U.S., Iraq Scale Down Negotiations Over Forces
Long-Term Agreement Will Fall to Next President
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 13, 2008; Page A01
U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have abandoned efforts to conclude a comprehensive agreement governing the long-term status of U.S troops in Iraq before the end of the Bush presidency, according to senior U.S. officials, effectively leaving talks over an extended U.S. military presence there to the next administration.
In place of the formal status-of-forces agreement negotiators had hoped to complete by July 31, the two governments are now working on a "bridge" document, more limited in both time and scope, that would allow basic U.S. military operations to continue beyond the expiration of a U.N. mandate at the end of the year.
The failure of months of negotiations over the more detailed accord -- blamed on both the Iraqi refusal to accept U.S. terms (100 years of occupation) and the complexity of the task -- deals a blow to the Bush administration's plans to leave in place a formal military architecture in Iraq that could last for years.
Although President Bush has repeatedly rejected calls for a troop withdrawal timeline, "we ARE talking about dates," acknowledged one U.S. official close to the negotiations. Iraqi political leaders "are all telling us the same thing. They need something like this in there. . . . Iraqis want to know that foreign troops are not going to be here forever."
(sounds like they aren't really OK with McCain's 100 year plan...)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/12/AR2008071201915.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Showing posts with label Bush Wars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bush Wars. Show all posts
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Friday, March 7, 2008
Officials Lean Toward Keeping Next Iraq Assessment Secret
By Walter Pincus and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, March 7, 2008; Page A07
A new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is scheduled to be completed this month, according to U.S. intelligence officials. But leaders of the intelligence community have not decided whether to make its key judgments public, a step that caused an uproar when key judgments in an NIE about Iran were released in November.
The classified estimate on Iraq is intended as an update of last summer's assessment, which predicted modest security improvements but an increasingly precarious political situation there, the U.S. officials said.
It is meant to be delivered to Congress before testimony in early April by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, according to a letter sent last week by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell to Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.).
Since the Iraq invasion in 2003, the intelligence community has been more cautious than the military and the White House in assessing political, economic and security gains in Iraq. And the war's progress has been a prominent issue in the presidential campaign.
In his letter to Warner, McConnell said that separate estimates are also being prepared on the "terrorist threat to the homeland" -- focusing on al-Qaeda and Pakistan -- and on "the tactical and longer-term security and political outlook for Afghanistan." Both are scheduled for publication by early fall.
Warner requested all three estimates in January, describing them as key to upcoming policy discussions in Congress.
Intelligence officials said that the National Intelligence Board -- made up of the heads of the 16 intelligence agencies plus McConnell -- will decide whether to release the Iraq judgments once the estimate is completed. But they made clear that they lean toward a return to the traditional practice of keeping such documents secret.
In internal guidance he issued in October, McConnell said that his policy was that they "should not be declassified." One month later, however, the intelligence board decided to publicly release key judgments from an NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons program, saying that it had weighed "the importance of the information to open discussions about our national security against the necessity to protect classified information."
The estimate, which said Iran had halted the weaponization element of its nuclear program, appeared to undermine the Bush administration's position on Tehran's overall effort. With Bush arguing that Iran remained "a danger," McConnell publicly said the NIE judgment was poorly written because it emphasized a halt in the weapons program rather than Iran's continuing nuclear enrichment.
Key NIE judgments on Iraq had previously been made public, beginning with a highly controversial October 2002 assessment warning that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. That estimate was later proved wrong, with no such weapons discovered in Iraq after the U.S. invasion, and the matter led to charges that the intelligence community had been politicized by the Bush administration.
"Overall, professional life is less complicated if nothing becomes public, (what we don't know CAN hurt us...) and one doesn't have to organize classified assessments always having in the back of one's mind, 'If this is ever leaked, how would it read' " in the news media, a former intelligence analyst said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/06/AR2008030603900.html?sub=AR
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, March 7, 2008; Page A07
A new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is scheduled to be completed this month, according to U.S. intelligence officials. But leaders of the intelligence community have not decided whether to make its key judgments public, a step that caused an uproar when key judgments in an NIE about Iran were released in November.
The classified estimate on Iraq is intended as an update of last summer's assessment, which predicted modest security improvements but an increasingly precarious political situation there, the U.S. officials said.
It is meant to be delivered to Congress before testimony in early April by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, according to a letter sent last week by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell to Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.).
Since the Iraq invasion in 2003, the intelligence community has been more cautious than the military and the White House in assessing political, economic and security gains in Iraq. And the war's progress has been a prominent issue in the presidential campaign.
In his letter to Warner, McConnell said that separate estimates are also being prepared on the "terrorist threat to the homeland" -- focusing on al-Qaeda and Pakistan -- and on "the tactical and longer-term security and political outlook for Afghanistan." Both are scheduled for publication by early fall.
Warner requested all three estimates in January, describing them as key to upcoming policy discussions in Congress.
Intelligence officials said that the National Intelligence Board -- made up of the heads of the 16 intelligence agencies plus McConnell -- will decide whether to release the Iraq judgments once the estimate is completed. But they made clear that they lean toward a return to the traditional practice of keeping such documents secret.
In internal guidance he issued in October, McConnell said that his policy was that they "should not be declassified." One month later, however, the intelligence board decided to publicly release key judgments from an NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons program, saying that it had weighed "the importance of the information to open discussions about our national security against the necessity to protect classified information."
The estimate, which said Iran had halted the weaponization element of its nuclear program, appeared to undermine the Bush administration's position on Tehran's overall effort. With Bush arguing that Iran remained "a danger," McConnell publicly said the NIE judgment was poorly written because it emphasized a halt in the weapons program rather than Iran's continuing nuclear enrichment.
Key NIE judgments on Iraq had previously been made public, beginning with a highly controversial October 2002 assessment warning that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. That estimate was later proved wrong, with no such weapons discovered in Iraq after the U.S. invasion, and the matter led to charges that the intelligence community had been politicized by the Bush administration.
"Overall, professional life is less complicated if nothing becomes public, (what we don't know CAN hurt us...) and one doesn't have to organize classified assessments always having in the back of one's mind, 'If this is ever leaked, how would it read' " in the news media, a former intelligence analyst said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/06/AR2008030603900.html?sub=AR
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
The $2 Trillion Nightmare
From the "The War Tanked The Economy, stupid!" files
in today's New York Times
By BOB HERBERT
Published: March 4, 2008
We’ve been hearing a lot about “Saturday Night Live” and the fun it has been having with the presidential race. But hardly a whisper has been heard about a Congressional hearing in Washington last week on a topic that could have been drawn, in all its tragic monstrosity, from the theater of the absurd. The war in Iraq will ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers not hundreds of billions of dollars, but an astonishing $2 trillion, and perhaps more. There has been very little in the way of public conversation, even in the presidential campaigns, (Maybe it is time for someone to change that and start talking about the connection between the economic woes we suffer and the war we have perpetuated for the profit of our worst corporate rogues. Even from the sidelines, the Edwards people are on top ot it, the Obama people need to get on it from the campaign.) about the consequences of these costs, which are like a cancer inside the American economy. On Thursday, the Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Senator Chuck Schumer, conducted a public examination of the costs of the war. The witnesses included the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz (who believes the overall costs of the war — not just the cost to taxpayers — will reach $3 trillion), and Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International.
Both men talked about large opportunities lost because of the money poured into the war. “For a fraction of the cost of this war,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half-century or more.”
Mr. Hormats mentioned Social Security and Medicare, saying that both could have been put “on a more sustainable basis.” And he cited the committee’s own calculations from last fall that showed that the money spent on the war each day is enough to enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start for a year, or make a year of college affordable for 160,000 low-income students through Pell Grants, or pay the annual salaries of nearly 11,000 additional border patrol agents or 14,000 more police officers.
What we’re getting instead is the stuff of nightmares. Mr. Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia, has been working with a colleague at Harvard, Linda Bilmes, to document, among other things, some of the less obvious costs of the war. These include the obligation to provide health care and disability benefits for returning veterans. Those costs will be with us for decades.
Mr. Stiglitz noted that nearly 40 percent of the 700,000 troops from the first gulf war, which lasted just a month, have become eligible for disability benefits. The current war is approaching five years in duration.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/opinion/04herbert.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
in today's New York Times
By BOB HERBERT
Published: March 4, 2008
We’ve been hearing a lot about “Saturday Night Live” and the fun it has been having with the presidential race. But hardly a whisper has been heard about a Congressional hearing in Washington last week on a topic that could have been drawn, in all its tragic monstrosity, from the theater of the absurd. The war in Iraq will ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers not hundreds of billions of dollars, but an astonishing $2 trillion, and perhaps more. There has been very little in the way of public conversation, even in the presidential campaigns, (Maybe it is time for someone to change that and start talking about the connection between the economic woes we suffer and the war we have perpetuated for the profit of our worst corporate rogues. Even from the sidelines, the Edwards people are on top ot it, the Obama people need to get on it from the campaign.) about the consequences of these costs, which are like a cancer inside the American economy. On Thursday, the Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Senator Chuck Schumer, conducted a public examination of the costs of the war. The witnesses included the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz (who believes the overall costs of the war — not just the cost to taxpayers — will reach $3 trillion), and Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International.
Both men talked about large opportunities lost because of the money poured into the war. “For a fraction of the cost of this war,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half-century or more.”
Mr. Hormats mentioned Social Security and Medicare, saying that both could have been put “on a more sustainable basis.” And he cited the committee’s own calculations from last fall that showed that the money spent on the war each day is enough to enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start for a year, or make a year of college affordable for 160,000 low-income students through Pell Grants, or pay the annual salaries of nearly 11,000 additional border patrol agents or 14,000 more police officers.
What we’re getting instead is the stuff of nightmares. Mr. Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia, has been working with a colleague at Harvard, Linda Bilmes, to document, among other things, some of the less obvious costs of the war. These include the obligation to provide health care and disability benefits for returning veterans. Those costs will be with us for decades.
Mr. Stiglitz noted that nearly 40 percent of the 700,000 troops from the first gulf war, which lasted just a month, have become eligible for disability benefits. The current war is approaching five years in duration.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/opinion/04herbert.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Blackwater, other mercenary groups, under serious scrutiny..
Thanks once again to Spencer Ackerman at TPMMuckraker for pointing us to this story:
Remember that recently-impaneled grand jury looking at Blackwater's Nisour Square shootings? Turns out it's not just about Blackwater. Four years into the occupation, prosecutors are attempting to build the first criminal case against private security companies -- who up until now worked in a system rigged to ensure unaccountability.
The Washington Post:
"The Washington grand jury has issued subpoenas to several private security firms, including Blackwater, a legal source briefed on the probe said yesterday. Authorities are seeking company "after-action" reports and other documents that may shed light on specific incidents, he said. (Buy Shredder Company Stock This Week!)
The source, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, declined to say which incidents have been targeted, but he said the investigation ranges well beyond Blackwater. Private security companies in Iraq "have been shooting a lot of people," he said."
That's an understatement.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/
Remember that recently-impaneled grand jury looking at Blackwater's Nisour Square shootings? Turns out it's not just about Blackwater. Four years into the occupation, prosecutors are attempting to build the first criminal case against private security companies -- who up until now worked in a system rigged to ensure unaccountability.
The Washington Post:
"The Washington grand jury has issued subpoenas to several private security firms, including Blackwater, a legal source briefed on the probe said yesterday. Authorities are seeking company "after-action" reports and other documents that may shed light on specific incidents, he said. (Buy Shredder Company Stock This Week!)
The source, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, declined to say which incidents have been targeted, but he said the investigation ranges well beyond Blackwater. Private security companies in Iraq "have been shooting a lot of people," he said."
That's an understatement.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Bush WASN'T listening to his Generals....
In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top commander of American forces there called the Bush administration’s handling of the war “incompetent” and said the result was “a nightmare with no end in sight.” Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who retired in 2006 after being replaced in Iraq after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, blamed the Bush administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current addition of American forces as a “desperate” move that would not achieve long-term stability. “After more than four years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism,” General Sanchez said at a gathering of military reporters and editors in Arlington, Va.
General Sanchez said he was convinced that the American effort in Iraq was failing the day after he took command, in June 2003. Asked why he waited until nearly a year after his retirement to voice his concerns publicly, he responded that it was not the place of active-duty officers to challenge lawful orders from the civilian authorities. General Sanchez, who is said to be considering writing a book, promised further public statements criticizing officials by name.
“There has been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/washington/13general.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
General Sanchez said he was convinced that the American effort in Iraq was failing the day after he took command, in June 2003. Asked why he waited until nearly a year after his retirement to voice his concerns publicly, he responded that it was not the place of active-duty officers to challenge lawful orders from the civilian authorities. General Sanchez, who is said to be considering writing a book, promised further public statements criticizing officials by name.
“There has been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/washington/13general.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Bush lies and people die...
Sunni Arab extremists have begun a systematic campaign to assassinate police chiefs, police officers, other Interior Ministry officials and tribal leaders throughout Iraq, staging at least 10 attacks in 48 hours. Eight policemen have been killed, among them the police chief of Baquba, the largest city in Diyala Province. Two other police chiefs survived attacks, though one was left in critical condition, and about 30 police officers were wounded, according to reports from local security officers.
“We warned the government just a few days ago that there is a new plan by terrorist groups to target senior governmental officials, and particularly Interior Ministry officials,” said Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, the deputy interior minister for information and national investigations. The Interior Ministry is dominated by Shiites.
One group, the Islamic State of Iraq, took responsibility on Tuesday for the attack in Diyala, which killed at least 18 people on Monday. The group has ties to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown extremist group whose leadership has foreign ties, according to American intelligence officials.
The latest outbreak of violence closely follows the concerted efforts of President Bush and Gen. David H. Petraeus to portray the American troop “surge” as having succeeded in bringing more stability to Iraq. Iraqi officials said Tuesday that the attacks might well have been intended to blunt that message.
“The main reason behind all these attacks are the signs of improvement of the security situation mentioned in the Crocker-Petraeus report,” said Tahseen al-Sheikhly, the Iraqi spokesman for the security plan, in a reference to the recent Congressional testimony of General Petraeus and the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker. “The terrorist groups are just trying to say to the world that the report did not reflect the reality of the security situation in Iraq.” (Bush lied, people died... Are we seeing a pattern here?)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/world/middleeast/26iraq.html
“We warned the government just a few days ago that there is a new plan by terrorist groups to target senior governmental officials, and particularly Interior Ministry officials,” said Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, the deputy interior minister for information and national investigations. The Interior Ministry is dominated by Shiites.
One group, the Islamic State of Iraq, took responsibility on Tuesday for the attack in Diyala, which killed at least 18 people on Monday. The group has ties to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown extremist group whose leadership has foreign ties, according to American intelligence officials.
The latest outbreak of violence closely follows the concerted efforts of President Bush and Gen. David H. Petraeus to portray the American troop “surge” as having succeeded in bringing more stability to Iraq. Iraqi officials said Tuesday that the attacks might well have been intended to blunt that message.
“The main reason behind all these attacks are the signs of improvement of the security situation mentioned in the Crocker-Petraeus report,” said Tahseen al-Sheikhly, the Iraqi spokesman for the security plan, in a reference to the recent Congressional testimony of General Petraeus and the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker. “The terrorist groups are just trying to say to the world that the report did not reflect the reality of the security situation in Iraq.” (Bush lied, people died... Are we seeing a pattern here?)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/world/middleeast/26iraq.html
Friday, September 21, 2007
Are Lost U.S. Weapons In Enemy Hands?
From CBS News:
Last month, a government report revealed the U.S. military could not account for 190,000 -- or 30 percent -- of all weapons issued to Iraqi Security Forces between June 2004 and December 2005.
Thursday, Pentagon officials said $88 billion in spending in Iraq and Afghanistan is now under audit by the Department of Defense for fraud.
Now, in his exclusive report CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian has learned some of those missing weapons have ended up in the worst possible hands.
CBS News has learned that the CIA has photographic evidence that Austrian-made Glocks intended for Iraqi security forces and paid for by U.S. taxpayers are now in the hands of Iraqi insurgents -- in numbers that the intelligence community believes are in the thousands.
According to an intelligence source, the U.S. contractor in charge of the Glocks somehow lost track of an entire shipment. That mysterious disappeance is now part of a massive military bribery investigation centered around a contracting office run out of a small trailer at a military base in Kuwait. Eighteen federal investigators are digging into the actions of dozens of high-ranking U.S officers and military contractors.
http://www.cbsnews.com:80/stories/2007/09/20/cbsnews_investigates/main3283595.shtml
Last month, a government report revealed the U.S. military could not account for 190,000 -- or 30 percent -- of all weapons issued to Iraqi Security Forces between June 2004 and December 2005.
Thursday, Pentagon officials said $88 billion in spending in Iraq and Afghanistan is now under audit by the Department of Defense for fraud.
Now, in his exclusive report CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian has learned some of those missing weapons have ended up in the worst possible hands.
CBS News has learned that the CIA has photographic evidence that Austrian-made Glocks intended for Iraqi security forces and paid for by U.S. taxpayers are now in the hands of Iraqi insurgents -- in numbers that the intelligence community believes are in the thousands.
According to an intelligence source, the U.S. contractor in charge of the Glocks somehow lost track of an entire shipment. That mysterious disappeance is now part of a massive military bribery investigation centered around a contracting office run out of a small trailer at a military base in Kuwait. Eighteen federal investigators are digging into the actions of dozens of high-ranking U.S officers and military contractors.
http://www.cbsnews.com:80/stories/2007/09/20/cbsnews_investigates/main3283595.shtml
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
More than a million Iraqi displaced..
A vast internal migration is radically reshaping Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian landscape, according to new data collected by thousands of relief workers, but displacement in the most populous and mixed areas is surprisingly complex, suggesting that partitioning the country into semi autonomous Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish enclaves would not be easy.
The Red Crescent compiled the figures from reports filed as recently as the end of August by tens of thousands of relief workers scattered across all parts of Iraq who are straining to provide aid for an estimated 280,000 families swept up nationwide in an enormous and complex migration.
...the new figures show that the migration is not neatly dividing Baghdad along the Tigris, separating Sunnis who live predominantly on the west bank from Shiites, who live predominantly on the east. Instead, some Sunnis are moving to the predominantly Shiite side of the river, into neighborhoods that are relatively secular, mixed and where services are better, according to Red Crescent staff.
Just last week within Baghdad itself, a Sunni tribe of 250 families that lived in Dora, one of the most violent neighborhoods, was forced to flee. Rather than going to an area where they would be with others of their sect, they went to their neighbors to the south, in Abu Dshir, a Shiite area. They were welcomed by the local tribe and given places to stay in people’s homes, according to field staff both for the Red Crescent and the International Office for Migration, an intergovernmental agency.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/world/middleeast/19displaced.html
Blackwater shoots first, asks no questions later... victims include infants.
BAGHDAD, Sept. 18 — A preliminary Iraqi report on a shooting involving an American diplomatic motorcade said Tuesday that Blackwater security guards were not ambushed, as the company reported, but instead fired at a car when it did not heed a policeman’s call to stop, killing a couple and their infant. The report, by the Ministry of Interior, was presented to the Iraqi cabinet and, though unverified, seemed to contradict an account offered by Blackwater USA that the guards were responding to gunfire by militants. The report said Blackwater helicopters had also fired. The Ministry of Defense said 20 Iraqis had been killed, a far higher number than had been reported before.
In a sign of the seriousness of the standoff, the American Embassy here suspended diplomatic missions outside the Green Zone and throughout Iraq on Tuesday.
“There was not shooting against the convoy,” said Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government’s spokesman. “There was no fire from anyone in the square.”
A State Department spokesman, Edgar Vasquez, said he had not heard of the report and repeated that the department was conducting an investigation supported by the American military. A spokeswoman for Blackwater did not respond to an e-mail request for comment.
...
In video shot shortly after the episode, the child appeared to have burned to the mother’s body after the car caught fire, according to an official who saw it.
In interviews on Tuesday, six Iraqis who had been in the area at the time of the shooting, including a man who was wounded and an Iraqi Army soldier who helped rescue people, offered roughly similar versions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/world/middleeast/19blackwater.html
The Red Crescent compiled the figures from reports filed as recently as the end of August by tens of thousands of relief workers scattered across all parts of Iraq who are straining to provide aid for an estimated 280,000 families swept up nationwide in an enormous and complex migration.
...the new figures show that the migration is not neatly dividing Baghdad along the Tigris, separating Sunnis who live predominantly on the west bank from Shiites, who live predominantly on the east. Instead, some Sunnis are moving to the predominantly Shiite side of the river, into neighborhoods that are relatively secular, mixed and where services are better, according to Red Crescent staff.
Just last week within Baghdad itself, a Sunni tribe of 250 families that lived in Dora, one of the most violent neighborhoods, was forced to flee. Rather than going to an area where they would be with others of their sect, they went to their neighbors to the south, in Abu Dshir, a Shiite area. They were welcomed by the local tribe and given places to stay in people’s homes, according to field staff both for the Red Crescent and the International Office for Migration, an intergovernmental agency.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/world/middleeast/19displaced.html
Blackwater shoots first, asks no questions later... victims include infants.
BAGHDAD, Sept. 18 — A preliminary Iraqi report on a shooting involving an American diplomatic motorcade said Tuesday that Blackwater security guards were not ambushed, as the company reported, but instead fired at a car when it did not heed a policeman’s call to stop, killing a couple and their infant. The report, by the Ministry of Interior, was presented to the Iraqi cabinet and, though unverified, seemed to contradict an account offered by Blackwater USA that the guards were responding to gunfire by militants. The report said Blackwater helicopters had also fired. The Ministry of Defense said 20 Iraqis had been killed, a far higher number than had been reported before.
In a sign of the seriousness of the standoff, the American Embassy here suspended diplomatic missions outside the Green Zone and throughout Iraq on Tuesday.
“There was not shooting against the convoy,” said Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government’s spokesman. “There was no fire from anyone in the square.”
A State Department spokesman, Edgar Vasquez, said he had not heard of the report and repeated that the department was conducting an investigation supported by the American military. A spokeswoman for Blackwater did not respond to an e-mail request for comment.
...
In video shot shortly after the episode, the child appeared to have burned to the mother’s body after the car caught fire, according to an official who saw it.
In interviews on Tuesday, six Iraqis who had been in the area at the time of the shooting, including a man who was wounded and an Iraqi Army soldier who helped rescue people, offered roughly similar versions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/world/middleeast/19blackwater.html
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Probably more than 50...
..we were on a mission in that
thin-skinned old Humveee
The guys just out in front of us,
they hit an IED
We tried to help them in their struggle
To get free...
There must be fifty ways
To leave a bad war...
You know it's really not our habit
To attack
But there's a lot of oil buried in Iraq
They had it once before,
and now they want it back
There must be fifty ways
To leave a bad war
Fifty ways to leave a bad war
You just jump off the ship, Dick
Forget about those Iran plans
Lets redeploy, Roy
Just listen to me..
Hop on the plane, Jane
No need to complain, James
Just get out of Baghdad
Lets set em' all free.
You know he came home
having nightmares, wracked with pain
I wish we could go back in time
To change it all again
He said "I appreciate that,
But would you please explain
About the fifty ways
to leave a bad war.. "
fifty ways to leave a bad war
And in the darkness of that
fallen angel flight
coffins surround you
and you know it isn't right
They felt the sting of death
in some bloody firefight.
There must be fifty ways
To leave a bad war
Fifty ways to leave a bad war
Zipped up in black, Jack
Laid out on a plank, Hank
completely destroyed, Roy
With a tag on your feet.
Missin' a limb Slim
Or shot in the head Fred.
Just one of the wounded, Lee
That's how it can be.
There must be...
fifty ways to leave a bad war...
thin-skinned old Humveee
The guys just out in front of us,
they hit an IED
We tried to help them in their struggle
To get free...
There must be fifty ways
To leave a bad war...
You know it's really not our habit
To attack
But there's a lot of oil buried in Iraq
They had it once before,
and now they want it back
There must be fifty ways
To leave a bad war
Fifty ways to leave a bad war
You just jump off the ship, Dick
Forget about those Iran plans
Lets redeploy, Roy
Just listen to me..
Hop on the plane, Jane
No need to complain, James
Just get out of Baghdad
Lets set em' all free.
You know he came home
having nightmares, wracked with pain
I wish we could go back in time
To change it all again
He said "I appreciate that,
But would you please explain
About the fifty ways
to leave a bad war.. "
fifty ways to leave a bad war
And in the darkness of that
fallen angel flight
coffins surround you
and you know it isn't right
They felt the sting of death
in some bloody firefight.
There must be fifty ways
To leave a bad war
Fifty ways to leave a bad war
Zipped up in black, Jack
Laid out on a plank, Hank
completely destroyed, Roy
With a tag on your feet.
Missin' a limb Slim
Or shot in the head Fred.
Just one of the wounded, Lee
That's how it can be.
There must be...
fifty ways to leave a bad war...
Friday, September 14, 2007
The half truth, and nothing but the half truth, so help me Cheney!
from a Washington Post Editorial:
PRESIDENT BUSH'S explanation of his latest plans for Iraq last night was marred by a couple of important omissions. First, the president failed to acknowledge that, according to the standards he himself established in January, the surge of U.S. troops into Iraq has been a failure -- because Iraqi political leaders did not reach the political accords that the sacrifice of American lives was supposed to make possible. Instead he focused on the real but reversible military gains achieved in and around Baghdad and on the unexpected decision of Sunni tribes to take up arms against al-Qaeda, a development facilitated but not caused by the surge.
Mr. Bush also failed to mention one of the principal reasons for the drawdown of troops he announced. The president said that the tactical military successes meant that American forces could be reduced in the coming year to pre-surge levels. What he didn't say is that the Pentagon has no choice other than to carry out the withdrawals, unless Mr. Bush resorts to politically explosive steps such as further extending deployments. Another way of describing Mr. Bush's plan is that it leaves every available Army and Marine unit in place in Iraq for as long as possible.
If the war were going worse than it is, the deployment schedule probably couldn't have been much different.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091302342.html?wpisrc=newsletter
So, what's it really all about?
Why are we still in Iraq?
Here's half of the equation, the other half is still buried underground as fossil fuel.
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS A WEAPONS DEALER OF HISTORIC PROPORTIONS, IT IS THE TRUE LEGACY OF THIS PROFANE ERA, AND HAS BEEN SINCE ITS INCEPTION!
THEY ARE THE CONGRESSIONAL/MILITARY/INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!
from Gary Kamiya at Salon.com
When it comes to dealing with countries in the Middle East, the Bush administration knows only two approaches. It either tries to blow them up or bribe them. God forbid that Washington should try to find out what the people in the region actually want -- or what might actually work.
Bush tried the blowing-up approach in Iraq. With the results now in, he has returned to the more traditional approach of bribery. After the bizarre neocon aberration of Iraq, with its highfalutin talk of democratization and its ostentatious hand-wringing over Washington's past support for autocratic regimes, Team Bush has returned to the tried-and-true path: propping up dubious allies with vast arms deals and using them as proxies to fight an evil empire. Belatedly, the Bush administration has embraced a Cold War paradigm in the Middle East, with the good guys -- Egypt, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia -- being paid off to contain the bad guys -- al-Qaida, Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Bush administration's proposed $60 million to $70 billion Mideast arms deal takes us back to the cynical realpolitik of traditional great power politics, with puppet-master America jerking around half-willing strongmen with billion-dollar strings. Washington (N0, ITS REALLY CHENEY) is offering to sell $20 billion of high-tech weaponry to Saudi Arabia, and also sell arms to the Gulf States of Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. To ensure that Israel maintains its military superiority over its neighbors, the U.S. will increase the already vast amount of annual military aid it gives the Jewish state by 30 percent, offering $30 billion over 10 years. And Egypt will also wet its beak, with a $14 billion 10-year arms deal. (...these 10-year arms deals certainly do suggest that our neocons and theirs expect to be killing their neighbors for a long time to come. Sure gives creedence to Kucinich'c call for a Secretary of Peace...)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/08/14/bush_arms_deal/
PRESIDENT BUSH'S explanation of his latest plans for Iraq last night was marred by a couple of important omissions. First, the president failed to acknowledge that, according to the standards he himself established in January, the surge of U.S. troops into Iraq has been a failure -- because Iraqi political leaders did not reach the political accords that the sacrifice of American lives was supposed to make possible. Instead he focused on the real but reversible military gains achieved in and around Baghdad and on the unexpected decision of Sunni tribes to take up arms against al-Qaeda, a development facilitated but not caused by the surge.
Mr. Bush also failed to mention one of the principal reasons for the drawdown of troops he announced. The president said that the tactical military successes meant that American forces could be reduced in the coming year to pre-surge levels. What he didn't say is that the Pentagon has no choice other than to carry out the withdrawals, unless Mr. Bush resorts to politically explosive steps such as further extending deployments. Another way of describing Mr. Bush's plan is that it leaves every available Army and Marine unit in place in Iraq for as long as possible.
If the war were going worse than it is, the deployment schedule probably couldn't have been much different.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091302342.html?wpisrc=newsletter
So, what's it really all about?
Why are we still in Iraq?
Here's half of the equation, the other half is still buried underground as fossil fuel.
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS A WEAPONS DEALER OF HISTORIC PROPORTIONS, IT IS THE TRUE LEGACY OF THIS PROFANE ERA, AND HAS BEEN SINCE ITS INCEPTION!
THEY ARE THE CONGRESSIONAL/MILITARY/INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!
from Gary Kamiya at Salon.com
When it comes to dealing with countries in the Middle East, the Bush administration knows only two approaches. It either tries to blow them up or bribe them. God forbid that Washington should try to find out what the people in the region actually want -- or what might actually work.
Bush tried the blowing-up approach in Iraq. With the results now in, he has returned to the more traditional approach of bribery. After the bizarre neocon aberration of Iraq, with its highfalutin talk of democratization and its ostentatious hand-wringing over Washington's past support for autocratic regimes, Team Bush has returned to the tried-and-true path: propping up dubious allies with vast arms deals and using them as proxies to fight an evil empire. Belatedly, the Bush administration has embraced a Cold War paradigm in the Middle East, with the good guys -- Egypt, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia -- being paid off to contain the bad guys -- al-Qaida, Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Bush administration's proposed $60 million to $70 billion Mideast arms deal takes us back to the cynical realpolitik of traditional great power politics, with puppet-master America jerking around half-willing strongmen with billion-dollar strings. Washington (N0, ITS REALLY CHENEY) is offering to sell $20 billion of high-tech weaponry to Saudi Arabia, and also sell arms to the Gulf States of Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. To ensure that Israel maintains its military superiority over its neighbors, the U.S. will increase the already vast amount of annual military aid it gives the Jewish state by 30 percent, offering $30 billion over 10 years. And Egypt will also wet its beak, with a $14 billion 10-year arms deal. (...these 10-year arms deals certainly do suggest that our neocons and theirs expect to be killing their neighbors for a long time to come. Sure gives creedence to Kucinich'c call for a Secretary of Peace...)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/08/14/bush_arms_deal/
Thursday, August 30, 2007
More Bi-Polar Government!!
GAO Draft at Odds With White House
By Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 30, 2007; Page A01
"Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration. The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/29/AR2007082902434.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
By Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 30, 2007; Page A01
"Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration. The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/29/AR2007082902434.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Fun with Bush!
At the Clinton Library Dedication... (who's jealous?)
That mysterious bulge has been identified...
That mysterious bulge has been identified...
Membership has its privileges...
TROOPS COULD LEAVE ANY TIME, AND IT WOULD ONLY TAKE A FEW WEEKS!
"US General Says Pullout Plan "Ready To Go" NBC Nightly News says that while military planners "say it could take two years for a complete withdrawal from Iraq," a "top US commander here in Kuwait says, from a logistics standpoint, he's already got the plan and he's ready to go. All he needs is the President's order." The Washington Post reports Lt. Gen. R. Steven Whitcomb said facilities in Kuwait "have handled as many as 240,000 troops moving into and out of Iraq in as little as a three-month period during the war's major rotations."
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_070802.htm
CLEARLY, LOGISTICS AREN'T THE PROBLEM, IT IS SIMPLY GREED. THOSE NO-BID BOOK-COOKING CORPORATIONS WITH TIES TO THE BUSH AND CHENEY CABAL ARE THE ONLY REASON WE ARE STILL THERE!
BRING THEM HOME NOW!!!
"US General Says Pullout Plan "Ready To Go" NBC Nightly News says that while military planners "say it could take two years for a complete withdrawal from Iraq," a "top US commander here in Kuwait says, from a logistics standpoint, he's already got the plan and he's ready to go. All he needs is the President's order." The Washington Post reports Lt. Gen. R. Steven Whitcomb said facilities in Kuwait "have handled as many as 240,000 troops moving into and out of Iraq in as little as a three-month period during the war's major rotations."
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_070802.htm
CLEARLY, LOGISTICS AREN'T THE PROBLEM, IT IS SIMPLY GREED. THOSE NO-BID BOOK-COOKING CORPORATIONS WITH TIES TO THE BUSH AND CHENEY CABAL ARE THE ONLY REASON WE ARE STILL THERE!
BRING THEM HOME NOW!!!
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Sunday Morning News
BUSH WARS
MORE ABOUT FRIENDS WHO ARE REALLY ENEMIES
...Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers. About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said. Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity. It is apparently the first time a U.S. official has given such a breakdown on the role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency.
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-saudi15jul15,0,223939.story
MALAKI DECLARES MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, adds
"YANKEE, GO HOME ANY TIME YOU WANT"
Division of oil revenues continues to elude Iraqi lawmakers
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki declared Saturday that Iraqi forces could secure the country on their own “any time” American troops decided to withdraw, his first response to the White House report this week that found his government falling well short of many political reforms and military goals sought by Congress. Mr. Maliki has been under attack by American officials and many Iraqi politicians for leading a government mired in disputes and unable to make progress on major legislation seen as crucial to stabilizing the country. (crucial to the oil imperialists who want that sweet Iraqi crude) Support is growing in Congress for an American troop pullout (support that has been in the public domain for years) that would leave Iraqi forces that are already plagued with sectarianism, absenteeism and other problems to battle the Sunni Arab insurgents and Shiite militias that dominate parts of the country (in secret local gangs, they also dominate the the police and military that is supposed to be controlling them, basically they ARE the insurgents and militias, themselves). The White House report found that Iraq failed to make satisfactory progress meeting 8 out of 18 major milestones, such as passing an oil revenue-sharing law (which is the only issue that really matters to the no-bid book-cooking oil companies)and ending favoritism in the security forces. Such favoritism toward Shiites, (new rule of thumb from a slow learner; "Persian" equals "Iranian" equals "Shiite": "Arab" equals "Saudi" equals "Sunni"; "Kurds" equals "Turks" equals "Ottomans"; and "Iraq" is really just a line drawn on a map, that encircled a territory claimed by the Turks (Kurds), another by the Persians (Iranians) and another by the Arabs (Saudis), off into a puppet nation that the west could rule politically, via the Saudis, to claim all that high-grade oil) the report found, even included evidence of Maliki advisers in the Office of the Commander in Chief distributing “target lists,” primarily of Sunnis who were to be arrested, directly to lower-level commanders.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/world/middleeast/15iraq.html
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Saturday Morning News
BUSH WARS
Our "friends" are really our enemies ...
The enemy of my enemy is my...ENEMY?!?!?
In a rare battle between American and uniformed Iraqi forces, United States troops backed by fighter jets killed six Iraqi policemen and seven gunmen during a predawn raid in which they captured a rogue police lieutenant, the military said Friday. American commanders said that during the raid, against an Iraqi police position in eastern Baghdad, their forces had come under “heavy and accurate fire” from a nearby police checkpoint as well as surrounding rooftops and a church. They said the captured lieutenant was a “high ranking” leader of a cell they suspected of having links to the Quds Force, part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. The Iraqi police had no comment. The United States military has repeatedly accused the Quds Force of arming Iraqi militias with weapons and explosives. The Iranian government has denied those claims. The Iraqi police are widely thought to be infiltrated by the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias, as well as by Sunni insurgent groups, all of whom are accused of using their positions to plan and carry out widespread sectarian killings. (...does it seem wise to train these people to kill our own soldiers? Maybe we should go home and let them deal with each-other.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/14/world/middleeast/14iraq.html
And this, too, along the same lines, thanx to a link from Spencer Ackerman at TPMmuckraker...
According to a U.S. Army investigation, the Iraqi Police assisted a brazen January assault on U.S. troops in the southern city of Karbala -- an attack that a U.S. military spokesman tied to Iranian operatives earlier this month. USA Today obtained a copy of the Army's February 27 report. The report found that the Karbala policemen exploited "a level of trust" that U.S. commanders placed with them to provide security for a provincial headquarters where a contingent of soldiers were stationed. In the assault, one of the most sophisticated on U.S. troops to date, gunmen passed themselves off as part of a U.S. security team and entered the compound past police checkpoints, eventually killing five soldiers. (no, those weren't just soldiers, they were also someone's fathers, brothers, uncles, friends, husbands and lovers?) USA Today reports that in advance of the attack, Iraqi police abandoned their stations, as did Iraqi civilian employees of the compound's PX. The gunmen exhibited signs of knowing how U.S. forces would defend themselves under attack, and used that apparent knowledge to pin down and abduct soldiers and officers. (and these are our ALLIES?!?!?)
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070712/1a_lede12.art.htm
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Wet Wednesday
BUSH WARS
The Green Zone turns Red
Insurgents unleashed their most intense mortar attack to date on the Green Zone on Tuesday, killing 3 people and wounding 18, according to a statement from the American Embassy. The attack set off a succession of explosions that could be heard on both sides of the Tigris River about 5:30 p.m. Multiple rounds landed inside the Green Zone, seat of the embassy and the Iraqi government. The attack came from northeast of the Green Zone, a predominantly Shiite area. The three killed were an American soldier, an Iraqi citizen and a foreign citizen. Five of the wounded were American civilians, two were members of the American military and three were working for American contractors, according to the embassy statement. The blasts smashed windows in buildings and cars, and the worst-hit area was immediately sealed off by American soldiers, Green Zone police and Peruvian security guards.http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Tuesday's News
BUSH WARS
US ENVOY WARNS OF "IMPENDING" FAILURE
As the Senate prepares to begin a new debate this week on proposals for a withdrawal from Iraq, the United States ambassador and the Iraqi foreign minister are warning that the departure of American troops could lead to sharply increased violence, the deaths of thousands and a regional conflict that could draw in Iraq’s neighbors. (SOUNDS A LOT LIKE WHAT IS ALREADY HAPPENING, seems to me our troops only add to that total disorder, risking their lives in the process..)
Fearing that the last pillars of Republican support for the war were eroding, the White House invited Senators John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, who has been critical of the administration’s war policy, and Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, a supporter of the American troop presence, to the White House to ask them to delay votes on withdrawal until the administration delivers an interim progress report on the war, due in September.
Administration officials say Mr. Bush is considering a news conference on Iraq this week and is also likely to talk about it Tuesday during a trip to Cleveland that was intended to focus on his domestic agenda.
Although Senator Warner said he was inclined to heed the president’s request to delay a vote, the Democratic leader, Senator Harry Reid, of Nevada, said Monday afternoon that he would not wait. Indeed, hours later, the Senate began debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, the main military spending bill for the next budget year — and a vehicle for trying to force the administration to change its policy.
The bill calls for the military to balance the amount of time American troops spend overseas and on American soil, a measure that would limit troop deployments to Iraq.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/world/middleeast/10iraq.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Monday, July 9, 2007
Another Monday morning, as the war gets worse...
BUSH WARS
A frightening look at the future of Iraq...
There is a really serious story hiding Between The Lines in this article, one that hints at the inevitable future of Iraq, encapsulated in this little nutshell.
The death toll from a suicide truck bombing in a remote village in northern Iraq rose to around 150 on Sunday, making it one of the deadliest single bombings, if not the deadliest, since the 2003 invasion. The attack, in the impoverished Shiite Turkmen village of Amerli, 100 miles north of Baghdad in Salahuddin Province, has highlighted fears that Sunni insurgents facing military crackdowns in Baghdad and Diyala Province are simply directing their attacks to areas outside the concentration of American troops. The police in Amerli said that the truck used in Saturday’s attack concealed 4.5 tons of explosives (sure seems to be an unlimited supply of explosives in Iraq, wonder whose trademark is stamped on them...) beneath watermelons. The blast leveled dozens of houses and shops, trapping and killing many residents beneath the rubble. No group claimed immediate responsibility for the attack, but Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the jihadist group Islamic State in Iraq, issued an audiotape warning Iran to stop supporting Iraq’s Shiites. The tape, posted on a Web site, said, “We are giving the Persians, and especially the rulers of Iran, a two-month period to end all kinds of support for the Iraqi Shiite government and to stop direct and indirect intervention.”
He added, “Otherwise, a severe war is waiting for you.”
In this one sentence we see the future of Iraq....this guy's not bluffing. If we think this war is severe now, wait until all the warmongering (jihadist) fundamentalist Islamists on both sides of the Shia/Sunni chasm decide to loose the dogs of war on each other. Only then will we realize just how violent this Bush War will become. What we have seen so far is a firecracker compared to the bomb about to explode. And our military will be just another easy target, bumbling around like an impotent, half-blind giant, swinging at fleas with a baseball bat, and breaking our own bones in the process. Anyone who thinks the Iranian Shiites (notice how this Sunni Arab, Abu Omar, calls them "Persians") are going to back away from helping the Iraqi Shiites, is ignoring more than a millennium of history.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/world/middleeast/09iraq.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Sunday Morning; The media catches up to the public.
BUSH WARS;
the media begins to awaken from it's stupor!
NYTIMES EDITORIAL CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL!!!
It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.
Like many Americans, (not MOST Americans, though) we have put off that conclusion, waiting for a sign that President Bush was seriously trying (working hard?) to dig the United States out of the disaster he created by invading Iraq without sufficient cause, (so, like we all knew, Joe Wilson was right all along, will the NYTimes staff write an editorial exonorating him once and for all...) in the face of global opposition, and without a plan to stabilize the country afterward.
At first, we believed that after destroying Iraq’s government, army, police and economic structures, the United States was obliged to try to accomplish some of the goals Mr. Bush claimed to be pursuing, chiefly building a stable, unified (Halliburton/KBR managed) Iraq. When it became clear that the president had neither the vision nor the means to do that, we argued against setting a withdrawal date while there was still some chance to mitigate the chaos that would most likely follow.
While Mr. Bush scorns deadlines, he kept (and keeps) promising breakthroughs — after elections, after a constitution, after sending in thousands more troops. But those milestones came and went without any progress toward a stable, democratic Iraq or a path for withdrawal. It is frighteningly clear that Mr. Bush’s plan is to stay the course as long as he is president and dump the mess on his successor.
Whatever his cause was, it is lost. (...unless, of course, you're a Halliburton executive, raking in all that no-bid cash, then you might consider the Iraq war an unmitigated success!)
The political leaders Washington has backed are incapable of putting national interests ahead of sectarian score settling. The security forces Washington has trained behave more like partisan militias. Additional military forces poured into the Baghdad region have failed to change anything.
Continuing to sacrifice the lives and limbs of American soldiers is wrong.
The war is sapping the strength of the nation’s alliances and its military forces. It is a dangerous diversion from the life-and-death struggle against terrorists. It is an increasing burden on American taxpayers, and it is a betrayal of a world that needs the wise application of American power and principles.
A majority of Americans reached these conclusions months (how about "years") ago. (...the media says "months ago" because they are a couple years behind the REAL public opinion) Even in politically polarized Washington, positions on the war no longer divide entirely on party lines. When Congress returns this week, extricating American troops from the war should be at the top of its agenda. (a few years late and a few dollars richer, the NYTimes does the right thing)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/opinion/08sun1.html?ex=1341547200&en=48e1d6f4c885ef0a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Plamegate swings open ever wider;
Thanx for the link to SusanUNPC at Larry Johnson's "No Quarter"
Outing Valerie Plame aided our enemies
By Bob Ewegen, Denver Post Columnist
July 6, 2007
"After 44 years in journalism, I don't get angry very often about the dirty tricks that so often besmirch the American political process.
But I am angry about the Valerie Plame affair, a sordid tale that flared anew this week when President George Bush commuted the prison sentence of Lewis "Scooter" Libby. I am not angry at the commutation or the pettifogging partisan exchanges it spawned. I am angry at the underlying event - the fact that an American patriot whose only crime was to serve her country in a dangerous and honorable profession had her mission undercut for partisan political purposes.
I am even angrier that the vicious "outing" of Valerie Plame put her sources at risk - the men and women in foreign countries who had risked their own lives to help America in our war on terror.
In the intelligence trade, such foreign sources are called "assets." I call them heroes. And they are the ones who were put most at risk after columnist Robert Novak revealed Plame's CIA connection as part of a clumsy Bush administration effort to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had become a critic of the Iraq war.
To explain why this case angers me so deeply, let me give you a number: RA68031300. It identifies me as a Vietnam-era veteran of the United States Army. [...]
Between Armitage's dishonorable act and Novak's dishonorable act were a string of other dishonorable acts, including an executive order by President Bush empowering Vice President Cheney to declassify classified information, which Cheney did, thus allowing Libby to shop Plame's identity around in hopes of finding a journalist willing to smear Wilson through his wife. With Libby's information confirming Armitage's original tip, Novak willingly blew Plame's cover. ... "
(Read all.)
http://test.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_6316023
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Thursday; Another wet and cloudy day...
Red text is the"real" headline buried in the news.
Blue text is my own commentary.
Violet text is the blog quote of the day.
CHENEY'S CLAIM TO UNLIMITED EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE
HITS A SENATE WALL
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday issued subpoenas to the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and the Justice Department after what the panel’s chairman called “stonewalling of the worst kind” of efforts to investigate the National Security Agency’s policy of wiretapping without warrants. The move put Senate Democrats squarely on a course they had until now avoided, setting the stage for a showdown with the Bush administration over one of the most contentious issues arising from the White House’s campaign against terrorism. Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the committee, said the subpoenas seek documents that could shed light on the administration’s legal justification for the wiretapping and on disputes within the government over its legality. In addition, the panel is seeking materials on related issues, including the relationship between the Bush administration and several unidentified telecommunications companies that aided the N.S.A. eavesdropping program. The panel’s action was the most aggressive move yet by lawmakers to investigate the wiretapping program since the Democrats gained control of Congress this year. (I would guess Cheney already gave his "Pat" answer a while back in the Senate when he advised Leahy to go "f" himself, no doubt the entire White House crew will have a similar response to this subpoena. The constitutional crisis that began with Bush V. Gore has now come to its inevitable conclusion, a "constitutional collision.")
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/washington/28nsa.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1183029567-RrPz/hxXobo4jjeLAfssmQ
And just why DOES our system of government demand
three separate branches?
It isn't just a management construct, it is an outline applied to naturally occurring divisions between vested social and economic interests that exist inherently in any organized, cultured civilization, (especially meaningful to a delusional culture that might fancy itself as a lone world superpower.)
Here's Montesquieu, from his 1748 "Spirit of the Laws."
My own commentary is, as usual, in blue text.
"When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person.... there can be no liberty, because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyranical laws, (Patriot Act, domestic wiretaps, this basically describes the 107th, 108th and 109th Congresses) to execute them in tyranical manner. Again, there is no liberty if the judiciary be not separated from the legislative and the executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject (citizen) would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would then be the legislator (Bush V. Gore, conservative activist judges, trumped-up political charges). Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence (shock and awe, renditions and torture) and oppression." (habeas corpus delecti).
http://www.constitution.org/cm/sol.txt
DHS TAKES A NO-BID BOOKKEEPING (COOKING?)
LESSON FROM HALLIBURTON
The project started in 2003 with a $2 million contract to help the new Department of Homeland Security quickly get an intelligence operation (what, we need another one?) up and running. Over the next year, the cost of the no-bid arrangement with consultant Booz Allen Hamilton soared by millions of dollars per month, as the firm provided analysts, administrators and other contract employees to the department's Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection offices. By December 2004, payments to Booz Allen had exceeded $30 million -- 15 times the contract's original value. When department lawyers examined the deal, they found it was "grossly beyond the scope" of the original contract, and they said the arrangement violated government procurement rules. The lawyers advised the department to immediately stop making payments through the contract and allow other companies to compete for the work. But the competition did not take place for more than a year.
During that time, the payments to Booz Allen more than doubled again under a second no-bid arrangement, to $73 million, according to internal documents, e-mail and interviews. (there's the money line...)
The arrangements with the McLean consulting firm, one of the nation's largest government contractors, illustrate a transformation in the way the federal government often gets its work done: by relying on private, sometimes costly consultants to fill staffing shortfalls in federal agencies.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062702988.html?referrer=email
Which brings us to the blog quote of the day,
from Dave in MA at The Daily Kos, crossposted from his Accountable Strategies Blog
"...a lack of centralized authority, ineffective internal controls, poorly drawn contracts, insufficient oversight, and staffing shortages. DHS is far from an agency created and operating according to a sense of national purpose, in response to a national emergency." (more like a gravy-train for Halliburtonish executives and some of the newly formed Maryland/Virginia-based [read "D.C."] Bush-bubba firms...)
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/27/102725/804
IRANIAN MOB SETS GAS STATIONS ABLAZE
Angry drivers set fire to at least two gas stations overnight in Tehran after the government announced that gasoline rationing would begin Wednesday just after midnight.
The state television news said Wednesday that “several gas stations and public places had been attacked by vandals.” While there were some reports that a large number of gas stations had been set on fire, only two fires were confirmed. The government had been planning for a year to put rationing into effect but held off because of concerns that it could cause unrest. Some officials indicated it might have been started now because of the threat of stronger economic sanctions by the United Nations over Iran’s nuclear program. Iran contends that its nuclear enrichment program is for civilian energy purposes, while the United States and some other Western nations contend that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Under the new regulations announced by the Oil Ministry on Tuesday evening, private cars will be able to buy a maximum of 26 gallons of gasoline a month at the subsidized price of 34 cents per gallon. Taxis will be allowed 211 gallons a month. Parliament would have to determine whether individuals would be allowed to buy more at market rates. (at least the Iranian consumers know how to protest higher prices... but at 34 cents per gallon, even rationed out, it still seems like a bargain, ours is nearly 10 times costlier.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/world/middleeast/28iran.html?th&emc=th
THE BUSH WARS:
BUSH AND COMPANY SEEKING PERPETUAL WAR
Opinion from the Seattle PI
As if four years of fighting in Iraq hadn't already made this point clear, here it is again: We're not getting anywhere over there. And this "surge," this acceleration of fighting the Bush administration has been ballyhooing as a critical step in turning our failures in Iraq into some sort of glowing democratic success, is futile. (Futile...now there is the best one-word description of this war ever put to page. Futile, that is, unless you are a KBR/Halliburton Executive, raking in all that no-bid cash, then you're probably pretty happy with this war's chaos. it is a perfect cover for your profiteering and corruption.) Senior military officers say that despite tossing at least 30,000 more human beings (aka "troops") into the fray, Iraq won't be more secure. Why? Because no matter how many people we send in to fight, the second we leave, things will go to hell, yet again. Iraqis don't have the soldiers and police to deal with the remaining insurgents. The places American forces "secure" in critical areas, such as Baghdad, will represent only temporary gains. Staying in Iraq, then, becomes virtually meaningless in any tactical sense. (unless you are a KBR/Halliburton Executive, raking in all that no-bid cash) Things might get worse there if/when we leave. But they're already unfathomable: NPR reported on Wednesday that Iraqis now actually celebrate deaths that result from natural causes as "blessings," because they're becoming increasingly rare. Perhaps concentrating our resources on building an Iraqi security force -- trained and paid -- would yield better results. But this administration's stubborn stance is impervious to common sense. (unless you are a KBR/Halliburton Executive, raking in all that no-bid cash) As Stephen Colbert (the snarkmaster) told anti-war activist Tom Hayden on "The Colbert Report" Monday night, "(The war) is only lost if we leave. The president has said so. We can only lose if we leave. If we never leave, we never lose."
What a jacked up way to measure success. (unless you are a KBR/Halliburton Executive, raking in all that no-bid cash) http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/321508_surgeed.html
Blue text is my own commentary.
Violet text is the blog quote of the day.
CHENEY'S CLAIM TO UNLIMITED EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE
HITS A SENATE WALL
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday issued subpoenas to the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and the Justice Department after what the panel’s chairman called “stonewalling of the worst kind” of efforts to investigate the National Security Agency’s policy of wiretapping without warrants. The move put Senate Democrats squarely on a course they had until now avoided, setting the stage for a showdown with the Bush administration over one of the most contentious issues arising from the White House’s campaign against terrorism. Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the committee, said the subpoenas seek documents that could shed light on the administration’s legal justification for the wiretapping and on disputes within the government over its legality. In addition, the panel is seeking materials on related issues, including the relationship between the Bush administration and several unidentified telecommunications companies that aided the N.S.A. eavesdropping program. The panel’s action was the most aggressive move yet by lawmakers to investigate the wiretapping program since the Democrats gained control of Congress this year. (I would guess Cheney already gave his "Pat" answer a while back in the Senate when he advised Leahy to go "f" himself, no doubt the entire White House crew will have a similar response to this subpoena. The constitutional crisis that began with Bush V. Gore has now come to its inevitable conclusion, a "constitutional collision.")
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/washington/28nsa.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1183029567-RrPz/hxXobo4jjeLAfssmQ
And just why DOES our system of government demand
three separate branches?
It isn't just a management construct, it is an outline applied to naturally occurring divisions between vested social and economic interests that exist inherently in any organized, cultured civilization, (especially meaningful to a delusional culture that might fancy itself as a lone world superpower.)
Here's Montesquieu, from his 1748 "Spirit of the Laws."
My own commentary is, as usual, in blue text.
"When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person.... there can be no liberty, because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyranical laws, (Patriot Act, domestic wiretaps, this basically describes the 107th, 108th and 109th Congresses) to execute them in tyranical manner. Again, there is no liberty if the judiciary be not separated from the legislative and the executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject (citizen) would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would then be the legislator (Bush V. Gore, conservative activist judges, trumped-up political charges). Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence (shock and awe, renditions and torture) and oppression." (habeas corpus delecti).
http://www.constitution.org/cm/sol.txt
DHS TAKES A NO-BID BOOKKEEPING (COOKING?)
LESSON FROM HALLIBURTON
The project started in 2003 with a $2 million contract to help the new Department of Homeland Security quickly get an intelligence operation (what, we need another one?) up and running. Over the next year, the cost of the no-bid arrangement with consultant Booz Allen Hamilton soared by millions of dollars per month, as the firm provided analysts, administrators and other contract employees to the department's Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection offices. By December 2004, payments to Booz Allen had exceeded $30 million -- 15 times the contract's original value. When department lawyers examined the deal, they found it was "grossly beyond the scope" of the original contract, and they said the arrangement violated government procurement rules. The lawyers advised the department to immediately stop making payments through the contract and allow other companies to compete for the work. But the competition did not take place for more than a year.
During that time, the payments to Booz Allen more than doubled again under a second no-bid arrangement, to $73 million, according to internal documents, e-mail and interviews. (there's the money line...)
The arrangements with the McLean consulting firm, one of the nation's largest government contractors, illustrate a transformation in the way the federal government often gets its work done: by relying on private, sometimes costly consultants to fill staffing shortfalls in federal agencies.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062702988.html?referrer=email
Which brings us to the blog quote of the day,
from Dave in MA at The Daily Kos, crossposted from his Accountable Strategies Blog
"...a lack of centralized authority, ineffective internal controls, poorly drawn contracts, insufficient oversight, and staffing shortages. DHS is far from an agency created and operating according to a sense of national purpose, in response to a national emergency." (more like a gravy-train for Halliburtonish executives and some of the newly formed Maryland/Virginia-based [read "D.C."] Bush-bubba firms...)
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/27/102725/804
IRANIAN MOB SETS GAS STATIONS ABLAZE
Angry drivers set fire to at least two gas stations overnight in Tehran after the government announced that gasoline rationing would begin Wednesday just after midnight.
The state television news said Wednesday that “several gas stations and public places had been attacked by vandals.” While there were some reports that a large number of gas stations had been set on fire, only two fires were confirmed. The government had been planning for a year to put rationing into effect but held off because of concerns that it could cause unrest. Some officials indicated it might have been started now because of the threat of stronger economic sanctions by the United Nations over Iran’s nuclear program. Iran contends that its nuclear enrichment program is for civilian energy purposes, while the United States and some other Western nations contend that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Under the new regulations announced by the Oil Ministry on Tuesday evening, private cars will be able to buy a maximum of 26 gallons of gasoline a month at the subsidized price of 34 cents per gallon. Taxis will be allowed 211 gallons a month. Parliament would have to determine whether individuals would be allowed to buy more at market rates. (at least the Iranian consumers know how to protest higher prices... but at 34 cents per gallon, even rationed out, it still seems like a bargain, ours is nearly 10 times costlier.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/world/middleeast/28iran.html?th&emc=th
THE BUSH WARS:
BUSH AND COMPANY SEEKING PERPETUAL WAR
Opinion from the Seattle PI
As if four years of fighting in Iraq hadn't already made this point clear, here it is again: We're not getting anywhere over there. And this "surge," this acceleration of fighting the Bush administration has been ballyhooing as a critical step in turning our failures in Iraq into some sort of glowing democratic success, is futile. (Futile...now there is the best one-word description of this war ever put to page. Futile, that is, unless you are a KBR/Halliburton Executive, raking in all that no-bid cash, then you're probably pretty happy with this war's chaos. it is a perfect cover for your profiteering and corruption.) Senior military officers say that despite tossing at least 30,000 more human beings (aka "troops") into the fray, Iraq won't be more secure. Why? Because no matter how many people we send in to fight, the second we leave, things will go to hell, yet again. Iraqis don't have the soldiers and police to deal with the remaining insurgents. The places American forces "secure" in critical areas, such as Baghdad, will represent only temporary gains. Staying in Iraq, then, becomes virtually meaningless in any tactical sense. (unless you are a KBR/Halliburton Executive, raking in all that no-bid cash) Things might get worse there if/when we leave. But they're already unfathomable: NPR reported on Wednesday that Iraqis now actually celebrate deaths that result from natural causes as "blessings," because they're becoming increasingly rare. Perhaps concentrating our resources on building an Iraqi security force -- trained and paid -- would yield better results. But this administration's stubborn stance is impervious to common sense. (unless you are a KBR/Halliburton Executive, raking in all that no-bid cash) As Stephen Colbert (the snarkmaster) told anti-war activist Tom Hayden on "The Colbert Report" Monday night, "(The war) is only lost if we leave. The president has said so. We can only lose if we leave. If we never leave, we never lose."
What a jacked up way to measure success. (unless you are a KBR/Halliburton Executive, raking in all that no-bid cash) http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/321508_surgeed.html
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