The President and Gen. David Petraeus exchanged betting metaphors in planning the Surge, according to Woodward's new book to be published next week.
In January 2007, when Bush told the new Iraq commander that the Surge was an attempt to "double down," Petraeus replied, "Mr. President, this is not double down. This is all in."
Five years and thousands of American lives after the invasion, a disconnected Commander-in-Chief was still being briefed with figures of speech that recall Colin Powell's Pottery Barn warning, "You break it, you own it."
In a preview of "The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008," the Washington Post describes "an administration riven by dissension, either unwilling or slow to confront the deterioration of its strategy in Iraq...
"Publicly, Bush maintained that U.S. forces were 'winning'; privately, he came to believe that the military's long-term strategy of training Iraq security forces and handing over responsibility to the new Iraqi government was failing."
Before the 2006 elections, according to Woodward, Bush asked for a review of the war "under the radar screen" after Condoleezza Rice challenged the wisdom of sending additional troops to Iraq. "You're not getting a clear picture of what's going on," she reportedly told Bush, claiming that Don Rumsfeld was giving him "a fable, a story...that skirted the real problems."
Bush fired Rumsfeld but still maintained an "odd detachment" about the war, telling Woodward, "This is nothing that you hurry" when asked whether he had given advisers a firm deadline for recommending a revised war strategy.
Ultimately, Bush overrode the advice of the Joint Chiefs and became gung-ho in deciding on the Surge, which Woodward concludes worked not simply because of additional troops but "groundbreaking" new covert techniques to find and kill insurgent leaders as well as the decision by Moqtada al-Sadr to rein in his Mahdi Army and the "Anbar Awakening," in which Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda.
Woodward had ended his previous book with the line: "With all Bush’s upbeat talk and optimism, he had not told the American public the truth about what Iraq had become." He repeats that now, adding: "My reporting for this book showed that to be even more the case than I could have imagined."
Showing posts with label Don Rumsfeld. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Don Rumsfeld. Show all posts
Friday, September 05, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Mission Unaccomplished
"OK, we're in Baghdad, what next?"
Before the invasion, an Army commander asked that question and never got an answer, according to a new 700-page study by the Army itself based on 200 interviews by military historians with active or recently retired officers on what went wrong in Iraq after the man in a flight jacket stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier to declare victory.
In what amounts to the non-Rumsfeld story of the disaster, we finally get first-hand accounts of the making of a quagmire, and it is not a pretty picture.
“The Army, as the service primarily responsible for ground operations, should have insisted on better Phase IV [postwar] planning and preparations through its voice on the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” the study notes. “The military means employed were sufficient to destroy the Saddam regime; they were not sufficient to replace it with the type of nation-state the United States wished to see in its place."
The Bush Administration, the Pentagon and its Iraq commander, Gen. Tommy Franks were plentifully supplied with wishes but short of methods to realize them. Disregarding one proposal that called for 300,000 soldiers to secure postwar Iraq, they deployed half as many and were in a rush to reduce even that number during “an abbreviated period of stability operations."
“In line with the prewar planning and general euphoria at the rapid crumbling of the Saddam regime," the report says, "Franks continued to plan for a very limited role for U.S. ground forces in Iraq.”
Behind all this was the genius of Defense Secretary Don Rumseld who kept smugly assuring Americans that it would all be fine. "As you know," he told the troops, "you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want."
Meanwhile, we now learn, the Army itself was finding out otherwise. Maybe when Rumsfeld gets around to publishing his memoirs, he'll tell them how they got it all wrong.
Before the invasion, an Army commander asked that question and never got an answer, according to a new 700-page study by the Army itself based on 200 interviews by military historians with active or recently retired officers on what went wrong in Iraq after the man in a flight jacket stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier to declare victory.
In what amounts to the non-Rumsfeld story of the disaster, we finally get first-hand accounts of the making of a quagmire, and it is not a pretty picture.
“The Army, as the service primarily responsible for ground operations, should have insisted on better Phase IV [postwar] planning and preparations through its voice on the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” the study notes. “The military means employed were sufficient to destroy the Saddam regime; they were not sufficient to replace it with the type of nation-state the United States wished to see in its place."
The Bush Administration, the Pentagon and its Iraq commander, Gen. Tommy Franks were plentifully supplied with wishes but short of methods to realize them. Disregarding one proposal that called for 300,000 soldiers to secure postwar Iraq, they deployed half as many and were in a rush to reduce even that number during “an abbreviated period of stability operations."
“In line with the prewar planning and general euphoria at the rapid crumbling of the Saddam regime," the report says, "Franks continued to plan for a very limited role for U.S. ground forces in Iraq.”
Behind all this was the genius of Defense Secretary Don Rumseld who kept smugly assuring Americans that it would all be fine. "As you know," he told the troops, "you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want."
Meanwhile, we now learn, the Army itself was finding out otherwise. Maybe when Rumsfeld gets around to publishing his memoirs, he'll tell them how they got it all wrong.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Whistle-Blowing MSM Dogs Don't Hear
Behind the media popcorn of Scott McClellan's revelations, relatively unnoticed is a new book by the former American commander in Iraq that should be red meat for historians.
This week's Time has an excerpt from "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story" by Gen. Ricardo Sanchez that nails his Pentagon boss Don Rumsfeld, along with the rest of the Bush Administration, for "gross incompetence and dereliction of duty" at the start of the unfolding disaster.
This is no out-of-the-loop flunky's account of what happened, but the testimony of the man in the middle of it all, one of the generals whose advice Bush maintained he would follow but obviously did not.
The Central Command, Gen. Sanchez writes, had originally planned 12 to 18 months of active troop deployments but then "had completely walked away by simply stating that the war was over...
"That decision set up the United States for a failed first year in Iraq. There is no question about it. And I was supposed to believe that neither the Secretary of Defense nor anybody above him knew anything about it? Impossible! Rumsfeld knew about it. Everybody on the NSC knew about it, including Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and Colin Powell. Vice President Cheney knew about it. And President Bush knew about it.
"There's not a doubt in my mind that they all embraced this decision to some degree. And if it had not been for the moral courage of Gen. John Abizaid to stand up to them all and reverse [Gen. Tommy] Franks's troop drawdown order, there's no telling how much more damage would have been done.
"In the meantime, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty."
Amid all the whistle-blowing in Washington these days, this particular one by Gen. Sanchez should be heard loud and clear, but so far the media dogs are not responding to its frequency.
This week's Time has an excerpt from "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story" by Gen. Ricardo Sanchez that nails his Pentagon boss Don Rumsfeld, along with the rest of the Bush Administration, for "gross incompetence and dereliction of duty" at the start of the unfolding disaster.
This is no out-of-the-loop flunky's account of what happened, but the testimony of the man in the middle of it all, one of the generals whose advice Bush maintained he would follow but obviously did not.
The Central Command, Gen. Sanchez writes, had originally planned 12 to 18 months of active troop deployments but then "had completely walked away by simply stating that the war was over...
"That decision set up the United States for a failed first year in Iraq. There is no question about it. And I was supposed to believe that neither the Secretary of Defense nor anybody above him knew anything about it? Impossible! Rumsfeld knew about it. Everybody on the NSC knew about it, including Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and Colin Powell. Vice President Cheney knew about it. And President Bush knew about it.
"There's not a doubt in my mind that they all embraced this decision to some degree. And if it had not been for the moral courage of Gen. John Abizaid to stand up to them all and reverse [Gen. Tommy] Franks's troop drawdown order, there's no telling how much more damage would have been done.
"In the meantime, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty."
Amid all the whistle-blowing in Washington these days, this particular one by Gen. Sanchez should be heard loud and clear, but so far the media dogs are not responding to its frequency.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Stupidity Plus
Gen. Tommy Franks was off the mark when he called Douglas Feith the dumbest effing guy on the planet. On 60 Minutes tonight, Feith showed that stupidity alone is not enough to describe a clueless academic intoxicated by power and willing to stoop to intellectual dishonesty that would shame any used-car salesman
"What we did after 9/11," he told Steve Kroft, "was look broadly at the international terrorist network from which the next attack on the United States might come. And we did not focus narrowly only on the people who were specifically responsible for 9/11. Our main goal was preventing the next attack."
"So you're saying," an incredulous Kroft followed up by asking, "you didn't think it was that important to go after the people who were responsible for it--more important to go after people who weren't responsible for it?"
Feith, who helped cook the intelligence to justify the invasion, was pimping his doorstop book that blames everyone else, especially L. Paul Bremer, who ran the Iraq occupation for the first two years, for the ensuing fiasco.
If he had had his way, Feith claims, he would have turned the country over to con man Ahmad Chalabi, who fed him and his Neo-Con rubes $33 million of false information to lie us into the war.
Dumb isn't enough. Try shameless, arrogant and deceitful. There is at least one like him on most campuses. Just our luck that this specimen ended up in Rumsfeld's Defense Department.
"What we did after 9/11," he told Steve Kroft, "was look broadly at the international terrorist network from which the next attack on the United States might come. And we did not focus narrowly only on the people who were specifically responsible for 9/11. Our main goal was preventing the next attack."
"So you're saying," an incredulous Kroft followed up by asking, "you didn't think it was that important to go after the people who were responsible for it--more important to go after people who weren't responsible for it?"
Feith, who helped cook the intelligence to justify the invasion, was pimping his doorstop book that blames everyone else, especially L. Paul Bremer, who ran the Iraq occupation for the first two years, for the ensuing fiasco.
If he had had his way, Feith claims, he would have turned the country over to con man Ahmad Chalabi, who fed him and his Neo-Con rubes $33 million of false information to lie us into the war.
Dumb isn't enough. Try shameless, arrogant and deceitful. There is at least one like him on most campuses. Just our luck that this specimen ended up in Rumsfeld's Defense Department.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
The Blunder Bus Rolls On
The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld top command had plenty of company in mismanaging the war in Iraq, a Pentagon study shows.
Hundreds of U.S. Marines were killed or injured by roadside bombs when Marine Corps bureaucrats refused urgent requests in 2005 from battlefield commanders for blast-resistant vehicles.
The study disclosed today by the AP accuses the service of "gross mismanagement" that delayed deliveries of the mine-resistant, ambush-protected trucks for more than two years.
Stateside paper shufflers sidetracked orders for the heavily armored MRAPs that could have prevented casualties from the IEDs that were decimating US troops on the basis of their cost of almost $1 million each to expedite plans for lighter vehicles still on the drawing board.
Without the knowledge of the Marine Corps Commandant, a field General's requests were sent to a civilian logistics official in suburban Washington. "As a result," the study contends, "there was more concern over how the MRAP would upset the Marine Corps' supply and maintenance chains than there was in getting the troops a truck that would keep them alive."
It was only when current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made the trucks the top priority last year that the vehicles started to be shipped in large quantities.
More than 800 Marines have been killed and almost 8400 wounded in Iraq, most of them by explosive devices. The former Marine officer who wrote the report had to file for whistle-blower protection last year with the US Office of Special Counsel after being threatened with disciplinary action for meeting with Congressional staff members.
The Corps seems to have moved more swiftly to protect bureaucrats and their bosses than troops in the field.
Hundreds of U.S. Marines were killed or injured by roadside bombs when Marine Corps bureaucrats refused urgent requests in 2005 from battlefield commanders for blast-resistant vehicles.
The study disclosed today by the AP accuses the service of "gross mismanagement" that delayed deliveries of the mine-resistant, ambush-protected trucks for more than two years.
Stateside paper shufflers sidetracked orders for the heavily armored MRAPs that could have prevented casualties from the IEDs that were decimating US troops on the basis of their cost of almost $1 million each to expedite plans for lighter vehicles still on the drawing board.
Without the knowledge of the Marine Corps Commandant, a field General's requests were sent to a civilian logistics official in suburban Washington. "As a result," the study contends, "there was more concern over how the MRAP would upset the Marine Corps' supply and maintenance chains than there was in getting the troops a truck that would keep them alive."
It was only when current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made the trucks the top priority last year that the vehicles started to be shipped in large quantities.
More than 800 Marines have been killed and almost 8400 wounded in Iraq, most of them by explosive devices. The former Marine officer who wrote the report had to file for whistle-blower protection last year with the US Office of Special Counsel after being threatened with disciplinary action for meeting with Congressional staff members.
The Corps seems to have moved more swiftly to protect bureaucrats and their bosses than troops in the field.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
The Truth About 935 Bush Lies
Did it take a thousand untruths to get us into Iraq? Not quite.
According to a new study by two non-profit journalism organizations, "President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials...made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq."
The orchestrated campaign has been documented by the staffs of the Fund for Independence in Journalism and the Center for Public Integrity to create a data base of deception.
Some of the highlights:
.On August 26, 2002, Dick Cheney made a speech saying "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." The CIA had no idea of the basis for that claim.
.A month later, in his weekly radio address, the President said: "The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given...This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year."
.In July 2002, asked whether Iraq had relationships with Al Qaeda terrorists, Don Rumsfeld answered, "Sure" despite the fact that his own Defense Intelligence and the CIA had no such evidence.
.A year later, President Bush told Polish TV: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories." The two labs he cited, a team of experts found, "had probably been used to manufacture hydrogen for weather balloons."
The report concludes that the Bush Administration "led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses." White House reaction: "The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world." Add that to the list.
Now that 935 lies to get us into Iraq have been documented, collated and counted, how many more is it taking to keep us there?
According to a new study by two non-profit journalism organizations, "President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials...made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq."
The orchestrated campaign has been documented by the staffs of the Fund for Independence in Journalism and the Center for Public Integrity to create a data base of deception.
Some of the highlights:
.On August 26, 2002, Dick Cheney made a speech saying "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." The CIA had no idea of the basis for that claim.
.A month later, in his weekly radio address, the President said: "The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given...This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year."
.In July 2002, asked whether Iraq had relationships with Al Qaeda terrorists, Don Rumsfeld answered, "Sure" despite the fact that his own Defense Intelligence and the CIA had no such evidence.
.A year later, President Bush told Polish TV: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories." The two labs he cited, a team of experts found, "had probably been used to manufacture hydrogen for weather balloons."
The report concludes that the Bush Administration "led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses." White House reaction: "The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world." Add that to the list.
Now that 935 lies to get us into Iraq have been documented, collated and counted, how many more is it taking to keep us there?
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
"Dumbest Guy on the Planet" Explains It All
At a Neo-Con reunion last night, Don Rumsfeld's Three Stooges, who planned the war in Iraq, got together to blame the mess there on somebody else, L. Paul Bremer, who ran the occupation for the first two years.
Former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith told the faithful at the American Enterprise Institute that his plan was not "to be around for many, many months" but that Bremer overruled him, thereby putting the US in today's stalemate.
Feith, labeled by Gen. Tommy Franks as "the dumbest effing guy on the planet," was introduced by former colleague Richard Perle while Paul Wolfowitz, the former World Bank lover, sat up front and agreed that Feith was "pretty much on the mark."
After hearing about the talk, Bremer told a reporter that Feith's "argument isn't with me," that President Bush told him before leaving for Baghdad to "take our time setting up an interim administration."
In reviewing George Tenet's memoir for the Wall Street Journal, Feith accused the former CIA Director of making up stories about how we got into Iraq. With his own book due for publication is March, Feith is getting a head start on fabricating his own.
Former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith told the faithful at the American Enterprise Institute that his plan was not "to be around for many, many months" but that Bremer overruled him, thereby putting the US in today's stalemate.
Feith, labeled by Gen. Tommy Franks as "the dumbest effing guy on the planet," was introduced by former colleague Richard Perle while Paul Wolfowitz, the former World Bank lover, sat up front and agreed that Feith was "pretty much on the mark."
After hearing about the talk, Bremer told a reporter that Feith's "argument isn't with me," that President Bush told him before leaving for Baghdad to "take our time setting up an interim administration."
In reviewing George Tenet's memoir for the Wall Street Journal, Feith accused the former CIA Director of making up stories about how we got into Iraq. With his own book due for publication is March, Feith is getting a head start on fabricating his own.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Hillary and Rummy: That Certain Feeling
The blogs are alive with the sound of musing about Tuesday night's Hillary Clinton scrum as we learn this morning that Donald Rumsfeld, when he was not patronizing the media at press conferences, was writing 20 to 40 memos a day telling everybody else in the Defense Department how to do it.
As the war in Iraq went south, the former Secretary of Defense added insult to injury by maintaining his maddening certainty about everything. As Hillary Clinton comes under attack, her antagonists are belaboring her, at least in part, for not displaying Rumsfeldian certainty on every subject.
When she paid voters the compliment of thinking out loud about driver's licenses for immigrants, a subject that has no easy yes-or-not answer, the other candidates jumped her. John Edwards, as always, was the most shameless:
"Senator Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes...I think this is a real issue for the country. I mean, America is looking for a president who will say the same thing, who will be consistent, who will be straight with them. Because what we've had for seven years is double-talk from Bush and from Cheney, and I think America deserves us to be straight."
Clinton may have been too flummoxed to point out that saying the same thing is the Bush-Cheney hallmark, that a human being with an open mind is exactly what's needed in the Oval Office rather than a priss who keeps reminding us how "straight" and honest he is.
There was much of substance with which to confront the front runner, particularly her vote on the Kyle-Lieberman Amendment, but her challengers can't have it both ways--portraying her as cold and calculating, and then piling on when she shows ambivalence about a complicated question.
Rumsfeld gave us enough certainty to last a lifetime, and Bush and Cheney are still dishing out more.
As the war in Iraq went south, the former Secretary of Defense added insult to injury by maintaining his maddening certainty about everything. As Hillary Clinton comes under attack, her antagonists are belaboring her, at least in part, for not displaying Rumsfeldian certainty on every subject.
When she paid voters the compliment of thinking out loud about driver's licenses for immigrants, a subject that has no easy yes-or-not answer, the other candidates jumped her. John Edwards, as always, was the most shameless:
"Senator Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes...I think this is a real issue for the country. I mean, America is looking for a president who will say the same thing, who will be consistent, who will be straight with them. Because what we've had for seven years is double-talk from Bush and from Cheney, and I think America deserves us to be straight."
Clinton may have been too flummoxed to point out that saying the same thing is the Bush-Cheney hallmark, that a human being with an open mind is exactly what's needed in the Oval Office rather than a priss who keeps reminding us how "straight" and honest he is.
There was much of substance with which to confront the front runner, particularly her vote on the Kyle-Lieberman Amendment, but her challengers can't have it both ways--portraying her as cold and calculating, and then piling on when she shows ambivalence about a complicated question.
Rumsfeld gave us enough certainty to last a lifetime, and Bush and Cheney are still dishing out more.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
McCain's Tenuous Comeback
Once the media writes an obituary, the departed is supposed to stay dead. But John McCain is showing signs of new life with David Petraeus as his savior and Don Rumsfeld as the straw man to distance himself from Bush’s bungling of Iraq.
The Straight Talk Express, now re-dubbed “No Surrender,” is on the road again picking up some momentum but, as seen on “Meet the Press” today, McCain will have to overcome not only other Republican contenders but his own tendency toward testiness under fire.
In debating John Kerry, he started out with a smooth, subdued testimonial to his own good judgment about pacifying Iraq that was ignored by Rumsfeld et al but is now being vindicated by Petraeus’ “success.”
But as Kerry challenged him, McCain’s smile froze, jaws tightened and he kept using his tell-tale expression of hostility, “My friend”--exposing the hot-headed impatience with criticism that is the other side of the affability McCain always shows with Jon Stewart.
As the oldest candidate in the Republican field, it will be hard enough to emulate Bill Clinton’s feat in 1992 as the “Comeback Kid,” but McCain has some traction now as the most experienced potential Commander-in-Chief to navigate a Republican course toward peace in Iraq as the polls show Fred Thompson slowing the effects of Rudy Giuliani’s conversion to conservatism.
But if McCain is to make his case for a strong, steady hand at the helm in the face of terrorist turbulence, he had better start showing it.
If not, media pundits will be ready and waiting to justify their obituaries.
The Straight Talk Express, now re-dubbed “No Surrender,” is on the road again picking up some momentum but, as seen on “Meet the Press” today, McCain will have to overcome not only other Republican contenders but his own tendency toward testiness under fire.
In debating John Kerry, he started out with a smooth, subdued testimonial to his own good judgment about pacifying Iraq that was ignored by Rumsfeld et al but is now being vindicated by Petraeus’ “success.”
But as Kerry challenged him, McCain’s smile froze, jaws tightened and he kept using his tell-tale expression of hostility, “My friend”--exposing the hot-headed impatience with criticism that is the other side of the affability McCain always shows with Jon Stewart.
As the oldest candidate in the Republican field, it will be hard enough to emulate Bill Clinton’s feat in 1992 as the “Comeback Kid,” but McCain has some traction now as the most experienced potential Commander-in-Chief to navigate a Republican course toward peace in Iraq as the polls show Fred Thompson slowing the effects of Rudy Giuliani’s conversion to conservatism.
But if McCain is to make his case for a strong, steady hand at the helm in the face of terrorist turbulence, he had better start showing it.
If not, media pundits will be ready and waiting to justify their obituaries.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Nouri al Maliki, Meet Don Rumsfeld
The week before last November’s election, George Bush told reporters his Secretary of Defense would stay in office until January 2009. The day after the voting, Rumsfeld resigned and Bush admitted he knew about it but lied.
Yesterday the President said “Prime Minister Maliki is a good guy, a good man with a difficult job, and I support him.”
But behind the scenes, the skids are greased. Today there is a leaked “intelligence assessment” that concludes, “Iraqi political leaders remain unable to govern effectively.” Arriverderci, Maliki. Payment is being stopped on the “blank check.”
But hold the cheers for the replacement who is being groomed--Ayad Allawi, one of the exiles who told us about Saddam’s WMDs and then was anointed Interim PM until the elections in which his party polled 14 percent of the vote after voters threw shoes at him. He is related by marriage to Ahmad Chalabi, another Neo-Con exile winner. but they don’t get along.
Now, here he is with an OpEd in the Washington Post last weekend, “A Plan for Iraq,” planted by a Republican lobbying firm that is also starting a web site for him.
President Bush keeps insisting that al Maliki’s tenure in office is up to the Iraqi people. But in light of what happened before Rumsfeld’s departure, Maliki shouldn’t be buying any green bananas for his office fruit bowl.
Yesterday the President said “Prime Minister Maliki is a good guy, a good man with a difficult job, and I support him.”
But behind the scenes, the skids are greased. Today there is a leaked “intelligence assessment” that concludes, “Iraqi political leaders remain unable to govern effectively.” Arriverderci, Maliki. Payment is being stopped on the “blank check.”
But hold the cheers for the replacement who is being groomed--Ayad Allawi, one of the exiles who told us about Saddam’s WMDs and then was anointed Interim PM until the elections in which his party polled 14 percent of the vote after voters threw shoes at him. He is related by marriage to Ahmad Chalabi, another Neo-Con exile winner. but they don’t get along.
Now, here he is with an OpEd in the Washington Post last weekend, “A Plan for Iraq,” planted by a Republican lobbying firm that is also starting a web site for him.
President Bush keeps insisting that al Maliki’s tenure in office is up to the Iraqi people. But in light of what happened before Rumsfeld’s departure, Maliki shouldn’t be buying any green bananas for his office fruit bowl.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
The Menace of Mr. Smooth
Not only was Robert Gates an Eagle Scout in his youth but he grew up to become president of the National Eagle Scout Association. Unlike his grating predecessor as Secretary of Defense, Don Rumsfeld, Gates is soporific and therein may lie his menace to America.
Today on Meet the Press, Gates lulled us with his uninflected claim of “positive things happening at the local level” in Iraq, “confidence in the evaluation that Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus are going to make in early September” and a reminder he had told the Iraqi parliament that “every day that we buy you, we’re buying it with American blood, and the idea of you going on vacation is unacceptable.”
All this sounds sane and plausible, but American blood keeps flowing and Gates, by not being cocky and condescending like Rumsfeld, is enabling it. His intelligence and rationality may doing more damage.
In the subtitle of his memoirs was the phrase “the ultimate insider,” and Gates has certainly been that for almost four decades, most of it with the C.I.A., loyal to the point of almost being prosecuted for his part in the Iran-Contra scandal.
After leaving government to become a college president, Gates in 2005 declined the newly created position of uber-Director of National Intelligence saying he "had nothing to look forward to in D.C.” But he couldn’t refuse the offer to succeed Rumsfeld.
From his demeanor and statements, and as a former member of the Iraq Study Group, Robert Gates clearly understands the futility of the enterprise there. But he has spent his life being a good and loyal servant of those in power, Reagan and both Bushes.
It’s unlikely that he wakes in the middle of the night with pangs over what he is buying with American blood, but it would be comforting to believe he is capable of that.
Today on Meet the Press, Gates lulled us with his uninflected claim of “positive things happening at the local level” in Iraq, “confidence in the evaluation that Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus are going to make in early September” and a reminder he had told the Iraqi parliament that “every day that we buy you, we’re buying it with American blood, and the idea of you going on vacation is unacceptable.”
All this sounds sane and plausible, but American blood keeps flowing and Gates, by not being cocky and condescending like Rumsfeld, is enabling it. His intelligence and rationality may doing more damage.
In the subtitle of his memoirs was the phrase “the ultimate insider,” and Gates has certainly been that for almost four decades, most of it with the C.I.A., loyal to the point of almost being prosecuted for his part in the Iran-Contra scandal.
After leaving government to become a college president, Gates in 2005 declined the newly created position of uber-Director of National Intelligence saying he "had nothing to look forward to in D.C.” But he couldn’t refuse the offer to succeed Rumsfeld.
From his demeanor and statements, and as a former member of the Iraq Study Group, Robert Gates clearly understands the futility of the enterprise there. But he has spent his life being a good and loyal servant of those in power, Reagan and both Bushes.
It’s unlikely that he wakes in the middle of the night with pangs over what he is buying with American blood, but it would be comforting to believe he is capable of that.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Second Dumbest Guy on the Planet
Most of the Cheney crew is gone--Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, famously described by Gen. Tommy Franks as “the dumbest guy on the planet.” But Feith’s replacement as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Eric S. Edelman, is still there to carry on the tradition.
Yesterday he did his mentors proud with a snippy response to Hillary Clinton, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who had asked about Pentagon planning to bring troops home from Iraq.
In response, Edelman wrote, "Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia," adding that "such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks."
Sen. Clinton, who was not thrilled to receive a political lecture in answer to a policy question, plans to take it up with Edelman’s boss, Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
The incident may help explain why in 2005 President Bush had to bypass the Senate and use a constitutional power to put Edelman in the job. Rumsfeld had called his predecessor Feith, who masterminded the policy of ignoring the Geneva Conventions that led to Abu Ghraib, "one of the most brilliant individuals in government."
Edelman is right in that mold.
Yesterday he did his mentors proud with a snippy response to Hillary Clinton, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who had asked about Pentagon planning to bring troops home from Iraq.
In response, Edelman wrote, "Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia," adding that "such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks."
Sen. Clinton, who was not thrilled to receive a political lecture in answer to a policy question, plans to take it up with Edelman’s boss, Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
The incident may help explain why in 2005 President Bush had to bypass the Senate and use a constitutional power to put Edelman in the job. Rumsfeld had called his predecessor Feith, who masterminded the policy of ignoring the Geneva Conventions that led to Abu Ghraib, "one of the most brilliant individuals in government."
Edelman is right in that mold.
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