She was one of the last people to speak at the midday rally. As she waited for her cue, she chatted with Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). She shook hands with the Raging Grannies, a group of senior citizens who sang onstage, while the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sean Penn and actor-couple Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins milled about nearby.

Vietnam War veteran Orin "Spike" Tyson, 56, motored through the crowd on a Golden Companion Scooter with a U.S. flag flapping on the back.

Tyson, a Lansing, Mich., resident who was wounded by shrapnel and a land mine, said he hasn't always agreed with Fonda, "but she has the right to say whatever she wants to say."

It's that freedom, he said, that he fought for.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/27/AR2007012701486.htmlvar

[ZippyTheChimp]

January 29, 2007, 5:44 pm

The Growing Chorus of Antiwar Conservatives

Bruce Bartlett

In many ways, the war in Iraq is looking more and more like the last days of the Vietnam War. It is becoming increasingly clear that the situation is hopeless and the administration’s strategy is incapable of achieving victory. Yet the president insists that additional resources can still turn the situation around. Although he has little credibility left, many continue to support him in some vain hope that the sacrifices of our soldiers can somehow be vindicated and given meaning.

But unlike in 1973 and 1974, when political conservatives rallied around President Nixon, growing numbers of those in the conservative intelligentsia have concluded that the war was wrong to begin with and is now unwinnable. Even as Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and other right-wing talk show hosts have, over the last year, loudly ratcheted up their support for the war, the number of conservative critics has been growing almost daily.

As long ago as June 2004, William F. Buckley Jr., founder of the National Review magazine, was quoted in The New York Times saying, “With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn’t the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration a year ago. If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war.”

By 2006, the voices of prominent conservatives pronouncing the war and its conduct to be deeply flawed were becoming a chorus. In April, Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, told students at the University of South Dakota, “It was an enormous mistake for us to try to occupy that country after June of 2003. We have to pull back and we have to recognize it.”

In June, John Derbyshire of National Review published a mea culpa in that magazine, calling the Iraq war “obviously a gross error.” He went on to say, “It’s a tough thing, to admit you were wrong. It’s way tough if you’re a big-name pundit with a reputation to preserve. For those of us down at the bottom of the pundit pecking order, the stakes aren’t so high. I, at any rate, am willing to eat some crow and say: I wish I had never given any support to this fool war.”

The following month, Milton Friedman, the free-market economist who died in November, told The Wall Street Journal that he had opposed the Iraq war from the beginning. “I think it was a mistake, for the simple reason that I do not believe the United States of America ought to be involved in aggression.”

Since President Bush announced a “surge” of 21,500 additional troops to Iraq in early 2007, many more conservatives have spoken out. On Jan. 11, General William Odom of the conservative Hudson Institute wrote an article in The New York Daily News opposing the surge and calling for an immediate pullout. “Write off the democracy goal as a draw, declare a tactical victory, and withdraw in good order,” Odom wrote. “Of course a terrible mess will be left, but more troops and money can only make it worse, not better.”

That same day Rod Dreher, a former editor at National Review, spoke out against the war in a deeply felt commentary on National Public Radio. Dreher said:

As President Bush marched the country to war with Iraq, even some voices on the Right warned that this was a fool’s errand. I dismissed them angrily. I thought them unpatriotic. But almost four years later, I see that I was the fool.

In Iraq, this Republican President for whom I voted twice has shamed our country with weakness and incompetence, and the consequences of his failure will be far, far worse than anything Jimmy Carter did.

The fraud, the mendacity, the utter haplessness of our government’s conduct of the Iraq war have been shattering to me. It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. Not under a Republican President.

I turn 40 next month – middle aged at last – a time of discovering limits, finitude. I expected that. But what I did not expect was to see the limits of finitude of American power revealed so painfully. I did not expect Vietnam.

As I sat in my office last night watching President Bush deliver his big speech, I seethed over the waste, the folly, the stupidity of this war. I had a heretical thought for a conservative – that I have got to teach my kids that they must never, ever take Presidents and Generals at their word – that their government will send them to kill and die for noble-sounding rot – that they have to question authority.

On the walk to the parking garage, it hit me. Hadn’t the hippies tried to tell my generation that? Why had we scorned them so blithely? Will my children, too small now to understand Iraq, take me seriously when I tell them one day what powerful men, whom their father once believed in, did to this country? Heavy thoughts for someone who is still a conservative despite it all. It was a long drive home.

Even Republican loyalist Peggy Noonan, a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and columnist for The Wall Street Journal, had to admit that she saw little hope for success in Bush’s latest effort. On Jan. 12, she wrote:

I had the odd and wholly unexpected experience of feeling supportive of a troop increase until I saw the president’s speech arguing for it. What a jarring, furtive-seeming thing it was.

Surely the Iraq endeavor and those who’ve fought in it and put their hopes in it deserve more than collapse, withdrawal and calamity. But . . . 20,000 more troops, who’ll start to arrive over the next few months, and we’ll press the Iraqi government to be tougher? A young journalist who is generally supportive of the president said, “So this is it? The grand strategy is to repeat a strategy they weren’t able to execute the first time they tried it?”

What a dreadful mistake the president made when he stiff-armed the Iraq Study Group report, which had bipartisan membership, an air of mutual party investment, the imprimatur of what remains of or is understood as the American establishment, and was inherently moderate in its proposals: move diplomatically, adjust the way we pursue the mission, realize abrupt withdrawal would yield chaos. There were enough good ideas, anodyne suggestions and blurry recommendations (blurriness is not always bad in foreign affairs – confusion can buy time!) that I thought the administration would see it as a life raft. Instead they pushed it away.

William Buckley was also unimpressed by the president’s new strategy. In a Jan. 15 column, he opposed the surge, saying, “A geographical division of Iraq is inevitable. The major players are obvious. It isn’t plain how America, as an outside party, could play an effective role, let alone one that was decisive, in that national redefinition. And America would do well to encourage non-American agents to act as brokers – people with names like Ban Ki-moon.”

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer was equally unimpressed. In a Jan. 19 column, he opposed the surge on the grounds that the present Iraqi government is untrustworthy. He called for a pullback from Baghdad, but not from Iraq, until the sectarian civil war had fought itself out or the government was able to restore control.

For now, National Review and other conservative publications remain officially in favor of the war, despite the defection of some of their longtime contributors. However, political reality may soon force a break with the White House. Conservative columnist Robert Novak reports that Republican politicians are increasingly restless over Iraq and that their opposition has risen since Bush’s troop surge announcement: “What was whispered privately is now declared publicly.” He went on to quote a prominent Republican strategist as saying, “Iraq is a black hole for the Republican Party.” Novak cited a Republican pollster who predicted losses greater than 2006 if Iraq is still an issue in 2008.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[WebErr]

Is Iran Next?


Autor:Joschka Fischer (http://www.project-syndicate.org/contributor/886)

Project Syndicate/Institute for Human Sciences, 2007
> http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/fischer9/English


Can politics learn from history? Or is it subject to a fatal compulsion to repeat the same mistakes, despite the disastrous lessons of the past? President Bush’s new strategy for Iraq has posed anew this age-old philosophical and historical question.


Ostensibly, President Bush has embarked on a new political and military strategy for the war-torn Iraq. Bush’s new course can be summarized under three headings: more American troops, more Iraqi responsibility, and more US training for more Iraqi troops.


If you apply this new plan to Iraq alone, two things immediately catch the eye: almost all the proposals of the Baker-Hamilton report have been ignored, and the plan itself – in the face of the chaos in Iraq – is quite simplistic. In light of the failure of all previous “new strategies” for stabilizing Iraq, there is little to suggest that the newest “new strategy” will succeed any better, despite the additional 21,000 US soldiers.


What is interesting and really new in the US administration’s recently announced policy is the way it reaches beyond Iraq, to deal with Iran, Syria, and the Gulf states. Here, unexpected and genuinely new decisions have been announced: an additional US aircraft carrier group will be moved to the Persian Gulf; Patriot anti-aircraft missiles will be stationed in the Gulf states; and the additional 21,000 soldiers far exceed what the American generals had asked for to deal with Iraq. So one wonders about the purpose of this military build-up? One might almost think that Saddam was still alive and in power, so his overthrow had to be prepared all over again.


The surprise of Bush’s new policy is its shift of political focus from Iraq to its two immediate neighbors. Bush accuses Syria and Iran of interfering in Iraq, threatening its territorial integrity and endangering American troops, and, more generally, of seeking to undermine America’s allies in the region. If you add to this the seizure, on President Bush’s orders, of Iranian “diplomats” by US forces in the northern Iraqi town of Erbil, a completely new picture of the President’s plan comes to the fore: the “new strategy” does not follow the advice of the Baker-Hamilton report, but harks back to the disastrous strategy of the neo-cons. Iran is now in the superpower’s sights, and the US approach brings to mind the preparatory phase of the Iraq war – down to the last detail.


Where does all this lead? Basically, there are two possibilities, one positive and one negative. Unfortunately, the positive outcome appears to be the less likely one.


If the threat of force – a force that the US is quite obviously building – aims at preparing the ground for serious negotiations with Iran, there can and should be no objection. If, on the other hand, it represents an attempt to prepare the American public for a war against Iran, and a genuine intention to unleash such a war when the opportunity arises, the outcome would be an unmitigated disaster.


Unfortunately, this danger is all too real. Since the Bush administration views Iran’s nuclear program and hegemonic aspirations as the major threat to the region, its new strategy is based on a newly formed undeclared anti-Iranian alliance with moderate Sunni Arab states and Israel. The nuclear program is the dynamic factor here, because it will set a timeline for action.


But air strikes on Iran, which America may see as a military solution, would not make Iraq safer; they would achieve exactly the opposite. Nor would the region as a whole be stabilized; on the contrary, it would be plunged into an abyss. And the dream of “regime change” in Tehran would not come true, either; rather, Iran’s democratic opposition would pay a high price, and the theocratic regime would only become stronger.


The political options for stabilizing Iraq, and the whole region, as well as for securing a long-term freeze of Iran’s nuclear program, have not yet been exhausted. The current state of Iran’s nuclear program does not call for immediate military action. Instead, the focus should be on diplomatic efforts to detach Syria from Iran and isolate the Tehran regime. But this presupposes American willingness to return to diplomacy and talking to all the parties involved. Tehran is afraid of regional and international isolation. Moreover, the recent municipal elections in Iran have shown that betting on diplomacy and a transformation of Iran from within is a realistic option. So why the current threats against Iran?


The debacle in Iraq was foreseeable from the beginning, and America’s numerous partners and friends predicted it quite clearly in their warnings to the Bush administration. The mistake that the US may be about to make is equally predictable: a war that is wrong will not be made right by extending it – that is the lesson of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.


The ideologically driven strategy of regime change by means of military force led the US into the Iraq war disaster. Getting into Iraq and defeating Saddam was easy. But today, America is stuck there and knows neither how to win nor how to get out. A mistake is not corrected by repeating it over and over again. Perseverance in error does not correct the error; it merely exacerbates it. Following the launch of the new American policy, the old question of whether politics can learn from history will be answered again in the Middle East. Whatever the answer, the consequences – whether good or bad – will be far-reaching.

[Punzie]

I printed the author's bio which you provided:

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/site_imagery/joschka_fischer_140x140.jpg
http://www.project-syndicate.org/authors_photo.jpgJoschka Fischer

Joschka Fischer was Germany's Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor from 1998 to 2005. A leader in the Green Party for nearly 20 years, he is now a visiting professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.
__________________________________________________ ____


Do you know what research conducted, or what he accomplished while in office, that gives him an "insider's" perspective?

[WebErr]

He just analized perspectives and show us parallels in the past.
He makes conclusions and detally explain it.
Hmm... it's just logical... but Iran... too much risky for USA but... it may be done.

I don't know. Time will show us the roots.
Now we all like outsiders. We all doing the blind research.

Will see...

[OmegaNYC]

according to this website (http://www.hiphoprepublican.com/) we're all wrong!



"The Top 10 Myths of the Iraq War"





1-No Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Several hundred chemical weapons were found, and Saddam had all his WMD scientists and technicians ready. Just end the sanctions and add money, and the weapons would be back in production within a year. At the time of the invasion, all intelligence agencies, world-wide, believed Saddam still had a functioning WMD program. Saddam had shut them down because of the cost, but created the illusion that the program was still operating in order to fool the Iranians. The Iranians wanted revenge on Saddam because of the Iraq invasion of Iran in 1980, and the eight year war that followed.

2-The 2003 Invasion was Illegal. Only according to some in the UN. By that standard, the invasion of Kosovo and bombing of Serbia in 1999 was also illegal. Saddam was already at war with the U.S. and Britain, because Iraq had not carried out the terms of the 1991 ceasefire, and was trying to shoot down coalition aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone.

3-Sanctions were working. The sanctions worked for Saddam, not for Iraq. Saddam used the sanctions as an excuse to punish the Shia majority for their 1991 uprising, and help prevent a new one. The "Oil For Food" program was corrupted with the help of bribed UN officials, and mass media outlets that believed Iraqi propaganda. Saddam was waiting out the sanctions, and bribing France, Russia and China, with promises of oil contracts and debt repayments, to convince the UN to lift the sanctions.

4-Overthrowing Saddam Only Helped Iran. Of course, and this was supposed to make Iran more approachable and open to negotiations. With the Iraqi "threat" gone, it was believed that Iran might lose its radical ways and behave. Iran got worse as a supporter of terrorism and developer of WMD. Irans clerical dictatorship did not want a democracy next door. The ancient struggle between the Iranians and Arabs was brought to the surface, and the UN became more active in dealing with problems caused by pro-terrorist government of Iran. As a result of this, the Iranian police state has faced more internal dissent. From inside Iran, Iraq does not look like an Iranian victory.

5-The Invasion Was a Failure. Saddam's police state was overthrown and a democracy established, which was the objective of the operation. Peace did not ensue because Saddam's supporters, the Sunni Arab minority, were not willing to deal with majority rule, and war crimes trials. A terror campaign followed. Few expected the Sunni Arabs to be so stupid. There's a lesson to be learned there.

6-The Invasion Helped Al Qaeda. Compared to what? Al Qaeda was a growing movement before 2003, and before 2001. But after the Iraq invasion, and especially the Sunni Arab terrorism, al Qaeda fell in popularity throughout the Moslem world. Arab countries cracked down on al Qaeda operations more than ever before. Without the Iraq invasion, al Qaeda would still have safe havens all over the Arab world.

7-Iraq Is In A State of Civil War. Then so was Britain when the IRA was active, and so is Spain today because ETA is still active. Both IRA and ETA are terrorist organizations based on ethnic identity. India also has tribal separatist rebels who are quite active. That's not considered a civil war. This is all about partisans playing with labels for political ends, not accurately describing a terror campaign.

8-Iraqis Were Better Off Under Saddam. Most Iraqis disagree. Check election results and opinion polls. Reporters tend to ask Iraqi Sunni Arabs this question, but they were the only ones who benefited from Saddams rule.

9-The Iraq War Caused Islamic Terrorism to Increase in Europe. The Moslem unrest in Europe was there before 2001, and 2003. Interviews of Islamic radicals in Europe reveals that the hatred is not motivated by Iraq, but by daily encounters with hostile natives. Blaming Islamic terrorism on Iraq is another attempt to avoid dealing with a homegrown problem.

10- The War in Iraq is Lost. By what measure? Saddam and his Baath party are out of power. There is a democratically elected government. Part of the Sunni Arab minority continues to support terror attacks, in an attempt to restore the Sunni Arab dictatorship. In response, extremist Shia Arabs formed vigilante death squads to expel all Sunni Arabs. Given the history of democracy in the Middle East, Iraq is working through its problems. Otherwise, one is to believe that the Arabs are incapable of democracy and only a tyrant like Saddam can make Iraqi "work." If democracy were easy, the Arab states would all have it. There are problems, and solutions have to be found and implemented. That takes time, but Americans have, since the 18th century, grown weary of wars after three years. If the war goes on longer, the politicians have to scramble to survive the bad press and opinion polls. Opposition politicians take advantage of the situation, but this has nothing to do with Iraq, and everything to do with local politics in the United States.

[Ninjahedge]

Sorry, gag reflex kicked in.

But you look and really read into what they are saying in some, and they are right.

But, it still does not validate anything. Saddam was not openly admitting that he had no weapons for the same reason that we are facing now. Fear of them made his enemies think twice about attacking. Now we are in there with probably as many troops (and much better equipment) than he had now and we cannot maintain order.

He would have had the same problem if they knew how weak he really was.

Oh, as for "Invasion was a failure", that is not what anyone has been saying. They said the entire campaign has been a failure, not the overthrowing of Saddam and the attempt at putting in a democracy which people are not really following.

We succeeded in all of our short term goals WITHOUT taking into consideration the long term ones. If all we had to do was walk in and depose someone, we would be done by now. And thats what Rummie, Cheney, Bush and all their "trusted" advisors were probably saying.

Unless, of course, they wanted this chaos for some other reason.

As for all the rest. I think I have better things to do than read more tripe from the (now) minority.

ciao!

[ZippyTheChimp]

a democracy established,
One car-bomb, one vote.

[Ninjahedge]

One car-bomb, one vote.

Depends on where you park it. :(

[lofter1]

Legendary folk guitarist Richard Thompson
records anti-war song from viewpoint of 'grunt'

(http://rawstory.com/)rawstory.com (http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Legendary_folk_guitarist_Richard_Thompson_records_ 0204.html)
Ron Brynaert
Sunday February 4, 2007

http://worldmusiccentral.org/staticpages/images/richard-thompson.jpg

Listen: Dad's Gonna Kill Me (http://www.richardthompson-music.com/audio/DGKM.mp3)
words and music by Richard Thompson,
from the upcoming CD, Sweet Warrior (May 2007)
produced by Richard Thompson and Simon Tassano
Richard Thompson: guitar, vocals
Michael Jerome: drums
Taras Prodaniuk: bass
Sara Watkins: violin
Michael Hays: guitar
Legendary folk guitarist Richard Thompson recorded an anti-war song which is told from the viewpoint of a US soldier who fears being killed in Iraq.

The British musician, who formed the band Fairport Convention in 1967, is best known to music fans for the album Shoot Out the Lights, which he began recording in the early eighties with his folksinger wife, Linda Thompson, as they experienced marital problems. The album was released in 1982, after the couple separated, and was later named one of the 500 greatest of all time (http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6599261/333_shoot_out_the_lights) by Rolling Stone magazine. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifchard_Thompson), "In August 2003, Rolling Stone magazine listed Thompson as #19 on its list of 'The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.'"

At the online news magazine Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2158687/), Bonnie Goldstein reported on Thompson's new anti-war song.

"Lately at concerts he's been singing a song in protest against the Iraq war titled 'Dad's Gonna Kill Me,'" Goldstein writes. "'Dad,' Thompson explains to audiences, is grunt-speak for 'Baghdad,' much as ''Nam' once meant 'Vietnam.'"

Goldstein printed some lyrics from Thompson's song along with his "lyric cheat sheet."

In the song, Thompson sings, "'Dad's in a bad mood, 'Dad's got the blues; It's someone else's mess that I didn't choose; At least we're winning on the Fox evening news; 'Dad's Gonna Kill Me."

http://i.realone.com/assets/rn/cms/2004/album_170x170/500_albums_Shoot_Out_the_Lights_richard_and_linda_ thompson.6598964.jpg

An mp3 of "Dad's Gonna Kill Me" can be heard at Thompson's website (http://www.richardthompson-music.com/catch_of_the_day.asp?id=663), and it will be on his next CD, "Sweet Warrior," slated for release in May.

Also at his website, Thompson includes a concert review (http://www.richardthompson-music.com/catch_of_the_day.asp?id=632) from a show he recently performed in Tenafly, New Jersey.

"But last night RT's new numbers went over just as well as his old stand-by," Joanne Dexter writes. "And for good reason: the driving ferocity of 'Dad's Gonna Kill Me,' about a soldier's perspective on the Iraq war [Dad=Baghdad], is different entirely from any other songs in RT's catalog."

The review continues, "How can RT as a songwriter continue to write songs that discover new types of energy? How can he be around for as long as he's been and not have settled into a predictable pattern and 'sound?'"

Dexter concludes that "all that can be said is RT is RT, and no one else comes close."

***

RICHARD'S LYRIC "CHEAT SHEET"



http://www.richardthompson-music.com/images/Thompson-Cheatsheetg.jpg

[eddhead]

Sorry, gag reflex kicked in.
ciao!

Yeah, here too.

1. NO WMD's _ That they were not in production at the time of the invasion is evidence of the success of sanctions and containment policies, i.e. prewar tactics were working. The issue of what would happen when sanctions were lifted is irrelevent, as we were not planning to lift sanctions

2. Legality - The invasion was postioned as a "pre-emptive strike" it was not postioned as a response to attacks on US Jets in the "no fly zone" Pre-emptive strikes are not permitted under UN laws

3. Sanctions Working - This contradicts his point one wherein he states that as soon as sanctions were lifted, Saddam would have gone back to producing Chemical and bio weapons. If the sanctions led to production shutdown, they were clearly working. Nothwithstanding the oil for food scandles, Saddam was isolated and contained.. Iraq was not a military threat. Morever, very shortly we will hear more about how corruption is endemic in the current Iraqi govt. thr the Waxman oversight committee. These guys will make saddam look like a piker

4. Iran helped. - his argument here is laughable. If you do not think Iran has more influence in the region today than they did before invasion, you are not paying attention

5. Invasion was a failure - as you said, the invasion was not a failure but the overall campaign is. We do not even know who the enemy is. We stand behind the duly elected govt of iraq, but shake our fist at his primary benefactors, the milita groups that source his power. Milahki is nothing more than a puppet. we support the puppet and menace the puppet master.

6. Al Queada- It was our invasion of Afghanistan, not Iraq, that impaired Al Queda operations and when we moved out, we took our foot off their throats. The Taliban is coming back big time and we have only ourselves to blame. And, if you think this invasion has not fostered resentment in the muslim community toward the US and motivated others (even if they are not al-queda operatives) groups, again, you are not paying attention. NOt to mention Hezbolah which through the support of an emboldened Iran is flexing their mussels in lebenon.

7. Civil War - Comparing the state of affairs in Iraq to Britan or Spain is assinine. The chief threat in Iraq is not terrorism, it is insurgency. Sectarian groups are fighting for spheres of influence and a voice in the govt.. The whole country is under siege.

8. Irqais better off.. let's just say the jury is out on this one. An overwhelming percentatge of Iraqi's just want us to go home

9. PRobably so.. So what? Most european countries sat this war out... therefore the war had minimal impact on domestic in-country violence. The one significant contributer, britan, suffered a major attack

10. See answere 5

[lofter1]

Invasion was a failure - as you said, the invasion was not a failure

I really don't see how anyone can claim the the invasion of Iraq was NOT a failure.

Some questions to examine when considering the success or failure of the invasion:
Did the US and allied forces secure weapons that were in Iraq before the invasion?

Did they secure the borders?

Did they do everything possible to make certain that the inhabitants of the invaded country were not unduly burdened by lack of services, retribution, etc.?

[Ninjahedge]

Lofter, we came, we saw, we conquered. So the invasion in and of itself was a success.

HOLDING that ground and securing it is another matter. I know it is all just somantics, but literally, we came in, deposed a dictator and occupied Baghdad.

But that is where our plan ended. We somehow thought that everyone would play nice and cooperate and we would have a happy oil-producing ally in the middle east inside of two years.

That's where the appelation of failure is most appropriately placed.

[lofter1]

It isn't just semantics ...

If the goal was to do as you say -- veni, vidi, vici (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veni,_vidi,_vici) -- we have absolutely failed in the third stage.

We do NOT hold Bagdad. We are there, but it is not under our control. We HAVE NOT conquered Iraq. If we had then we would control the resources rather than spending trillions of our own money in an attempt to make this fiasco seem like something other than the political and economic disaster it has become.

Any thug can be successful at breaking and entering.

But "stuff happens", eh?

[lofter1]

conquer (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/conquer)


con·quer (khttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/obreve.gifnghttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/prime.gifkhttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/schwa.gifr)v. con·quered, con·quer·ing, con·quers v.tr. 1. To defeat or subdue by force, especially by force of arms.2. To gain or secure control of by or as if by force of arms: scientists battling to conquer disease; a singer who conquered the operatic world.3. To overcome or surmount by physical, mental, or moral force: I finally conquered my fear of heights. See Synonyms at defeat (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/defeat).v.intr. To be victorious; win.

[lofter1]

and as to the costs ...

Administration Requests more war funding

National Priorities Project (http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=276&Itemid=61)
Monday, 05 February 2007

The administration requested another $100 billion in additional war spending for fiscal year 2007. If Congress appropriates the money as requested, total funding for the Iraq War this fiscal year will climb to more than $140 billion with nearly a half trillion dollars allocated for the Iraq War in total.

The following table shows the taxpayer cost of the Iraq War since is began.

The state breakdowns are based on IRS data and the total of the Iraq War cost is based on Congressional legislation and the administration's most recent emergency request for additional spending in fiscal year 2007 (as presented February 5, 2007). The total does not include money requested by the administration for fiscal year 2008 or 2009.

Full Table of Taxpayer Costs by State (http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=276&Itemid=61)
State......................Taxpayer Cost of the Iraq War

United States, total..............$ 456.1 billion

New Jersey...........................$ 20.8 billion

New York..............................$ 40.9 billion

Cost of Selected Wars (http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=155&Itemid=107)

http://nationalpriorities.org/images/stories/chartspage/warcosts2006.gif

All wars are in 2006 billions of dollars except Iraq which is in current dollars, in other words, it is the running cost from 2003 to present.

Source: National Priorities Project for the Cost of the Iraq War and for the others, Congressional Research Service, RL32090, 'FY2004 Supplemental Appropriations for Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Global War on Terrorism: Military Operations & Reconstruction Assistance, updated October 15, 2003.

[Ninjahedge]

Loft, you are splitting hairs again.

Who did we attack? Saddam
Who did we defeat? Saddam

That is it. Our error was not seeing that Saddam was just the lid on the pressure cooker he was dominating. We never thought seriously of what was inside until after we got rid of him and all this crap started coming out.

We defeated the Iraqi government, its armed forces, its leaders and all of its summary pieces.

Unfortunately, many of those pieces were not destroyed, they just disbanded and went back to their root causes.

So, in short, we conquered Saddam, his forces, his policies, his government. Unfortunately, that was the only thing keeping everyone from trying to grab their own piece of the pie.

So yes, we were sucessful at invading, but not in holding or securing the land that was invaded. (Visions of WWII are starting to form, but I have no direct reference for this...)

[eddhead]

I really don't see how anyone can claim the the invasion of Iraq was NOT a failure.



Some questions to examine when considering the success or failure of the invasion:Did the US and allied forces secure weapons that were in Iraq before the invasion?

Did they secure the borders?

Did they do everything possible to make certain that the inhabitants of the invaded country were not unduly burdened by lack of services, retribution, etc.?

I think you misunderstood the gist of my response, I am by no means justifying invading Iraq. To be clear, the invasion was immoral, and the ovreall campaign was a disaster.

My point was that the first objective of the campaign, i.e. the invasion, was the overthrow of Saddam and his regime, and that objective was achieved. The war itself was ill conceived, and we were completely unprepared to deal with its aftermath. And the justification for going to war was whacked. Nevertheless, That Saddam is gone is evidence that the invasion was succdessfull, or at least the primary objective in invading was.

Your points about not securing the borders, weapons etc.. are all correct.. I would never declare "the mission" to be anything but an abject failure.. and I would never try to justify the morality of going to war preemptively, nor argue about the debacle that followed. Frankly, I think we are just talking about some pretty fine semantics here.

[eddhead]

Loft, you are splitting hairs again.

Who did we attack? Saddam
Who did we defeat? Saddam

That is it. Our error was not seeing that Saddam was just the lid on the pressure cooker he was dominating. We never thought seriously of what was inside until after we got rid of him and all this crap started coming out.

We defeated the Iraqi government, its armed forces, its leaders and all of its summary pieces.

Unfortunately, many of those pieces were not destroyed, they just disbanded and went back to their root causes.

So, in short, we conquered Saddam, his forces, his policies, his government. Unfortunately, that was the only thing keeping everyone from trying to grab their own piece of the pie.

So yes, we were sucessful at invading, but not in holding or securing the land that was invaded. (Visions of WWII are starting to form, but I have no direct reference for this...)


what he said.

[lofter1]

If we conquered Saddam (aka the Baathis regime in Iraq) then why were all of the weapons left about?

You don't think that Saddam's Baathists are not controlling some of what is going on now?

How does one conquer an opposing force without bringing that force under complete control?

I reject any declaration that we conquered Iraq.

What we did was knock a hole in the power stucture.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

[WebErr]

Answer me for just one question:
- What really Saddam did for kill him?

[eddhead]

If we conquered Saddam (aka the Baathis regime in Iraq) then why were all of the weapons left about?

[quote=lofter1;146455]You don't think that Saddam's Baathists are not controlling some of what is going on now?
I would say no. One could argue that no one sectarian group has control of anything in Iraq, and in fact that is the source of the civil war currently under way. The country is governed by a shia Mliki, proped up by radical militant madi, both of whom have deep tribal hatred of the the Baathists

How does one conquer an opposing force without bringing that force under complete control?
The government and the Baathist regime were were overthrown. Clearly we were, and are not prepared to do is manage the peace. We created a power void and in so doing left the door open for Iran to exert increased influence and for terrorist groups to establish a breeding ground. Ill-conceived? certainly. Nevertheless, the fprimary objective of the invasion was achieved.

I reject any declaration that we conquered Iraq.
I did not say we conqured Iraq. We do not control it so we did not conquer it. I said the invasion achived its first objective which was the overthrow of Saddam and hsi regime.

What we did was knock a hole in the power stucture.
Agreed, but we also installed a democratically elected government. True they have limited influence and lack the capacity to govern, which takes us back to our ill-prepared post-war strategy. As much as I hate this campaign, that is a fact that elections were held, and widely participated in is indisputable.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Probably, but please do not miscontrue these statments in any way, as support for the invasion itself or especially not the overall campaign, which I have always considered to be immoral and ill-conceived.

[lofter1]

I think we're not all that far apart in our assessment of this debacle.

Seems I'm just much less optimistic that any of it had an achievable purpose.

And don't you find this somewhat antithetical :confused: ...

... we also installed a democratically elected government

[Ninjahedge]

Sorta.


Also, did you hear the latest in the questions concerning the billions in CASH that was airlifted into Iraq, but no paper trail indicating just where it went?

Interesting how the guy gave the excuse that everyone just does not know how difficult that would have been to get the money where it needed to be when it was needed.

Hmmm. I see cash was burning a hole in their warehouse and they just HAD to throw some at someone without even taking a paper "IOU".

EVERYONE that was involved in the distribution SANS records should be prosecuted in this. NO EXCUSE! Find out where it went and why. Who forced these guys to do this?

Wages for Iraqi forces my arse.

[Ninjahedge]

Oh, my split hair came when you define who we conquered.

We conquered Saddam and his administration. Unfortunately, we did nothing about everything else that was connected. Our elimination of the buffering agent allowed all the free radicals to start mixing, and in turn, burning.

We never conquered the landmass named Iraq. All we did was succeed in invading a small pocket and chopping off its head and arms, not realizing that those arms were more to control the other bodies present and not the actual strength of the country itself.

Once they were removed, the others were free to do what they wanted, and we are now seeing something we can no longer even rightly call Iraq.

Saw a recording of one gentlemen on the Daily show the other day and he pretty much voices what I have been thinking. "Mistakes of Iraq from Wilson to Kennedy to Bush" or something similar.

He states that our current affair is much like what the British did when they first made Iraq. They took a bunch of area they needed for bases in the middle east, and threw in a good deal of Kurdish territory for Oil revenue and though the whole thing could be controlled.

We follow the same tenet, looking at an ideal staging point for Iran. A country that would, in effect, not need any $$ from us due to their own profitable natural resource. But we did not look closely enough at the fact that the person we were attacking was not THE country of Iraq, but merely, as I said before, a buffer (a despotic one) that prevented the whole mass from going critical.



I think we are all pretty much on the same page with this, it is just expressed differently...

[eddhead]

I .

And don't you find this somewhat antithetical :confused: ...
point taken, than again I neve said it was ethical, just succesful. However my choice of words was not good.. established might have been a nicer euphorism.

[eddhead]

Sorta.
Also, did you hear the latest in the questions concerning the billions in CASH that was airlifted into Iraq, but no paper trail indicating just where it went?.

Yes. That is one of the corruption instances i was thinking about when i posted previously about howthe waxman oversight hearings would unearth corruption that will make Saddam look like a piker.I think those hearing are going to be verry intereesting !!

Interesting how the guy gave the excuse that everyone just does not know how difficult that would have been to get the money where it needed to be when it was needed.
Hmmm. I see cash was burning a hole in their warehouse and they just HAD to throw some at someone without even taking a paper "IOU"..

That was a disgrace... but it does have a familiar ring...can you say Katrina?

EVERYONE that was involved in the distribution SANS records should be prosecuted in this. NO EXCUSE! Find out where it went and why. Who forced these guys to do this?.
This may be the smoking gun, politically that a lot of us have been waiting for . The country may have limited tolerance for corruption and waste if it can be demonstrated that said the source of said corruption were national iraqi's.. but if we can ever demonstrate US Govt or corporate intrests (can you say halliburton?) defrauded the taxpayers.. watch out! We have democatic leadership on the oversight and judicial committees and they would like nothing more than to fry a little neocon a$$ over something like this.

[lofter1]

These "conservatives" are so free with the taxpayers cash ...

House Panel Questions Monitoring of Cash
Shipped to Iraq

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/07/world/07bremer.600.jpg
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
Representative John L. Mica, Republican of Florida, holding up worthless Iraqi currency
during a hearing on reconstruction funds.

nytimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/washington/07bremer.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1170878796-1Was4K1Bi5Cy/QlvTlQ0AA)
By PHILIP SHENON
February 7, 2007

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 — A House committee report on Tuesday questioned whether some of the billions of dollars in cash shipped to Iraq after the American invasion — mostly in huge, shrink-wrapped stacks of $100 bills — might have ended up with the insurgent groups now battling American troops.

The report was released by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at a hearing when Democrats sharply questioned the former American civilian administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, about lax management of the nearly $12 billion in cash shipped to Iraq between May 2003 and June 2004.

Mr. Bremer defended his performance as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, noting that the United States had to bring tons of American dollars into Iraq because the country had no functioning banking system.

“We had to pay Iraqis in cash,” Mr. Bremer said of the money, most of which came from Iraqi oil sales. “Delay would have been demoralizing and unfair to millions of Iraqi families.”

Government auditors have repeatedly criticized the American and Iraqi governments for failing to monitor the money once it reached Iraq.

Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is the committee’s new chairman, acknowledged that he had no evidence that Iraqi insurgent groups had received any of the cash. But he suggested that it was possible, given how much money was rushed into the country.

“We have no way of knowing if the cash that was shipped into the Green Zone ended up in enemy hands,” he said. “We owe it to the American people to do everything we can to find out where the $12 billion went.”

The hearing was evidence of the turnaround in Mr. Bremer’s standing in Washington.

Hailed by Republicans and Democrats alike when he last testified at a Congressional hearing in 2004, Mr. Bremer found himself the target of sharp criticism from Democrats on Tuesday. They questioned whether his decisions might help to explain the continuing turmoil in Iraq. He stepped down from his Iraq post in June 2004.

“I acknowledged that I made mistakes,” Mr. Bremer said. “And with the benefit of hindsight, I would have made some decisions differently.” But he said that given the chaos he found after arriving in Iraq in May 2003, “I think we made great progress under some of the most difficult conditions imaginable.”

Mr. Waxman, whose panel is pursuing investigations of fraud and abuse by the federal government and its contractors in Iraq, said he found it remarkable that the Bush administration had decided to send billions of dollars of American currency into Iraq so quickly after the United States occupied the country.

The committee calculated that the $12 billion in cash, most of it in the stacks of $100 bills, weighed 363 tons and had to been flown in on wooden pallets aboard giant C-130 military cargo planes. “Who in their right mind would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone?” Mr. Waxman said. “That’s exactly what our government did.”

Republican committee members accused the panel’s Democratic leaders of rehashing old allegations against Mr. Bremer and the conduct of American forces in Iraq for political gain.

“Self-righteous finger-wagging will not make Iraq any more secure,” said Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, the panel’s ranking Republican. He said Mr. Bremer was asked to take charge of a “country with, basically, no government.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[Ninjahedge]

THAT is what I was talking about!

I guess it was on CNN when I saw it....

I love the way Bremer says:

“We had to pay Iraqis in cash,” Mr. Bremer said of the money, most of which came from Iraqi oil sales. “Delay would have been demoralizing and unfair to millions of Iraqi families.”

Yeah, we all know how joyful everyone would be:

"Your daddy is dead! Here's $25K!!!"

And the defense by Davis is no excuse. paying money to this person or that is one thing, but just throwing at people and NOT KEEPING TRACK OF IT is unforgivable.

Maybe we should have sent the IRS in there with the money.

[milleniumcab]

You can argue/discuss/debate the situation in Iraq all you want. The bottom line is that we opened a can of worms which we had no business opening..The region will pay for it long after we pack up and leave..

Most important thing is this; we could have contained Saddam and keep Iran at bay with the fraction of the cost.. Now it is open house on power game in the Middle East..

One more thing;the Kurds who we back so strongly can never become what we hope they become with closed-in borders. The so-called Kurdistan in northern Iraq is land locked with hostile countries( Syria, Turkey, Iran and whatever the rest of the Iraq might become)...Are we willing to assist them to survive in such environment?.. That's the big question we have to ask ourselves now?...

[BryanSereny]

Look people, here is the bottom line; if you were president you would have gone to war just the same as George Bush.

Lets be realistic here, the poor guys father survived an assassination attempt by Saddam. Now tell me, you wouldn’t have started a war to get revenge for your daddy?

[Punzie]

No. I don't believe in getting revenge when it means sacrificing the lives of other human beings.

[BryanSereny]

No. I don't believe in getting revenge when it means sacrificing the lives of other human beings.

not even if they tried to get your daddy? I'm sure GB jr called GB sr after Saddam was hung and said something like "dady I got em for you, happy new year". :(

[Ninjahedge]

Look people, here is the bottom line; if you were president you would have gone to war just the same as George Bush.

Lets be realistic here, the poor guys father survived an assassination attempt by Saddam. Now tell me, you wouldn’t have started a war to get revenge for your daddy?

No.

If anything, I would have found a way to assasinate him (maybe) or discredit him amongst his suporters.

Doing a war like this is like lighting a flaming bag of poo on his front porch while setting fire to the back.

Childish and twisted in so many ways. GW was not in it to avenge his dad. He was in it to show his dad, the one who was always nagging and pushing him, that he could finish something his father couldn't.

GJ!

[eddhead]

Look people, here is the bottom line; if you were president you would have gone to war just the same as George Bush.

Lets be realistic here, the poor guys father survived an assassination attempt by Saddam. Now tell me, you wouldn’t have started a war to get revenge for your daddy?

ummmm.... no i wouldn't have. i would suggest that if you are likely to prioritize your personal interests ahead of those of the nation, you should not run for president

not even if they tried to get your daddy? I'm sure GB jr called GB sr after Saddam was hung and said something like "dady I got em for you, happy new year". :(

Ironically, there is no question that if GB Sr. were in office instead of Jr. we would not have taken unilateral action against Iraq. It is just not the way he conducted geopolitical action.

[lofter1]

Now tell me, you wouldn’t have started a war to get revenge for your daddy?

Not unless I was a former alcoholic coke head who is a stunted adolescent with a huge sense of entitlement and very little sense of how the world operates -- and who has just a smidgeon of any real empathy.

As has been pointed out: GWB didn't invade Iraq to "get revenge" for daddy -- he did it to prove to daddy that he is now a big man and no longer daddy's boy.

Shameful. Idiotic. Pathetic.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Look people, here is the bottom line; if you were president you would have gone to war just the same as George Bush.Actually, he didn't go to war the same as George Bush.

His father had the experience to understand that, although the highway into Baghdad was open to declare "Mission accomplished," there was a big risk in removing Hussein from power.

I've said before and still believe there was something Oedipal in the way G W Bush rushed headlong into Iraq without any council from his father. It must have been tough for a draft-dodging, partying, spoiled rich kid to have a combat veteran, CIA chief, vice president and president for a father.

"I can do it better than you, dad."

[eddhead]

Actually, he didn't go to war the same as George Bush.

His father had the experience to understand that, although the highway into Baghdad was open to declare "Mission accomplished," there was a big risk in removing Hussein from power.

I've said before and still believe there was something Oedipal in the way G W Bush rushed headlong into Iraq without any council from his father. It must have been tough for a draft-dodging, partying, spoiled rich kid to have a combat veteran, CIA chief, vice president and president for a father.

"I can do it better than you, dad."

This is all very true, but at the end of the day (the collective) we have nobody to blame but ourselves. I will never understand how ANYBODY could have voted for such an obviously underqualifed candidate. Presidential politics is like buying a car. You get what you pay for.

[Ninjahedge]

Correction:

You get what THEY pay for.

[eddhead]

Correction:

You get what THEY pay for.

good point.

[WebErr]

Why you cannot to demand your government stop the war?
It is bad time, when you pay your lifes for the oil.
Big fat purses is only the winners in this situation.
Noone life can be payed by oil. Life if priceless, but they dont think so.:mad:

[ablarc]

Why you cannot to demand your government stop the war?
It is bad time, when you pay your lifes for the oil.
Big fat purses is only the winners in this situation.
Noone life can be payed by oil. Life if priceless, but they dont think so.:mad:
Comfort.

We have become a society of comfort.

[PepeLapiu]

You all remember the Niger Yellowcake report uncovered during the run-up to the war, don't you?
Supposedly, an Italian reporter uncovered a report that showed Iraq was actively seeking Yellowcake uranium from Niger. But she thought that the report was fake, she never wrote a single article about this report, instead she simply handed it over to the British intel people and these guys then passed it on to the Americans.

Then in his state of the union address, Bush spoke of the Yellowcake report, he said that Iraqis are seeking Uranium from Niger according to the Brits intel.
Well, that Bush accepted a fake report at face value is no surprise, we expect politicians to lie to us, that is the very definition of politicians and war mongers.

But the problem is that this report was so obviously fake: several pages were not numbered correctly, some dates didn't match the day of the week and some Niger officials had been out of the loop and retired for several years ..... even the seal on the front page was a fake Niger seal, a very obvious fake too. So how is it that the Brits, the FBI, the CIA and DoD along with the White House didn't catch on that this document was such a fake earlier? How can such an obviously fake report make it into the State of the union address speech?

In order to answer this question, you have to realize that rogue elements within the Brits, the CIA, the FBI and the DoD were deliberately using fake reports. But it goes further. me I just want to know since it is admitted by even the White House that the Niger Yellowcake report was a fake, I would like to know who is making those fake reports and who benefits from those fake reports. You'd think the WH would be able to put a man or two on investigating that question, no?

But again, I understand that the CIA, the FBI, the DoD and the White House are all corrupted beyond belief. But why is it that the entire American press, all millioms of reporters, never bothered to analyze all this? Why is it that a sinple Google search would have shown the report to be a fake yet the entire mass of the American press was busy selling it this lie as "intel not good enough" rather then the obvious B.S. is really was?

[ZippyTheChimp]

No end in sight.


February 12, 2007

Bombings Shake Baghdad, Killing Dozens

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/12/world/middleeast/12cnd-iraq_600.jpg
Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images
Fire swept through buildings after a car bomb blast in a garage under a wholesale market in Baghdad.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 7:21 a.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Thunderous explosions and dense black smoke swirled through the center of Baghdad Monday when at least two car bombs -- one parked in an underground garage -- tore through a crowded marketplace, setting off dozens of secondary explosions and killing at least 71 people, police said. Another bombing nearby killed at least nine.

The blasts shattered the city center on the first anniversary, according to the Muslim lunar calendar, of the bombing of the important Shiite Golden Dome shrine in Samarra. That attack by al-Qaida in Iraq militants set off the torrent of sectarian bloodletting that has turned Baghdad and much of central Iraq into a battleground.

A column of smoke hundreds of feet wide billowed a thousand feet into the air above the market near the east bank of the Tigris River and near the Central Bank building.

Ambulances and pickup trucks rushed many of the wounded to nearby al-Kindi hospital in the largely Shiite region that has been hit by a series of deadly bombings since the first of the year.

The worst carnage occurred about 12:25 p.m. shortly after the Iraqi government called for a 15-minute period of commemoration for the bombing of the golden domed shrine in Samarra a year ago.

The blast obliterated the shops and stalls in a central building in the Shorja market district and billowing smoke blackened the entire area. Police said at least 71 people were killed.

Debris and clothing mannequins were scattered in thick pools of blood on the floor of the warehouse-type building while men tossed plastic chairs onto piles. Two men carried the limp body of one of the victims, while small fires burned in the rubble on the street outside the building.

A shop owner whose business was set on fire said one of the cars was parked in a garage under a two-story market called Al-Arabi, next to the Iraqi central bank. Mohammed Najaim said flames were coming out of the garage, which holds hundreds of cars.

About half an hour earlier, a bomb hidden in a bag exploded in a crowded area near a popular takeaway falafel restaurant in the Bab al-Sharqi area, not far from Shorja, police said, adding that at least nine people were killed and 19 wounded in that blast.

The attacks, which occurred in busy market districts on the east side of the Tigris River, also came despite stepped up security in the capital as U.S. and Iraqi forces have launched a new operation aimed at stopping the sectarian violence that has been on the rise since the Feb. 22 bombing of the mosque in Samarra.

Some storekeepers were trying to salvage merchandise while others were taking their money in small bags. Police and soldiers were deployed in force, and armed men in civilian clothes were searching and questioning people coming to the scene.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, some roads and bridges in Baghdad were cordoned off after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called for a 15-minute sit-in to commemorate the bombing of the al-Askariya or Golden Dome shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad.

''The explosion of the holy shrine pushed the country into blind violence, in which tens of thousands of innocents were killed,'' Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, said in a statement issued Monday before the bombings. ''No one knows by Allah when this tragedy will be over.''

Al-Sistani urged the Iraqi government to rebuild the shrine, whose golden dome was partially torn off by last year's blast. The compound has since been locked and guarded by Iraqi police.

But he also called for restraint among those observing Monday's anniversary.

''We call on the believers to express their emotions but to be cautious and act disciplined, and not to do anything to hurt our brothers the Sunnis, as they are not responsible for this awful crime,'' he said.

About 16,000 demonstrators flooded the main street of the southern city of Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, marching toward two Shiite shrines there. Participants rallied with placards reading, ''No to terrorism'' and ''Iraqis are one people, whether Shiite or Sunni.''

Hundreds of policemen guarded the area, and no violence was reported.

Muqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric who commands one of Iraq's most notorious Shiite militias, the Mahdi Army, was scheduled to speak to supporters in the holy city of Najaf later Monday.

In 2006 alone, the United Nations reported that 34,452 civilians were killed in violence that has left Iraq battered and divided along sectarian lines.

On Monday, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani called the shrine bombing that sparked a year of killings ''a crime against humanity and Islam together.''

''This horrible crime drives us to toward more solidarity and brotherhood,'' Talabani said in a speech in Baghdad.

''We will stay with you until we accomplish a secured, democratic, federal and stable Iraq away from the darkness of terrorism, dictatorship.''

Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi accused al-Qaida of using the Samarra bombing to ''stir sectarianism'' and urged Iraqis to rebuild their country.

''We should not stand thwarted. All Iraqis -- Arabs, Kurds, Turkomen and others -- have to move forward to rebuild the new Iraq after it was ruined for decades,'' he said.

''There is nothing in front of us except to share society together.''


Copyright 2007 The Associated Press

[ZippyTheChimp]

February 11, 2007

The World

Blame (Blank) for Iraq

By HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON

THE blame game on Iraq seems to be reaching a peak. The surest sign is that people inside the Beltway have started to proclaim loudly that they’re not looking to assign any blame.

“This is not at all a finger-pointing exercise,” Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, helpfully told a Senate panel on Tuesday as he explained that other federal agencies weren’t shouldering their responsibility for sending civilians to help out in Iraq.

“Self-righteous finger-wagging will not make Iraq any more secure,” lectured Representative Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican, during a House hearing in which his colleagues tore apart L. Paul Bremer III, the former United States point man in Baghdad after the war.

No one can say with certainty that Iraq is lost; it is too early to say whether President Bush’s new strategy to increase the number of American troops in Baghdad and Anbar by 21,500 won’t work. But, a continent and an ocean away, Washington is already positioning to lay blame if the worst happens. After all, history books are being written right now.

So, in a decidedly gloomy Capitol, a steady succession of administration officials, military types and yesterday’s dignitaries have trooped through various Senate and House hearing rooms to lash out — and be lashed.

Blame the Democrats.

Back when the Republicans were in control of the House and the Senate, they didn’t venture far toward an examination of President Bush’s Iraq strategy. Newly empowered, the Democrats have hauled in everyone but the kitchen sink: from Henry Kissinger to President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

A whole lot of blame has been spread around. The Pentagon took a swing at the State Department, with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates publicly griping to a Senate panel about a State memo asking the military to temporarily fill some Iraq jobs that State is supposed to be responsible for. “If you were troubled by the memo, that was mild compared to my reaction when I saw it,” Mr. Gates said.

The next day, in a telephone interview, Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was asked by State officials to defend them to a reporter, showed that when the chips are down and blame is being assigned, his first priority is not the diplomatic corps. “The military won’t lose this war,” he said, then added, pointedly, “but we won’t win it by ourselves either.”

The State Department shot back, but not with much gusto. David Satterfield, the senior adviser on Iraq, took the high road during a conference call with reporters, eschewing direct criticism of the Pentagon and saying only that “the skill sets needed for the additional staff are not skill sets in which any foreign service in the world, including our own,” are proficient.

Beyond that, State left its blame-mongering to smaller guns, relying on unnamed career employees to point out that if the Pentagon had bothered to include State in the initial postwar planning, Iraq might not be the mess it is today.

Robert K. Brigham, a historian of American foreign relations at Vassar, argues that the finger-pointing is a natural outcome for bureaucrats who are secretly frustrated by American policy in Iraq but unable to change it.

“These different departments are all stuck with the same playbook,” Mr. Brigham says. “In the absence of any kind of movement to change the geometry, this is what you get. You didn’t have this dissension during the Nixon years, you had it in Johnson’s.”

Mr. Brigham said that Lyndon B. Johnson got more flak for Vietnam than Richard M. Nixon did because Mr. Johnson did not make significant changes to Vietnam policy, while Mr. Nixon did, by going to China, among other things. Unless President Bush makes an about-face in American foreign policy, Mr. Brigham argues, by, say, beginning a pullback of troops, the blame game will continue.

Or increase. “This game has got a lot more plays before it plays out,” says Joseph Cirincione, senior vice president for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research group. “Are we reaching a crescendo? Heck no.”

Well, even if the blame game hasn’t reached its zenith, now seems a good time to look at the latest culprits, scapegoats and whipping boys who have become fashionable in Washington. It’s a disparate group.

Whipping Boy: Iran.

Whip: President Bush.

The president upped his rhetoric in January when he unveiled his new troop surge plan, announcing that “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops” in Iraq. Expect more in the coming weeks, as administration officials say they will disclose new intelligence that shows Iran meddling in Iraq.

Whipping Boy: L. Paul Bremer III.

Whip: Henry A. Waxman.

The last time Mr. Bremer, the American civilian administrator in Iraq in 2003-2004, testified before Congress, he was hailed by Republicans and Democrats alike. But that was in the past, before de-Baathification became the dirty word it is now, before the Michael Gordon book and the Tom Ricks book and the Bob Woodward book.

At a House hearing on Wednesday, Representative Mr. Waxman, the California Democrat, upbraided Mr. Bremer for a Bush administration decision to send billions of dollars in cash into Iraq quickly after the United States had occupied the country. “Who in their right mind would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone?” demanded Mr. Waxman. He suggested that some of that money may have ended up financing the insurgency.

Mr. Bremer acknowledged that he made mistakes, but said, “I think we made great progress under some of the most difficult conditions imaginable.”

Whipping Boy: Gen. George W. Casey Jr.

Whip: John McCain.

General Casey, responsible for the Army’s Iraq war strategy for the past two years, appeared before a Senate panel weighing whether to approve his promotion to be the Army’s next chief of staff, and quickly came under attack.

“I question seriously the judgment that was employed in your execution of your responsibilities in Iraq,” Senator McCain informed him. “And we have paid a very, very heavy price in American blood and treasure because of what is now agreed to by literally everyone as a failed policy.”

Mr. McCain then went on to vote against General Casey’s promotion. But the general got the last laugh; the full Senate confirmed him on Thursday by a vote of 83 to 14.

Whipping Boy: Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

Whip: Dinesh D’Souza.

The conservative author argues in his recent book, “The Enemy at Home,” that President Carter’s withdrawal of support for the shah of Iran helped Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s regime gain power in Iran, thus giving radical Islamists control. Mr. D’Souza also says that President Clinton failed to respond to Islamic attacks and thus emboldened Osama bin Laden into thinking he could get away with the Sept. 11 attacks. Therefore, Mr. D’Souza says, American liberals are to blame for the rise of radical Islam and Muslim anger at America.

O.K., this isn’t technically an Iraq finger-point, but it seemed to capture the moment.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/10/weekinreview/11cooper.graphic.1024.871.jpg



Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[eddhead]

You all remember the Niger Yellowcake report uncovered during the run-up to the war, don't you?
Supposedly, an Italian reporter uncovered a report that showed Iraq was actively seeking Yellowcake uranium from Niger. But she thought that the report was fake, she never wrote a single article about this report, instead she simply handed it over to the British intel people and these guys then passed it on to the Americans.

Then in his state of the union address, Bush spoke of the Yellowcake report, he said that Iraqis are seeking Uranium from Niger according to the Brits intel.
Well, that Bush accepted a fake report at face value is no surprise, we expect politicians to lie to us, that is the very definition of politicians and war mongers.

But the problem is that this report was so obviously fake: several pages were not numbered correctly, some dates didn't match the day of the week and some Niger officials had been out of the loop and retired for several years ..... even the seal on the front page was a fake Niger seal, a very obvious fake too. So how is it that the Brits, the FBI, the CIA and DoD along with the White House didn't catch on that this document was such a fake earlier? How can such an obviously fake report make it into the State of the union address speech?

In order to answer this question, you have to realize that rogue elements within the Brits, the CIA, the FBI and the DoD were deliberately using fake reports. But it goes further. me I just want to know since it is admitted by even the White House that the Niger Yellowcake report was a fake, I would like to know who is making those fake reports and who benefits from those fake reports. You'd think the WH would be able to put a man or two on investigating that question, no?

But again, I understand that the CIA, the FBI, the DoD and the White House are all corrupted beyond belief. But why is it that the entire American press, all millioms of reporters, never bothered to analyze all this? Why is it that a sinple Google search would have shown the report to be a fake yet the entire mass of the American press was busy selling it this lie as "intel not good enough" rather then the obvious B.S. is really was?

I agree with the gist of your message, but I am not as ready to implicate the CIA and FBI. It is still unclear to me, whether this was a case of blatenly poor intelligence, or mis-use of the interlligence provided.

For instance, we now that the 'raw intelligence' which I believe eminated from italian sources entered the administration thought the VP's office, and that the VP asked the CIA to investigate. We also know, that the CIA sent Joseph Wilson to Niger and that Wilson wrote a report reputing that intelligence. Yet, the VP claims that report never reached his desk. To me, that is an absolutely incredible statement.. you send the CIA to Niger to check out a report about a rouge dicator potentially getting his hands on some yellowcake, but you do not push to see the result of the investigation? What a bunch of bull$h!t. To me it is clear that the VP did not WANT to see the report because if he saw it he could never justify the invasion in the first place. So what have we learned here class?

1. The President of the US abdicated responsiblity for formulating and implmenting his administration's geopolitical stragegy to the VP. Think about it... this is an incredible statement with implications suggesting that Bush is nothing more than a front man fot at least the administration's foreign policy if not more, and that Chaney is running things behind the scenes. It is akin to the way Tony Saprano and Junior run their family.

2. The administration knew the Niger connection was in fact a fabrication at the time of the 2003 state of the union speach, but elected to keep that section of the speach in tact anyway. This was not a CIA screw-up, Dick Armitrage as much as confirmed that when he had similar wording removed from a speech the president gave a few days earlier in Cincinnati because of Wilson's report. Armitrage has impled that Condi would not allow similar wording to be removed from the State of the Union, because she thought it would undermine her credibility

3. The VP and by proxy the Bush adminsitration (and not the CIA) absolutely fabricated the justification for going to war. They weren't misled, they out and out lied. These bast#&ds shouldn't just be impeached, they should be tried as war criminals.

[Ninjahedge]

I think they slipped up when questioning the VP.

They should have asked about the Yellowcake, then when he said "it never reached my desk" he should have been asked why, as the VP of the US who specifically requested information on possible nuclear threat from a potential combatant that he NEVER PURSUED THE RESULTS OF THAT REPORT BEFORE IT WAS USED IN THE SotU AS A REASON TO GO TO WAR.

That would prove to me that he was either treasonous or incompetent. But the issue was never forced to that dichotomy of choice, they only forced his knowledge of it as guilt and let him slip quietly out the back.

Ah well. I just hope some rakers are gathering enough evidence to put the whole circle behind bars when this administration is done. At this point it would be more scapegoating than anything else, but what better scapegoat than the ones responsible in the first place?

[MidtownGuy]

I want Dick Cheney and the whole cabal to rot in prison.

[milleniumcab]

I want Dick Cheney and the whole cabal to rot in prison.

^^^ and in HELL....

[milleniumcab]

In Northern Iraq, Another War Looms

By BASSEM MROUE and KATHY GANNON
The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 13, 2007; 2:09 PM

KIRKUK, Iraq (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/iraq.html?nav=el) -- While the world focuses on Baghdad's security, a series of bombings here may be the long-feared start of a second deadly war in Iraq _ this one between Kurds and Arabs, both with claims on a territory atop one of the world's largest oil reserves.
If the escalating violence in Kirkuk erupts into all-out fighting between heavily armed Kurdish and Arab groups, it could spark a wider conflict involving Turkey or Iran (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/iran.html?nav=el). That risk puts the United States in a bind, caught between ally Turkey, which is on the side of Arabs and ethnic Turkomen here, and the Kurds, another strong U.S. ally.


The issue is coming to a head because of a provision in the Iraqi constitution that calls for a referendum by year's end on Kirkuk's future. Arabs and Turkomen, backed by Turkey, want to put the vote off _ worried about Kurdish dominance and more violence if the referendum is held and Kurds win.
But Kurds are determined to press ahead. They deny it's because of the black gold in the ground.
"We will have Kirkuk _ not for its oil, but because it is our history," said Rizgar Ali Hamajan, a Kurd who is chief of the local provincial council.
In the past two weeks, the city 180 miles north of Baghdad has suffered a wave of bombings, including six car bombs on one day alone. One targeted a main Kurdish political organization. Another bomb this week seriously wounded a Kurdish teacher. Some Kurds claim that Sunni Arab groups with al-Qaida links are now operating here, but Turkomen and Arabs also have been hit by violence.
The dispute centers on whether this ancient city should become part of the semi-independent Kurdish zone in northeast Iraq, or remain as it is, part of broader Iraq, governed by the Arab-led coalition government in Baghdad. The referendum, whose date has not been agreed upon, would settle that by asking residents which they preferred.
Unlike in Baghdad, in Kirkuk there are sharp lines between the warring sides, a legacy of a battle for dominance here that predates the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.
On one side of the divided city are people like Abdul-Karim Wadi, a Shiite Arab, who got what amounted to thousands of dollars in cash and a free apartment to move to Kirkuk from Baghdad 18 years ago. He was part of Saddam Hussein's campaign to flood the city with Arabs and cleanse it of Kurds.
Now, Wadi says, Kirkuk is his home and he has no plans to leave. He says he had no idea about Saddam's intentions when he moved here.
On the other side are people like Soham Qadir, a plump Kurdish woman with a quick smile, who lives in a two-room house made of mud and stone on the city's northwest fringe. Driven out of Kirkuk in 1995 by Saddam's plan, she and her family returned in 2003 after the U.S.-led invasion _ encouraged to do so by Kurdish politicians.
"We have the right to Kirkuk. It belongs to the Kurds," Qadir said"


Chillingly, each side has increased its warnings that it is armed and ready to fight.Kurds, in particular, have well-armed, highly trained peshmerga militias with years of experience fighting in the past conflicts of northern Iraq.


But Arabs too say they are ready to fight. "We tell the Kurdish political parties to have a clear understanding, that if they try to make Kirkuk a part of Iraqi Kurdistan, then war is coming here," warned Sheik Abdul Rahman Munshid, a Sunni Arab leader.
"They should know we are ready, we are already organized," said Munshid, speaking in his palatial white marble home hidden behind high walls. Munshid's neighborhood is known for its links to Saddam's loyalists and Sunni insurgents, some with al-Qaida links, according to residents.
A powerful ally of the Arabs are the Turkomen, a minority in Iraq concentrated in the north. They accuse Kurds of intimidation bombings and kidnappings against them. They say that by resettling their people, the Kurds are changing the city's ethnic balance and taking away Arabs' and Turkomen's voting rights.
"If Kirkuk goes to Kurdistan, we will fight. I will fight," warned Ali Mehdi Sadiq, a representative of the Turkomen. Such a war, he warns, "will bring in other countries in the region, Turkey and Iran. They care about what happens here."
American experts agree that the referendum carries high risks.
The U.S. Iraq Study Group, the panel led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, said in its report in December that "given the very dangerous situation in Kirkuk ... a referendum on the future of Kirkuk would be explosive and should be delayed."
So far, President Bush's administration has not supported canceling or delaying the vote.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, has warned Turkey against interference.
So far, Turkey has held its fire, despite what is says are frequent provocations. Turkey has been fighting a Kurdish independence movement within its borders and has faced harassing attacks by Kurdish guerrillas, aided by allies who cross the border from Iraq.
Turkey and Iran also fear an economic boom in Iraq's Kurdish region. Should Iraqi Kurds gain control over the Kirkuk oil fields, it could embolden and finance the Kurds inside their own countries to push harder for autonomy. Kirkuk has six oil fields containing one of Iraq's largest oil reserves of about 8 billion barrels.
Both Iran and Turkey have sent additional troops to their borders this year, and fights between Kurdish guerrillas and Iranian security forces also are up.
There are no accurate figures of the numbers of Kurds to return to Kirkuk in the last three years, but estimates range as high as 300,000. Most believe Kurds are now a majority here.
The last ethnic-breakdown census in Iraq was conducted in 1957, well before Saddam began his program to move Arabs to Kirkuk. That count showed 178,000 Kurds, 48,000 Turkomen, 43,000 Arabs and 10,000 Assyrian-Chaldean Christians living in the city.
____
Mroue reported from Baghdad and Gannon from Kirkuk. AP writer Yahya Barzanji in Kirkuk also contributed to this report.

[ZippyTheChimp]

February 14, 2007

House Begins Full Debate on the Iraq War

By JEFF ZELENY and MICHAEL LUO

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 — The House opened a full-throated debate on Tuesday over the Iraq war as lawmakers began considering a resolution to denounce President Bush’s plan to add troops. Democratic leaders said the debate was the first step in using Congressional authority to intervene in the conflict.

“There is no end in sight,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. “The American people have lost faith in President Bush’s course of action in Iraq, and they are demanding a new course of action.”

In the first hours, Democrats sought to present their case through the voices of veterans who are in Congress, offering a narrative running from World War II battlefields to Iraqi deserts.

The debate on the nonbinding resolution, scheduled to end on Friday, is the first substantive war deliberation since the Democrats won control of Congress last year.

Republicans said at least 24 members of their party might join the rebuke of Mr. Bush, and party leaders forcefully defended the Iraq strategy. The resolution would not only send a disturbing message to American troops, they said, but also endanger America.

“This is a political charade lacking both the seriousness and the gravity of the issue that it’s meant to represent,” said Representative John A. Boehner, the Ohio Republican who is minority leader. “The question is. ‘Do we have the resolve necessary to defeat our terrorist enemies?’ ”

After negotiations over competing proposals faltered last week in the Senate, the House picked up the discussion and boiled down its resolution to express support for American forces and disapproval for the plan to add 20,000 troops in Iraq.

On its face, several Republicans conceded, the resolution was difficult to oppose. Two Republicans, John Shadegg of Arizona and Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, instructed their colleagues to make the debate about the fight against terrorism.

“If we let Democrats force us into a debate on the surge or the current situation in Iraq, we lose,” they wrote in a letter.

Many Republicans who spoke on Tuesday appeared to heed that message, framing the war as an important battleground in a global struggle against militant Islam.

“It’s not George Bush’s war,” Representative J. Gresham Barrett, Republican of South Carolina, said. “This is our war. There is only one way out of this war — victory.”

With Democrats controlling the chamber for the first time since the war began, they did not allow Republicans to present amendments to the resolution. The tactic drew objections from Republicans, including Representative David Dreier of California, who said, “Our Democratic colleagues are running roughshod over our national security.”

Democrats dismissed the criticism, but sought to temper the tone of the debate, and the scope of the resolution, to avoid alienating all Republicans. Democratic leaders also distributed information sheets to help respond to Republican criticisms and shape floor speeches. Each representative is allotted at least five minutes for the floor speeches.

The debate, which was scheduled to proceed to midnight for three days in a row, was tightly choreographed. Democrats started with the war veterans, leaving many of the fiercest war critics until later. Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, for example, did not speak until after the dinner hour.

“My experience during World War II was much different than the hell our men and women in Iraq now must face,” said Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan. “Sixty years ago, we knew our mission. We knew the outcome, and we knew the battle lines.”

Representative Patrick J. Murphy, Democrat of Pennsylvania, is the lone Iraq veteran in Congress. Before winning election in November, he was a captain in the 82nd Airborne. He was awarded a Bronze Star for his Iraq service from 2003 to 2004.

“The president’s plan to send more of our best and bravest to die refereeing a civil war in Iraq is wrong,” said Mr. Murphy, who recalled leading convoys up what was known as Ambush Alley in Baghdad. “The president’s current strategy is not resolute. It is reckless.”

Off the floor, both parties monitored the debate, particularly its ramifications for new members who could be vulnerable in the next elections. Shortly after Mr. Murphy finished speaking, Republican strategists sent an e-mail message to reporters highlighting a quotation from 2004 when he spoke highly of the administration’s Iraq plan.

Republican leaders and administration officials worked behind the scenes to prevent a wide defection. The White House arranged a briefing for selected members, linking them by secure satellite to Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV in Baghdad, who spoke of the need for a troop increase.

Ambassadors from several Middle East countries met several Republicans and warned them of the consequences of withdrawing troops.

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, ranking Republican on the House International Relations Committee, seized on that argument and suggested that a rebuke to the president would resonate far beyond the Capitol and make the United States look weak.

As Ms. Ros-Lehtinen spoke, she pointed to photographs of two family members in uniform who have served in Iraq.

“Our words will be heard by our friends, but also by our enemies,” she said. “No weakness of ours will go unnoticed.”

The discussion foreshadowed an intense debate as Democrats prepare to assert authority over war spending. To fight accusations that they are failing to support the troops, Democratic leaders are leaning toward attaching conditions to money, not simply blocking it for financing the Iraq and Afghanistan operations.

The conditions could include barring the financing of permanent military bases in Iraq and limiting deployments of National Guard troops to no more than two tours of duty.

As the debate proceeded, the rumblings of the far more complicated debate on financing began to surface from several Democrats who are urging the party to consider reduced war financing. Such a step is precarious, particularly for lawmakers outside Democratic strongholds.

Not so for Representative Maxine Waters of California, who leads the 75-member Out of Iraq caucus. Ms Waters called the resolution a first step in “reining in this president and his misguided policies.”

As her voice rose, she said she had no choice but to oppose continuing to funnel money to this “war giant whose appetite cannot be satisfied.”

Robin Toner contributed reporting.


Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[ZippyTheChimp]

February 15, 2007

12 Republicans Break Ranks on Iraq Resolution

By JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 — A dozen Republicans arrived in the House chamber on Wednesday to set aside their party allegiances and lend their names to a resolution intended to rebuke President Bush for his Iraq policy.

Representative Howard Coble of North Carolina said that Iraqis had their chance at freedom, but chose civil war. Representative Steven C. LaTourette of Ohio argued that troop buildup was a tactic that had already failed. And Representative John J. Duncan Jr. of Tennessee suggested that military contractors had profited mightily at the expense of the American treasury.

As they spoke in the capital on the second day of an extensive debate over the Iraq war, Mr. Bush called a White House news conference to defend his plan to send more troops to Baghdad. He said that there would be more violence, but that the plan would provide breathing space to the Iraqi government as it worked to stabilize the country.

“They have every right to express their opinion,” Mr. Bush said of the debate in Congress. Yet he warned lawmakers against taking additional steps to limit war financing when they considered his military budget request next month, saying, “They need to fund our troops.”

Democratic leaders, even as they condemn the president’s Iraq strategy, have vowed not to cut financing for the troops already in Iraq. But pressure is increasing inside the party for more scrutiny on war spending when the administration’s military budget request is considered by Congress next month.

The proceedings on Capitol Hill foreshadowed challenges to come in both parties as Republicans seek to persuade fiscal conservatives to invest more money in the war and as Democrats determine whether they intend to take a stand to limit financing of the war.

“I insist that we do not maintain an eternal presence in Iraq,” Mr. Coble said, “if for no other reason than the cost to taxpayers, which has been astronomically unbelievable.”

Congressional debate this week is largely revolving around a resolution intended to express support for troops and oppose the president’s plan to expand the military operation in Iraq. Even though most Republicans oppose the proposal, the testimony from a handful of Republicans on Wednesday suggested that the deliberations were no longer unfolding along partisan lines.

Representative Walter B. Jones of North Carolina opened the debate on Wednesday by reading a newspaper clipping from before Mr. Bush was elected. It was 1999, and the topic was a Congressional debate over military escalation in Bosnia, which Republicans sought to quash by sending a nonbinding resolution to President Clinton.

Holding a sheet of paper, Mr. Jones quoted Karen Hughes, a chief adviser to Mr. Bush, who declared, “If we’re going to commit more troops, we want to be sure they have a clear exit strategy.” The message, Mr. Jones argued, could apply to the current Iraq debate.

For a time on Wednesday, an unusual scene played out on the House floor, with some Republicans coming forward one by one to speak against the Iraq policy while fellow party members argued against them.

“We need to tell all these defense contractors that the time for this Iraqi gravy train, with their obscene profits, is over,” said Mr. Duncan, the congressman from Tennessee. “It is certainly no criticism of our troops to say that this was a very unnecessary war. This war went against every conservative position I have ever known.”

Representative Ric Keller, a Florida Republican who said he was simply passing along common-sense advice from his constituents, compared the Iraqi government to an ungrateful next-door neighbor.

“Imagine your next-door neighbor refuses to mow his lawn and the weeds are all the way up to his waist, so you decide you’re going to mow his lawn for him every single week,” Mr. Keller said. “The neighbor never says thank you, he hates you and sometimes he takes out a gun and shoots you. Under these circumstances, do you keep mowing his lawn for ever?

“Do you send even more of your family members over to mow his lawn?” he added. “Or do you say to that neighbor, you better step it up and mow your own lawn or there’s going to be serious consequences for you.”

A majority of House Republicans have assertively defended the administration during the Iraq debate, accusing their Democratic rivals of being a weak link in the fight against terrorism. Those accusations seemed to soften a bit on Wednesday, when suddenly the person on the other side of the argument was another Republican.

Representative Heather Wilson, a New Mexico Republican, said she opposed the troop increase in Iraq but declined to support the resolution. She infuriated Democrats when she hinted that their party was considering plans to limit war financing.

“What about the five brigades of young Americans who are now preparing their families and packing their gear to deploy?” Ms. Wilson said. “What about them? What are you saying to them? Will we buy body armor for them? Will we have armored Humvees for them?”

Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic majority leader, rushed to the House chamber and delivered a sharp rebuttal to Ms. Wilson. “If the commander in chief has sent them there, we will support them,” he said.

The House is scheduled to conclude the debate Friday. The Senate intends to consider a similar resolution when it returns from next week’s Congressional recess. Republican Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine urged Senate leaders late Wednesday to cancel the recess so the Iraq debate could proceed.

Earlier this month, when the Senate had intended to take up an Iraq resolution, a procedural and political stalemate stymied debate. As deliberations stretched on into the night, the themes of the debate carried a familiar ring as each member of Congress was given at least five minutes to speak. Nearly every Democratic speaker rose to assail Mr. Bush, while Republicans came to his aid. Even Mr. Coble, who delivered one of the day’s most stinging assessments of the administration’s Iraq policy, said he liked Mr. Bush.

“Some Americans — and some in this body — oppose the Iraqi operation because they dislike President Bush,” Mr. Coble said. “I, however, do not march to that drum. I am personally very high on President Bush, but on the matter of troop escalation, I am not in agreement.”


Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[ManhattanKnight]

February 18, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist

Oh What a Malleable War

By FRANK RICH

MAYBE the Bush White House can’t conduct a war, but no one has ever impugned its ability to lie about its conduct of a war. Now even that well-earned reputation for flawless fictionalizing is coming undone. Watching the administration try to get its story straight about Iran’s role in Iraq last week was like watching third graders try to sidestep blame for misbehaving while the substitute teacher was on a bathroom break. The team that once sold the country smoking guns in the shape of mushroom clouds has completely lost its mojo.

Surely these guys can do better than this. No sooner did unnamed military officials unveil their melodramatically secretive briefing in Baghdad last Sunday than Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, blew the whole charade. General Pace said he didn’t know about the briefing and couldn’t endorse its contention that the Iranian government’s highest echelons were complicit in anti-American hostilities in Iraq. Public-relations pandemonium ensued as Tony Snow, the State Department and finally the president tried to revise the story line on the fly. Back when Karl Rove ruled, everyone read verbatim from the same script. Last week’s frantic improvisations were vintage Scooter Libby, at best the ur-text for a future perjury trial.

Yet for all the sloppy internal contradictions, the most incriminating indictment of the new White House disinformation campaign is to be found in official assertions made more than a year ago. The press and everyone else seems to have forgotten that the administration has twice sounded the same alarms about Iranian weaponry in Iraq that it did last week.

In August 2005, NBC News, CBS News and The Times cited unnamed military and intelligence officials when reporting, as CBS put it, that “U.S. forces intercepted a shipment from Iran containing professionally made explosive devices specifically designed to penetrate the armor which protects American vehicles.” Then, as now, those devices were the devastating roadside bombs currently called E.F.P.’s (explosively formed penetrators). Then, as now, they were thought to have been brought into Iraq by members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Then, as now, there was no evidence that the Iranian government was directly involved. In February 2006, administration officials delivered the same warning yet again, before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Timing is everything in propaganda, as in all showmanship. So why would the White House pick this particular moment to mount such an extravagant rerun of old news, complete with photos and props reminiscent of Colin Powell’s infamous presentation of prewar intelligence? Yes, the death toll from these bombs is rising, but it has been rising for some time. (Also rising, and more dramatically, is the death toll from attacks on American helicopters.)

After General Pace rendered inoperative the first official rationale for last Sunday’s E.F.P. briefing, President Bush had to find a new explanation for his sudden focus on the Iranian explosives. That’s why he said at Wednesday’s news conference that it no longer mattered whether the Iranian government (as opposed to black marketeers or freelance thugs) had supplied these weapons to Iraqi killers. “What matters is, is that they’re there,” he said. The real point of hyping this inexact intelligence was to justify why he had to take urgent action now, no matter what the E.F.P.’s provenance: “My job is to protect our troops. And when we find devices that are in that country that are hurting our troops, we’re going to do something about it, pure and simple.”

Darn right! But if the administration has warned about these weapons twice in the past 18 months (and had known “that they’re there,” we now know, since 2003), why is Mr. Bush just stepping up to that job at this late date? Embarrassingly enough, The Washington Post reported on its front page last Monday — the same front page with news of the Baghdad E.F.P. briefing — that there is now a shortfall of “thousands of advanced Humvee armor kits designed to reduce U.S. troop deaths from roadside bombs.” Worse, the full armor upgrade “is not scheduled to be completed until this summer.” So Mr. Bush’s idea of doing something about it, “pure and simple” is itself a lie, since he is doing something about it only after he has knowingly sent a new round of underarmored American troops into battle.

To those who are most suspicious of this White House, the “something” that Mr. Bush really wants to do has little to do with armor in any case. His real aim is to provoke war with Iran, no matter how overstretched and ill-equipped our armed forces may be for that added burden. By this line of thinking, the run-up to the war in Iraq is now repeating itself exactly and Mr. Bush will seize any handy casus belli he can to ignite a conflagration in Iran.
Iran is an unquestionable menace with an Israel-hating fanatic as its president. It is also four times the size of Iraq and a far more dangerous adversary than was Saddam’s regime. Perhaps Mr. Bush is as reckless as his harshest critics claim and will double down on catastrophe. But for those who don’t hold quite so pitch-black a view of his intentions, there’s a less apocalyptic motive to be considered as well.

Let’s not forget that the White House’s stunt of repackaging old, fear-inducing news for public consumption has a long track record. Its reason for doing so is always the same: to distract the public from reality that runs counter to the White House’s political interests. When the Democrats were gaining campaign traction in 2004, John Ashcroft held an urgent news conference to display photos of seven suspected terrorists on the loose. He didn’t bother to explain that six of them had been announced previously, one at a news conference he had held 28 months earlier. Mr. Bush played the same trick last February as newly declassified statistics at a Senate hearing revealed a steady three-year growth in insurgent attacks: he breathlessly announced a thwarted Qaeda plot against the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles that had already been revealed by the administration four months before.

We know what Mr. Bush wants to distract us from this time: Congressional votes against his war policy, the Libby trial, the Pentagon inspector general’s report deploring Douglas Feith’s fictional prewar intelligence, and the new and dire National Intelligence Estimate saying that America is sending troops into the cross-fire of a multifaceted sectarian cataclysm.

That same intelligence estimate also says that Iran is “not likely to be a major driver of violence” in Iraq, but no matter. If the president can now whip up a Feith-style smoke screen of innuendo to imply that Iran is the root of all our woes in the war — and give “the enemy” a single recognizable face (Ahmadinejad as the new Saddam) — then, ipso facto, he is not guilty of sending troops into the middle of a shadowy Sunni-Shiite bloodbath after all.

Oh what a malleable war Iraq has been. First it was waged to vanquish Saddam’s (nonexistent) nuclear arsenal and his (nonexistent) collaboration with Al Qaeda. Then it was going to spread (nonexistent) democracy throughout the Middle East. Now it is being rebranded as a fight against Tehran. Mr. Bush keeps saying that his saber rattling about Iran is not “a pretext for war.” Maybe so, but at the very least it’s a pretext for prolonging the disastrous war we already have.

What makes his spin brazen even by his standards is that Iran is in fact steadily extending its influence in Iraq — thanks to its alliance with the very Iraqi politicians that Mr. Bush himself has endorsed. In December the president welcomed a Shiite leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, to the White House with great fanfare; just three weeks later American forces had to raid Mr. Hakim’s Iraq compound to arrest Iranian operatives suspected of planning attacks against American military forces, possibly with E.F.P.’s. As if that weren’t bad enough, Nuri al-Maliki’s government promptly overruled the American arrests and ordered the operatives’ release so they could escape to Iran. For all his bluster about doing something about it, Mr. Bush did nothing.

It gets worse. This month we learned that yet another Maliki supporter in the Iraqi Parliament, Jamal Jafaar Mohammed Ali Ebrahimi, was convicted more than two decades ago of planning the murderous 1983 attacks on the American and French Embassies in Kuwait. He’s now in Iran, but before leaving, this terrorist served as a security adviser, no less, to the first Iraqi prime minister after the American invasion, Ibrahim al-Jafaari. Mr. Jafaari, hailed by Mr. Bush as “a strong partner for peace and freedom” during his own White House visit in 2005, could be found last week in Tehran, celebrating the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution and criticizing America’s arrest of Iranian officials in Iraq.

Even if the White House still had its touch for spinning fiction, it’s hard to imagine how it could create new lies brilliant enough to top the sorry truth. When you have a president making a big show of berating Iran while simultaneously empowering it, you’ve got another remake of “The Manchurian Candidate,” this time played for keeps.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[vosh]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050228/klein

This is one of those remove the scales from your eyes articles.

[BenL]

Blair 'to confirm Iraq timetable'


http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42469000/jpg/_42469955_basraapbody.jpg Some 7,000 UK troops are currently serving in Iraq

Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to announce a timetable for the withdrawal of UK troops from Iraq. Mr Blair is due to make a statement about the 7,000 British troops serving in Iraq at the Commons on Wednesday.

The BBC's James Landale said 1,500 troops were expected to return home in months, rising to 3,000 by Christmas.
Downing Street has not confirmed the reports but Whitehall sources have told the BBC the process could be slowed down if the situation in Iraq worsens.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif
A Downing Street spokesman said: "It is right that the prime minister should update Parliament first."
However, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe confirmed that President George W Bush had spoken to Mr Blair on Tuesday. Mr Bush recently announced plans to send 21,500 more US troops to Iraq.
Mr Johndroe said: "While the United Kingdom is maintaining a robust force in southern Iraq, we're pleased that conditions in Basra have improved sufficiently that they are able to transition more control to the Iraqis.
"The United States shares the same goal of turning responsibility over to the Iraqi Security Forces and reducing the number of American troops in Iraq."
BBC political correspondent James Landale said: "We have been expecting an announcement for some time on this."
However, he said reports that all troops will have returned home by the end of 2008 was "not a fair representation of what is true at the moment".

'Disastrous signal'
Our correspondent said senior Whitehall sources had told him that the pullout was "slightly slower" than they had expected and "if conditions worsen this process could still slow up".
Defence Secretary Des Browne said last November that the number of UK troops in Iraq was set to be "significantly lower by a matter of thousands" by the end of 2007.
Last month, the Liberal Democrats called for all UK troops to be withdrawn by October.
But Mr Blair said that to "set an arbitrary timetable... that we will pull British troops out in October, come what may... would send the most disastrous signal to the people we are fighting in Iraq".

BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6380933.stm)

[Punzie]

Buildup in Iraq Needed Into ’08, U.S. General Says

By DAVID S. CLOUD (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/david_s_cloud/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and MICHAEL R. GORDON (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/michael_r_gordon/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
The New York Times
March 8, 2007

WASHINGTON, March 7 — The day-to-day commander of American forces in Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) has recommended that the heightened American troop levels there be maintained through February 2008, military officials said Wednesday.

The White House has never said exactly how long it intends the troop buildup to last, but military officials say the increased American force level will begin declining in August unless additional units are sent or more units are held over.

The confidential assessment by the commander, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, reflects the military’s new counterinsurgency doctrine, which puts a premium on sustained efforts to try to win over a wary population. It also stems from the complex logistics of deploying the five additional combat brigades that are being sent to Iraq as part of what the White House calls a “surge” of forces.

In fact, for now, it is really more of a trickle, since only two of the five brigades are in Iraq. The American military is stretched so thin that the last of the brigades is not expected to begin operations until June.

In both the House and the Senate, most Democrats and many Republicans (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org) have made clear their opposition even to the current troop increase, and a decision by the White House to extend its duration would probably intensify the political debate over the war.

Democratic lawmakers most strenuously opposed to the war are likely to point to the increased stress on the armed forces in trying to persuade party leaders to back a plan that would cut off financing for any troop increase, a course that the Democratic leadership has so far declined to embrace. In its effort to blunt the Congressional opposition to the new strategy, the Bush administration has cited what it calls early signs of progress, including a reduction in sectarian killings in Baghdad. But military officials say it is far too soon to draw any firm conclusions.

President Bush has often said that he will listen closely to advice from commanders in the field in making decisions about strategy and manpower in Iraq, but Pentagon officials emphasized Wednesday that no decision to extend the “surge” had been made. Military officials said General Odierno had provided his assessment to his superior, Gen. David H. Petraeus (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/david_h_petraeus/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who took over as the top American commander in Iraq this year. General Petraeus has yet to make a formal recommendation to the Pentagon.

But the question of how long the buildup should last has already become the focus of major concern for the Joint Chiefs of Staff (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/j/joint_chiefs_of_staff/index.html?inline=nyt-org) and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/robert_m_gates/index.html?inline=nyt-per).

“We’re looking, as we should, at each of the three possibilities: hold what you have, come down, or plus up if you need to,” Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon.

General Pace said that “early data points” showed that sectarian attacks were slightly down since the Baghdad operation began. But he said that the increase in car bombs suggested that Al Qaeda (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda/index.html?inline=nyt-org) in Mesopotamia was trying to incite further hostilities with this method.

When the Bush administration announced its troop buildup in January, it said it was sending 21,500 troops to Baghdad and Anbar Province. Since then, the Pentagon has said that as many as 7,000 additional support troops would also be deployed, including some 2,200 additional military police that General Petraeus had asked for to handle an anticipated increase in detainees. These increases would bring the total number of American troops in Iraq to around 160,000.

Any extension of the troop buildup would add to the strain on Army and Marine forces that have already endured years of continuous deployments. According to the current schedule, a Minnesota National Guard brigade whose Iraq deployment was extended as part of the troop reinforcement is to leave in August. A senior Pentagon official said that the number of forces would be down to “presurge” levels in December unless additional units were sent or kept longer.

Decisions need to be made soon, Army officials say, to identify potential replacement units or extensions. To meet troop requirements, the Army would need to look seriously at mobilizing additional National Guard units later this year.

Another point of stress is the amount of time active duty units have spent in the United States between deployments. It takes around a year at home to prepare a combat brigade for Iraq. The Army generally has been able to avoid sending units back to Iraq or Afghanistan without at least a year at home.

But if Mr. Bush decides to extend the buildup, the first of the Army brigades to return to Iraq with less than a year at home are likely to do so later this year.

“As you move to less than a year, you’re beginning to erode the ability of the service chiefs to produce a ready force,” said a senior Pentagon official, who emphasized that the United States needed to be prepared to deal with a range of threats.

Despite the strains, some military officials in Iraq say it is unrealistic to expect a troop buildup of several months to create enough of a breathing space for Iraqis to achieve political reconciliation. “There is Washington time and Baghdad time,” said a senior Defense official in Iraq. “Some in Washington want it now, and there is reality on the ground in Baghdad. They don’t always match.”

One concern is that Shiite militants and some insurgents will try to outlast the American troops if the buildup is too short. A longer buildup would give the American and Iraqi forces more time to disperse economic assistance, provide better protection to Iraqi neighborhoods and try to win over the Iraqi public.

“You have to protect the people long enough to get economic assistance to them and change their attitude and change their behavior,” said Jack Keane, the retired vice chief of staff of the Army, who has argued that the troop buildup should last 12 to 18 months. “You cannot do that in weeks. It takes months to do that. The problem with the short-term surge is that the enemy can wait you out.”

The recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq also suggested that the Iraqi Security Forces would not be able to assume the major responsibility for securing Baghdad in the near future. An unclassified version of the report noted that “the Iraqi Security Forces, particularly the Iraqi police, will be hard pressed in the next 12 to 18 months to execute significantly increased security responsibilities, and particularly to operate independently against Shia militias with success.”

Given the time needed to adjust training schedules and prepare units, decisions may need to be made before there is clear evidence about whether the new strategy is working. “If he defers some decisions he potentially will foreclose deployment options downstream because people won’t begin to move,” said a Pentagon official, referring to Secretary Gates. “By deferring a decision he will in effect be making a decision.”
The additional American troops in the troop reinforcement plan are intended to support a new strategy in which American forces are taking up positions in Baghdad neighborhoods and not limiting themselves to conducting patrols from large bases. Iraqi security forces in Baghdad are also being expanded, including by the addition of Iraqi Army units largely made up of Kurds.

The strategy calls for the establishment of 10 districts in Baghdad. At least one American battalion is to be paired with Iraqi units in each district. The hope is that this plan will afford more protection to the Iraqi public and, along with political and economic moves by the government, head off further bloodletting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/washington/08military.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1173368767-XIcRif/CjjAeWHKmEzQGTg&oref=slogin

[lofter1]

Last night on Charlie Rose the Governor of Montana was on -- BRIAN SCHWEITZER, an Agronomist and seemingly a pretty smart guy.

You can find the interview HERE (http://www.charlierose.com/)

He said what very few other politicans have dared to say: The US will continue to have 100,00 + troops in the area of the mid-east oil region until we longer import oil from that area. And that any removal of troops from that region will not happen until the US gets an energy policy that allows us to be far more self-sufficient than we are now.

Another interesting point: Schweitzer worked for 8 years a number of years ago as an advisor and agronomist to help Saudi Arabia develop irrigation systems which eventually allowed them to become food independent. Previously the US traded oil for wheat with SA, but the Saudi's didn't like being dictated to by US policy-makers. They realized that if they produced their own wheat that the US couldn't use that as a bargaining chip when dealing with the Saudis. Now the Saudis export wheat.

One has to ask why the US -- despite knowing for 30+ years that it is in our national interest to become energy independent -- has failed to come up with an energy plan whereby we can control our destiny.

[Ninjahedge]

Because the people in power are being paid off.

The decision makers are primarily in corporate America's pocket when it comes to decisions like these and they will try to make it so that they ones that pay get what they need to reap whatever profits they can.

The fact that it is nearly impossible for the big oil companies to monopolize things like Corn and Sugar cane production the world over (at least, at this moment) they are not encouraged, even with sizable grants or tax incentives, to persue alternate energy methods.

If they had any smarts, they would be researching ways to store electrical energy that they could patent and still be in control no matter how we generated it.

But, then again, who says they aren't?

[eddhead]

^^
and if you do not think it is true that decision makers are being paid off, ask yourself why Chaney STILL will not divulge the participants/authors of the 2000 energy policy conference....

[BrooklynRider]

There's also the AIPAC influence. Our continued role in Iraq gives Iran two adversaries to deal with, the US (from east in Iraq and west in Afghanistan) and Israel. There has been much written about the AIPAC influence on the foreign policy of this country as well as the selection of policy advisors.

[lofter1]

Privatized Walter Reed Workforce Gets Scrutiny

Army Facility Lost Dozens Of Maintenance Workers

Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/09/AR2007030902082_pf.html)
By Steve Vogel and Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 10, 2007

The scandal over treatment of outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center has focused attention on the Army's decision to privatize the facilities support workforce at the hospital, a move commanders say left the building maintenance staff undermanned.

Some Democratic lawmakers have questioned the decision to hire IAP Worldwide Services, a contractor with connections to the Bush administration and to KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary.

Last year, IAP won a $120 million contract to maintain and operate Walter Reed facilities. The decision reversed a 2004 finding by the Army that it would be more cost-effective to keep the work in-house. After IAP protested, Army auditors ruled that the cost estimates offered by in-house federal workers were too low. They had to submit a new bid, which added 23 employees and $16 million to their cost, according to the Army.

Yesterday, the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal workers union, blamed pressure on the Army from the White House's Office of Management and Budget for the decision to privatize its civilian workforce.

"Left to its own devices, the Army would likely have suspended this privatization effort," John Gage, president of the organization, said in a statement. "However, the political pressure from OMB left Army officials with no choice but to go forward, even if that resulted in unsatisfactory care to the nation's veterans."

The Army selected IAP for the five-year deal in January 2006, but IAP did not take over management until last month. During that period, the number of facilities management workers at Walter Reed dropped from about 180 to 100, and the hospital found it hard to hire replacements.

Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, who was Walter Reed's commander until he was relieved last week, testified this week that the privatization -- in combination with a decision by the Pentagon in 2005 to close Walter Reed by 2011 -- "absolutely" contributed to the problems.

IAP said in a statement it has "responded with a sense of urgency to address maintenance concerns throughout the [Walter Reed] complex."

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) charged this week that the Bush administration had unfairly blamed federal workers for problems "that are a direct result of the Bush administration's contracting out policy."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

IAP, based in Cape Canaveral, has provided such services to the government as delivering ice in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina and helping maintain Afghanistan's air traffic control system. In 2006, the firm had $393 million in military contracts, according to Pentagon data.

IAP is owned by Cerberus Capital Management LP, an asset-management firm chaired by former Treasury secretary John W. Snow.

The company is headed by two former high-ranking executives of KBR, formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root.

Al Neffgen, IAP's chief executive, was chief operating officer for a KBR division before joining IAP in 2004. IAP's president, Dave Swindle, is a former KBR vice president.

The company has worked at Walter Reed since 2003, providing housekeepers, computer analysts and clerks under a Treasury contract.

In an unrelated case, the U.S. attorney's office in Maryland announced that a Rockville contractor, Leon Krachyna Jr., pleaded guilty yesterday to a charge of bribing a Walter Reed official.

The official, Kevin R. Roach, was indicted in October for conspiracy and obstruction. According to court papers, Roach, a civilian contract specialist for the Army Medical Command, received kickbacks between 1999 and 2003 in exchange for favorable treatment of companies controlled by Krachyna and his partner, Louis Pisani Jr. Roach and Pisani await trial.

At a Fort Myer ceremony yesterday, the Army bade farewell to Secretary Francis J. Harvey, forced to resign over Walter Reed. Leaders, he said, must show "that they will be held personally accountable for their decisions."

© 2007 The Washington Post Company

[lofter1]

http://www.iapws.com/images/homeLogo.jpg

http://www.iapws.com/ (http://www.iapws.com/)

Google Search (http://http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Al+Neffgen%22) for Al Neffgen (IAP's chief executive, former chief operating officer at Kellogg Brown & Root)

Some of what is found:

Privatizing Walter Reed: Rich Get Richer, Veterans Get Screwed (http://mainstusa.blogspot.com/2007/03/privatizing-walter-reed-rich-get-richer.html)

http://www.petermoss.org/Privatize.jpg (http://www.petermoss.org/Privatize.jpg)
I've never understood the premise of privatization. Why does adding a profit motive to a third party improve government services? Answer: It doesn't. It just allows private companies to pay workers less and give them poorer benefits to do the same job, then transfers the cost savings into the pockets of the owners of the private company. And some of those companies also cut the numbers of workers doing the work. Like IAP Worldwide, which has replaced 300 federal support services workers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center with 50 private employees. The result? Dan Quayle, John Snow and Al Neffgen get richer. Who got poorer? The workers who now work for IAP don't make the wages of federal workers, and don't have equivalent benefits. But most horrifying, the maimed and brain-damaged soldiers at Walter Reed are suffering because our government chose to put money into the pockets of their rich friends rather than put money into caring for the veterans injured in their immoral, illegal war. Sickening.

Metrowest Daily News (Framingham, MA): Editorial: Privatizing Walter Reed (http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/x1905897678)

As a letter from the House committee investigating Walter Reed stated, "it would be reprehensible if the deplorable conditions were caused or aggravated by an ideological commitment to privatize government services regardless of the costs to taxpayers and the consequences for wounded soldiers.
The thread of privatization and cronyism runs through this administration's disasters: from Abu Ghraib, where private contractors had a role in intelligence-gathering, to New Orleans, where a major city paid the price after political appointees replaced experienced emergency service professionals at FEMA.Palm Beach (FL) Post editorial: Failures at Walter Reed expose VA system failure (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2007/03/07/m12a_leadedit_walterreed_0307.html)Incredibly, despite the rising numbers of those who will need care, the White House is proposing a VA budget that is essentially flat from last year. The administration wants to cut money for prosthetic research and provide inadequate financing for the backlog of cases that only will grow. Yet on Tuesday, Mr. Bush called on Congress to "fund our war fighters." Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson, whose "qualification" was running the Republican National Committee, has compounded the administration's indifference with insulting rhetoric. Asked about the 200,000-plus who have tried to get care, Mr. Nicholson says, "A lot of them come in for dental problems."YahooNews: Deborah Burger, HuffPo: We're All at Walter Reed (http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20070306/cm_huffpost/042748)

It starts with brutally substandard care and abandonment of tens of thousands of veterans, not just at Walter Reed, but at VA hospitals and clinics around the country, as the Washington Post has revealed in ghastly detail.
Second, starving the VA. Since 2001, as Paul Krugman reported in the New York Times, federal allocations for veterans medical care lag behind overall healthcare spending, rather stunning when you consider we have sent 1.5 million of our young men and women to Iraq and Afghanistan and over 184,000 have sought VA care after serving.
There's more. Due to funding cuts, some 263,257 veterans were denied enrollment for Veterans Administration health coverage in 2005. To cut costs, enrollment has been suspended for those deemed not having service-related injuries or illnesses. So much for the guarantee of lifetime healthcare. And, if all the other indignities were not enough, some Walter Reed patients had to buy their own meals.
The final piece of this unholy troika is privatization. As the Army Times notes, Walter Reed handed a five-year $120 million contract to a private company run by an ex-Halliburton executive. The contracting out of support services was followed by a mass exodus of support personnel.Christian Science Monitor: How decay overtook Walter Reed
The problems at the US Army hospital show how strained military resources have become. (http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0307/p01s01-usmi.html)

***

U.S. Auditors Accuse Halliburton of Delays --- Pentagon Claims Company Is Holding Back Documents Related to Contract Dispute

The Asian Wall Street Journal (http://foi.missouri.edu/usenergypolicies/auditors.html)
Dec. 22, 2003

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Defense Department auditors have accused Halliburton Co. of refusing to turn over internal documents that show the company was aware of accounting problems related to an Iraqi fuel contract that allegedly has overcharged U.S. taxpayers so far nearly $100 million (bold added).

The dispute over the documents is laid out in a Dec. 10 letter from the Defense Contract Audit Agency to a top official at Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary handling more than $5 billion of work in Iraq.

"It has come to my attention that DCAA has been denied access to and/or copies of internal audit documents and reports performed on KBR operations," the letter said. "This is of great concern to me and is not in the spirit of open communication, trust and cooperation that we agreed to" at an earlier meeting. The letter was sent by Francis P. Summers Jr., a regional Defense Contract Audit Agency director in Texas, to Al Neffgen, KBR's chief operations officer.

[lofter1]

Representative Henry Waxman (Chairman of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform) sent a letter (http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070302131606-66371.pdf) (pdf) mentioning Mr. Neffgren on March 2, 2007 to:
Major General George W. Weightman
Commander (former)
Walter Reed Army Medical Center
Some of the highlights of the letter (via Swope's Blog):

From the Department of Unified Cronyism (http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3845?PHPSESSID=abbc3b)
We have learned that in January 2006, Walter Reed awarded a five-year, $120 million contract to a company called IAP Worldwide Services for base operations support services, including facilities management. IAP is one of the companies that experienced problems delivering ice during the response to Hurricane Katrina. The company is led by Al Neffgen, a former senior Halliburton official who testified before our Committee in July 2004 in defense of Halliburton’s exorbitant charges for fuel delivery and troop support in Iraq.

According to multiple sources, the decision to privatize support services at Walter Reed led to a precipitous drop in support personnel at Walter Reed. Prior to the award of the contract, there were over 300 federal employees providing facilities management and related services at Walter Reed. By February 3, 2007, the day before IAP took over facilities management, the number of support personnel had dropped to under 60. Yet instead of hiring additional personnel, IAP apparently replaced the remaining 60 federal employees with only 50 IAP personnel. The conditions that have been described at Walter Reed are disgraceful. . . . It would be reprehensible if the deplorable conditions were caused or aggravated by an ideological commitment to privatize government services regardless of the costs to taxpayers and the consequences for wounded soldiers.

[Punzie]

The New York Times
March 13, 2007

For U.S. Troops at War, Liquor Is Spur to Crime

By PAUL von ZIELBAUER (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/z/paul_von_zielbauer/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

In May 2004, Specialist Justin J. Lillis got drunk on what he called “hajji juice,” a clear Iraqi moonshine smuggled onto an Army base in Balad, Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), by civilian contractors, and began taking potshots with his M-16 service rifle.

“He shot up some contractor’s rental car,” said Phil Cave, a lawyer for Specialist Lillis, 24. “He hopped in a Humvee, drove around and shot up some more things. He shot into a housing area” and at soldiers guarding the base entrance.

Six months later, at an Army base near Baghdad, after a night of drinking an illegal stash of whiskey and gin, Specialist Chris Rolan of the Third Brigade, Third Infantry Division, pulled his 9mm service pistol on another soldier and shot him dead.

And in March 2006, in perhaps the most gruesome crime committed by American troops in Iraq, a group of 101st Airborne Division soldiers stationed in Mahmudiya raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killed her and her family after drinking several cans of locally made whiskey supplied by Iraqi Army soldiers, military prosecutors said.

Alcohol, strictly forbidden by the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/afghanistan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), is involved in a growing number of crimes committed by troops deployed to those countries. Alcohol- and drug-related charges were involved in more than a third of all Army criminal prosecutions of soldiers in the two war zones — 240 of the 665 cases resulting in convictions, according to records obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Seventy-three of those 240 cases involve some of the most serious crimes committed, including murder, rape, armed robbery and assault. Sex crimes accounted for 12 of the convictions.

The 240 cases involved a roughly equal number of drug and alcohol offenses, although alcohol-related crimes have increased each year since 2004.

Despite the military’s ban on all alcoholic beverages — and strict Islamic prohibitions against drinking and drug use — liquor is cheap and ever easier to find for soldiers looking to self-medicate the effects of combat stress, depression or the frustrations of extended deployments, said military defense lawyers, commanders and doctors who treat soldiers’ emotional problems.

“It’s clear that we’ve got a lot of significant alcohol problems that are pervasive across the military,” said Dr. Thomas R. Kosten, a psychiatrist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston. He traces their drinking and drug use to the stress of working in a war zone. “The treatment that they take for it is the same treatment that they took after Vietnam,” Dr. Kosten said. “They turn to alcohol and drugs.”

The use of alcohol and drugs in war zones appears to reflect a broader trend toward heavier and more frequent drinking among all military personnel, but especially in the Army and Marine Corps, the two services doing most of the fighting, Pentagon officials and military health experts said.

A Pentagon health study released in January, for instance, found that the rate of binge drinking in the Army shot up by 30 percent from 2002 to 2005, and “may signal an increasing pattern of heavy alcohol use in the Army.”

While average rates of alcohol consumption in the Navy and Air Force have steadily declined since 1980, the year the military’s health survey began, they have significantly increased in the Army and Marine Corps and exceed civilian rates, the Pentagon study showed. For the first time since 1985, more than a quarter of all Army members surveyed said they regularly drink heavily, defined as having five or more drinks at one sitting.

The rate of illicit drug use also increased among military members in 2005, to an estimated 5 percent, nearly double the rate measured in 1998, a trend that the study called “cause for concern.”

The study also found other health problems in the military, from the growing popularity of chewing tobacco to a 20 percent increase during the past decade in service members who are considered overweight.

Lynn Pahland, a director in the Pentagon’s Health Affairs office, said the rising rates of heavy drinking and illegal drug use among active-duty military personnel are particularly troubling inside the Defense Department. “It is very serious,” Ms. Pahland said in an interview. “It is a huge concern.”

In the military, seeking help for psychological problems, including alcohol and drug abuse, is considered a taboo, especially among officers competing for promotions. Several officers interviewed for this article said the Pentagon was not doing enough to reduce that stigma.

Though the Pentagon has spent millions of dollars on several initiatives to reverse the trend, including a new Web site that deglamorizes drinking, financing to combat alcohol abuse has fallen over time, a Pentagon spokesman said. Spending on programs to reduce alcohol abuse, smoking and obesity dropped to $7.74 million in the current fiscal year from $12.6 million in fiscal year 2005 — a 39 percent decline.

Some military doctors and other mental health experts said the Army’s greater use of so-called moral waivers, which allow recruits with criminal records to enlist, may also be a factor in the increased drug and alcohol use.

Getting liquor or drugs in Iraq is not difficult. One of the most common ways to smuggle in brand name gin or clear rum is in bottles of mouthwash sent from friends back home, soldiers said. Blue or yellow food coloring makes the liquid look medicinal. Some Army medics have been known to fill intravenous fluid bags with vodka, Army officers said.

In Iraq, liquor of a distinctly more dubious quality can be purchased from Iraqi Army soldiers or civilian contractors working on American bases, and Iraqi soldiers have sold locally produced prescription drugs to American troops for a tidy profit.

Commanders have not always regarded drinking as a problem. The Army “was a culture in the 1970s that encouraged drinking,” said a retired Army colonel. “You’d go out drinking together and you’d find your buddy hugging the toilet at the officer’s club and think nothing of it.”

Command tolerance for such behavior began changing in the 1980s, and by the 1990s, “if you had more than a couple drinks at the club, people started looking at you strange,” the retired colonel said.

But at a time when the military is fighting two major ground wars, the often serious consequences of heavy drinking has emerged with increasing clarity as more troops return from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other mental health problems, military officials and mental health experts said.

“I think the real story here is in the suicide and stress, and the drinking is just a symptom of it,” said Charles P. O’Brien, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_pennsylvania/index.html?inline=nyt-org) School of Medicine who served as a Navy doctor during the Vietnam War. There is a high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder among Iraq veterans, he said, adding that “there’s been a lot of suicide in the active-duty servicemen.”

More than 90 percent of sex crimes prosecuted by the military involve alcohol abuse, defense lawyers and military doctors said. Roughly half of the marines charged with crimes in Iraq exhibit clear signs of
post-traumatic stress disorder, a Marine defense lawyer said.

“They turn to alcohol and drugs for an escape,” he said.

The health study released in January was produced for the Pentagon by RTI International, a nonprofit research organization. Robert M. Bray, the group’s project director, first agreed to be interviewed for this article but later declined after a Defense Department spokesman said he was not available to comment.

In the past two years, though, top military officials have begun talking publicly about the danger that excessive drinking among the troops.

In 2005, the Army’s deputy chief of staff at the time, Lt. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, wrote in an editorial in a magazine for Army leaders that the rising rate of heavy drinking and drug use “seriously impacts mission readiness.”

General Hagenbeck, now the superintendent of the United States Military Academy (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_states_military_academy/index.html?inline=nyt-org) at West Point, said more than half of soldiers discharged for misconduct had also been disciplined for drug or alcohol use within the previous year.

“When one soldier has an alcohol or other drug incident, it impacts the whole unit,” General Hagenbeck wrote.

That kind of ripple effect has played out repeatedly in Iraq, military defense lawyers said, as soldiers who drink or use drugs commit crimes and hinder their unit’s combat and support missions.

Specialist Lillis, for example, was given a bad conduct discharge and sentenced to 10 years in prison as punishment for his drunken shooting spree; he is in a military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. A military judge sentenced Specialist Rolan, who testified that he drank to relieve depression in Iraq, to 33 years in prison for killing a fellow soldier.

Two of the soldiers charged in the Mahmudiya case pleaded guilty to murder, and a former Army private described as the ringleader, Steven D. Green, is awaiting trial for rape and murder in a federal district court.

Last year, the Pentagon spent $2 million to initiate its “That Guy” campaign, (www.thatguy.com (http://www.thatguy.com/)), which recommends that service members “reject binge drinking because it detracts from the things they care about: family, friends, dating, sex, money and reputation.”

The Pentagon is poised to launch another Web-based antidrinking campaign this summer.

Capt. Robert DeMartino, a doctor with the United States Health Service who is coordinating the project, said the hope is that service members returning from Afghanistan and Iraq will use the site to find help coping with post-deployment problems, including alcohol dependency.

Andrew Lehren contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/world/middleeast/13alcohol.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

[Punzie]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/03/13/world/0313-for-webALCOHOL2.gif

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/03/13/world/0313-for-webALCOHOL2.gif

[Ninjahedge]

Liquor is a release agent, it facilitates these actions.

If someone is feeling pent up, depressed, or stressed, Alcohol acts as an enabler by lowering inhibition.

I am not advocating it, but it, in and of itself, is NOT the main problem. It is but the canary in the coal mine. These guys are starting to wear thin, and those that have let their guard down have ended up doing things we ALL regret.

Solution? More efficient, effective, and often troop rotation. Possible? Not with our current staffing and obligations.

So, what now?

[lofter1]

How would all you youngsters feel about having your name tossed into a Draft Lottery?

Back in the day it was always a scary time when the Draft numbers were picked.

Keeps it real, though ...

btw: Is there still a requirement to sign up for Selective Service (http://www.sss.gov/) when you turn 18?

[Punzie]

How would all you youngsters feel about having your name tossed into a Draft Lottery?

Back in the day it was always a scary time when the Draft numbers were picked.

Those three lotteries were frightening. I remember sitting in Village bars during those occasions, when kids were still allowed in bars. The radio on stereo would be blasting; a mob of young men gathered, doing highballs, listening in a panic. Their life was literally depending on what was to be spoken.

Low number guys had trantrums and nervous breakdowns. Guys whose numbers had not yet been called would drop to the sticky floor, at times praying, at times licking it. High number guys, (the ones who knew they wouldn't have to serve), had the most unpredictable reactions of all.

Just about everybody in the country vowed, "Never again." Problem is, the majority of the country broke their vow in November '04.

[eddhead]

^^
I was just a kid but I remember them as well. I remember how guys with single digit numbers would go into a panic.. .unless they had connections and could use them to wiggle there way into the reserves. It was horrible but it happened all the time.. if you knew the right palm to grease you could find a safe haven.. if not you went to Nam. See that is why I have such a big issue with people knocking Clinton for going to Oxford but not making a big deal about Bush circumventing active service. It was not easy to get into the reserves.. you really had to know someone. At least Clinton got a pass on the basis of his academic achievments.. Bush just worked the 'old boy network'. Where is the honor in that?

[lofter1]

Draft Lottery (http://www.landscaper.net/draft.htm)
December 1, 1969 marked the date of the first draft lottery held since 1942. This drawing determined the order of induction for men born between January 1, 1944 and December 31, 1950. A large glass container held 366 blue plastic balls containing every possible birth date and affecting men between 18 and 26 years old.

The first capsule was drawn by Congressman
Alexander Pirnie (R-NY) of the House
Armed Services Committee

Photo: Selective Service System
http://www.landscaper.net/images/DrftLottry.jpg

[ManhattanKnight]

Well, at the risk of confessing advancing geezerhood, I'll add that I was drafted into the US Army after losing my student deferment and might be living in Canada to this day (my bags were packed) had I not flunked the physical at the Trenton, NJ Armory, because of my bad back or mental illness (I "checked the box"). It was deeply frightening experience and is one reason why I favor reinstatement of the draft. The pain it would cause members of privileged classes, if it is fairly administered, should help deter future presidents from starting unnecessary wars.

[lofter1]

Damn right ^^^

[Punzie]

... [i] flunked the physical at the Trenton, NJ Armory, because of my bad back or mental illness (I "checked the box").
Yes -- I remember the men telling me that they had to have at least two "ailments" in order to absolutely ensure that they were not drafted to Vietnam!

The pain it would cause members of privileged classes, if it is fairly administered, should help deter future presidents from starting unnecessary wars.The key phrase here: "If it fairly administered." MK, Lofter, if there had been a draft for Iraq, our warped president would have found a quiet back door exemption for the privileged class, while drafting everyone else. (All the while professing "fair administration.") Surely you could see this happening... ?

[Ninjahedge]

Not really.

He would just make sure there are plenty of "elite" corps that would never go to see active duty.

That's how he got out of it!

[lofter1]

... if there had been a draft for Iraq, our warped president would have found a quiet back door exemption for the privileged class, while drafting everyone else. (All the while professing "fair administration.") Surely you could see this happening... ?

But even with that type of two-tier administration of the draft in the past there were those of the "elite" class who had no inclination to serve the war machine in any way, shape or form.

The existence of an all encompassing draft brought the possibility that one would be compelled to serve, despite whatever machinations a less-than-eager draft-age guy could come up with to try and get out that back door.

It really depends on the numbers of troops needed. As we see in the current situation, the US really does NOT have enough troops for the mission which this administration is attempting. Couple that with faulty ideology and bad planning / administration then you end up with a failed effort.

Not that a draft would have insured success. Rumsfeld knew that the backlash to a draft would be fierce. So he constructed a plan to conform with his skewed view.

Result: Failure All Around.

[eddhead]

The existence of an all encompassing draft brought the possibility that one would be compelled to serve, despite whatever machinations a less-than-eager draft-age guy could come up with to try and get out that back door.

Unless you were Dick Chaney. Apparently he had other priorities.

[Punzie]

:eek: I sense that Zippy will be scolding us soon for deviating so; there's whole topic on the draft (currently) buried down deep on the 2nd page:

http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4902

[Punzie]

Re:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42013000/jpg/_42013124_tillman_ap_203x300.jpg
Army Cpl. Pat Tillman left his pro football career in 2002 to join the Army.
He was killed in Afghanistan in April, 2004 by fellow army rangers.


Family Criticizes Query Into Tillman’s Death

By JESSE McKINLEY (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/jesse_mckinley/index.html?inline=nyt-per)


The New York Times
Published: March 28, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO, March 27 — The family of Cpl. Pat Tillman has issued a scathing retort to a Pentagon investigation of their son’s death, calling the report “shamefully unacceptable” and asking for Congressional intervention.

In a lengthy statement released on Monday night, the family said the Army had repeatedly refused to release a complete account of the death of Corporal Tillman, a National Football League player who was killed by fellow Army Rangers in April 2004 during a firefight in Afghanistan.

“The Army continues to deny the family, and the public that pays for the Army with its taxes, access to the original investigation, and the sworn statements from that investigation,” the statement read, adding that eyewitnesses’ statements of Corporal Tillman’s death have been altered.

“This is not a misstep. It is evidence tampering.”

The Pentagon report, released on Monday, said officers had suspected early on that Corporal Tillman had been killed by American troops in an accidental fratricide, not hostile fire, as was initially reported. But despite their suspicions, it said, officers did not immediately inform the family of the possibility of such a death, in violation of Army regulations. As a result, four generals, and five other officers, will face disciplinary action.

But the Pentagon found no criminal wrongdoing or evidence of a cover-up in the death, which resulted in the quick coronation of Corporal Tillman as a hero in the war on terror. A post-Sept. 11 volunteer who walked away from a lucrative football career for a life in fatigues, Corporal Tillman was awarded the Silver Star, for valor in the face of the enemy. The Army said Monday that the medal would stand, though the wording on the citation would be changed.

In their statement, the family members said the disciplinary action amounted to an “attempt to impose closure by slapping the wrists of a few officers” and dismissed their son’s Silver Star as an Army public relations move.

“No one who knew Pat doubted his physical or moral courage,” the statement said. “But the award of the Silver Star appears more than anything to be part of a cynical design to conceal the real events from the family — but most especially from the public — while exploiting the death of our beloved Pat as a recruitment poster.”

They also vowed to continue pushing for further investigation by other branches of government for themselves and other military families who “were deceived about the circumstances” of their loved ones’ deaths.

On Tuesday, Representative Michael M. Honda of San Jose, Calif., where the Tillman family lives, wrote to the chairman and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee asking for hearings on the corporal’s death citing “nearly three years of obfuscation, delay and potential criminal actions on the part of senior military officers.”

An Army spokeswoman, Maj. Anne Edgecomb, called the Tillman family’s reaction “understandable.”

“The Tillmans’ son died, and they continue to grieve his loss,” Major Edgecomb said. “It’s not unexpected that they would be angry over our mistakes, our failure to get things right.”

Calls to Corporal Tillman’s mother and father were not returned. In an interview Tuesday morning with National Public Radio (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_public_radio/index.html?inline=nyt-org), the corporal’s mother, Mary Tillman, said she was not exactly sure how her son had died, but simply wanted a fuller picture of his final moments.

“They could have told us the truth,” Ms. Tillman said. “And if they didn’t want to tell us the truth, they could have said that we don’t know.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/washington/28tillman.html

[lofter1]

“The Tillmans’ son died, and they continue to grieve his loss,” Major Edgecomb said. “It’s not unexpected that they would be angry over our mistakes, our failure to get things right.”


And their lies ...

The US Military is going to very sorry they crossed this family.

[Punzie]

One theory is that a jealous fellow ranger gave Pat the pop when nobody else was around. Others say that more than one gun was fired. That's why the Pentagon has to cover up. Oliver Stone will have this all figured out in his next movie.

[lofter1]

Punz; That "theory" is from outer space and has nothing to do with the facts -- which are now -- finally -- out in the open and pretty damned clear.

If I'm wrong please post a link.

I have no sense of humor on this subject :(

[Punzie]

One theory is that a jealous fellow ranger gave Pat the pop when nobody else was around. Others say that more than one gun was fired. That's why the Pentagon has to cover up. Oliver Stone will have this all figured out in his next movie.
Punz; That "theory" is from outer space and has nothing to do with the facts -- which are now -- finally -- out in the open and pretty damned clear.

If I'm wrong please post a link.

I have no sense of humor on this subject :(
That was a Punzi original.:( So sorry I put humor in a subject that deeply affects you so. Sometimes a situation is so horrible that the only way I can face it is with the darkest humor. This time that wasn't such a good idea.

[Punzie]

U.S. plans to send more National Guard to Iraq: NBC

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department is preparing to send another 12,000 National Guard combat troops to Iraq (http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=Iraq), NBC Nightly News reported on Thursday, citing Pentagon (http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=Pentagon) sources.

New orders awaiting the signature of Defense Secretary Robert Gates will put 12,000 National Guard troops on alert to prepare to deploy to Iraq, the report said.

Four Guard combat brigades from units in four states would be involved in the involuntary mobilization, NBC said.

The one-year combat deployment would begin early in 2008, the report said.

The Pentagon referred queries about the report to the National Guard, where a spokesman had no immediate comment.

Gates did not mention a possible Guard deployment at news conference on Thursday.

More than four years into the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the U.S. military shows increasing signs of strain.

On Monday, the Pentagon said it would send another 9,000 U.S. troops to Iraq, with about half of them returning to combat ahead of schedule.

Two of the affected Army units, totaling about 4,500 troops, will return to combat short of their promised year at home, reflecting the strain placed on U.S. forces by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=Afghanistan).

Under the Bush administration's new Iraq policy announced earlier this year, the Pentagon has increased force levels there by about 30,000 troops in an attempt to regain control of security and reduce sectarian violence.

The units announced this week largely replace forces already in Iraq, which number around 145,000.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070406/ts_nm/usa_iraq_guard_dc_2

__________________________________________________ ____________



President Bush speaks (left, center) to soldiers at Fort Irwin, Calif., on Wednesday, April 4, 2007.(AP Photos/Francis Specker)
http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070404/capt.59c7e7ea69fb48f88062477ae15b09b7.bush_cafs103 .jpghttp://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070404/capt.5dddd550f1cd4c7db4258027a07f0f71.bush_cafs106 .jpghttp://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070405/capt.582ad104a1b5479fbb3425ac6d5c0121.bush_ksd106. jpg

President Bush waves (right) as he walks from Marine One helicopter to Air Force One before departing from Los Angeles International Airport April 4, 2007, after a fundraising stop in Los Angeles.(AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)

[eddhead]

Cheney reasserts al-Qaida-Saddam connection
Vice president’s words come as latest Pentagon report again dismisses
link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17975678/

Why won't he just go away?

[Ninjahedge]

Cheney reasserts al-Qaida-Saddam connection
Vice president’s words come as latest Pentagon report again dismisses
link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17975678/

Why won't he just go away?

Why do people still support him?

What is it about him that makes reporters SCARED to ask him the tough questions?

To hell with his daughter and the whole gay thing. You will never get a strait answer out of him with any questions about it. Dick is a putz and will put his politics before his family.

So long as his family is above whatever is decided for the mainstream, that is.

The questions have to hammer him on the stuff he has lied about. The reporters have to have their fact-team online to rebut any of his explanations and drive his cop outs into the wall.

They are all afraid that he will just walk out of the interview or something.

If they are that talentless that tehy cannot get some information out of him before breaking it all to pieces, maybe they need some new people to do the interviewing.

[Punzie]

Vice president’s words come as latest Pentagon report again dismisses
link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17975678/

I followed the link and got this, which I'm posting "for the record":

Saddam’s pre-war ties to al-Qaeda discounted

Declassified Pentagon report says contacts were limited

By R. Jeffrey Smith
http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Art/SITEWIDE/PartnerColorBoxLogos/WaPost_333_GCH.gif (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/front.htm)
Published: April 5, 2007
Updated: April 6, 2007

Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.

The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.

The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.

"This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq," Cheney told Limbaugh's listeners about Zarqawi, who he said had "led the charge for Iraq." Cheney cited the alleged history to illustrate his argument that withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq would "play right into the hands of al-Qaeda."

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/l000261/) (D-Mich.), who requested the report's declassification, said in a written statement that the complete text demonstrates more fully why the inspector general concluded that a key Pentagon office -- run by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith -- had inappropriately written intelligence assessments before the March 2003 invasion alleging connections between al-Qaeda and Iraq that the U.S. intelligence consensus disputed.

‘Mature’ relationship?

The report, in a passage previously marked secret, said Feith's office had asserted in a briefing given to Cheney's chief of staff in September 2002 that the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda was "mature" and "symbiotic," marked by shared interests and evidenced by cooperation across 10 categories, including training, financing and logistics.

Instead, the report said, the CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials, and said that it lacked evidence of a long-term relationship like the one Iraq had forged with other terrorist groups.

"Overall, the reporting provides no conclusive signs of cooperation on specific terrorist operations," that CIA report said, adding that discussions on the issue were "necessarily speculative."

The CIA had separately concluded that reports of Iraqi training on weapons of mass destruction were "episodic, sketchy, or not corroborated in other channels," the inspector general's report said. It quoted an August 2002 CIA report describing the relationship as more closely resembling "two organizations trying to feel out or exploit each other" rather than cooperating operationally.

The CIA was not alone, the defense report emphasized. The Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded that year that "available reporting is not firm enough to demonstrate an ongoing relationship" between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda, it said.

But the contrary conclusions reached by Feith's office -- and leaked to the conservative Weekly Standard magazine before the war -- were publicly praised by Cheney as the best source of information on the topic, a circumstance the Pentagon report cites in documenting the impact of what it described as "inappropriate" work.

52-page rebuttal

Feith has vigorously defended his work, accusing Gimble of "giving bad advice based on incomplete fact-finding and poor logic," and charging that the acting inspector general has been "cheered on by the chairmen of the Senate intelligence and armed services committees." In January, Feith's successor at the Pentagon, Eric S. Edelman, wrote a 52-page rebuttal to the inspector general's report that disputed its analysis and recommendations for Pentagon reform.

Cheney's public statements before and after the war about the risks posed by Iraq have closely tracked the briefing Feith's office presented to the vice president's then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. That includes the briefing's depiction of an alleged 2001 meeting in Prague between an Iraqi intelligence official and one of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers as one of eight "Known Iraq-Al Qaida Contacts."

The defense report states that at the time, "the intelligence community disagreed with the briefing's assessment that the alleged meeting constituted a 'known contact' " -- a circumstance the report said was known to Feith's office. But his office had bluntly concluded in a July 2002 critique of a CIA report on Iraq's relationship with al-Qaeda that the CIA's interpretation of the facts it cited "ought to be ignored."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17970427/

[eddhead]

I followed the link and got this, which I'm posting "for the record":

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17970427/

Not sure what you mean by that... the link in your message is different than the one I posted. The one I posted quotes Chaney as substantiating a link between Al Queda and Saddam.. the one you quoted is from the DOD which contradicts Chaney's assertion.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Four Guard brigades to return to Iraq

By Peter Spiegel
Times Staff Writer

April 9, 2007

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon announced today that it had sent alerts to four Army National Guard brigades for deployments in Iraq, the first time the military has sent entire Guard units back to combat for a second tour since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The alerts to brigades in Arkansas, Indiana, Ohio and Oklahoma involves about 13,000 soldiers, who will begin their return to combat in December. The staggered deployments will extend into early next year. All four brigades had served in Iraq or Afghanistan in 2004 and 2005.

The Army said the call-up was not directly linked to the current buildup of forces in Baghdad. Indeed, Army officials have been pushing the Pentagon to allow for second Guard combat tours for more than a year in an effort to relieve pressure on the active-duty Army, which is now forced to send units back to Iraq after only a year at home.

The buildup has exacerbated the problem, with three major Army units already headed back to Iraq as part of the Bush administration's new security plan with less than 12 months of "dwell time" at their home bases.

Under previous Pentagon guidelines, Guard units were allowed to spend five years at home without an overseas deployment after their first combat tours. But Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates revised those rules in January, allowing for the new, quicker deployments.

In return for the early call-ups, the Guard units will get salary bonuses and will be activated for only a year, meaning they may be in Iraq for as little as 10 months. Previous Guard deployments to Iraq have lasted up to 18 months.

The Guard alerts come at a politically difficult time for the Bush administration, which is fighting off efforts in Congress to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces in Iraq. Because guardsmen spend most of their working life in the civilian population, their deployments have always been politically sensitive.

Several state governors, who serve as Guard commanders when the Guard is not under federal control, have become increasingly vocal in their criticism of the Pentagon's use of the forces, saying that frequent war deployments hinder their ability to prepare for emergencies such as natural disasters.

peter.spiegel@latimes.com

[Punzie]

Democrats send Iraq timeline to Bush

By ANNE FLAHERTY and JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writers May 1, 2007
Democratic congressional leaders on Tuesday [5/1/07] sent Iraq legislation setting timetables for U.S. troop withdrawals to President Bush and a certain veto.

On the fourth anniversary of the president's "Mission Accomplished" speech, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) said that Bush "has put our troops in the middle of a civil war. A change of course is needed."

Bush, meeting in Florida with military commanders, said such an approach could turn Iraq into a "cauldron of chaos."

The White House said the president would veto the bill on his return to the White House and then go before television cameras at 6:10 p.m. EDT, just before the evening news shows, to make a statement.

"Success in Iraq is critical to the security of free people everywhere," Bush said at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., the headquarters of U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, including Iraq.

The Democratic leaders staged a special ceremony to send the legislation — approved by both the House and Senate last week — on its way to the White House.

On Wednesday, Bush is to meet with congressional leaders from both parties, including Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., to begin discussing a substitute bill.

"This legislation honors the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform," Pelosi said at the ceremony in the Capitol. She and Reid signed an "enrollment" document authorizing the legislation to be sent to the White House.

Pelosi said that provisions of the measure respect "the wishes of the American people to end the Iraq war."

Formal signing ceremonies for this step in the legislative process are rare.
From the Capitol to the White House, it was a day of political theater, and Democrats were careful not get ahead of the script. Pelosi and Reid both declined to discuss what legislation they hope to pass after Bush vetoes the $124.2 billion measure.

"I don't want to get into a negotiation with myself," Reid said when asked about conversations with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record) of Kentucky.

McConnell said earlier in the day that Republicans would agree to provisions that lay out standards for the Iraqi government to meet in creating a more stable and democratic society.

"A number of Republicans think that some kind of benchmarks properly crafted would be helpful," he said. Bush and GOP allies have said they will oppose legislation that ties progress on such standards to a withdrawal of U.S. combat forces.

Separately, Bush has complained about several billion dollars in domestic spending that Democrats put in the bill, including about $3.5 billion in disaster aid for farmers.

Without enough votes to override Bush's veto, Democrats are considering writing a new bill that would fund the troops but not give the president a blank check. A likely option is demanding the Iraqi government meet benchmarks.

Some Republicans say they would support tying goals for Iraqi self-defense and democracy to the more than $5 billion provided to Iraq in foreign aid, but would do nothing to tie the hands of military commanders.

"House Republicans will oppose any bill that includes provisions that undermine our troops and their mission, whether it's benchmarks for failure, arbitrary readiness standards or a timetable for American surrender," said Minority Leader John Boehner (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio.

When he announced a U.S. troop increase in January, Bush said Iraq's government must crack down equally on Shiites and Sunnis, equitably distribute oil wealth, refine its constitution and expand democratic participation. He attached no consequences if these benchmarks were not met.

In his Florida remarks, the president did not explicitly mention the war spending legislation. But he made clear his opposition to its requirement that troops begin to be withdrawn by Oct. 1, and defended his policy of increasing troop levels.

Bush said that pulling American forces from Baghdad before Iraqis are capable of defending themselves would have disastrous results — giving al-Qaida terrorists a haven from which to operate and an inspiration for new recruits and new attacks.

"Withdrawal would have increased the probability that coalition troops would be forced to return to Iraq one day and confront an enemy that is even more dangerous," he said in remarks to representatives from countries participating in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. "Failure in Iraq should be unacceptable to the civilized world."

Bush's comments and expected veto come exactly four years after his speech on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln decorated with a huge "Mission Accomplished" banner. In that address, a frequent target of Democrats seeking to ridicule the president, he declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

At the time, Bush's approval rating was 63 percent, with the public's disapproval at 34 percent.

Four years later, with over 3,300 U.S. troops killed in Iraq and the country gripped by unrelenting violence and political uncertainty, only 35 percent of the public approves of the job the president is doing, while 62 percent disapprove, according to an April 2-4 poll from AP-Ipsos.

The anniversary prompted a protest in Tampa not far from where Bush spoke. "He's hearing us. He's just not listening to us," said Chrystal Hutchison, who demonstrated with about two dozen others under a "Quagmire Accomplished" banner.

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker acknowledged Tuesday that there "is something of an al-Qaida surge going on" in Iraq, with the group using suicide car bombs as its principal weapons, but he said that doesn't mean the U.S.-Iraqi campaign isn't working.

"We're just fighting at a number of levels here against a number of different enemies," Crocker told reporters during a videoconference from Baghdad.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070501/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq

[Punzie]

Originally posted by Rapunzel http://wirednewyork.com/forum/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=158292#post158292)
I followed the link and got this, which I'm posting "for the record":

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17970427 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17970427/)Not sure what you mean by that... the link in your message is different than the one I posted. The one I posted quotes Chaney as substantiating a link between Al Queda and Saddam.. the one you quoted is from the DOD which contradicts Chaney's assertion.

I made an error: instead of posting Eddhead's article, I followed the link it provided, "a declassified Pentagon report released Thursday (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17970427/)", and inadvertantly published that article instead. I apologize for this.

"a declassified Pentagon report released Thursday (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17970427/)" now has a broken link because it's not an Msnbc article, but rather a Washington Post article to which msnbc had directed on 4/6/07. (The Washington Post only publicly displays its articles for a short period of time, after which one has to be a subscriber to have access.)

Eddhead's link, on the other hand, is an Msnbc article. The link still works.
This is the article in Eddhead's link:


Cheney reasserts al-Qaida-Saddam link Vice president’s words come as latest Pentagon report again dismisses link

The Associated Press
Updated: 7:57 a.m. ET April 6, 2007

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his assertions of al-Qaida links to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq on Thursday as the Defense Department released a report citing more evidence that the prewar government did not cooperate with the terrorist group.

Cheney contended that al-Qaida was operating in Iraq before the March 2003 invasion led by U.S. forces and that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading the Iraqi branch of al-Qaida. Others in al-Qaida planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the al-Qaida operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June,” Cheney told radio host Rush Limbaugh during an interview. “As I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq.”

However, a declassified Pentagon report released Thursday (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17970427/) said that interrogations of the deposed Iraqi leader and two of his former aides as well as seized Iraqi documents confirmed that the terrorist organization and the Saddam government were not working together before the invasion.

The Sept. 11 Commission’s 2004 report also found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network during that period.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, had requested that the Pentagon declassify the report prepared by acting Defense Department Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble. In a statement Thursday, Levin said the declassified document showed why a Defense Department investigation had concluded that some Pentagon prewar intelligence work was inappropriate.

The report, which had been released in summary form in February, said that former Pentagon policy chief Douglas J. Feith had acted inappropriately but not illegally in reviewing prewar intelligence. Levin has claimed that Feith’s intelligence assessment was wrong and distorted but nevertheless formed part of the basis on which President Bush took the country to war.

Although Feith’s assessment in mid-2002 offered several examples of cooperation between Saddam’s government and al-Qaida, the report said, the CIA had concluded months earlier that no evidence supported the existence of significant or long-term relationships.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17975678/

[milleniumcab]

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899

What is proposed in this article would be a greater disaster for that region than it is in right now...The wars that would be created by such games would go on at least for the next century if not for centuries...

[Punzie]

Text
The New York Times
May 1, 2007

President Bush’s Speech on the Iraq Spending Bill

The following is a transcript of President Bush's speech regarding his veto of the Iraq war supplemental spending bill as transcribed by the Federal News Service, a private transcription agency.

President Bush:

Good evening.

Twelve weeks ago, I asked the Congress to pass an emergency war spending bill that would provide our brave men and women in uniform with the funds and flexibility they need. Instead, members of the House and the Senate passed a bill that substitutes the opinions of politicians for the judgment of our military commanders. So a few minutes ago, I vetoed the bill.

Tonight I will explain the reasons for this veto and my desire to work with Congress to resolve this matter as quickly as possible. We can begin tomorrow with a bipartisan meeting with the congressional leaders here at the White House.

Here's why the bill Congress passed is unacceptable. First, the bill would mandate a rigid and artificial deadline for American troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq. That withdrawal could start as early as July 1st, and it would have to start no later than October 1st regardless of the situation on the ground.

It makes no sense to tell the enemy when you plan to start withdrawing. All the terrorists would have to do is mark their calendars and gather their strength and begin plotting how to overthrow the government and take control of the country of Iraq. I believe setting a deadline for withdrawal would demoralize the Iraqi people, would encourage killers across the broader Middle East and send a signal that America will not keep its commitments. Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure, and that would be irresponsible.

Second, the bill would impose impossible conditions on our commanders in combat. After forcing most of our troops to withdraw, the bill would dictate the terms under which the remaining commanders and troops could engage the enemy. That means America's commanders in the middle of a combat zone would have to take fighting directions from politicians 6,000 miles away in Washington, D.C. This is a prescription for chaos and confusion, and we must not impose it on our troops.

Third, the bill is loaded with billions of dollars in non- emergency spending that has nothing to do with fighting the war on terror. Congress should debate these spending measures on their own merits and not as a part of an emergency funding bill for our troops.

The Democratic leaders know that many in Congress disagree with their approach and that there are not enough votes to override the veto. I recognize that many Democrats saw this bill as an opportunity to make a political statement about their opposition to the war. They sent their message, and now it is time to put politics behind us and support our troops with the funds they need.

Our troops are carrying out a new strategy with a new commander, General David Petraeus. The goal of this new strategy is to help the Iraqis secure their capital so they can make progress toward reconciliation and build a free nation that respects the rights of its people, upholds the rule of law and fights extremists and radicals and killers alongside the United States in this war on terror.

In January, General Petraeus was confirmed by a unanimous vote in the United States Senate. In February, we began sending the first of the reinforcements he requested. Not all these reinforcements have arrived in Baghdad, and, as General Petraeus has said, it will be the end of the summer before we can assess the impact of this operation. Congress ought to give General Petraeus's plan a chance to work.

In the months since our military has been implementing this plan, we've begun to see some important results.

For example, Iraqi and coalition forces have closed down an al Qaeda car-bomb network, they've captured a Shi'a militia leader implicated in the kidnapping and killing of American soldiers, they've broken up a death squad that had terrorized hundreds of residents in a Baghdad neighborhood.

Last week, General Petraeus was in Washington to brief me, and he briefed members of Congress on how the operation is unfolding. He noted that one of the most important indicators of progress is the level of sectarian violence in Baghdad, and he reported that since January, the number of sectarian murders has dropped substantially.

Even as sectarian attacks have declined, we continue to see spectacular suicide attacks that have caused great suffering. These attacks are largely the work of al Qaeda -- the enemy that everyone agrees we should be fighting. The objective of these al Qaeda attacks is to subvert our efforts by reigniting the sectarian violence in Baghdad and breaking support for the war here at home.

In Washington last week, General Petraeus explained it this way, "Iraq is, in fact, the central front of all al Qaeda's global campaign." Al Qaeda -- al Qaeda's role makes it -- the conflict in Iraq far more complex than a simple fight between Iraqis. It's true that not everyone taking innocent life in Iraq wants to attack America here at home, but many do. Many also belong to the same terrorist network that attacked us on September the 11th, 2001 and wants to attack us here at home again. We saw the death and destruction al Qaeda inflicted on our people when they were permitted a safe haven in Afghanistan. For the security of the American people, we must not allow al Qaeda to establish a new safe haven in Iraq.

We need to give our troops all the equipment and the training and protection they need to prevail. That means that Congress needs to pass an emergency war-spending bill quickly. I've invited leaders of both parties to come to the White House tomorrow and to discuss how we can get these vital funds to our troops. I'm confident that with good will on both sides, we can agree on a bill that gets our troops the money and flexibility they need as soon as possible.

The need to act is urgent. Without a war-funding bill, the military has to take money from some other account or training program so the troops in combat have what they need. Without a war-funding bill, the armed forces will have to consider cutting back on buying new equipment or repairing existing equipment. Without a war-funding bill, we add to the uncertainty felt by our military families. Our troops and their families deserve better, and their elected leaders can do better.

Here in Washington we have our differences on the way forward in Iraq and we will debate them openly. Yet whatever our differences, surely we can agree that our troops are worthy of this funding and that we have a responsibility to get it to them without further delay.

Thank you for listening.

May God bless our troops.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/washington/02bush-text.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1178093746-5kEAaUTPyzP5Y+5uApfQ0g&oref=slogin

[Punzie]

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899

What is proposed in this article would be a greater disaster for that region than it is in right now...The wars that would be created by such games would go on at least for the next century if not for centuries...

I agree, and I think that the article and the commentary it deserves should not end up buried in this thread. Would you consider starting a new topic about strategic reshaping of the Middle East?

[milleniumcab]

I agree, and I think that the article and the commentary it deserves should not end up buried in this thread. Would you consider starting a new topic about strategic reshaping of the Middle East?

You start it, I'll subscribe to it....

[Punzie]

MC, I can barely keep up with all the news threads I've already started...

(And I'm about to start one on health care reform.)

[milleniumcab]

More power to you....:).... Health care is a very important subject to many, including myself....

[Punzie]

Thanks, MC. I started the health care topic (http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13663) with a focus on Michael Moore's upcoming movie, "Sicko". The film is supposed to take on the U.S. health care industry the way "Bowling for Columbine" took on the gun industry.

--------

(This next article leads me to think that retired General Batiste has his eye Republican VP candidacy: )

Army Career Behind Him, General Speaks Out on Iraq

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/12/us/13gener650.jpg
John Batiste, a retired major general, testified on Capitol Hill in September on the Iraq war
and now appears in advertisements criticizing it.


By THOM SHANKER (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/thom_shanker/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
The New York Times
May 13, 2007

ROCHESTER, May 10 — John Batiste has traveled a long way in the last four years, from commanding the First Infantry Division in Iraq to quitting the Army after three decades in uniform and, now, from his new life overseeing a steel factory here, to openly challenging President Bush on his management of the war.

“Mr. President, you did not listen,” General Batiste says in new television advertisements (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMPIi03wSfY) being broadcast in Republican Congressional districts as part of a $500,000 campaign financed by VoteVets.org (http://votevets.org/). “You continue to pursue a failed strategy that is breaking our great Army and Marine Corps. I left the Army in protest in order to speak out. Mr. President, you have placed our nation in peril. Our only hope is that Congress will act now to protect our fighting men and women.”

Those are powerful, inflammatory words from General Batiste, a retired major general who spent 31 years in the Army, a profession sworn to unflinching loyalty to civilian control of the military. Many senior officers say privately that talk like this makes them uncomfortable; when you pin that first star on your shoulder, they say, your first name becomes “General” for the rest of your life.

But General Batiste says he has received no phone calls, letters or messages from current or former officers challenging his public stance, although he occasionally gets an anonymous e-mail message with the heading “Traitor.” Having quit the Army in anger at what he calls mismanagement of the Iraq war, he says he chose a second career far from Washington and the Pentagon so that he could speak freely on military issues.

“I am outraged, as are the majority of Americans,” General Batiste said over sandwiches in a blue-collar diner here. “I am a lifelong Republican. But it is past time for change.”

A White House spokeswoman, Emily Lawrimore, said in response to the advertising, “We respectfully disagree.” Ms. Lawrimore said President Bush conferred routinely with senior officers, citing a three-hour meeting on Thursday with the Joint Chiefs of Staff (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/j/joint_chiefs_of_staff/index.html?inline=nyt-org) and a conversation earlier in the week with Gen. David H. Petraeus (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/david_h_petraeus/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the senior American commander in Iraq.

“The decisions the president has made have been based on information he receives from commanders and generals on the ground,” she added.

A conversation with General Batiste offers one more window into the debate on Iraq. While some former commanders, like General Batiste, have been speaking out against the war, others, such as Gen. Jack Keane, the retired Army vice chief of staff, have offered advice to the White House on Iraq.

General Batiste said he chose to go public with his critique of the war effort only after 30 years of honoring the Army’s rules of silence. He said it was that time commanding 22,000 troops in combat, in 2004 and 2005, that convinced him that American fighting in Iraq was short of vision as well as troops.

“There was never enough. There was never a reserve,” he said. “Again and again, we had to move troops by as many as 200 miles out of our area of operations to support another sector. We would pull troops out of contact with the enemy and move them into contact with the enemy somewhere else. The minute we’d leave, the insurgents would pick up on that, and kill everybody who had been friendly.”

General Batiste was among a handful of retired generals first calling last year for the resignation of Donald H. Rumsfeld (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/donald_h_rumsfeld/index.html?inline=nyt-per) as defense secretary. He says he realizes lending his name to television advertisements aimed at the president and Republican members of Congress in an election cycle is different.

Officials of VoteVets.org, an Internet-based veterans advocacy organization, say the television spots will run in the home districts of more than a dozen members of Congress, among them Senator John W. Warner (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/john_w_warner/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the Virginia Republican who, as former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, is considered one of Capitol Hill’s experts on the military.

“Like other citizens, retired generals have the constitutional right to engage in robust debate on one of the most important issues of our time,” said John Ullyot, the senator’s spokesman. “Senator Warner appreciates hearing from people on all sides of the debate, and Virginians have a clear understanding of his views on Iraq.”

VoteVets.org says it has tried to calibrate its message carefully, although there is a limit to the nuance that can fit into 30-second television spots.

(Two other retired generals, Paul D. Eaton and Wesley K. Clark (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/wesley_k_clark/index.html?inline=nyt-per), speak in the campaign’s other advertisements.)

As described by General Batiste, the message is not antiwar; it argues that continuing the war in Iraq as a civil, sectarian conflict that cannot be won by outside forces is crippling the Army and the Marine Corps. It does not deny the danger of violent Islamic extremism, he says, but contends that the war in Iraq prevents the armed services from preparing to battle other global security threats.

And it says that if terrorism, and especially terrorists armed with unconventional weapons, truly threaten America’s very survival, then the rest of the country — not just the military — should be called to sacrifice.

On Thursday, General Batiste drove from the steel factory he now runs to a veterans’ center where he is president of a nonprofit association of local business leaders who support veterans in the region. He parked behind a shop selling American flags (sales are up 42 percent over last year, with profits going to aid veterans).

“In the Army, you communicate up the chain of command, and I communicated vehemently with my senior commanders while I was in Iraq,” he said. Of his departure from the Army, he said: “It was the toughest decision of my life. I paced my quarters for days. I didn’t sleep for nights. But I was not willing to compromise my principles for one more minute.”

[CBS announced this week that it was terminating its contract with General Batiste as a consultant because of the advertisements.]

His retirement from the Army in November 2005 meant turning his back on a third star and command of day-to-day combat missions in Iraq, the No. 2 military position in Baghdad. Having cast aside his military career, General Batiste cast his eyes away from the defense industry to join Klein Steel Service, which cuts and processes steel for commercial, civilian enterprises — and does no military work.

Copyright 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/us/13generals.html?em&ex=1179201600&en=f47ba7dcca30a273&ei=5087%0A

[Punzie]

The New York Times
May 24, 2007

Body Found in Iraq Is That of Missing G.I.

By DAMIEN CAVE (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/damien_cave/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

MAHMUDIYA, Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), May 24 — The American military confirmed today that a body found in the Euphrates River on Wednesday is that of Army Pfc. Joseph Anzack Jr., one of three American soldiers seized in an ambush on May 12.

A military official said that the body, which was pulled from the river several miles south of where the attack occurred, had been identified late Wednesday and that the family of Private Anzack, 20, of Torrance, Calif., had been notified.

The discovery brought the first signs of closure to a massive manhunt that has gone on for 11 days, with thousands of American and Iraqi troops searching day and night for the missing soldiers. But for the men and women who lost friends, it was hardly enough.

Lt. Michael Nunziato, 24, a member of the Second Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division — a unit that lost a soldier on Saturday when a bomb exploded as they were searching for the missing Americans — said the discovery brought a mix of sadness and relief to the search parties.

“It’s good to have the finality of it,” said Lt. Nunziato, 24, of Buffalo, N.Y. “You never want it to be that he passed away, but you have to keep up hope for the remaining two. You have to keep up hope.”

The search for the two other soldiers — Specialist Alex R. Jimenez, 25, of Lawrence, Mass., and Pvt. Byron W. Fouty, 19, of Waterford, Mich. — continued on Thursday, with troops moving throughout the area.
Several platoons in Humvees rolled out early this morning from the main base in Mahmudiyah while helicopters shuddered overhead.

Word of the body being discovered spread quickly on Wednesday night among the troops. American military officials said Iraqi police officers had recovered the body near Musayyib, about 40 miles south of Baghdad, in an area known to be a safe haven for Sunni insurgents.

Military officials on Wednesday declined to provide details on the location or condition of the body and cut off Internet and telephone access for soldiers at bases to limit rumors. “We will give the truth to the families first,” said Maj. Webster Wright, a spokesman for the Second Brigade Combat Team, which has been leading the search.

Iraqi police officials said the body was partly clothed in an American military uniform and had a tattoo on one arm, bullet wounds and possible signs of torture. Residents said it was found floating in the Euphrates on Wednesday morning, several miles south of the road by the river where the attack occurred.

“Some people from our town — and I was with them — dragged the body from the river,” said Ali Abbas al-Fatlawi, 30, a resident of Musayyib. “We saw the head riddled with bullets, and shots in the left side of the abdomen. His hands were not tied, and he was not blindfolded.”

Ali Khalid, 27, a carpenter who lives near the river, said he had used his boat to take the body to shore. Residents say the police took the body to a local hospital, where American soldiers later collected it.

American military officials did not confirm the local accounts. A group of soldiers who had been searching near Musayyib this week — and who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the operations — said American troops might have cornered the gunmen, who then killed the soldier and dumped his body as they fled.

The area, they said, has one of the most entrenched insurgent populations in Iraq, with American troops regularly facing attack when they enter.
In the dining hall at a United States base here on Wednesday night, American soldiers gathered around televisions, anxiously watching cable news reports about the discovery of the body.

Pfc. Ryan McClymonds, 21, of Miami, said that if the body found in the river proved to be that of one of the missing Americans, its discovery would at least represent some progress in a frustrating search dominated by false leads. “Something is better than nothing for the families,” Private McClymonds said. He said the troops hungered for something to show for their effort.

At least two soldiers have already died during the search for their missing comrades, and several others have been wounded. Iraqi and American officials have reported that roughly 1,000 people have been detained since the search began. Of those, commanders have said, roughly 15 are believed to have direct knowledge of the ambush.

Seven of the nine American service members killed Monday and Tuesday were soldiers. Six were killed by roadside bombs and the seventh was hit by small arms fire, the military said in statements.

The other two were marines killed in combat in Anbar Province, the military said.

The military also reported on Wednesday that nine American service members had been killed in roadside bomb attacks and gun battles across Iraq on Monday and Tuesday, and a suicide bomber struck Wednesday in an area where Kurds and Arabs are battling for control, killing as many as 20 people.

The bomber walked into a coffee shop in Mandali, 60 miles east of Baghdad in Diyala Province, and blew himself up. A police official said the blast had killed 11 people and wounded 25; news agencies reported that the police said at least 20 people had been killed.

It was at least the second major attack in a week in the area and seemed to reflect rising tensions between Kurds and Arabs over a disputed section of the province that Kurdish leaders are seeking to incorporate into Iraqi Kurdistan. On May 19, gunmen wearing Iraqi Army uniforms dragged 15 Shiite Kurds into the street in a nearby village and shot them dead, Iraqi government officials said.

Diyala, a religiously mixed area that has become one of Iraq’s deadliest regions, was also the site of several gun battles and bombings on Wednesday.

Security officials in Jalawla said three Iraqi soldiers had been among six killed there in a series of clashes. A bomb in the nearby city of Buhruz killed two women, officials said. And in Muqdadiya, two other civilians and a policeman were killed in separate attacks.

In Baghdad, the authorities found 30 bodies throughout the city, an Interior Ministry official said. Bombs and mortars killed at least four people, the official said.

Gunmen in armored vehicles also opened fire near the Shorja market, leading to clashes that killed at least five people and wounded 17, according to witnesses and the police.

Mustafa Hatem, 35, said the shots had set fire to his electrical goods store, causing more than $10,000 worth of damage. The Iraqi government, he said, should consider augmenting its own government forces and allowing Iraqis to create their own private security companies.

“I was expecting good things from the government succeeding Saddam’s, but unfortunately things have gone in the opposite direction to our hopes and dreams,” he said. “I wonder, how has the security plan benefited us?”

The United States military said gunmen attacked a convoy of State Department officials in Baghdad on Wednesday, requiring help from attack helicopters and American troops in the area. No American soldiers or civilians were hurt.

Copyright 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/world/middleeast/24cnd-iraq.html

[Punzie]

News Analysis

On War Funds, Democrats Saw No Option but to Cede Ground to Bush

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/24/world/24cong-600.jpg
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, in Washington on Tuesday.


By CARL HULSE (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/carl_hulse/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
The New York Times
May 24, 2007

WASHINGTON, May 23 — Congressional contortions over the Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) spending bill could end up with most House Democrats momentarily occupying the position they were so desperate to vacate: the minority.

The decision by the Democratic majority to strip the measure of a timetable for troop withdrawal has raised the prospect that it could be approved mainly by Republicans (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org) with scattered Democrat support. The idea that many Democrats would be left on the losing side in a consequential vote has exposed a sharp divide within the party, drawn scorn from antiwar groups, confused the public and frustrated the party rank and file.

But in recounting the leadership’s thinking, senior Democrats and other officials said that by early this week they had concluded there was no alternative but to give ground to President Bush despite their view that he had mishandled the war and needed to be put under tighter Congressional rein.

Democrats said they did not relish the prospect of leaving Washington for a Memorial Day break — the second recess since the financing fight began — and leaving themselves vulnerable to White House attacks that they were again on vacation while the troops were wanting. That criticism seemed more politically threatening to them than the anger Democrats knew they would draw from the left by bowing to Mr. Bush.

Some lawmakers favored sending Mr. Bush another bill with a timetable for withdrawal and risking a second veto, the senior Democrats said. But they said they had questioned whether such a measure could pass the Senate a second time, raising the possibility that Congress would be left sitting on the bill and carrying the blame.

“It would have stayed at this end of Pennsylvania Avenue,” Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said of a second timeline measure.

Mr. Emanuel said he intended to support the war money bill and other Democrats intend to join him in backing it, as well as a second proposal containing $17 billion in new domestic spending and a minimum-wage increase that Democrats are hailing as a major victory. Representative Steny H. Hoyer (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/steny_h_hoyer/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Maryland, the majority leader, is expected to back the war financing bill as well.

But scores of other Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/nancy_pelosi/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of California, say they have no intention of voting for the more than $100 billion sought by the White House for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan because Mr. Bush refused to accede to timelines, readiness standards and other conditions. They have said repeatedly since taking control in January that they will not turn over more money for the war without some movement toward a withdrawal.

In allowing the war money measure to reach the floor with indifferent backing from her own party, Ms. Pelosi is breaking one of the cardinal rules of her predecessor, J. Dennis Hastert (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/j_dennis_hastert/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Illinois, whose mantra was to legislate with the majority of the majority party.

“She is showing she is the speaker of the whole House,” said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Ms. Pelosi. “Even though she does not personally support it, she said the money will go to the troops and she is following through on that.”

But the outcome has angered segments of the antiwar coalition that helped put Democrats in charge of Congress last November on the presumption that the party would hold Mr. Bush’s feet to the fire when it came to the war.

Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/moveon.org/index.html?inline=nyt-org), said Democrats were retreating when the public was squarely on their side. Members of his group were distributing fliers with an illustration of a spinal column to lawmakers, urging them to “show some backbone” and oppose the war spending bill.

“The Democrats were elected in November to lead the country out of the war, and this bill doesn’t do that,” Mr. Pariser said. “And the perplexing thing about this moment is that the Democrats have the political wind strongly at their backs, and the country wants them to fight.”

Many Democrats share that view, saying they would have preferred a harder line from the leadership. “They were weaker than I would have preferred,” said Representative Jerrold Nadler (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/jerrold_nadler/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Democrat of New York.
But some of Mr. Nadler’s colleagues said Democrats had to exhibit the responsibility that came with power and should reserve their criticism for Mr. Bush.

“The speaker and our leadership have been indefatigable in their efforts to bring the president to a place to do what we want to do — fund the troops and begin to change direction in Iraq,” said Representative Ellen O. Tauscher, Democrat of California.

The leadership has engaged in a bit of legislative legerdemain to ease the pain for Democrats when it comes to the votes on the war money. Their plan calls for two votes. One would be on the war spending and related benchmarks calling for progress in Iraq — benchmarks that were previously resisted by the White House. That is the proposal many Democrats and Ms. Pelosi intend to vote against. Republican officials said Wednesday they believed their members would back it so the money could reach the Pentagon.

A second proposal would contain the first minimum-wage increase in more than a decade and $17 billion in new money for agriculture subsidies, child health care, veterans and military health care, and Gulf Coast rebuilding. Democrats intend to line up behind that measure. If passed, the two proposals would automatically be merged and sent to the Senate without a final vote, sparing Democrats a roll call on the war money and Republicans a vote on the spending.

Aides said they expected the combined proposals to draw considerable support from Senate Democrats who would be more inclined to want to go on record backing the financing for the military as well as the domestic spending. The idea was to get the measure to Mr. Bush by the weekend, though it was still being assembled Wednesday.

Some senators were weighing their options. The Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/hillary_rodham_clinton/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of New York and Barack Obama (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Illinois were not tipping their hand.

And Senator Harry Reid (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/harry_reid/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Nevada, the majority leader and Ms. Pelosi’s partner in negotiating with the White House, had also not revealed how he intended to vote.

Should Mr. Reid decline to support the final bill, it would mean the approval of the war money over the personal objections of the top Democrats in both the House and Senate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/washington/24cong.html

---------------------------------------------------------------
(NEWS)

Bush Says Iraq Pullout Would Leave U.S. at Risk

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/sheryl_gay_stolberg/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
The New York Times

NEW LONDON, Conn., May 23 — President Bush, addressing head-on the criticism that Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) has turned into another Vietnam, argued Wednesday that withdrawing from Iraq would be dangerous because, unlike the enemy in Vietnam, terrorists in Iraq had the ability and desire to strike Americans at home.

In a commencement speech at the Coast Guard Academy here, Mr. Bush also described what the White House called previously classified intelligence to build his case that Osama bin Laden (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/osama_bin_laden/index.html?inline=nyt-per) was trying to turn Iraq into a “terrorist sanctuary” from which Al Qaeda (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda/index.html?inline=nyt-org) could plot against the United States.

Even in trying to contrast the two wars, invoking the Vietnam analogy was unusual for Mr. Bush. It is a comparison he typically addresses only in response to questions.

“Now, many critics compare the battle in Iraq to the situation we faced in Vietnam,” Mr. Bush said. “There are many differences between those two conflicts, but one stands out above all: The enemy in Vietnam had neither the intent nor the capability to strike our homeland. The enemy in Iraq does.”

The comments brought immediate criticism from Democrats and some counterterrorism experts, who assailed Mr. Bush for not acknowledging that the war itself helped open the door for terrorists to set up shop in Iraq. “One day Bush tells us we are fighting in Iraq so that terrorists won’t come here, then he releases intelligence that says terrorists trained in Iraq are coming here. Which is it?” said Richard A. Clarke (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/richard_a_clarke/index.html?inline=nyt-per), a former counterterrorism adviser to Mr. Bush and President Clinton, in a statement released by the National Security Network advocacy group.

Mr. Bush has long contended that withdrawing from Iraq would create a vacuum that would let Al Qaeda flourish, and he reiterated that argument on Wednesday, saying, “We are at a pivotal moment in this battle.” He painted a picture of a deepening terrorist threat even as he said Al Qaeda had been repeatedly thwarted by the United States and its allies.

In 2005, Mr. Bush said, Mr. bin Laden personally directed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/z/abu_musab_al_zarqawi/index.html?inline=nyt-per), a Jordanian terrorist who led the group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda_in_mesopotamia/index.html?inline=nyt-org) until his death last year at the hands of American forces, to develop a new terrorist cell that would plot attacks against the United States and other countries. “Bin Laden emphasized that America should be Zarqawi’s No. 1 priority in terms of foreign attacks,” he said. “Zarqawi welcomed this direction. He claimed that he had already come up with some good proposals.”

The speech, given to 228 graduates, was a far cry from the president’s last Coast Guard Academy commencement address. That speech, delivered in May of 2003, came just a few weeks after Mr. Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq, and the president used it to sound a theme of victory. “In Iraq, America’s military and our allies carried out every mission, and exceeded every expectation,” Mr. Bush said then.

Wednesday’s speech, by contrast, amounted to a defense of Mr. Bush’s policies, and drew immediate criticism from Democrats and some national security experts. Some argued that the speech, rather than building up Mr. Bush’s case for the war, undermined it by confirming that Iraq is already a haven for terrorists.

“The president today made the best case yet for why Congress must insist on a change of strategy in Iraq,” said Senator Harry Reid (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/harry_reid/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Nevada, the Democratic leader. “Intelligence analysts concluded long ago that Iraq has indeed become a training ground and recruiting poster for a new generation of terrorists.” Thomas Sanderson, a terrorism specialist at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies, called Mr. Bush’s argument “completely ridiculous,” and said Iraq would not have become a training ground for Al Qaeda had the United States not invaded. “We created the biggest terrorism training ground known, which is Iraq,” he said.

The assertion that Mr. bin Laden is thought to be communicating with insurgents in Iraq is not new. But Mr. Bush sought to infuse it with details. He said intelligence officials believed Mr. bin Laden had asked another top terror operative, Hamza Rabia, to help Mr. Zarqawi develop his terrorist cell by providing him with a briefing about Al Qaeda’s “external operations,” including information on attacks planned on American soil. Mr. Bush said another senior Qaeda leader, Abu Faraj al-Libi, at one point suggested that Mr. bin Laden send Mr. Rabia himself to Iraq, with the idea that “Al Qaeda might one day prepare the majority of its external operations from Iraq.”
And Mr. Bush said Mr. bin Laden tried to send another Qaeda operative, Abd al Hadi al-Iraqi, to Iraq. But Mr. Bush said he was captured.

Copyright 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/world/middleeast/24prexy.html

[ManhattanKnight]

May 28, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist

Trust and Betrayal

By PAUL KRUGMAN

“In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly, because we know the costs of war.” That’s what President Bush said last year, in a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.

Those were fine words, spoken by a man with less right to say them than any president in our nation’s history. For Mr. Bush took us to war not with reluctance, but with unseemly eagerness.

Now that war has turned into an epic disaster, in part because the war’s architects, whom we now know were warned about the risks, didn’t want to hear about them. Yet Congress seems powerless to stop it. How did it all go so wrong?

Future historians will shake their heads over how easily America was misled into war. The warning signs, the indications that we had a rogue administration determined to use 9/11 as an excuse for war, were there, for those willing to see them, right from the beginning — even before Mr. Bush began explicitly pushing for war with Iraq.

In fact, the very first time Mr. Bush declared a war on terror that “will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated,” people should have realized that he was going to use the terrorist attack to justify anything and everything.

When he used his first post-attack State of the Union to denounce an “axis of evil” consisting of three countries that had nothing to do either with 9/11 or with each other, alarm bells should have gone off.

But the nation, brought together in grief and anger over the attack, wanted to trust the man occupying the White House. And so it took a long time before Americans were willing to admit to themselves just how thoroughly their trust had been betrayed.

It’s a terrible story, yet it’s also understandable. I wasn’t really surprised by Republican election victories in 2002 and 2004: nations almost always rally around their leaders in times of war, no matter how bad the leaders and no matter how poorly conceived the war.

The question was whether the public would ever catch on. Well, to the immense relief of those who spent years trying to get the truth out, they did. Last November Americans voted overwhelmingly to bring an end to Mr. Bush’s war.

Yet the war goes on.

To keep the war going, the administration has brought the original bogyman back out of the closet. At first, Mr. Bush said he would bring Osama bin Laden in, dead or alive. Within seven months after 9/11, however, he had lost interest: “I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s at the center of any command structure,” he said in March 2002. “I truly am not that concerned about him.”
In all of 2003, Mr. Bush, who had an unrelated war to sell, made public mention of the man behind 9/11 only seven times.

But Osama is back: last week Mr. Bush invoked his name 11 times in a single speech, warning that if we leave Iraq, Al Qaeda — which wasn’t there when we went in — will be the winner. And Democrats, still fearing that they will end up accused of being weak on terror and not supporting the troops, gave Mr. Bush another year’s war funding.

Democratic Party activists were furious, because polls show a public utterly disillusioned with Mr. Bush and anxious to see the war ended. But it’s not clear that the leadership was wrong to be cautious. The truth is that the nightmare of the Bush years won’t really be over until politicians are convinced that voters will punish, not reward, Bush-style fear-mongering. And that hasn’t happened yet.

Here’s the way it ought to be: When Rudy Giuliani says that Iran, which had nothing to do with 9/11, is part of a “movement” that “has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us,” he should be treated as a lunatic.

When Mitt Romney says that a coalition of “Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda” wants to “bring down the West,” he should be ridiculed for his ignorance.

And when John McCain says that Osama, who isn’t in Iraq, will “follow us home” if we leave, he should be laughed at.

But they aren’t, at least not yet. And until belligerent, uninformed posturing starts being treated with the contempt it deserves, men who know nothing of the cost of war will keep sending other people’s children to graves at Arlington.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[ZippyTheChimp]

http://www.newyorker.com/

July 5, 2007

Plus Ça Change

George Packer

I just received an advance copy of a little book that the University of Chicago Press will soon publish: “Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II.” (http://www.amazon.com/Instructions-American-Servicemen-during-World/dp/0226841707/) Iraq was a little less complicated for American soldiers in 1943: unlike the new four-hundred-seventy-two-page Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency field manual, (http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/263154.ctl) also to be published by Chicago, the Second World War booklet could fit in a G.I.’s front pocket. The advice is pretty basic and full of painful resonance today: “Keep away from mosques”; “Don’t put in your two cents worth when Iraqis argue about religion”; “Don’t make a pass at any Moslem woman or there will be trouble.” The essential message is to show respect, since “American success or failure in Iraq may well depend on whether the Iraqis (as the people are called) like American soldiers or not.” Why wasn’t this the “ commander's intent” when Americans returned to Iraq sixty years later? In his foreword, Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl laments, “I wish that I had read it before beginning my own yearlong tour.”

The main difference between now and then can be found in a couple of sentences that would make any officer who has spent months trying to “ stand up” a local council in some Iraqi city wilt with envy:

You aren't going to Iraq to change the Iraqis. Just the opposite. We are fighting this war to preserve the principle of “ live and let live.”

[Punzie]

Official: Iraq gov't missed all targets

By ANNE FLAHERTY and ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writers
July 9, 2007

A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reform, speeding up the Bush administration's reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday.

One likely result of the report will be a vastly accelerated debate among President Bush's top aides on withdrawing troops and scaling back the U.S. presence in Iraq.

The "pivot point" for addressing the matter will no longer be Sept. 15, as initially envisioned, when a full report on Bush's so-called "surge" plan is due, but instead will come this week when the interim mid-July assessment is released, the official said.

"The facts are not in question," the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the draft is still under discussion. "The real question is how the White House proceeds with a post-surge strategy in light of the report."

The report, required by law, is expected to be delivered to Capitol Hill by Thursday or Friday, as the Senate takes up a $649 billion defense policy bill and votes on a Democratic amendment ordering troop withdrawals to begin in 120 days.

Also being drafted are several Republican-backed proposals that would force a new course in Iraq, including one by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., that would require U.S. troops to abandon combat missions. Collins and Nelson say their binding amendment would order the U.S. mission to focus on training the Iraqi security forces, targeting al-Qaida members and protecting Iraq's borders.

"My goal is to redefine the mission and set the stage for a significant but gradual drawdown of our troops next year," said Collins.

GOP support for the war has eroded steadily since Bush's decision in January to send some 30,000 additional troops to Iraq. At the time, Bush said the Iraqis agreed to meet certain benchmarks, such as enacting a law to divide the nation's oil reserves.

This spring, Congress agreed to continue funding the war through September but demanded that Bush certify on July 15 and again on Sept. 15 that the Iraqis were living up to their political promises or forgo U.S. aid dollars.

The official said it is highly unlikely that Bush will withhold or suspend aid to the Iraqis based on the report.

A draft version of the administration's progress report circulated among various government agencies in Washington on Monday.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow on Monday tried to lower expectations on the report, contending that all of the additional troops had just gotten in place and it would be unrealistic to expect major progress by now.

"You are not going to expect all the benchmarks to be met at the beginning of something," Snow said. "I'm not sure everyone's going to get an `A' on the first report."

In recent weeks, the White House has tried to shore up eroding GOP support for the war.

Collins and five other GOP senators — Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Robert Bennett of Utah, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Pete Domenici of New Mexico — support separate legislation calling on Bush to adopt as U.S. policy recommendations by the Iraq Study Group, which identified a potential redeployment date of spring 2008.

Other prominent Republican senators, including Richard Lugar of Indiana, George Voinovich of Ohio, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe of Maine, also say the U.S. should begin redeployments.

Several GOP stalwarts, including Sens. Ted Stevens of Alaska, Christopher Bond of Missouri, Jon Kyl of Arizona and James Inhofe of Oklahoma, said they still support Bush's Iraq strategy.

Kyl said he would try to focus this week's debate on preserving vital anti-terrorism programs, including the detention of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The defense bill is on track to expand the legal rights of those held at the military prison, and many Democrats want to propose legislation that would shut the facility.

"If Democrats use the defense authorization bill to pander to the far left at the expense of our national security, they should expect serious opposition from Republicans," Kyl said.

As the Senate debate began, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee arranged to run television commercials in four states, beginning Tuesday, to pressure Republicans on the war.

The ads are to run in Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota and New Hampshire, according to knowledgeable officials, but the DSCC so far has committed to spending a relatively small amount of money, less than $100,000 in all. Barring a change in plans that means the ads would not be seen widely in any of the four states.

The targets include Sens. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Collins of Maine, Sununu of New Hampshire and the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. All face re-election next year.

The boost in troop levels in Iraq has increased the cost of war there and in Afghanistan to $12 billion a month, with the overall tally for Iraq alone nearing a half-trillion dollars, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which provides research and analysis to lawmakers.

The figures call into question the Pentagon's estimate that the increase in troop strength and intensifying pace of operations in Baghdad and Anbar province would cost $5.6 billion through the end of September.
__
Associated Press reporters Pauline Jelinek, Andrew Taylor, Matthew Lee and Jennifer Loven contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070710/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq


Do you feel the "Liberal guilt"? I do.:o

[Capn_Birdseye]

(NEWS)

Bush Says Iraq Pullout Would Leave U.S. at Risk

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/sheryl_gay_stolberg/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
The New York Times

Maybe, but was the US at any real risk before "regime change" and the fall of Saddam? I think not!!
It's surprising what the lure of huge reserves of oil will do!

[ZippyTheChimp]

The U.S. was never at risk from terrorists in Iraq. Hussein was a secular dictator who saw the theocracy of Al Qaeda as a threat.

Ironically, the situation is different now, as Bush has transformed Iraq into a terrorist base camp.

In a cruel irony, it's probably in the best interest of the US people that Iraq is a failure. I don't think oil had anything to do with it. Access to oil was constant. Even Bin Laden wrote that he would continue to sell oil to the West.

Success in Iraq was tied to a political agenda that if successful, would have altered American political life to a degree that we would have regretted for decades.

[MidtownGuy]

I don't think we should say oil had nothing to do with it. While access to oil may have been constant, that isn't to say that they wanted Saddam Hussein being in control of the world's second largest known oil reserves. We have more control over deals with a puppet government, dont we? Under Husssein it is my understanding that the oil industry was nationalized. That wasn't the best situation for certain corporations. When billions of dollars in oil is involved, how can we say it has nothing to do with the situation?


Iraq's oil wealth is being stolen
Tuesday May 15, 2007
The Guardian

The war in Iraq has brought enormous suffering to the Iraqi people, with an estimated 655,000 Iraqis killed and millions more displaced. Even so, some companies - such as Shell - are hoping to profit from this suffering. Indeed, since March 2003, Shell has been working closely with the occupying powers to create a framework that will allow multinational companies to take control of Iraq's oil. Thus, for example, British officials advised the International Tax and Investment Centre - a lobby group working on behalf of BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Total and ENI - on their strategy for influencing the Iraqi government, formally sent ITIC's document to the Iraqi finance minister, and helped arrange a meeting at which Shell managers met ministers and officials.
Needless to say, Shell had little difficulty in persuading the two governments of this approach. There has long been a revolving door between Shell and the Foreign Office. Four of the last five permanent heads of the Foreign Office have gone on to become directors of oil and gas companies - two of them at Shell.

The result of this lobbying is the draft oil law before the Iraqi parliament. This could result in multinational oil companies controlling and profiting from most of the country's oilfields for up to 20 years. The first draft was written in July 2006 and was seen by Shell and other oil companies within two weeks. Members of the Iraqi parliament did not see it until eight months later, while Iraqi civil society was excluded together.

Iraq's future is being stolen. Today, as Shell holds its AGM in London and the Netherlands, action should be taken to stop this theft.

[Capn_Birdseye]

I don't think oil had anything to do with it.
:rolleyes: It had everything to do with it!!!
Why no regime change in North Korea? No oil.
Why no regime change in many African states? No oil.
Midtown guy has got it right.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I don't think we should say oil had nothing to do with it. While access to oil may have been constant, that isn't to say that they wanted Saddam Hussein being in control of the world's second largest known oil reserves.

We have more control over deals with a puppet government, dont we? Under Hussein it is my understanding that the oil industry was nationalized. That wasn't the best situation for certain corporations. When billions of dollars in oil is involved, how can we say it has nothing to do with the situation?When I say it had nothing to do with it, I meant strictly the regime change, not US involvement in the region.

The only time we try to destabilize a country or get involved militarily is when the flow of oil is interrupted. That occurred when Iraq invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia, and we responded militarily. When Hussein was pushed back across the border, he was allowed to remain in power because as far as oil delivery was concerned, the country was stable.

If US corporations were concerned with oil production, then the country they should have looked at was Saudi Arabia. Before the war, that's where the instability was; that's where Al Qaeda was. Iraq was rock solid; Hussein ran it like an oil company.

:rolleyes: It had everything to do with it!!!
Why no regime change in North Korea? No oil.
Why no regime change in many African states? No oil.Simplistic.

[milleniumcab]

Success in Iraq was tied to a political agenda that if successful, would have altered American political life to a degree that we would have regretted for decades.

You are right on that but now that US Iraq policy has been unsuccessful, all of the Middle East is at risk...I think that will also alter American political life to another degree which we will regret for decades....

So called the new map of the Middle East has been circulating in the internet including the American Armed Forces Journal web page.. If that map was to take shape, we are looking at many wars for many decades to come, in that part of the world...

http://governmentofbalochistan.blogspot.com/2006/07/armed-forces-journal-blood-borders.html

[lofter1]

Blood borders
How a better Middle East would look

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4264/2115/1600/map1.jpg

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4264/2115/1600/map2.jpg

[Capn_Birdseye]

If US corporations were concerned with oil production, then the country they should have looked at was Saudi Arabia. Before the war, that's where the instability was; that's where Al Qaeda was.
Zippy I've only one word to say to you: MECCA!
Imagine how the Moslem world would react!!!!

Simplistic.
But true!

[ZippyTheChimp]

Zippy I've only one word to say to you: MECCA!
Imagine how the Moslem world would react!!!!
Well, there you go, Capn. Oil present, but no regime change. Like I said, your analysis is simplistic.

But true!Let's look at the other two legs of the pre-war Axis of Evil. Although I believe it still would have been a daunting task, you can't say that Bush would not have invaded N Korea or Iran if "mission accomplished" had actually happened aboard the aircraft carrier.

The reality, however, is that US forces are stretched pretty thin, and any major invasion today is out of the question. We have Reserve and National Guard units, never intended for extended combat duty, doing multiple tours in Iraq.

North Korea: Unlike the Iraqi military, which twice has been shown to be a paper tiger, N Korea has the 4th largest army in the world. More important, it has the highest percentage of its population in uniform. While the general population lives in hardship, the military is well provided for, and is loyal to the leadership.

How would Russia and China react to such an invasion? And what about S Korea and Japan? An invasion would be launched from these two countries, and N Korea possesses missiles that can reach deep into both.

Iran: They have plenty of oil, so why haven't we changed the regime? Ahmadinejad has made threats to a higher level than Hussein, and the country actually is pursuing WMD.

Maybe we're not there because the country is 4 times the size of Iraq, has a well structured military, and a more homogeneous population than Iraq. While their government is oppressive, I doubt the population would view an invasion by Americans as liberating.

Then there's the Balkans. Lots of regime changes, but not a drop of oil.

Do I have to go on?

[Capn_Birdseye]

Zippy, I don't think you've grasped the point about Saudi Arabia. If US forces were to be actively engaged on Saudi soil, the home of two of the most important places of pilgrimage in Islam, then the whole Moslem world would turn in unison against America. It's a non-starter!
The fact is the US supports the corrupt House of Saud. An interesting book to read on the subject is: "House of Saud & House of Bush - The Secret Relationship" by Craig Unger.
Saudi Arabia is a feudal kingdom where the concept of democracy is unknown, its policed by The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue & the Prevention of Vice, and is the home of the extreme Isalmic sect, the Wahibbi. The US sure knows how to pick its friends, but wait what else is there in the equation, why of course, its OIL!

Robert Fisk: The corrupt, feudal world of the House of Saud
The Saud family is a real House that Jack built. Its thousands of princes are sublimely unworthy of rule

Poor old Saudis. It takes quite a lot to evoke sympathy for the head-chopping, hand-severing, anti-feminist, misogynist, feudal, anti-democratic Saudis. These, after all, are the folks who bankrolled the Islamist resistance to the Soviet army in Afghanistan. This is the nation whose interior minister used to have cosy chats with Osama bin Laden in the Saudi embassy in Islamabad.

Indeed, this is the country that chose Osama to be its "prince" in the campaign against Soviet atheism – its own, real, princes not having the guts to lead the Arab "legion" against the Russians. And this is the country that provided 15 of the 19 suicide killers of 11 September 2001. And this is the country whose suicide bombers slaughtered yet more Westerners in Riyadh on Monday. If it's more than 90 dead, it will be al-Qa'ida's greatest triumph since 2001.

But after the latest blitz on Iraq, after the illegal (under international law) invasion of Iraq, and after the naive, dangerous mouthings of America's new colonial masters – I am thinking of the new stomach-in, chest-out musings of their most famous flop, Zionist ex-General Jay Garner – you can't help feeling a twinge of sympathy for the Saudis. After all, they were – like Saddam – created by the West.

The British accepted the Sauds once it was clear the Hashemites were out of the Hejaz, and Franklin D Roosevelt sanctified their rule aboard the USS Quincy. Winston Churchill's drinking spree with the Saudi monarch in Egypt brought an end to Britain's imperial adventure in the land of the Two Holy Places. When Churchill announced that "If it was the religion of His Majesty to deprive himself of smoking and alcohol, I must point out that my rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them," Ibn Saud was not amused.

The Saud royal family is a real House that Jack built. Its thousands of princes – rakes of a most medieval kind – are sublimely unworthy of rule. They own a third of 60 per cent of the world's oil – they share this global treasure with four other families – and they have produced not only the greediest of sheikhs and the poorest of Gulf slums but the most ferociously Wahhabist, feudal anti-Western institution that has existed since the siege of Vienna. Oil money has corrupted the royal family. Its imams and religious "savants' have long ago decided that the Sauds are western stooges, weaned on prostitution, corruption and US bribes.

But among the neo-conservatives who now drive the Bush administration – the Perles and the Wolfowitzes and the Cohens – Saudi Arabia has long been the financial flip-side of Saddam. Who, after all, bankrolled Saddam's rise to power? Who financed his insane eight-year war with Iran – complete with the chemical warfare of which we are now so appalled? Who, indeed, sent the young Muslims off to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan? The Saudis. Let us forget – as Messrs Perle, Wolfowitz and Cohen would wish us to forget – they did so with our blessing and encouragement.

And ever since 11 September 2001 – I stress the complete date lest we mix it up with September 1982 (the massacre of 1,700 Palestinians at Sabra and Chatila) or that other 11 September that marked the Kissinger-inspired coup against Salvador Allende – the neo-conservatives in the US administration have been reminding us of the inherent evil of the Saudi regime. It was, after all, Mr Perle, who arranged for a Rand Corporation analyst – the extremely odd Mr Laurent Maurawiec – to tell a Pentagon "advisory board" (heaven knows what they "advise" on) that "the Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader." Saudi Arabia was "the kernel of evil."

Ever since, there has been a campaign to denigrate the House of Saud. The most recent was an article by an ex-CIA Middle East "field officer", Robert Baer, who wrote a long and detailed article in The Atlantic Monthly about the imminent collapse of the House of Saud. He described, with devastating accuracy, the near-fatal stroke of King Fahd in 1995 – a seizure which left the elderly Crown Prince Abdullah to rule in place of the still-surviving Fahd.

"From all over Riyadh came the thump-thump of helicopters" as the princes converged on the royal hospital bed; even more so when Fahd seemed on the verge of death in Switzerland last year when – in Switzerland myself – I was awoken by the same "thump-thump' and the screech of royal jets as the princes arrived yet again to demand a slice of the royal pudding. In truth, there are now too many princes – £19,000 a month is not enough for a princely lifestyle and the number of princes, at 15,000, is getting too big to manage. Soon there will be 30,000 – 60,000 in another generation.

Isn't this just what Osama bin Laden always talked about? Odd, isn't it, that Osama's hatreds and Baer's cynicism should coalesce in the Saudi royal family? Osama would like to turn Saudi Arabia into a real Islamic nation and some of his descriptions of Saudi corruption – made personally to me – sound remarkably like the bile of Messrs Perle and Baer. Indeed, the most revolting symbol of corruption produced by Baer is the image of King Fahd, recovering from heart surgery, defecating in the royal swimming pool in front of his entire family.

But fear not, I say. For as Baer wickedly points out, American business is locked into the Saudi royal family. The Carlyle group has been a principal benefactor of Saudi largesse. Frank Carlucci (national security adviser and Secretary of Defence under Reagan) was a chairman, James Baker (Bush Snr's Secretary of State) is a senior counsellor, and Arthur Levitt (Clinton's head of the Securities and Exchange commission) is also an adviser. The current chairman of Carlyle is our own dear John Major.

Halliburton – run by Dick Cheney until he became Vice President – is now benefiting from Iraqi "reconstruction", but is also a major beneficiary of Saudi Arabia, taking a $140m contract to develop an oilfield in 2001. Chevron Texaco is a partner with Saudi Aramco in new oil ventures – formerly on the board was Condoleezza Rice, America's favourite National Security Adviser. And so it goes on. And if you think it doesn't, check the roles of Carla Hills (George Bush Snr's trade representative) and Nicholas Brady, his Treasury Secretary, on the board of a company exploiting, along with the Saudis, Azerbaijan's oil wealth.

So here's a guess. No matter what happens in Saudi Arabia, America will go on backing the House of Saud. Unless they collapse. In which case, the US can take over the Saudi oil fields from its nearby bases in Iraq. If it was 12 minutes' flying time to Iraq's oil reserves, it's the same if they take off from Basra to "secure" Saudi Arabia's oil fields, most of them in territory inhabited by Shia Muslims – whose mentors will (so we hope) be in Iran and southern Iraq.

You can see the way the wind is going. We (think) we have Iraq. Forget Saudi Arabia. Until we realise that Osama bin Laden may be installed in Mecca and Medina and Riyadh. And then we'll say, but hang on a moment, didn't we beat him in Afghanistan? Either way, we'll keep the oil – however many victims Osama kills along the way.

As for regime change in N Korea, it ain't on, full-stop. Reason? China nor Russia would allow it.

Any regime change in Africa, e.g., crazed killer Mugabe in Zimbabwe, NO. Reason: No OIL, no imperative.

Regime change in Iran? They have OIL, but the US has belatedly discovered that all the sophisticated weaponry in the world doesn't necessarily win wars!

What about S America? after all there's OIL down there, and the US has had some experience of regime change with the Kissinger-inspired coup against Salvador Allende in Chile, Manual Noriega in Panama, failure against Fidel Castro in Cuba, but hey that's another story ....

[ZippyTheChimp]

^No, you don't get the point about Saudi Arabia.

Your post is an argument against your own position:
:rolleyes: It had everything to do with it!!!
Why no regime change in North Korea? No oil.
Why no regime change in many African states? No oil.


You're admitting that there are other factors at work, that it's not the simplistic:

Oil > invasion
No oil > no invasion

[Ninjahedge]

Iraw looked like a win-win to the boys in charge.

Oil was not the main reason, but it WAS a strong contributing factor. It was the resource that would make it so that this country, if "liberated" this country would have a resource that would not require the US to support any aid. AAMOF, they could actually be an ally and an asset rather than a liability.


Also, look at its position. Smack dab in the middle of Arab country. We would be getting an ally that would be, at least in the observations from before the deposition of Saddam, secular, stable, self sustaining, and not at war with anyone.

Turkey, Pakistan, Israel? They are our allies right? We get so much grief from them (some probably duly warranted) that our strategists were more likely than not very keen on getting even a NEUTRAL ally.

At least, that's how I see it.

YMMV.

[lofter1]

Throw in a belief in Armageddon / imminent demise of life on earth --

The whole thing must seem clear as a bell from that point of view :cool: :confused:

[Capn_Birdseye]

Let me ask you a question Lofter & Ninja - would the US have been so keen to go into Iraq if it had nil oil reserves? - I think not. The nasty Saddam give them the ideal cloak of "respectability" to go for regime change, hell why wait a few more weeks for the UN weapons inspectors to report back!!

Iraq: Oil and Economy http://images.about.com/all/bullets/dot_clea.gif Sands of Iraq hold world's 2nd largest oil reserve
In a Feb. 26 address (http://usgovinfo.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2003/n02262003%5F200302267.html), Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called suggestions that the US is really after Iraq's oil "utter nonsense."
"We don't take our forces and go around the world and try to take other people's real estate or other people's resources, their oil. That's just not what the United States does," he said. "We never have, and we never will. That's not how democracies behave." And believe that fairies live at the bottom of my garden.... :rolleyes:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,805530,00.html

[lofter1]

IMO oil is absolutely part of the equation.

And, along with what I've mentioned before, no one should ever forget that wee George's Pa basically got bitch-slapped by Saddam -- and the Bush's don't take that kind of stuff lightly.

It's all a complex situation -- basically little G's inferiority complex run rampant.

And We The People are doing damn too little about it.

[Capn_Birdseye]

IMO oil is absolutely part of the equation.

And, along with what I've mentioned before, no one should ever forget that wee George's Pa basically got bitch-slapped by Saddam -- and the Bush's don't take that kind of stuff lightly.

It's all a complex situation -- basically little G's inferiority complex run rampant.

And We The People are doing damn too little about it.
Agree.

[ZippyTheChimp]

And, along with what I've mentioned before, no one should ever forget that wee George's Pa basically got bitch-slapped by Saddam -- and the Bush's don't take that kind of stuff lightly.You'll have to explain that to me.

Bush 41 did exactly what he wanted to do in Iraq. He pushed Hussein back within his own borders, where he was no longer a threat to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and the oil continued to flow. If you want to know more about the mindset of his son, and why he still insists on staying in Iraq when pragmatism within his own party is beginning to advise otherwise, start here. (http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3868)

The campaign in Iraq was a crusade to spread not just democracy or self-rule, but American democracy, throughout the Middle East. If successful, it would have legitimized the neocons as the rightful custodians of America, and handed them political power that would be worth more than any oilfield.

[lofter1]

You'll have to explain that to me.


It was a clumsy reference to Saddam's attept to off Bush 41 (http://hnn.us/articles/1000.html), which in the worldview of the Bush clan requires a counter punch. Couple that with 43's Daddy issues and you get a counter punch that is way over the top.



... the mindset of his son >>> here. (http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3868)


I agree 43 is a pragmatist -- with an uncanny ability to pick and choose what best suits him. But it seems he also has a belief in a coming Armageddon, after which the chosen faithful will be saved (he and his ilk being a part of that that Rapturous gang).

That makes him particularly dangerous when it comes to wielding power: No matter what he does it is for the greater glory, and he's assured of life everlasting.

I also get the feeling he worries very little about his Judgment Day.

[Punzie]

The New York Times
July 13, 2007

A Firm Bush Tells Congress Not to Dictate War Policy

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/07/13/world/13policy-600.jpg
Images of President Bush were fed through an audio-visual console for editing during his White House
news conference Thursday on changes in Iraq.


By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/sheryl_gay_stolberg/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and JEFF ZELENY (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/z/jeff_zeleny/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

WASHINGTON, July 12 — President Bush struck an aggressive new tone on Thursday in his clash with Congress over Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), telling lawmakers they had no business trying to manage the war, portraying the conflict as a showdown with Al Qaeda (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda/index.html?inline=nyt-org) and warning that moving toward withdrawal now would risk “mass killings on a horrific scale.”

Hours later, the Democratic-controlled House responded by voting almost totally along party lines to require that the United States withdraw most combat troops from Iraq by April 1.

The 223-to-201 House vote, in which just four Republicans (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org) broke with their party, came as the White House continued its intense effort to stem a growing tide of Republican defections on the war. Officials from the White House — beginning with the president himself — have been reaching out to party members all week, trying to persuade them to wait until September to pass judgment on Mr. Bush’s current military strategy of sending more troops to quell the sectarian fighting and pursue insurgents.

The Senate has so far fallen well short of the 60 votes needed to approve a troop withdrawal, but more votes are expected there next week. And while Democrats have failed to win enough Republican votes to force a change in policy, Democratic leaders say they remain hopeful. Even some Republicans conceded Thursday that it could be difficult for Mr. Bush to hold the party together for much longer.

At a morning news conference where he released a mixed progress report on his troop buildup, Mr. Bush repeatedly invoked the threat of Al Qaeda as a reason to stick with his strategy, saying the group he referred to as Al Qaeda in Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda_in_mesopotamia/index.html?inline=nyt-org) “has sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/osama_bin_laden/index.html?inline=nyt-per).”

The president acknowledged that public opinion might be against him — he said that “sometimes the decisions you make and the consequences don’t enable you to be loved” — but suggested that Congress was overstepping its constitutional role by trying to force a change of policy on him.

“I don’t think Congress ought to be running the war,” Mr. Bush said. “I think they ought to be funding the troops.”

It is the first time since the Vietnam War that the legislative and executive branches have fought so bitterly over the president’s authority as commander in chief. Around the Capitol on Thursday morning, televisions were tuned into the White House news conference, as lawmakers and their aides passed around the White House’s status report on Iraq.

Lawmakers in both parties bristled at the president’s suggestion that Congress was overstepping its role in the war debate. Among them was Senator George V. Voinovich, a Republican from Ohio who has called for a change of direction in Iraq.

“We have a role to express our opinion in regards to the way he does anything,” Mr. Voinovich said in an interview. “He should welcome our point of view because it does reflect the point of view of the people who elected us to office.”

Mr. Bush wants Congress to wait until September, when the top military commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/david_h_petraeus/index.html?inline=nyt-per), and the top civilian official, Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/ryan_c_crocker/index.html?inline=nyt-per), deliver a fuller assessment of progress of the troop buildup. But the president also said he was not “going to speculate on what my frame of mind will be,” at that time, and he would not say how he might react if the September report is as mixed as the one delivered Thursday.

The report assessed the Iraqi government’s progress in meeting 18 benchmarks set by Congress on military, economic and political matters. It found the Iraqis had made satisfactory progress in meeting eight benchmarks, including committing three brigades for operations in and around Baghdad, and spending nearly $7.3 billion in Iraqi money to train, equip and modernize its forces.

But the Iraqis made unsatisfactory progress in meeting another eight benchmarks, including passing an oil revenue-sharing law and preparing for local elections that could help reconcile the country’s Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions. On two benchmarks, progress was too mixed to be characterized.

The report bluntly criticized the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/nuri_kamal_al-maliki/index.html?inline=nyt-per), saying the government continued to permit political interference in some military decisions. Though the report claimed that Mr. Maliki was not involved, it singled out the Iraqi Office of the Commander in Chief, which reports directly to Mr. Maliki, saying there was evidence that the office formulated “target lists,” primarily of Sunnis.

And Mr. Bush himself offered only lukewarm support for Mr. Maliki at Thursday’s news conference, declining to echo the praise he put forth in Jordan last November, when he proclaimed Mr. Maliki “the right guy for Iraq.” Asked if he still felt that way, the president responded, “I believe that he understands that there needs to be serious reconciliation, and they need to get law passed.”

As Mr. Bush offered his interpretation of the report, administration officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/condoleezza_rice/index.html?inline=nyt-per), were working behind the scenes, offering to interpret the document for Republican senators. Among those called was Senator Richard G. Lugar (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/richard_g_lugar/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Indiana, who is working with Senator John W. Warner (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/john_w_warner/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Republican of Virginia, to draft a proposal calling for a change in the military mission in Iraq.

Mr. Warner said the report was disappointing. “That government is simply not providing leadership worthy of the considerable sacrifice of our forces,” he said of the Iraqis, “and this has to change immediately.”

Despite such warnings, administration officials, who just two weeks ago feared Republican support for the troop buildup might collapse, say they think they will be able to hold the party together until September. One senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the feeling inside the White House was that while Americans want to get out of the war, they have enough doubts about withdrawing to give Mr. Bush leeway to pursue his strategy at least for another two months.

“There’s something in the American psyche that says this is important,” the official said, “and for all the criticism about how we got into it, we’d better be careful about where we go from here.”

Mr. Bush has been making the case, as he did again Thursday, that the troop buildup, which was completed only last month, cannot be fully evaluated until September. He said Congress itself had dictated that schedule in an emergency spending bill passed earlier this year, and he urged lawmakers to stick to it. Mr. Bush said the military gains cited in the report would ease the way for progress in creating a viable, effective Iraqi government.

But even among Republicans, patience is wearing thin, and the White House has not spelled out why it believes that Iraq will look substantially different in just eight weeks.

At the news conference, Mr. Bush was asked why — after failing to anticipate the sectarian divisions that would tear the country apart after the collapse of Saddam Hussein (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/saddam_hussein/index.html?inline=nyt-per)’s government — Americans should believe he has the vision for victory in Iraq. The president responded by appearing to lay blame for mistakes in the war directly on one of his military commanders at the beginning of the war, Gen. Tommy R. Franks (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/tommy_r_franks/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who led the invasion more than four years ago.

“Those are all legitimate question that I’m sure historians will analyze,” he said, adding that he had asked at the outset of the war whether his military commanders needed more troops. “My primary question to General Franks was: ‘Do you have what it takes to succeed, and do you have what it takes to succeed after you succeed in removing Saddam Hussein?’ And his answer was, ‘Yeah.’ ”

Critics of Thursday’s White House report said it overstated the Iraqis’ progress. In sections of the report dealing with efforts to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure, for example, two different benchmarks were given satisfactory grades while offering little evidence that reconstruction was anywhere close to improving the delivery of electricity, water, sanitation or other services.

In 2006, for example, the Iraqi ministries were criticized for failing to spend all but a small fraction of the billions in oil revenues the Iraqi government had set aside for reconstruction. But American officials said in an interview on Thursday that spending had only modestly accelerated toward the end of 2006 and into early 2007, and that the Iraqi government had not provided precise figures for this year.

David S. Cloud contributed reporting from Washington, and James Glanz from New York.

Copyright 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/washington/13policy.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1184322409-gHBZkrA4mtJT0i0MVoQe4A

[Ninjahedge]

The president acknowledged that public opinion might be against him — he said that “sometimes the decisions you make and the consequences don’t enable you to be loved” — but suggested that Congress was overstepping its constitutional role by trying to force a change of policy on him.

Did this man ever take a history class? :confused:

[lofter1]

He ^^^ gets his history direct from GOD Almighty :cool:

[Punzie]

The New York Times
July 13, 2007

Republican Senators Call for New War Authorization

By JEFF ZELENY (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/z/jeff_zeleny/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

WASHINGTON, July 13 — Two leading Republican senators said today that President Bush should seek a new war authorization and present a plan to Congress by Oct. 16 outlining contingency plans in Iraq. Those plans, which would include reducing American forces, should begin by the end of the year.

Senators John W. Warner (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/john_w_warner/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Virginia and Richard G. Lugar (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/richard_g_lugar/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Indiana, both of whom have criticized the administration’s troop buildup plan, introduced a measure expected to be considered next week when the Iraq war debate resumes. The senators said it was critical to move beyond the current clash between Congress and the White House and begin making plans to be implemented after the military releases its progress report in September.

“I continue to counsel the president and his administration to move now to construct a more sustainable policy in Iraq that reduces our troop commitments and transitions away from the missions of interposing ourselves between sectarian factions,” Mr. Lugar said in a statement.

Mr. Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, and Mr. Warner, a former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, are viewed among Republicans (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org) as respected and reasoned voices on the war debate. They had both agreed to withhold judgment until the interim report on Iraq that was presented Thursday to Congress.

One of the main elements of their amendment, which was filed shortly after noon today, would require the president to seek a new rationale for the war authorization by the time Gen. David H. Petraeus (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/david_h_petraeus/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the top military commander in Iraq, delivers a report in September on the progress of the troop buildup. The measure also would require the president to review and update the National Intelligence Estimate for Iraq no later than Sept. 4.

“Many of the conditions and motivations that existed when we authorized force almost five years ago no longer exist or are irrelevant to our current situation,”