McCain Removes Calls For More U.S. Troops In Iraq From Website
McCain Removes Calls For More U.S. Troops In Iraq From Website
On Tuesday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) altered his campaign website to deemphasize his repeated calls for sending more troops to Iraq. The old version of McCain’s Iraq page argued that an increase of troops was a “crucial prerequisite for needed economic and political development in the country”:
A greater military commitment now is necessary if we are to achieve long-term success in Iraq. John McCain agrees with retired Army General Jack Keane that there are simply not enough American forces in Iraq. More troops are necessary to clear and hold insurgent strongholds; to provide security for rebuilding local institutions and economies; to halt sectarian violence in Baghdad and disarm Sunni and Shiite militias; to dismantle al Qaeda; to train the Iraqi Army; and to embed American personnel in Iraqi police units. Accomplishing each of these goals will require more troops and is a crucial prerequisite for needed economic and political development in the country.
On his new site, McCain deletes any reference to increasing troop levels and abandons the argument that a troop build up is “a crucial prerequisite” for progress. Instead, McCain focuses on the consequences of pulling out of Iraq:
John McCain believes it is strategically and morally essential for the United States to support the Government of Iraq to become capable of governing itself and safeguarding its people. He strongly disagrees with those who advocate withdrawing American troops before that has occurred.
Over at the Wonk Room, Adam Jentleson raises two questions about McCain’s change of heart:
First, does John McCain still think we need more troops in Iraq, as his website stated until earlier this week?
Second, since John McCain currently supports President Bush’s policy of arming certain Shiite and Sunni militias, has he changed his view that disarming Shi’ite and Sunni militias is a “critical prerequisite” for success, as his website stated as recently as Tuesday?
McCain heckled during non-proliferation speech.
Today, during a speech about nuclear non-proliferation in Colorado, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was repeatedly heckled by anti-Iraq war protesters, chanting, “Endless war! Endless war!” Watch it:
“I’ll never surrender in Iraq,” McCain responded. “And we are winning,” he added.
Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric begins issuing fatwas against U.S.-led forces.
Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric begins issuing fatwas against U.S.-led forces.
AP reports on a troubling development in Iraq:
Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric has been quietly issuing religious edicts declaring that armed resistance against U.S.-led foreign troops is permissible — a potentially significant shift by a key supporter of the Washington-backed government in Baghdad.
The edicts, or fatwas, by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani suggest he seeks to sharpen his long-held opposition to American troops and counter the populist appeal of his main rivals, firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.
So far, American officials have considered Sistani a “key stabilizing force in Iraq for refusing to support a full-scale Shiite uprising against U.S.-led forces or Sunnis — especially at the height of sectarian bloodletting after an important Shiite shrine was bombed in 2006.”
Odierno Rejects McCain’s ‘100 Years’: No ‘Need’ For Permanent Military Presence In Iraq
Odierno Rejects McCain’s ‘100 Years’: No ‘Need’ For Permanent Military Presence In Iraq
In today’s confirmation hearing, Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) asked Gen. Raymond Odierno what the “end point” of U.S. military involvement in Iraq would be. “In military terms, what do you see as the end point in our strategic direction here with respect to our involvement in Iraq?” Webb asked.
Odierno responded that the “end point” would be when Iraq has a “self-reliant government,” a “professionalized security” force, and major political reconciliation. Webb asked what the U.S. presence should be if those conditions are met:
WEBB: Well, what — what is the end point of the United States’ involvement in Iraq? Let’s say that Iraq meets the conditions you just talked about. Should there be a United States military presence in Iraq?
ODIERNO: I think that’s a discussion we would have along several levels. Not only from the MNF-I command or the Central Command level and obviously our civilian leadership to decide what their policy would be in the future toward Iraq.
WEBB: Do you believe that if those conditions are met, there would be a need for the United States military in Iraq?
ODIERNO: I do not. I believe what we would want, though, is to maintain obviously military contacts as we do with many countries over the world.
Watch it:
Odierno’s statement pours cold water on Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) infamous claim that the U.S. should “maintain a presence” in Iraq, for as much as 100 or 10,000 years. “Fine with me,” McCain says, “as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.”
But as Odierno said today, in the case that those conditions are met (a “big if,” as Max Bergmann notes), the U.S. military does not “need” to keep troops in the country. “That’s a very important clarification,” Webb concluded.
Petraeus: Greatest threat to U.S. comes from South Asia.
Petraeus: Greatest threat to U.S. comes from South Asia.
In today’s confirmation hearing, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) asked Gen. Petraeus if he believes central terror threat to the U.S. comes from South Asia — and not Iraq. While Petraeus defended the Iraq war, claiming it is al Qaeda’s “main effort,” he said the “organization of an attack” would come from the “strengthened” al Qaeda in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan:
REED: In fact, Admiral Mullen has stated, “If we’re going to pick the next attack on the United States, it would come out the FATA.” Do you agree with those intelligence assessments?
PETRAEUS: I do, Senator. Clearly, al Qaeda’s senior leadership has been strengthened in the FATA, even though their main efforts still is assessed to be in Iraq by them, as well as by us. But the organization of an attack, if you will, would likely come from the FATA.
Watch it:
Doug Feith: ‘What We Found In Iraq Was A Serious WMD Threat’
Doug Feith: ‘What We Found In Iraq Was A Serious WMD Threat’
Yesterday, Iraq War architect Douglas Feith spoke to the National Press Club to promote his book, “War and Decision,” and its revisionist description of the Bush administration’s pre-war planning.
At the event, Feith repeated his claim that the faulty intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was an “error,” not a lie. Additionally, he insisted that the U.S. had in fact found “a serious WMD threat” in Iraq:
While the failure to find presumed stockpiles of dangerous weapons “was catastrophic to our credibility,” he said, it was not a result of government deception.
“It was an honest error, not a lie,” he said. “Even if you correct for that error, what we found in Iraq was a serious WMD threat.“
In his book, Feith calls newspaper headlines stating that no weapons were found “fundamentally false,” and insists that the military found clear evidence of Saddam Hussein’s “intention” [his emphasis] to build weapons. A website he created to “disprove” myths about the pre-war planning states, “The Iraq Survey Group found that Saddam Hussein retained both the intention and the capability to revive bio-chemical weapons programs after sanctions were ended.”
The right wing seems unwilling to give up the belief in Iraq WMDs. In January, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) claimed the weapons were hidden like “Easter eggs” and moved to Jordan before the invasion. He also called it an “overreach” to say that just because we didn’t find them means they didn’t exist.
As late as April 2006, President Bush insisted WMDs existed in Iraq, despite having admitted two years earlier that “Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there.”
O’Hanlon Grades Himself On Iraq: ‘I Give Myself A Score Of 7 Out Of 10′
O’Hanlon Grades Himself On Iraq: ‘I Give Myself A Score Of 7 Out Of 10′
In an op-ed in the National Interest today, Brookings analyst Michael O’Hanlon responded to Salon’s Glenn Greenwald’s criticisms of his and the media’s often wrong portrayals of the Iraq war. O’Hanlon said that his work has “generally” been “proven right.”
O’Hanlon provided a “brief evaluation” of his “track record.” Continuing his penchant for inflating the grades of war supporters, he remarked: “Grading my own homework, I give myself a score of 7 out of 10. Whether that is a good or bad grade is in the mind of the beholder.” This self-praise, however, overlooks much of what O’Hanlon has written and said about Iraq over the years. A few highlights:
O’Hanlon today: “Prediction that the occupation/stabilization mission would be long and challenging: correct.”
– “The United States and coalition partners would win any future war to overthrow Saddam Hussein in a rapid and decisive fashion. This will not be another Vietnam or another Korea.” [9/25/02]
– “In all likelihood, the war will culminate in a battle for Baghdad starting anywhere from five days to two weeks after bombs begin to fall. The war could be over within a month. … the battle for Baghdad will almost surely not last more than a week or two.” [3/18/03]
O’Hanlon today: “I believe Ken Pollack and I have been generally proven right by events—especially since we did not overstate by arguing that Iraq was calm, or that a good outcome was within easy reach.”
– “Here’s why things are going well and why they will soon go even better.” [3/28/03]
– “I would say that the main surprise for me was probably that one could travel around the country, even flying over contested areas, with relatively confident sense of security. … [Y]ou’re talking about specific, isolated acts [of violence] just like you would get in an American city.” [9/28/03]
O’Hanlon said his belief in 2004 that a withdrawal “would help matters” was “probably wrong.” And in a classic “incompetence dodge,” O’Hanlon criticized President Bush: “It was very hard to realize how shoddy this preparation was, looking from the outside, but I wish I had dug deeper and pressed harder.”
In O’Hanlon’s eyes, a history of rosy assessments adds up to a “7 out of 10.” Ironically, he concluded the op-ed by recommending that journalists and analysts should “occasionally scrutiniz[e] one’s own work for accuracy, consistency, rigor and care.”
DOJ torture report points to widespread abuse.
DOJ torture report points to widespread abuse.
The Department of Justice just released its report on the FBI’s involvement in abusive interrogations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay, between 2001 and 2004. The report finds that the “Bush administration’s National Security Council ignored concerns raised by the FBI over the abusive treatment of terrorism suspects.” The 370-page report details FBI agents’ observations of torture during interrogations, including “Beating or Physically Abusing a Detainee,” “Transfer to Another Country for More Aggressive Treatment,” and waterboarding.
Study finds Pentagon benefited from U.S. media ‘embed’ program in Iraq.
Study finds Pentagon benefited from U.S. media ‘embed’ program in Iraq.
Writing in the American Sociological Association’s “Contexts” magazine, sociologist Andrew M. Lindner found that journalists embedded with American troops during the invasion of Iraq “emphasized military successes more often than they covered consequences for Iraqi citizens” which represented a “communications victory” for the Bush administration:
The embedded program proved to be a Pentagon victory because it kept reporters focused on the horrors facing the troops, not the horrors of the civilian war experience. […] The end result: a communications victory for an administration that hoped to build support for the war by depicting it as a successful mission with limited cost.
The New York Times recently documented the Pentagon’s domestic propaganda program using “military analysts” in the media to garner support for the Iraq war.
Pelosi’s reception in Iraq ‘nicer’ than Rice’s.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is in Iraq this weekend on a “surprise” visit to pay “respects to our troops and at the same time learn more about what the situation is on the ground.” Time notes that “in many ways she got a nicer arrival treatment than the last senior female American official to appear in Baghdad,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:
Rice slipped into Iraq in January much the same way Pelosi did today — stealthily, with a terse confirmation by the U.S. embassy offering few details of the agenda. But within hours of Rice’s arrival, TV news was crackling with word of it, and soon thereafter a volley of mortars fell on the Green Zone in an obvious message from Rice’s detractors. No rockets or mortars were heard heading into the Green Zone today as word of Pelosi’s presence hit the Iraqi airwaves in what amounted to a daytime news blip.
Some Iraqi officials, however, did not receive Pelosi, in part due to her advocacy of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. On her “first day on the ground Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did not make an effort to see her,” Time adds.
Boehner: ‘We’re playing political games on the backs of our troops.’
Boehner: ‘We’re playing political games on the backs of our troops.’
After directing his caucus to vote “present” on a $162.5 billion proposal to continue funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — a move that effectively killed the bill — House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said on the floor of the House today that, “we’re playing political games on the backs of our troops.” Watch it:
Bush administration has reportedly cut off Chalabi.
Bush administration has reportedly cut off Chalabi.
NBC News reports “that as of this week American military and civilian officials have cut off all contact with controversial Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi” due to “‘unauthorized’ contacts with Iran’s government, an allegation Chalabi denies.” Chalabi has been a darling of the administration’s neocons, drumming up reports of WMDs during the lead-up to the Iraq war and, more recently, promoting the surge. As recently as October, administration officials were promoting Chalabi as “a central figure in the latest U.S. strategy” and “an important part of the process” in Iraq.
ACLU obtains new Defense Department docs on prison deaths in Iraq.
ACLU obtains new Defense Department docs on prison deaths in Iraq.
Through a Freedom of Information Act request, the ACLU “has obtained previously withheld documents” from the Defense Department that “shed light on the deaths of detainees in Iraq.” One of the documents is a list of “at least four prisoner deaths” that were investigated by the Navy, including one detainee at Abu Ghraib who died after “his head was beaten with a stove”:
The NCIS document contains new information about the deaths of some of these prisoners, including details about Farhad Mohamed, who had contusions under his eyes and the bottom of his chin, a swollen nose, cuts and large bumps on his forehead when he died in Mosul in 2004. The document also includes details about Naem Sadoon Hatab, a 52-year-old Iraqi man who was strangled to death at the Whitehorse detainment facility in Nasiriyah in June 2003; the shooting death of Hemdan El Gashame in Nasiriyah in March 2003; and the death of Manadel Jamadi during an interrogation after his head was beaten with a stove at Abu Ghraib in November 2003.
The documents obtained by the ACLU are here.
U.S.-Backed Head Of Iraqi Anti-Corruption Agency Now A ‘Destitute’ Undocumented Immigrant In U.S.
U.S.-Backed Head Of Iraqi Anti-Corruption Agency Now A ‘Destitute’ Undocumented Immigrant In U.S.
After the 2003 Iraq invasion, Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer created a major anti-corruption ministry in Iraq, the Public Integrity Commission (CPI). Last October, former CPI commissioner Judge Radhi al-Radhi, who was appointed by Bremer and whose work has been praised by top U.S. officials, told Congress about the “rampant” corruption in Iraqi ministries that had cost Iraq as much as $18 billion.
Radhi’s gripping account detailed how Prime Minister Maliki tried to subvert his commission and how nearly four dozen of his staff members were killed. Subsequently, he was forced to seek asylum in the United States.
But today, Radhi is living as an undocumented immigrant in Virginia. In a Democratic Policy Committee hearing yesterday, former State Department official James Mattil told Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) that Radhi has no “official status” in the U.S. Currently, only a group of Quakers and Arthur Brennan, the former head of the department’s Office of Accountability and Transparency, are funding Radhi, he said:
DORGAN: And where is Judge al-Radhi at the moment?
MATTIL: Living in an apartment in Springfield, maybe for the rest of the month if they can get it worked out that somebody is going to pay for it. But he’s not allowed to work. He has no official status, so he’s not — he’s undocumented — I don’t know what he is. I mean, he’s lost. He’s a person without a country.
Watch it:
The State Department turned against Radhi, according to Mattil and Brennan. They “said a senior State Department official had ordered agency employees not to give al Radhi references or contact him” about the asylum. Radhi is “destitute” in his current situation, they noted.
An infuriated Dorgan slammed the administration’s neglect of an ally whose work it didn’t like. “This is about betrayal,” Dorgan declared. “[O]ur government turned against him. Our State Department and our embassy pulled the rug out from under him. … [W]e’re going to ask the State Department what in the hell are they thinking.”
The American asylum program for Iraqis who have aided U.S. forces in Iraq has “fallen far short of demand,” as the Washington Post noted in January. Even Iraq’s top anti-corruption official, who has “praised the U.S. invasion of Iraq,” is subject to complete abandonment.
Bush gives up golfing because of Iraq war.
Bush gives up golfing because of Iraq war.
In a new interview with the Politico today, President Bush says that he has given up golf because of the Iraq war, to show “solidarity” with U.S. troops and their families. He added that “playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal”:
Q Mr. President, you haven’t been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, it really is. I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as — to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.
Evidently, Bush learned his lesson since this incident after 9/11. Watch it:
Feith Blames Public For Feeling Misled About Iraq: ‘I Think They Misremember A Lot’
Feith Blames Public For Feeling Misled About Iraq: ‘I Think They Misremember A Lot’
Last night, Iraq war architect Douglas Feith appeared on The Daily Show to discuss his war apologia, War and Decision. When Stewart said that many Americans feel the Bush administration misled them into war, Feith replied, “Errors are not lies. I think a lot of what the Administration said was correct.”
Feith insisted that the entire administration conducted a “serious consideration of the very great risks of war.” When Stewart reminded Feith that those risks were never presented to the public, Feith said he was wrong, and that people who felt that way simply “misremembered” the run-up to war:
STEWART: If you knew the perils, but the conversation that you had with the public painted a rosier picture, how is that not deception? The fact that you seemed to know all the risks takes this from manslaughter to homicide. […]
FEITH: When people read this book, I think people will be surprised to be reminded of what was actually said. I think a lot of people’s perceptions of what was said are filtered through the recent history. … I think they misremember a lot.
Watch it:
It’s Feith’s memory, not Americans’, that is faulty here. In January, a Center for Public Integrity study documented the more than 930 false statements made by the Bush Administration in the lead-up to the Iraq war. Feith has shut his eyes to the evidence for months, laughably claiming that the administration never said the war would be easy, even though the White House frequently — and famously — peddled just that notion.
As the Wonk Room’s Matt Duss puts it, “Doug Feith is only small part of a bigger story, an ideologically hidebound bureaucrat condemned to spend the rest of his life frantically and fruitlessly arguing against history’s overwhelmingly clear verdict on his incompetence and mendacity.”
Former State Dept. Official: Amb. Crocker Is Either ‘Negligent’ Or ‘Intentionally Misleading’
Former State Dept. Official: Amb. Crocker Is Either ‘Negligent’ Or ‘Intentionally Misleading’
Today, the Democratic Policy Committee held a hearing on the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq and corruption in the Iraqi government. Two former State Department employees testified, including Judge Arthur Brennan, the former director of the Office of Accountability and Transparency (OAT) in Iraq. He said that his office’s work “was ignored and demeaned by the Department of State, the Department of Justice, and the government of Iraq.”
He also revealed the State Department completely altered a report he sent to the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) that criticized an Iraqi watchdog agency as being a “disaster”:
MCCASKILL: And your testimony — I want to make sure that you have said the Department of State has negligently, recklessly and intentionally misled Congress, the American people and the people of Iraq. And you stand by that testimony, Judge?
BRENNAN: I stand by that testimony.
MCCASKILL: And so, what we’re learning today is that SIGIR, the information we’re getting from SIGIR is not, in fact, always factual, that sometimes it is being spun by Ambassador Crocker and that it is your testimony today that Ambassador Crocker knows the level of corruption in the Iraqi government and has failed to be honest with the American people about it.
BRENNAN: If he doesn’t know, then he’s negligent. If he does know, then he’s intentionally misleading Congress and the American public.
Watch it:
According to Brennan, when the House Oversight Committee requested a copy of OAT’s report on Iraqi corruption last fall, the State Department “then retroactively classified the report in an effort to prevent it from being made a subject of public knowledge and discussion.” The department also ordered all State personnel not to testify at the House committee hearing examining corruption in Iraq.
James Mattil, who worked with Brennan, agreed with Brennan’s assessment, blaming the Bush administration for failing to demand greater action on corruption: “It seems reasonable to conclude that the reasons are either, gross incompetence, willful negligence or political intent on the part of the Bush administration and more specifically, the Department of State,” he said.
Lieberman: Airstrikes in Iran are ‘a distinct possibility.’
Lieberman: Airstrikes in Iran are ‘a distinct possibility.’
This morning, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, where Pat Buchanan asked him whether he believed “the United States states should conduct air strikes on the Iranian Quds force in Iran if they do not stop” interfering in Iraq. Lieberman replied that he “hoped” the U.S. would not have to strike at “the people who are responsible for killing Americans,” but said that the Iranians should “have in mind that it’s a distinct possibility.” Watch it:
Lieberman, one of the most vocal supporters of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), has been pushing for war with Iran for a long time. As far back as last June, he said that the U.S. had “to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq.”
Transcript Read the rest of this entry »
Lieberman Dismisses Iraqis Who Oppose A McCain Presidency
Lieberman Dismisses Iraqis Who Oppose A McCain Presidency
On CNN’s American Morning earlier today, Kyra Phillips reported that during a recent trip to Baghdad “dozens of Iraqi soldiers and dozens of students at Baghdad university” told her that they “don’t want to see a Republican president.” “Out of every single one that I talked to, one person said they supported John McCain,” said Phillips.
Asked to respond, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who is an ardent supporter of McCain, dismissed what the Iraqis told Phillips as an “unscientific poll.” He claimed that on all the visits he’s made to Iraq, “the Iraqi people on the street, the Iraqi military, the Iraqi government that I’ve talked to, don’t want us to just pick up and leave.”
Lieberman then noted that the Iraqis don’t want the U.S. “to stay there forever,” which he claimed was consistent with McCain’s position on Iraq:
The Iraqi people on the street, the Iraqi military, the Iraqi government that I’ve talked to, don’t want us to just pick up and leave, which is what Sen. Obama, Sen. Clinton have been advocating. They want us, obviously, not to stay there forever. Sen. McCain wants the war to stop and to have us pull back into bases and be on a path, a reasonable path of withdrawal.
Watch it:
As Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) told ThinkProgress last year, congressional trips like Lieberman’s are shrouded in a “Green Zone fog” that makes it hard to get a real sense of the reality on the ground. But, as Phillips noted during her March report from Baghdad, she didn’t have a public affairs official present when she interviewed the soldiers and students, which she says allowed for an “uncensored” and “candid” two-hour discussion.
Additionally, in making the claim that like the Iraqis, McCain doesn’t want us “to stay there forever,” Lieberman completely ignores the fact that McCain has said it is “fine” with him for the U.S. to stay in Iraq for 100 years, which would essentially be forever. Also, while the Iraqi people have rejected permanent U.S. bases in the country, McCain has said they may be “necessary.”
Cost of veterans care to rise, despite decline in total number of vets.
Cost of veterans care to rise, despite decline in total number of vets.
The AP reports that despite a decline in total veterans “as soldiers from World War II and Korea die,” the government “expects to be spending $59 billion a year to compensate injured warriors in 25 years, up from today’s $29 billion,” according to internal documents. The VA “concedes the bill could be much higher” as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars go on:
Inflation accounts for a big chunk of the increase. But even when the VA factors out inflation, the compensation for disabled veterans would still grow from $29 billion to $33 billion in today’s dollars — a more than 10 percent increase. And the department acknowledges the estimate could rise by 30 percent.
Earlier this year, Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz predicted that a “lifetime health-care and counseling for veterans” from Iraq and Afghanistan could in part push the total cost of the wars to $5 trillion to $7 trillion, far higher than current expectations.
State Department renews Blackwater’s Iraq contract ‘for at least another year.’
State Department renews Blackwater’s Iraq contract ‘for at least another year.’
Yesterday, ThinkProgress noted that private security contractor Blackwater “is not expected to face criminal charges” over an allegedly unprovoked shooting in September 2007 that killed up to 17 Iraqis, essentially “ensuring the company will keep its multimillion-dollar contract to protect U.S. diplomats.” Today, the New York Times reports that the State Department has renewed Blackwater’s contract “for at least another year.” The reason for the renewal? The State Department says it has no other options:
State Department officials said Friday that they did not believe they had any alternative to Blackwater, which supplies about 800 guards to the department to provide security for diplomats in Baghdad. Officials say only three companies in the world meet their requirements for protective services in Iraq, and the other two do not have the capability to take on Blackwater’s role in Baghdad. […]
“We cannot operate without private security firms in Iraq,” said Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management. “If the contractors were removed, we would have to leave Iraq.”
Reid: On Six-Year Anniversary Of 9/11, Bush Again Declared, ‘Bring ‘Em On’
Reid: On Six-Year Anniversary Of 9/11, Bush Again Declared, ‘Bring ‘Em On’
On July 2, 2003, President Bush cavalierly dismissed violence in Iraq when he infamously proclaimed, “There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring ‘em on.
His comments were swiftly criticized. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) called them “irresponsible and inciteful.” The UK Guardian dubbed the remarks a “gesture of presidential bravado.” Even Bush himself seemed to regret his comments, telling reporters in January 2005:
Sometimes, words have consequences you don’t intend them to mean. ‘Bring ‘em on’ is the classic example, when I was really trying to rally the troops and make it clear to them that I fully understood, you know, what a great job they were doing. […]
I don’t know if you’d call it a regret, but it certainly is a lesson that a president must be mindful of, that the words that you sometimes say. … I don’t know if you’d call that a confession, a regret, something.
But as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) reveals in his new book, Bush again used that infamous phrase as recently as 2007. Last night on MSNBC, Reid said that on the anniversary of 9/11 last year, he was “complaining” to Bush about the situation in Iraq. Bush replied, “Bring ‘em on. We’re killing them. We’re killing them.” Watch it:
At the time of Bush’s comments in September 2007, 78 percent of Iraqis were saying that “things are going badly for the country overall.” Iraqi civilian deaths had risen for both the two previous months, and monthly U.S. troop casualties were surpassing those in 2006.
As in 2003, the last thing that Iraqis and the U.S. military needed was to “bring ‘em on.”
Transcript: Read the rest of this entry »
Blackwater unlikely to face charges for Sept. ‘07 Iraq shootout.
Blackwater unlikely to face charges for Sept. ‘07 Iraq shootout.
In September 2007, Blackwater guards in Iraq engaged in an unprovoked attack, according to witnesses, that killed 11 civilians. The AP reports today that the contractor “is not expected to face criminal charges” over the shooting, “all but ensuring the company will keep its multimillion-dollar contract to protect U.S. diplomats”:
Instead, the seven-month-old Justice Department investigation is focused on as few as three or four Blackwater guards who could be indicted in the Sept. 16 shootings, according to interviews with a half-dozen people close to the investigation. The final decision on any charges will not be made until late summer at the earliest, a law enforcement official said.
Nevertheless, families of the shooting victims “are suing Blackwater under a wrongful death claim in civil court.” Furthermore, federal prosecutors in North Carolina are “investigating whether Blackwater played a role in a weapons smuggling case linked to the Kurdish militant group PKK, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.”
Cheney: Bagdad’s Disneyland-Style Amusement Park Is Evidence That Things Are Going ‘Swimmingly’ In Iraq
Cheney: Bagdad’s Disneyland-Style Amusement Park Is Evidence That Things Are Going ‘Swimmingly’ In Iraq
Today, Vice President Cheney appeared on The Paul Gallow Show in Mississippi. During the interview, he and the host lamented the media’s alleged bias in its Iraq coverage, suggesting that they should cover more good news — such as the Disneyland-style amusement park being developed for Baghdad:
GALLOW: You know, I look at this, and every once in a while, we’ll see a story, Mr. Vice President, things like an amusement park opens in Iraq or in Baghdad, which is totally counter to what we’re hearing over here, as far as the marketplaces being open, the schools, and things such as that. But I saw a story several weeks ago about an amusement center maybe over there, and I’m thinking this is not what you get in today’s media.
CHENEY: No, that’s true. It’s — what gets covered obviously is bad news. That’s — you know, if everything is going swimmingly, then that’s not news, so it doesn’t get the kind of attention.
Cheney and Gallow must be living in Never Never Land. This amusement park is not good news. The Pentagon is fast-tracking the development of the “Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience, a massive American-style amusement park that will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum.” The firm designing the project also developed Disneyland. The financier, Llewellyn Werner, has admitted that he is doing the project not to help Iraq, but because he wants to make boatloads of money:
After explaining skate…boarding, Werner tells the assembled Iraqi business and government men, “I’m a businessman. I’m not here because I think you’re nice people. I think there’s money to be made here.”
More significantly, the Pentagon is also now backing a $5 billion plan to create a “zone of influence” around the new $700 million U.S. embassy. The area will include luxury hotels, a shopping center, and condos in an effort to “transform” the Green Zone into a “centerpiece for Baghdad’s future.”
In Iraq, however, many people are opposed to the plan. Some U.S. embassy officials have called the plan “unrealistic.” One added that Iraqis, a majority of whom oppose the U.S. presence, are unlikely to want the U.S. to “turn this area into downtown Kansas City.”
It’s hard to report that things are going swimmingly…when they’re not.
Rumsfeld blames the generals for poor pre-war planning.
Rumsfeld blames the generals for poor pre-war planning.
In February 2003, Gen. Eric Shinseki famously predicted that “several hundred thousand” troops would be needed for post-war hostilities in Iraq. According to documents recently released by the Pentagon in response to The New York Times’s expose on its propaganda program, however, Donald Rumsfeld claimed in a 2006 briefing that the reason why he did not support a larger invasion force was because commanders did not request it:
RUMSFELD: Now, it turns out he [Shinkseki] was right. The commanders–you guys ended up wanting roughly the same as you had for the major combat operation, and that’s what we have. There is no damned guidebook that says what the number ought to be. We were queued up to go up to what, 400-plus thousand.
Q: Yes, they were already in queue.
RUMSFELD: They were in the queue. We would have gone right on if they’d wanted them, but they didn’t, so life goes on.
In reality, Rumsfeld fought back when generals like Shinseki requested more troops. He said in 2003 that Shinseki was “far from the mark.” As McClatchy reported in 2004, “Central Command originally proposed a force of 380,000 to attack and occupy Iraq. Rumsfeld’s opening bid was about 40,000. … By September 2003, Rumsfeld and his aides thought, there would be very few American troops left in Iraq.”
Latest KBR scandal: contractors accused of sexual harrassment at British Embassy in Iraq.
Latest KBR scandal: contractors accused of sexual harrassment at British Embassy in Iraq.
The latest in a long, long line of scandals plaguing Iraq contracting company KBR, today the Times of London reports that British employees of KBR working in the British Embassy in Iraq have been accused of sexual harassment. One Iraqi woman, a cleaner at the embassy, says that the KBR employee offered to double her pay if she slept with him; when she refused, she was fired:
The Iraqis accuse the embassy of leaving the abuse unchallenged and failing adequately to respond to complaints against several British managers for KBR. The company was allowed to conduct its own inquiry, an arrangement criticised as a very serious conflict of interest.
The complainants — the cleaner and two male cooks who worked in the embassy canteen — say that some KBR managers groped Iraqi staff regularly, paid or otherwise rewarded them for sex and dismissed those who refused or spoke out.
All three Iraqis lost their jobs in the Green Zone. Two KRB employees who worked in the embassy spoke out in support of the women; a few days later, KBR sent them home on paid leave and later fired them. The women also say KBR never interviewed them when conducting their internal review.
Cayman Islands Subsidiary Allows Pentagon Contractor Assisting War In Iraq To Avoid Millions In Taxes
Cayman Islands Subsidiary Allows Pentagon Contractor Assisting War In Iraq To Avoid Millions In Taxes
The Boston Globe recently revealed that two Defense Department contractors operating in Iraq — KBR and MPRI — have avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Social Security and Medicare taxes by hiring its employees through “shell companies” based in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.
Today, the AP reveals a third contractor assisting the U.S. military’s mission in Iraq that is also dodging Social Security and Medicare taxes. Immediately after winning a DoD contract worth more than $2 billion nearly ten years ago, Combat Support Associates established CSA Ltd. in the Cayman Islands allowing it to avoid paying the taxes and evade scrutiny from the U.S. government:
The subsidiary, CSA Ltd., now employs about 2,000 American citizens in Kuwait, where they support U.S. forces moving in and out of Iraq. Yet as a foreign corporation doing work outside the United States, CSA Ltd. does not pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for these workers.
In fact, according to the AP, “company officials” have acknowledged their immunity from U.S. law, noting that CSA Ltd. “is outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, so federal labor rules and anti-discrimination laws don’t apply either.” Indeed, the Globe noted that because of such practices, “workers cannot receive unemployment compensation when their jobs end and may be deprived of other protections under US law.”
But Congress has taken notice of these contractors’ unethical practices. The House passed a bill last month — despite Republican opposition — to “stop federal contractors from using foreign subsidiaries to evade Social Security and other employment taxes.”
In the meantime, companies such as KBR, MPRI and CSA Ltd. continue to avoid paying millions in taxes:
The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates shutting the employment tax loophole would bring in about $846 million in revenue over 10 years. That figure could be higher, lawmakers say, since it’s unclear how widespread use of the opening is.
Indeed, assuming that the American employees of CSA Ltd. make only $30,000 per year (online job ads place salaries much higher), the company would still “owe about $4.6 million in employment taxes.”
‘Military analyst’ to Rumsfeld: ‘You are the leader. You are our guy.’
‘Military analyst’ to Rumsfeld: ‘You are the leader. You are our guy.’
The Pentagon recently released documents related to its propaganda program, first disclosed by The New York Times on April 20. Media Matters notes that the now public records reveal a meeting in April 2006 between then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and then-Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Peter Pace, in which one unidentified “analyst” praised his “leader”:
During the meeting, one of the attendees tells Rumsfeld, “[W]e get beat up on television sometimes when we go on and we are debating” and says that he would “personally love” for Rumsfeld “to take the offensive, to just go out there and just crush these people so that when we go on, we’re — forgive me — we’re parroting, but it’s what has to be said. It’s what we believe in, or we would not be saying it.” The individual adds: “And we’d love to be following our leader, as indeed you are. You are the leader. You are our guy.”
Media Matters has “documented the consistent unwillingness of most of the outlets mentioned in the Times article to discuss the military analyst story.”
Max Boot Compares Walled Baghdad Neighborhoods To American Gated Communties
Max Boot Compares Walled Baghdad Neighborhoods To American Gated Communties
Today, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Max Boot continued to cheerlead for the “success” of the surge in Iraq in an online debate. Boot insisted that Iraq has met two-thirds of the original 18 benchmarks, that the government’s offensive in Basra was successful, and that the so-called Sons of Iraq will always remain loyal to the Shiite-controlled Iraqi state.
Boot concluded by conceding that there are walls separating Sunni neighborhoods from Shia, but dismissed the fact by stating simply that “there are walls around many gated communities in the U.S. too”:
It’s true that there are walls around Dora and other Baghdad neighborhoods. … But then there are walls around many gated communities in the U.S. too. The walls per se are not evidence of reconciliation, I’ll grant you that. But nor are they evidence that reconciliation is impossible. They are one of the important security measures implemented in the past year that is reducing violence and making possible political progress—which is real, whether you admit it or not.
There is a world of difference between American gated communities — where at least 7 million families have chosen to live — and the walls that divide Baghdad. The policy, begun last April, of walling off neighboring communities with a “12-foot high, three mile long wall” is hardly the benign trend Boot describes. The move was widely condemned by the Iraqi press, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a halt to its construction almost immediately. As one Iraqi put it, “This will make the whole district a prison.”
Despite what Iraq war hawks are willing to admit, the surge has transformed Baghdad into an ethnically-cleansed and religiously divided city that bears little resemblance to its former character.
It is, in essence, an update of the old plan known as “concentration” zones or camps. The latter name causes understandable confusion, since we’re not talking about extermination camps of the kind that Hitler built, but rather of settlements where locals can be moved to live under guard, thereby preventing insurgent infiltration. The British used this strategy in the Boer war, the Americans during the Philippine war, and many other powers took similar steps in many other conflicts. In Vietnam they were known as “strategic hamlets.”
Iraqi man files lawsuit claiming he was tortured at Abu Ghraib.
Iraqi man files lawsuit claiming he was tortured at Abu Ghraib.
An Iraqi man filed a federal lawsuit yesterday in Los Angeles against two U.S. military contractors, “claiming he was repeatedly tortured while being held at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison for more than 10 months.” Emad al-Janabi claims the contractors “punched him, slammed him into walls, hung him from a bed frame and kept him naked and handcuffed in his cell beginning in September 2003.”
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The theme park won’t be much of an attraction if it doesn’t have electricity and clean water; and if it has electricity and clean water and the Iraqi people don’t, it won’t be very attractive to them."