Tag: Iraq

Rumsfeld in 2003: I’ll Fire the Next Guy Who Asks About a Post-War Plan

Trish

A string of retired military officers took the stand at the Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearings to enumerate all the ways Donald Rumsfeld sucks.

Retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton assessed Rumsfeld as “incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically”

“I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq,” retired Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste said…

A second witness, retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, assessed Rumsfeld as “incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically ….”

Well yeah, but except for that —

“Mr. Rumsfeld and his immediate team must be replaced or we will see two more years of extraordinarily bad decision-making,” he added…

[Retired Col. Paul X.] Hammes said in his prepared remarks that not providing the best equipment was a “serious moral failure on the part of our leadership.”

…Batiste, Eaton and Hammes were unsparing in remarks that suggested deep anger at the way the military had been treated. All three served in Iraq…

[Batiste] said Rumsfeld at one point threatened to fire the next person who mentioned the need for a postwar plan in Iraq.

4,000 Troops are Being Extended

And speaking of the Bush administration’s flawed plan for Iraq, it looks like 4,000 troops scheduled to come home aren’t. Someone leaked the crappy news to the press.

The Army has extended the combat tours of about 4,000 soldiers who would otherwise be returning home, a defense official said Monday.

The 1st Brigade of 1st Armored Division, which is operating in the vicinity of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, will be kept in place for several weeks beyond their scheduled departure…

The 1st Brigade…was extended to allow its replacement unit, from the 3rd Infantry Division, the minimum 12 months between overseas tours, the official said. The 3rd Infantry has served two tours in Iraq, including the initial invasion of the country in March 2003…

Until sectarian violence spiked early this year, Bush administration officials had voiced hopes that this election year would see significant U.S. troop reductions in what has become a widely unpopular war.

The British Have Saved Our Asses Again

One of the S-K-Ps from the Afghanistan prison right under our noses last year was killed by troops from the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment.

[Omar] Farouq was one of four al Qaeda suspects who broke out of the prison in Bagram, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, in July 2005.

It was an embarrassing incident for the U.S. military, and the Pentagon waited until November to confirm that the man had escaped. The delay in releasing his name upset Indonesia, which had arrested Farouq in 2002 and then turned him over to the United States — which then shipped him to Afghanistan.

After escaping, the al Qaeda leader and the three others had managed to evade a massive manhunt. They later appeared in a video sent to the Dubai-based television station Al-Arabiya and boasted of their feat.

Army Protests War Costs, Tells Rumsfeld and Bush It Needs Additional Billions to Keep Fighting

Jon Ponder
The Army’s chief of staff is now seeking $138.8 billion in 2008, nearly $25 billion above budget limits originally set by Rumsfeld.

It’s the incompetence, stupid:

The Army’s top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level of activity in Iraq plus its other global commitments without billions in additional funding.

The decision by Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, is believed to be unprecedented and signals a widespread belief within the Army that in the absence of significant troop withdrawals from Iraq, funding assumptions must be completely reworked, say current and former Pentagon officials.

“This is unusual, but hell, we’re in unusual times,” said a senior Pentagon official involved in the budget discussions.

Schoomaker failed to submit the budget plan by an Aug. 15 deadline. The protest followed a series of cuts in the service’s funding requests by both the White House and Congress over the last four months.

According to a senior Army official involved in budget talks, Schoomaker is now seeking $138.8 billion in 2008, nearly $25 billion above budget limits originally set by Rumsfeld. The Army’s budget this year is $98.2 billion, making Schoomaker’s request a 41% increase over current levels.

“It’s incredibly huge,” said the Army official, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity when commenting on internal deliberations. “These are just incredible numbers.”

Classified Spy Document: Iraq War Is Inflaming Terrorism

Jon Ponder

In 2004, a Bush administration official (believed to be Karl Rove) described his team’s approach to governing this way:

If we lived in real reality, there would be no need for this information to be classified. It was kept secret because it reveals facts that run counter to the false construction of reality created by the White House political office.

‘’We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. It was kept secret because it reveals facts that run counter to the false construction of reality created by the White House political office.

But sometimes real reality has a way of intruding:

The war in Iraq has made global terrorism worse by fanning Islamic radicalism and providing a training ground for lethal methods that are increasingly being exported to other countries, according to a sweeping assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies.

The classified document, which represents a consensus view of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, paints a considerably bleaker picture of the impact of the Iraq war than Bush administration or U.S. intelligence officials have acknowledged publicly, according to officials familiar with the assessment.

“They conclude that the Iraq war has made it worse,” said a government official familiar with the document who spoke on condition of anonymity because of its classified nature.

No one should be surprised that the war is breeding more terrorism. If we lived in real reality, there would be no need for this information to be classified. It was kept secret because it reveals facts that run counter to the false construction of reality created by the White House political office.

Makes me tired to think about it. It must be exhausting for them. No wonder they screw it up so often.

Did Osama Die Like a Martian?

Trish

If it’s true that Osama bin Laden died of a “waterborne illness” last month, as is looking fairly credible, I can’t help but think of the ending to War of the Worlds. Remember how humans weren’t saved from the Martians by firepower or strategy, but by disease microbes?

If Osama is dead, and not by anything Bush and his minions can claim credit for, then what next?

In another moment I had scrambled up the earthen rampart and stood upon its crest, and the interior of the redoubt was below me. A mighty space it was, with gigantic machines here and there within it, huge mounds of material and strange shelter places. And scattered about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians — DEAD! — slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.

For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen had not terror and disaster blinded our minds.

Gives me goosebumps, or makes me laugh bitterly, or both. If Osama is dead, and not by anything Bush and his minions can claim credit for, then what next?

We’ve been playing Whack-a-Mole for five years now, as the Bush administration identifies an endless stream of second-in-commands. We are usually introduced to them as they are captured or killed, but in a few weeks or months, new ones with similar names replace them. And none of it brings us any closer to some kind of ending in this fight.

So if bin Laden is dead, has in fact been dead for awhile now, then why are still at it? All along, we have accepted the Bush-given view that if we just kill all the “evil-doers,” especially the leaders, the problem’s solved. Could it be maybe, just maybe, the solution was never extermination? As George Lakoff and Evan Frisch pointed out in a brilliant Buzzflash guest contribution, declaring war on terror[ists] was a dumb strategy.

To Osama bin Laden, the moral was simple: American power can be used against America itself. This moral has defined the post 9/11 world: the more America uses military force in the Middle East, the more damage is done to America and Americans.

The more Americans kill and terrorize Muslims, the more we recruit Muslims to become terrorists and fight against us.

The war in Iraq was over in 2003 when the US forces defeated Saddam’s army. Then the American occupation began…

If bin Laden is dead, I can’t wait to hear what our new goal is morphed into by the folks who are profiting from all this carnage. But rest assured, a new one there will be. The question is, will we keep accepting it?

Ted Turner: Iraq One of the Dumbest Moves in History

Trish

Ted Turner has to be regretting that $1 billion gift to the U.N. a few years ago, since it’s pretty much all going to problems created by George W. Bush. He told Reuters how he really feels about the U.S. invading Iraq.

“It will go down in history, it is already being seen in history, as one of the dumbest moves that was ever made by anybody. A couple of others that come to mind were the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and the German invasion of Russia,” Turner told the forum.

“It literally broke my heart. You don’t start wars just because you don’t like somebody. … I wouldn’t even start a war with Rupert Murdoch,” Turner said, referring to his onetime cable network rival.

One of the dumbest moves? Well, why not? After all, it was conceived by hands-down the dumbest president.

Senate Dems Decry Lack of Iraq Oversight by GOP

Jon Ponder

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, took to the floor on Monday to excoriate the Republican leadership of the Senate for failing to provide oversight on President Bush’s debacle in Iraq, via Bob Geiger at Huffpo:

Reid went on to give the Senate leadership a quick history lesson on how Congress is suppose to work and how it indeed operated before the current crop of Bush rubber-stampers took over:

During the Civil War, President Lincoln was faced continually with oversight hearings by his Congress. Of course, we know during World War II, there were a number of commissions. The most famous was that conducted by Senator Harry Truman of Missouri, which led to his becoming Vice President. Some say, but for that he would not have been chosen as Vice President.
What was the Truman Commission? It was to determine what was going on with World War II. Was money being wasted? Were troop levels right? Korean war hearings were also held, and the same for the Vietnam war. But for this war, none–even though this war has taken longer than it took to settle the differences in the European theater in World War II. Soon it will be the same amount of time that we were able to beat Japan…
This Republican Congress has wasted 20 months on horse slaughtering; the Schiavo case, dealing with someone’s personal relationship, which should not even have been before this body; gay marriage; the nuclear option; flag burning; repealing the estate tax,” said Reid. “But they could not find a day for some time to look at the President’s mistakes, missteps, and misconduct, which have hurt American security and plunged Iraq into a civil war — not a day.”

And then Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, joined Reid for a colloquy:

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Iraq Insurgency’s ‘Last Throes’ Escalate

Jon Ponder

Reuters:

Sept 18 – Following are security and other developments in Iraq reported on Monday, as of 1100 GMT:

BAGHDAD – Fourteen bodies, tortured and with bullet holes in the head, were found in different districts of Baghdad on Monday, a Ministry of Interior source said.

NEAR KUT – Three border guards were killed and six wounded by a roadside bomb when they were searching a village near the Iraqi-Iranian border east of Kut, 170 km (105 miles) southeast of Baghdad, police said.

KERBALA – Gunmen killed four men in different incidents in the holy Shi’ite city of Kerbala, 110 km (68 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

BAQUBA – Gunmen killed four members of a Shi’ite family and wounded five as they were leaving their homes after receiving death threats in the religiously mixed city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

HIBHIB – Gunmen killed two members of a Shi’ite family and wounded two others as they were leaving their home after receiving death threats in the small town of Hibhib, near Baquba, police said.

MOSUL – Police found the bullet-riddled corpses of four women in different districts of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. One of the bodies showed signs of torture, police added.

MOSUL – Three civilians were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near an Iraqi army patrol in Mosul, police said.

MOSUL – A man and a child were wounded when several mortar rounds landed in and around a police station in Mosul, police said.

MOSUL – Four policemen were killed when insurgents ambushed them in Mosul, police said.

BAGHDAD – Iraqi army killed two insurgents and arrested 36 suspected insurgents during the last 24 hours in different parts of Iraq, the Defence Ministry said.

ANBAR PROVINCE – The Iraqi army with Anbar province tribal leaders killed 27 insurgents during the last week, the Defence Ministry spokesman said on Monday.

Why Do They Hate Us?

Jon Ponder
Osama bin Laden is still doing bong hits on Al Jazeera five years after we boldly promised to kick his ass.

Matt Taibbi:

America’s response to 9/11 was basically to blow off the entire question of why it happened, change the set-design behind the same old us-vs.-evil commies cowboy-movie worldview, and to patch the hole blown in our self-esteem with a crude mix of stage-managed self-congratulation and sentimental claptrap. Our failure to actually win our subsequent self-declared war on the evildoers we explained away by using a modern innovation, i.e. taking a New-Agey approach to our shortcomings and forgiving ourselves for our little imperfections. In the Dr. Phil age, actual achievement isn’t important, so long as you’re comfortable with yourself! Make a list every morning, think about the good things in life! Living in Madison Avenue’s irony age helps also — when even Tony Soprano pours his heart out to a shrink every week, it’s not hard to convince Americans that they’re still tough, even though Osama bin Laden is still doing bong hits on Al Jazeera five years after we boldly promised to kick his ass.

Whatever happened to actually being tough? What happened to speaking softly while we carry that big stick? Of staring problems bravely in the face, of taking the world seriously? History long ago washed that generation of “us” away, along with the world we still think we live in.

Bush Says America Is Experiencing a Christian ‘Awakening’ as Part of Coming War of ‘Good and Evil’

Jon Ponder

President Bush believes we are in the midst of a religious revival that was triggered by terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists:

“A lot of people in America see this as a confrontation between good and evil, including me,” Bush said during a 1 1/2 -hour Oval Office conversation on cultural changes and a battle with terrorists that he sees lasting decades. “There was a stark change between the culture of the ’50s and the ’60s — boom — and I think there’s change happening here,” he added. “It seems to me that there’s a Third Awakening.”

The president appeared to be conflating the “confrontation between good and evil” with the War on Terror — a fact his aides rushed to deny:

In his comments yesterday, aides said Bush was not casting the war as a religious struggle but was describing American cultural changes in a time of war.

“He’s drawing a parallel in terms of a resurgence, in dangerous times, of people going back to their religion,” said one aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was not open to other journalists. “This is not ‘God is on our side’ or anything like that.”

The White House did not release a transcript of Bush’s remarks…

This sounded a bit scary so I looked up Awakenings:

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