Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

...For one thing, Air Force commanders, in particular, have deep-seated objections to the possibility that Iraqis eventually will be responsible for target selection. “Will the Iraqis call in air strikes in order to snuff rivals, or other warlords, or to snuff members of your own sect and blame someone else?” another senior military planner now on assignment in the Pentagon asked. “Will some Iraqis be targeting on behalf of Al Qaeda, or the insurgency, or the Iranians?” [Emphasis added]

Current and former military and intelligence officials have told me that the President remains convinced that it is his personal mission to bring democracy to Iraq, and that he is impervious to political pressure, even from fellow Republicans. They also say that he disparages any information that conflicts with his view of how the war is proceeding.

Bush’s closest advisers have long been aware of the religious nature of his policy commitments. In recent interviews, one former senior official, who served in Bush’s first term, spoke extensively about the connection between the President’s religious faith and his view of the war in Iraq. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the former official said, he was told that Bush felt that “God put me here” to deal with the war on terror. The President’s belief was fortified by the Republican sweep in the 2002 congressional elections; Bush saw the victory as a purposeful message from God that “he’s the man,” the former official said. Publicly, Bush depicted his reëlection as a referendum on the war; privately, he spoke of it as another manifestation of divine purpose.

The former senior official said that after the election he made a lengthy inspection visit to Iraq and reported his findings to Bush in the White House: “I said to the President, ‘We’re not winning the war.’ And he asked, ‘Are we losing?’ I said, ‘Not yet.’ ” The President, he said, “appeared displeased” with that answer.

“I tried to tell him,” the former senior official said. “And he couldn’t hear it.”

There are grave concerns within the military about the capability of the U.S. Army to sustain two or three more years of combat in Iraq. Michael O’Hanlon, a specialist on military issues at the Brookings Institution, told me, “The people in the institutional Army feel they don’t have the luxury of deciding troop levels, or even participating in the debate. They’re planning on staying the course until 2009. I can’t believe the Army thinks that it will happen, because there’s no sustained drive to increase the size of the regular Army.” O’Hanlon noted that “if the President decides to stay the present course in Iraq some troops would be compelled to serve fourth and fifth tours of combat by 2007 and 2008, which could have serious consequences for morale and competency levels.”

Many of the military’s most senior generals are deeply frustrated, but they say nothing in public, because they don’t want to jeopardize their careers. The Administration has “so terrified the generals that they know they won’t go public,” a former defense official said. A retired senior C.I.A. officer with knowledge of Iraq told me that one of his colleagues recently participated in a congressional tour there. The legislators were repeatedly told, in meetings with enlisted men, junior officers, and generals that “things were fucked up.” But in a subsequent teleconference with Rumsfeld, he said, the generals kept those criticisms to themselves.

One person with whom the Pentagon’s top commanders have shared their private views for decades is Representative John Murtha, of Pennsylvania, the senior Democrat on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The President and his key aides were enraged when, on November 17th, Murtha gave a speech in the House calling for a withdrawal of troops within six months. The speech was filled with devastating information. For example, Murtha reported that the number of attacks in Iraq has increased from a hundred and fifty a week to more than seven hundred a week in the past year. He said that an estimated fifty thousand American soldiers will suffer “from what I call battle fatigue” in the war, and he said that the Americans were seen as “the common enemy” in Iraq. He also took issue with one of the White House’s claims—that foreign fighters were playing the major role in the insurgency. Murtha said that American soldiers “haven’t captured any in this latest activity”—the continuing battle in western Anbar province, near the border with Syria. “So this idea that they’re coming in from outside, we still think there’s only seven per cent.”

Murtha’s call for a speedy American pullout only seemed to strengthen the White House’s resolve. Administration officials “are beyond angry at him, because he is a serious threat to their policy—both on substance and politically,” the former defense official said. Speaking at the Osan Air Force base, in South Korea, two days after Murtha’s speech, Bush said, “The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. . . . If they’re not stopped, the terrorists will be able to advance their agenda to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, and to break our will and blackmail our government into isolation. I’m going to make you this commitment: this is not going to happen on my watch.”

“The President is more determined than ever to stay the course,” the former defense official said. “He doesn’t feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage ‘People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.’ ” He said that the President had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney. “They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,” the former defense official said. Bush’s public appearances, for example, are generally scheduled in front of friendly audiences, most often at military bases. Four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson, who was also confronted with an increasingly unpopular war, was limited to similar public forums. “Johnson knew he was a prisoner in the White House,” the former official said, “but Bush has no idea.”

• Hersh reports that the CIA, state department and the Tony Blair government are backing Iyad Allawi as Iraq's next prime minister, perhaps in some sort of coalition with, you guessed it, Ahmad Chalabi...
  
• Hersh also seems to confirm the stories about Shia Iraqi troops "rounding up any Sunnis on the basis of whatever a Shiite said to them” and in some cases, killing them...
  
• And according to the report, the air war in Iraq has already begun spilling over into Syria.

Read the whole thing, preferably with a good stiff drink. Couple this with the recent reporting from the NY Daily News about the bunker mentality that's growing inside the White House and you begin to see a truly scary picture of what's going on at the heart of our government. Bush's supporters can spin this all they want, and David Frum can whine that we just gotta win in Iraq, but the facts are pretty clear: we can't get anywhere in Iraq unless the president is willing to hear honest appraisals and adjust his course, but he can't adjust his course if he lost in a messianic haze.

Related: Richard Cohen on Democrats, Iraq, and "mistakes..."

Tags: Iraq, Bush, War, religion, Foreign Policy

Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to secretary of state Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, singled out Mr Cheney in a wide-ranging political assault on the BBC's Today programme.

Mr Wilkerson said that in an internal administration debate over whether to abide by the Geneva conventions in the treatment of detainees, Mr Cheney led the argument "that essentially wanted to do away with all restrictions".

Asked whether the vice-president was guilty of a war crime, Mr Wilkerson replied: "Well, that's an interesting question - it was certainly a domestic crime to advocate terror and I would suspect that it is ... an international crime as well." In the context of other remarks it appeared he was using the word "terror" to apply to the systematic abuse of prisoners.

"Eventually, the memo will be made public, and it will add yet another few news cycles of attention to this matter and potentially implicate all of those who said that Bush said no such thing.

We have had our suspicions (argued below) that the Times memo and the Mirror memo citing Bush's plans to bomb al-Jazeera are entirely different documents confirmed by Peter Kilfoyle MP, who has seen both documents.

He was naturally reticent, but when we aked Peter if the source for the Mirror article was related to the 'prosecution' of and Keogh and O'Connor over last years leak to the Times he said:

Wholly different sources.
The Times used 'official' leaks; the current document remains top secret - they are livid it is out.

We have also had it confirmed that Keogh and O'Connor are only facing one set of charges, over one document.

The move was inspired by Boris Johnson, who was the first to take the leap. I don't think I can be prosecuted under Britain's Official Secrets Act, but hell, if someone were to pass me the memo, you'd better believe I'm putting it up....

Previous:

• Dangerous thinking
• The bad news bombs
• Secrets, lies and bombing Al-Jazeera
• Memogate II

Tags: Iraq, Middle East, War, Al-Jazeera

MPs seek independent inquiry into Iraq war
Michael White
Wednesday November 23, 2005

A fresh attempt to win an independent inquiry into the conduct of the Iraq war will be launched today by a cross-party group of MPs, including Kenneth Clarke, the former chancellor of the exchequer and failed Tory leadership contender.

A Commons motion, signed by MPs from all three main parties plus Welsh and Scottish Nationalists, will be tabled to test the water for the creation of a seven-strong committee of privy councillors to prevent what one MP called "other botched military interventions in Iran or elsewhere". It is hoped to attract MPs from all parties to force action.

“Mr. Dobson’s egregious violations of IRS code demand an investigation into his improper activities that break both the spirit and the letter of IRS law,” Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said today.

Recently, the IRS has actively pursued investigations against several perceived liberal groups. The IRS targeted the NAACP’s chairman Julian Bond for a July 2004 speech in which he criticized the Bush administration's policies on civil rights and the war in Iraq. Additionally, the IRS has threatened to revoke the tax-exempt status of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California because of an antiwar sermon there during the 2004 presidential election. In his sermon "If Jesus Debated Sen. Kerry and President Bush," the Rector Emeritus of the church, George Regas, never encouraged parishoners to vote for one candidate over another, but only to vote their deepest values.

Sloan continued, “The IRS has established a track record of scrutinizing organizations, in particular liberal ones, that have purportedly violated electioneering regulations. We hope that the IRS will fully investigate Focus on the Family activities as vigorously as it has targeted those of progressive organizations.”

According to AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Al-Jazeera broadcast an insurgent video Tuesday showing four peace activists taken hostage in Iraq, with a previously unknown group claiming responsibility for the kidnappings.

The Swords of Righteousness Brigade said the four were spies working undercover as Christian peace activists, Al-Jazeera said. The station said it could not verify any of the information on the tape.

The aid group Christian Peacemaker Teams has confirmed that four of its members were taken hostage Saturday.

German TV broadcast photos Tuesday showing a blindfolded German woman being led away by armed captors in Iraq. Six Iranian pilgrims, meanwhile, were abducted by gunmen north of Baghdad.

The pictures of Susanne Osthoff were taken from a video in which her captors demanded that Germany stop any dealings with Iraq's government, according to Germany's ARD television. Germany has ruled out sending troops to Iraq and opposed the U.S.-led war.

Two U.S. soldiers assigned to Task Force Baghdad were killed when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb north of the capital, the U.S. command said. At least 2,109 members of the U.S. military have died since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Sunnis Accuse Iraqi Military of Kidnappings and Slayings
By DEXTER FILKINS

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 28 - As the American military pushes the largely Shiite Iraqi security services into a larger role in combating the insurgency, evidence has begun to mount suggesting that the Iraqi forces are carrying out executions in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods.

Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged in recent weeks, most of them brought forward by Sunni civilians, who claim that their relatives have been taken away by Iraqi men in uniform without warrant or explanation.

Some Sunni men have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills. Many have simply vanished.

Some of the young men have turned up alive in prison. In a secret bunker discovered earlier this month in an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad, American and Iraqi officials acknowledged that some of the mostly Sunni inmates appeared to have been tortured.

Bayan Jabr, the interior minister, and other government officials denied any government involvement, saying the killings were carried out by men driving stolen police cars and wearing police and army uniforms purchased at local markets. "Impossible! Impossible!" Mr. Jabr said. "That is totally wrong; it's only rumors; it is nonsense."

Many of the claims of killings and abductions have been substantiated by at least one human rights organization working here - which asked not to be identified because of safety concerns - and documented by Sunni leaders working in their communities.

American officials, who are overseeing the training of the Iraqi Army and the police, acknowledge that police officers and Iraqi soldiers, and the militias with which they are associated, may indeed be carrying out killings and abductions in Sunni communities, without direct American knowledge.

But they also say it is difficult, in an already murky guerrilla war, to determine exactly who is responsible. The American officials insisted on anonymity because they were working closely with the Iraqi government and did not want to criticize it publicly.

The widespread conviction among Sunnis that the Shiite-led government is bent on waging a campaign of terror against them is sending waves of fear through the community, just as Iraqi and American officials are trying to coax the Sunnis to take part in nationwide elections on Dec. 15.

The reporter for Time magazine who recently agreed to testify in the CIA leak case is central to White House senior adviser Karl Rove's effort to fend off an indictment in the two-year-old investigation, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Viveca Novak, who has written intermittently about the leak case for Time, has been asked to provide sworn testimony to Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald in the next few weeks after Rove attorney Robert Luskin told Fitzgerald about a conversation he had with her, the two sources said.

It's not clear why Luskin believes Novak's deposition could help Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, who remains under investigation into whether he provided false statements in the case. But a person familiar with the matter said Luskin cited his conversations with Novak in persuading Fitzgerald not to indict Rove in late October, when the prosecutor brought perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges against Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

"This is what caused [Fitzgerald] to hold off on charging" Rove, the source said. But another person familiar with the conversations said they did not appear to significantly alter the case.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will present evidence to a second grand jury this week in his two year-old investigation into the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson that could lead to a criminal indictment being handed up against Karl Rove, President Bush’s deputy chief of staff, attorneys close to the investigation say.

Rove has remained under intense scrutiny because of inconsistencies in his testimony to investigators and the grand jury. According to sources, Rove withheld crucial facts on three separate occasions and allegedly misled investigators about conversations he had with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.

The attorneys say that Rove’s former personal assistant, Susan B. Ralston -- who was also a special assistant to President Bush -- testified in August about why Cooper’s call to Rove was not logged. Ralston said it occurred because Cooper had phoned in through the White House switchboard and was then transferred to Rove’s office as opposed to calling Rove’s office directly. As Rove’s assistant, Ralston screened Rove’s calls.

But those close to the probe tell RAW STORY that Fitzgerald obtained documentary evidence showing that other unrelated calls transferred to Rove’s office by the switchboard were logged. He then called Ralston back to testify.

• Coalition for responsive blogging: the curse of Black's Perle
• Culture of Corruption Watch: Down goes the Duke
• The next shoe to drop?

Tags: Tom DeLay, Republicans, corruption

In an odd twist of roles, the civilians in the Bush administration want to go into Iraq with guns blazing while military officers advise restraint.

“It really is odd,” says one Pentagon military planner. “We want to weigh our options carefully and the political types over at the White House want to go in and bomb Saddam out of existence.”

Leading the charge to invade Iraq are Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, but military leaders from the Joint Chiefs of Staff on down are urging the administration to slow down and tone down the strong rhetoric.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is also urging restraint.

“This is not the time,” Powell told Bush and Cheney this week. “We are not ready.”

But Cheney and Rumsfeld are urging Bush to approve military action, saying every day of delay increases the odds of another terrorist attack against the U.S. Recent intelligence reports place Al Queda leaders operating in Iraq with training camps and funding from Saddam Hussein.

“The place is a goddamned time bomb,” an angry Rumsfeld told his staff in a recent meeting.

The differences over Iraq mark the sharpest disagreements among senior staff since the Bush administration took office with the Cheney and Rumsfeld calling those who oppose military actions “cowards.”

“It’s getting nasty,” says one White House source. “Meetings over Iraq now turn into shouting matches.”

Hollinger International's board ousted Black as chief executive in November 2003, sued him and stripped him of the chairman title the following January. Hollinger International sued Black to recover more than $425 million that it accused him and his associates of stealing to finance lavish lifestyles.

Black was also sued by his holding company, Hollinger Inc., and by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He was charged Nov. 17 with mail fraud and wire fraud in an 11-count indictment.

• Culture of Corruption Watch: Down goes the Duke
• The next shoe to drop?

Tags: Duke Cunningham, Republicans, corruption

SAN DIEGO - Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, an eight-term congressman and hotshot Vietnam War fighter jock, pleaded guilty to graft and tearfully resigned Monday, admitting he took $2.4 million in bribes mostly from defense contractors in exchange for government business and other favors.

"I'm resigning from the House of Representatives because I've compromised the trust of my constituents," he said. "The truth is I broke the law, concealed my conduct and disgraced my office.

"I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions, (and) most importantly, the trust of my friends and family," he said, his voice wavering.

The decorated Vietnam War Navy fighter pilot, who was first elected in 1990, indicated that he made the decision "some time ago" to plead guilty and begin serving a prison term.

"(As) I enter the twilight of my life, I intend to use the remaining time that God grants me to make amends," he said. "And I will."

U.S. Attorney Carol Lam said Cunningham enriched himself through his position, and violated the trust of the voters who put him there.

"It is a crime of really the worst magnitude," Lam said.

The evidence that Cunningham received bribes from four unnamed and uncharged co-conspirators between 2000 and 2005 was "fairly overwhelming," she said.

The co-conspirators were identified in the plea agreement as the majority owners of two defense contractors, an individual who controlled a financial company in New York state and the president of a New York mortgage firm.

The bribes were paid in a variety of methods, including checks totaling more than $1 million, cash, rugs, antiques, furniture, yacht club fees, boat repairs, moving costs and vacation expenses.

In return, Cunningham worked to influence the awarding of tens of millions of dollars in defense contracts, Lam said.

Will Harris get dragged into finance scandal?
Sun & Weekly Herald

Eleven years ago, employees of the Riscorp insurance company made campaign contributions totaling $20,292 to U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris. It was later discovered the employees were illegally reimbursed for their donations. Five Riscorp executives pleaded guilty to a range of charges and the company's president served a brief prison sentence. Harris denied any knowledge of the scheme, was never charged with any crime and was cleared of wrongdoing by a state investigator.

Fast-forward to 2004, when 16 employees of a company called MZM Inc. sent checks for $2,000 to her campaign -- 14 of them on the same day. The $32,000 was in addition to $10,000 the company's political action committee gave to her campaign. Last week, three employees told the San Diego Union-Tribune they were forced by the company's chief executive to donate to the firm's political action committee.

The company, MZM Inc., is a defense contractor that has received millions of dollars in classified defense contracts in recent years. Harris is taking a lay-low approach. Her congressional office is referring reporters to her campaign consultant, Adam Goodman, who did not return calls Monday seeking comment. ...

[O]ver the past three years it [MZM Inc.] was also awarded several contracts, worth more than $600,000, by the Executive Office of the President. They include a $140,000 deal for office furniture in 2002 and several for unspecified “intelligence services.”

Why did the White House hire MZM, a “defense and intelligence firm,” to buy office furniture for the White House?

• The next shoe to drop?

Tags: Duke Cunningham, Republicans, corruption

TRUE Enforcement is the antidote to the Bush Administration’s Big Lie that another massive illegal alien non-deportation scheme and foreign worker importation program is necessary to make America more secure. This propaganda was peddled most recently by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff to the Senate Judiciary committee and to his own employees. In contrast, TRUE Enforcement looks like a knight in shining armor.

But what is "true" immigration law enforcement anyway?

Answer: Real immigration law enforcement is arresting aliens, deporting them, and making sure they stay out.

That means summary removal, not perpetual federal litigation. That means officers with guns removing as many interlopers and criminals as quickly and efficiently as possible.

...they don't allow that kind of thing on the FReep you know...

The really sad thin about it is that Bush really has nowhere to go on the immigration issue. He's got McCain nipping at his heels and, being from a border state, pushing for some form of amnesty (McCain is co-sponsoring a bill with Ted Kennedy of all people, which would give illegal immigrants visas for up to six years, after which they'd have to get straight or get deported. Not sure how you'd enforce that, so in other words, amnesty...) He's got Ken Mehlman sto;; trying to build a GOP rainbow coalition based mainly on a cobbled together coalition of angry white guys, right wing Black ministers, Cubans who don't get that Fidel is going to die of natural causes, still running Cuba, plus socially conservative, Catholic Mexicans who think it's cool that Dubya can sort of speak Spanish. He's got the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and his corporate farm cronies practically demanding cheap slave labor from Mexico and other parts south. And then he's got the Pat Buchanan/populist right creaming him on his "failure to live up to his Constitutional duty to protect the United States from invasion." All of this just wrecks what was supposed to be a signature issue for him -- his appeal to Hispanics (which is really his appeal to Cuban-Americans, but there you go.)

So what to do? Bush can't satisfy all of his base on this one, and as a result, he's pissing the whole base off. I almost feel sorry for the guy. Almost.

Update: Bush capped off his Mexicali junket with a speech on his desire for a "new" immigration policy. Unfortunately it sounds a lot like the old one:

He said the program he's proposing would create a legal way to match foreign workers with American employers to fill jobs that Americans will not do.

What sorts of jobs would that be? Restaurant workers? Construction workers? Delivery drivers? Those kinds of jobs often pay crappy wages, mostly because illegal labor has driven down the price of labor to the point where Americans can't afford to take them. I'm not saying they were necessarily illegal, but every single one of the workers who build my house was a non-English speaker from South or Central America. Not one anglo or Black construction worker in the bunch. Didn't American men used to feed entire families on construction jobs? Or Mr. Bush must mean those killer jobs picking fruits and vegetables -- the agrucultural labor jobs that helped build this country because of free labor (slaves), cheap immigrant labor, and now, slave wage-like illegal immigrant labor. Mr. Bush can't do much about that as long as the business lobby tells him not to...

And what about the subject of the "security" in border security? Couldn't, say, a terrorist just sneak across the border the way even Mexican teenagers do? One would think so. Bush's balancing act just gets hairier and hairier...

Update 2: Human Events reports that give 'em Hell Harry's" has called on President Bush to "stand up to the right wing" on immigration. And according to the same article, the White House used to treat poor Tom Tancredo like a crazy auntie (if they're not still treating him that way, they're in more trouble than I thought...)

Update 3: Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?

La Nueva Orleans

NO MATTER WHAT ALL the politicians and activists want, African Americans and impoverished white Cajuns will not be first in line to rebuild the Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast and New Orleans. Latino immigrants, many of them undocumented, will. And when they're done, they're going to stay, making New Orleans look like Los Angeles. It's the federal government that will have made the transformation possible, further exposing the hollowness of the immigration debate.

President Bush has promised that Washington will pick up the greater part of the cost for "one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen." To that end, he suspended provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act that would have required government contractors to pay prevailing wages in Louisiana and devastated parts of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. And the Department of Homeland Security has temporarily suspended sanctioning employers who hire workers who cannot document their citizenship. The idea is to benefit Americans who may have lost everything in the hurricane, but the main effect will be to let contractors hire illegal immigrants.

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Mexican and Central American laborers are already arriving in southeastern Louisiana. One construction firm based in Metairie, La., sent a foreman to Houston to round up 150 workers willing to do cleanup work for $15 an hour, more than twice their wages in Texas. The men — most of whom are undocumented, according to news accounts — live outside New Orleans in mobile homes without running water and electricity. The foreman expects them to stay "until there's no more work" but "there's going to be a lot of construction jobs for a really long time."

Because they are young and lack roots in the United States, many recent migrants are ideal for the explosion of construction jobs to come. Those living in the U.S. will relocate to the Gulf Coast, while others will come from south of the border. Most will not intend to stay where their new jobs are, but the longer the jobs last, the more likely they will settle permanently. One recent poll of New Orleans evacuees living in Houston emergency shelters found that fewer than half intend to return home. In part, their places will be taken by the migrant workers. Former President Clinton recently hinted as much on NBC's "Meet the Press" when he said New Orleans will be resettled with a different population.

Tags: Bush, Immigration, borders

• Secrets, lies and bombing Al-Jazeera
• The bad news bombs

Tags: Iraq, Bush, War, Al-Jazeera, Tony Blair

BERLIN Nov 28, 2005 — The United States has told the European Union it needs more time to respond to media reports that the CIA set up secret jails in some European nations and transported terror suspects by covert flights, the top EU justice official said Monday.

Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini also warned that that any of the 25 bloc nations found to have operated secret CIA prisons could have their EU voting rights suspended.

Interesting that the U.S. seems to be stalling for time on this inquiry, isn't it? Why the delay tactics? To find a way to cover allies, perhaps, or to find a way to cover themselves...? Here's the rub:

... Frattini said suspending EU voting rights would be justified under the EU treaty which stipulates that the bloc is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, and that a persistent breach of these principles can be punished.

Clandestine detention centers would violate the European Convention on Human Rights.

All disquiet on West Wing front
Aides: W must right ship

By THOMAS M. DeFRANK
and KENNETH R. BAZINET
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - Embattled White House aides have begun to believe President Bush must take the reins personally if his evaporating agenda and credibility are to be salvaged.

"We're just plodding along," admitted a senior Bush aide from deep within the West Wing bunker. "It's up to the President to turn things around now."

Even as his poll numbers tank, however, Bush is described by aides as still determined to stay the course. He resists advice from Republicans who fear disaster in next year's congressional elections, and rejects criticism from a media establishment he disdains.

"The President has always been willing to make changes," the senior aide said, "but not because someone in this town tells him to - NEVER!"

For the moment, Bush has dismissed discreetly offered advice from friends and loyalists to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and bring back longtime confidant Karen Hughes from the State Department to shore up his personal White House staff.

"He thinks that would be an admission he's screwed up, and he can't bring himself to do that," a former senior staffer lamented.

So aides have circled the wagons as Bush's woes mount, partly hoping they can sell the President on a December blitz of media interviews to help turn the tide.

"The staff basically still has an unyielding belief in the wisdom of what they're doing," a close Bush confidant said. "They're talking to people who could help them, but they're not listening."

Two sources said Bush has not only lost some confidence in his top aides, as the Daily News has previously reported, but is furious with a stream of leaks about the mood within the West Wing.

"He's asking [friends] for opinions on who he can trust and who he can't," one knowledgeable source said.

The problem for Bush, advisers admit, is that the ongoing leak probe reinforces allegations that the White House allegedly hyped prewar intelligence to justify a war most Americans no longer support.

So far Team Bush doesn't know how to separate the two issues, and compounding its woes is the fact that aides aren't talking to each other as much as they once did.

Gone from the schedule are weekly cholesterol-laden breakfasts at Rove's home where top Bush hands discussed strategy. Also missing are Sunday "message meetings" with outside thinkers like GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman, campaign pollster Matthew Dowd and superlobbyist Ed Gillespie.

A card-carrying member of the Washington GOP establishment with close ties to the White House recently encountered several senior presidential aides at a dinner and came away shaking his head at their "no problems here" mentality.

"There is just no introspection there at all," he said in exasperation. "It is everybody else's fault - the press, gutless Republicans on the Hill. They're still in denial."

A CNN switchboard operator was fired over the holiday -- after the operator claimed the 'X' placed over Vice President's Dick Cheney's face was "free speech!"

"We did it just to make a point. Tell them to stop lying, Bush and Cheney," the CNN operator said to a caller. "Bring our soldiers home."

The caller initially phoned the network to complain about the all-news channel flashing an "X' over Cheney as he gave an address live from Washington.

"Was it not freedom of speech? Yes or No?" the CNN operator explained.

"If you don't like it, don't watch."

Laurie Goldberg, Senior Vice President for Public Relations with CNN, said in a release:

"A Turner switchboard operator was fired today after we were alerted to a conversation the operator had with a caller in which the operator lost his temper and expressed his personal views -- behavior that was totally inappropriate. His comments did not reflect the views of CNN. We are reaching out to the caller and expressing our deep regret to her and apologizing that she did not get the courtesy entitled to her. "

While it appeared that the infamous 'X' that appeared over Vice President Cheney's face on CNN was just a "glitch," and even though many conservatives even conceded that it must have been so, I always maintained that the 'X' was never a glitch, never a computer error. Today, it appears as though that assumption is looking more and more accurate, as a CNN operator claimed it was "free speech" and they "did it just to make a point." ...

...CNN came back with some damage control and fired the switchboard operator for explaining the apparent truth behind the 'X' so as to cover the ass of CNN.

• X-treme makeover: Dick Cheney edition
• Cheney X

Tags: News, Media, Cheney

• Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (tackiest man stealer, edging out Julia Roberts... and tackiest ex, for the pitiful attempt to say he wasn't dating Jolie before the divorce. But the duo actually win the tackiest of the tacky award for exploiting the world's poor as a way to get positive ink for their home wrecking romance...)
• 50 Cent (for tackiest book project. Hip-hop novelas. Give me a break! ...and for having his shirt whipped off by a video vixen in the "Candy Shop" video. Tacky and just a little bit stripper-camp for you, Fitty...)
• T.O. (for failing to remember that ultimately, everyone's dispensible...)
• Michael Jackson (for moving to Bahrain, dressing up in a burka and getting caught in the ladies toilet, for blaming the Jews -- rather than his own tackiness -- for his money problems, for those tacky come-ons to pre-adolescent boys, for his last three albums, and for just general tackiosity...)

and the number one tacky people of all time? You guessed it:

"The poor schlub answering the phone attempts to engage the caller in a rhetorical argument about whether CNN's placing a large letter "X" over Vice President Dick Cheney during a speech Monday was free speech. ... Getting nowhere with that approach he finally just confesses his true feelings."

... which are that Bush and Cheney are liars ... So according to Quick, the $8, maybe $9 an hour call center guy (whom Aylward refers to as a "CNN minion" -- I'll bet he's not minioning around with Soledad O'Brien in the CNN cafeteria...) speaks for the network, and his poor phone manner is proof of the larger coonspiracy! Here's hoping you sell a lot of copies of that audiobook, Quick old boy.

As for Team Hollywood, they put out a press release accusing CNN of X'ing Cheney intentionally and claiming they've got legions of followers ready to boycott the network at any moment now (by continuing to exclusively watch Fox News, no doubt). Perhaps they should borrow one of those tech experts the PJs used to sleuth the Dan Rather memo story, and have that person explain to them the meaning of the word "key frame..."

Update: At least one wingblogger who's been wasting precious hours sleuthing the story now thinks the tapes may not be authentic... the mystery deepens...!!!

Uppdate 2: Jessu, Mary and Joseph ... THE Preska of Team Hollywood SPEAKS!!! ... and she says oh no, it's no hoax... Go pajama people ... GO!!!

Other PJP's on the case: Michelle Malkin (mostly glitching), Six Meat Buffet (with more suggestions on attractive face coverings for the veep), Junkyard Blog (raining on the pajama parade)...

Previous:

• Cheney X

Tags: News, Media, Cheney

Barack Obama calling on the Bush administration to admit its mistakes and throwing his immense popularity behind the growing calls for troop reductions in Iraq: upgrade!

Jean Schmidt looking for a way out of the doghouse and finding only a raggedy chew toy: downgrade... !

Happy holidays everybody! (Schmit photo credit: Cincinnati Enquirer)

Previous:

• Schmidt for brains
• Murtha's muscle
• Murtha update
• Support this Marine!
• Out of order

Tags: Iraq, Middle East, War, Murtha, Foreign Policy, Schmidt, Obama

Barring any major surprises in Iraq, the Pentagon tentatively plans to reduce the number of U.S. forces there early next year by as many as three combat brigades, from 18 now, but to keep at least one brigade "on call" in Kuwait in case more troops are needed quickly, several senior military officers said.

Whereas Congress and the American People have not been shown clear, measurable progress toward establishment of stable and improving security in Iraq or of a stable and improving economy in Iraq, both of which are essential to "promote the emergence of a democratic government";

Whereas additional stabilization in Iraq by U, S. military forces cannot be achieved without the deployment of hundreds of thousands of additional U S. troops, which in turn cannot be achieved without a military draft;

Whereas more than $277 billion has been appropriated by the United States Congress to prosecute U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan;

Whereas, as of the drafting of this resolution, 2,079 U.S. troops have been killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom;

Whereas U.S. forces have become the target of the insurgency,

Whereas, according to recent polls, over 80% of the Iraqi people want U.S. forces out of Iraq;

Whereas polls also indicate that 45% of the Iraqi people feel that the attacks on U.S. forces are justified;

Whereas, due to the foregoing, Congress finds it evident that continuing U.S. military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the people of Iraq, or the Persian Gulf Region, which were cited in Public Law 107-243 as justification for undertaking such action;

Therefore be it

1) Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in

2) Congress assembled,

3) That:

4) Section 1. The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is

5) hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable

6) date.

7) Section 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S Marines

8) shall be deployed in the region.

9) Section 3 The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq

10) through diplomacy.

The best answer among bad options is to begin redeployment in January 2006, right after Iraq’s next national elections.

The Bush administration has left us with no better choice. It has become clear that if we still have 140,000 ground troops in Iraq a year from now, we will destroy the all-volunteer Army.1Keeping such a large contingent of troops there will require the Pentagon to send many units back to Iraq for a third time and to activate Reserve and Guard forces a second or third time. Toparaphrase Vietnam-era Army General Maxwell Taylor, while we sent the Army to Iraq to save Iraq, we now have to redeploy the Army to save the Army.

As redeployments begin, the remaining forces in Iraq would focus on our core missions: completing the training of Iraqi forces; improving border security; providing logistical and air support to Iraqi security forces engaged in battles against terrorists and insurgents; serving as advisors to Iraqi units; and tracking down terrorists and insurgent leaders with smaller, more nimble Special Forces units operating jointly with Iraqi units. Strategic Redeployment will enable the United States to operate with a leaner force that is more effective in rooting out the insurgents and terrorist networks.

Strategic Redeployment will also strengthen the Army and minimize the drawbacks of our eventual withdrawal from Iraq. It will also enable us to respond to other emerging threats in the broader battle against violent extremists. Redeployment from Iraq will enable us to prevent other countries from becoming terrorist havens and enable us to address other threats our country faces. Military realignment.

Approximately 140,000 US forces are operating in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom – this overall figure increased slightly in the run-up to Iraq’s October constitutional referendum and will likely increase again as the December national elections approach. Of those troops, about 90,000 active duty forces, 33,000 National Guard, and another 13,000 Reserves forces are deployed in Iraq. In addition to the US troop presence, approximately 24,000 non-US forces from 26 countries support the ongoing operations in Iraq.

At the start of next year, the United States should begin a slow and irreversible drawdown of military forces to make us safer by preserving our all-volunteer Army and refocusing all elements of American power on the real threats our country faces.The redeployment of US forces should take place in two phases. Phase one would take place in 2006, with the drawdown of 80,000 troops by the end of the year, leaving 60,000 US troops in Iraq by December 31, 2006. Phase two would take place in 2007, with most of the US forces departing by the end of 2007.

United States troops would immediately and completely redeploy from urban areas, with Iraqi police, troops, and militias, like the Kurdish pesh merga, taking responsibility for security in these areas. This redeployment from urban areas – which has already begun in places like Najaf and Tikrit – will decrease the number of insurgents motivated by the US occupation. It will also free up the remaining US forces in Iraq to dedicate their efforts in 2007 to high-priority tasks related to our core mission.

Phase two of the drawdown would begin in January 2007. By the end of 2007, the only US military forces in Iraq would be a small Marine contingent to protect the US embassy, a small group of military advisors to the Iraqi Government, and counterterrorist units that works closely with Iraqi security forces. This presence, along with the forces in Kuwait and at sea in the Persian Gulf area will be sufficient to conduct strikes coordinated with Iraqi forces against any terrorist camps and enclaves that may emerge and deal with any major external threats to Iraq. ...

At the end of a day of meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao and other Chinese officials, Bush held a session with a small group of U.S. reporters and spoke at length about issues like religious freedom, Iraq and the Chinese currency.

The final reporter he called on critiqued Bush's performance earlier in the day when he stood next to Hu in the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square to deliver a statement.

"Respectfully, sir -- you know we're always respectful -- in your statement this morning with President Hu, you seemed a little off your game, you seemed to hurry through your statement. There was a lack of enthusiasm. Was something bothering you?" he asked.

"Have you ever heard of jet lag?" Bush responded. "Well, good. That answers your question."

The president then recited a list of things of that he viewed as positive developments from his Beijing meetings, including co-operation on North Korean nuclear disarmament and the ability to have "frank discussions" with his Chinese counterpart.

When the reporter asked for "a very quick follow-up", Bush cut him off by thanking the press corps and telling the reporter "No you may not," as he strode towards a set of double doors leading out of the room.

The only problem was that they were locked.

"I was trying to escape. Obviously, it didn't work," Bush quipped, facing reporters again until an aide rescued him by pointing to him towards the correct door.

When the political tensions arise at the dinner table, just remember what Rummy Sez:

"You go to Thanksgiving with the family you have, not the family you wish you had."

LAW CHIEF GAGS THE MIRROR ON BUSH LEAK
By Kevin Maguire

THE Daily Mirror was yesterday told not to publish further details from a top secret memo, which revealed that President Bush wanted to bomb an Arab TV station.

The gag by the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith came nearly 24 hours after the Mirror informed Downing Street of its intention to reveal how Tony Blair talked Bush out of attacking satellite station al-Jazeera's HQ in friendly Qatar.

No 10 did nothing to stop us publishing our front page exclusive yesterday.

But the Attorney General warned that publication of any further details from the document would be a breach of the Official Secrets Act.

He threatened an immediate High Court injunction unless the Mirror confirmed it would not publish further details. We have essentially agreed to comply.

Editors are threatened over TV station bombing claim
By Rosemary Bennett and Tim Reid

NEWSPAPERS editors were threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act last night if they published details of a conversation between Tony Blair and George Bush in which the President is alleged to have suggested bombing al-Jazeera, the Arab news network. Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, informed newspapers editors including that of The Times that “publication of a document that has been unlawfully disclosed by a Crown servant could be in breach of Section 5 of the Official Secrets Act.”

The Blair Government has obtained court injunctions against newspapers before but it has never prosecuted editors for publishing the contents of leaked documents.

Under a front-page headline “Bush plot to bomb his ally” in the Daily Mirror yesterday, a secret minute of the conversation in April 2004 records the President allegedly suggesting that he would like to bomb the channel’s studios in Doha, capital of Qatar. Richard Wallace, the Editor of the Daily Mirror, said last night: “We made No 10 fully aware of the intention to publish and were given ‘no comment’ officially or unofficially. Suddenly 24 hours later we are threatened under Section 5.”

According to the Mirror, the transcript turned up in the office of former Labour MP Tony Clarke, who lost his Northampton South seat in May.

His former researcher and a Cabinet Office official, accused of breaking the Official Secrets Act, will appear at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court.

Downing Street refused to comment on the matter yesterday, saying that it was sub judice.

Last night Peter Kilfoyle, the Labour MP for Liverpool Walton and a former Defence Minister, tabled an early day motion urging Mr Blair to publish the conversation. He said that what Mr Bush said was a “matter of great interest” to MPs and the public.

• The bad news bombs

Tags: Iraq, Middle East, War, Foreign Policy, Media, Bush, Al-Jazeera

SCALIA RAPS GORE FOR '00
By FRANKIE EDOZIEN

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says the high court did not inject itself into the 2000 presidential election.

Speaking at the Time Warner Center last night, Scalia said: "The election was dragged into the courts by the Gore people. We did not go looking for trouble."

But he said the court had to take the case.

"The issue was whether Florida's Supreme Court or the United States Supreme Court [would decide the election.] What did you expect us to do? Turn the case down because it wasn't important enough?"

The conservative justice, who grew up in Queens, contended there would have been a difficult transition had the court not stepped in.

He also pointed out that studies by news organizations after the election showed Bush still would have won a Florida recount. [N.Y. Post, 11/22/05]

The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the "President's Daily Brief," a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public statements by foreign leaders.

One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources.

The September 21, 2001, briefing was prepared at the request of the president, who was eager in the days following the terrorist attacks to learn all that he could about any possible connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Karen Tabor, spokeswoman for the Ohio House GOP caucus, said Bubp, a Republican from West Union in southwest Ohio, never intended his remarks to be used against another serviceman.

''I don't think he ever made reference to Congressman Murtha with Congresswoman Schmidt,'' Tabor said.

Bubp did not return calls to his office Tuesday seeking comment.

Tabor said Bubp was concerned that the remarks attributed to him by Schmidt, whose district is east of Cincinnati, would be taken as an attack on Murtha and American veterans.

''That's certainly not how they were intended,'' Tabor said. ''The intent of his conversation with Congresswoman Schmidt was to express his concern with immediate withdrawal and the potential to leave (MIA) American forces behind.''

Barry Bennett, Schmidt's chief of staff, said Bubp did not know Schmidt was going to use their conversation as the basis of her House floor comments.

Murtha’s resolution was the subject of intense national news coverage because of Murtha’s military background and his 34-year history of supporting American troops while in Congress.

But Schmidt said Tuesday she had not seen any of the news coverage.

“I don’t listen to the news in D.C. because it’s not my news environment,’’ said Schmidt, who conducted the interview with The Enquirer with her chief of staff, Barry Bennett, sitting nearby. “I watch something light-hearted and then I go to bed.’’

Schmidt said she delivered her one-minute floor speech minutes after speaking on the phone to Bubp, who told The Enquirer Monday he did not mention Murtha by name in his talk with Schmidt and would not call a fellow Marine a coward.

“After I talked to Danny, I wrote down some notes and went to the floor to ask for time to speak,’’ said Schmidt, who said she did not run her remarks by staff or Republican legislative leaders before delivering them.

• Murtha's muscle
• Murtha update
• Support this Marine!
• Out of order

Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has called on visiting Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to press for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq.


On Tuesday, Khamenei also argued it was the US that was to blame for the ongoing violence in Iraq, amid efforts by Talabani to win Iranian help in combatting the fighting ravaging his country.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran holds the American government responsible for the suffering of the Iraqi people and all the crimes and assassinations now being committed in Iraq," Khamenei was quoted as saying by official media.

"The presence of foreign troops is damaging for the Iraqis, and the Iraqi government could ask for their departure by proposing a timetable," Khamenei said, adding: "The US and Britain will eventually have to leave Iraq with a bitter experience."

Khamenei told Talabani, the first Iraqi head of state to visit Iran in nearly four decades, his country "would be empowered by the development, security, independence and the empowerment of Iraq". ...

Automaker to cut jobs, plants
By Associated Press
Tuesday, November 22, 2005

General Motors Corp., pounded by declining sales and rising health-care costs, said yesterday it will cut more than a quarter of its North American manufacturing jobs and close 12 facilities by 2008. The United Auto Workers called the plan “devastating” and warned it will make negotiations more difficult, but some Wall Street analysts said GM’s actions may not go far enough.

To get production in line with demand, GM will cut 30,000 jobs, which represent 17 percent of GM’s North American hourly and salaried work force of 173,000, and will close nine assembly, stamping and powertrain plants and three parts facilities. GM’s U.S. market share fell to 26.2 percent in the first 10 months of this year compared with 33 percent a decade ago, the result of increasing competition from Asian rivals. GM lost almost $4 billion in the first nine months of this year.

GM said the plant closings are part of a plan to shave $7 billion off its $42 billion annual bill for operations.

Delphi CEO Steve Miller, who received a signing-on hello bonus of $3.7 million last summer, said that he hasn't received union counteroffers to his proposal, which includes reducing wage levels from an average $27 per hour to as low as $9 and slashing up to 24,000 jobs over a three-year period. Motor union UAW President Ron Gettelfinger called Delphi's offer an "insult."

"We are going to try and save as many jobs as we can, but at the current wage rates, we would have to close down all of our US plants," Miller said. Delphi will pay an average US wage of $26.97 an hour in 2005. ...

...Delphi plans to pay almost $90 million in bonuses for 486 top managers as a fair reward if the company emerges from bankruptcy. It also said a recently improved severance program is necessary to keep 21 key officers from leaving.

MR. RUSSERT: Congressman, according to our military experts, there are only 700 Iraqi troops who are fully independent and combat ready. That being the case, if we withdraw our troops quickly from Iraq, won't the Iraqi citizens be overwhelmed by the al-Qaeda and Saddam loyalists? Are the Iraqis capable of defending themselves without the U.S.?

REP. MURTHA: Tim, I'm absolutely convinced that we're making no progress at all, and I've been complaining for two years that there's an overly optimistic--an illusionary process going on here. They keep trying to measure Iraqi troops by our standards. They don't need to meet our standard. And until we turn it over to the Iraqis, we're going to continue to do the fighting. Our young men and women are going to continue to suffer.

I go to the hospitals almost every week. I'm going to go out there again this week, and I see these young people doing the fighting and it's time to turn it over to Iraq. Give them the incentive to do the fighting themselves. They'll have to work this out themselves. This is their country. We've become the enemy. Eighty percent of the people in Iraq want us out of there. Forty-five percent say it's justified to attack Americans. It's time to change direction.

MURTHA: ... There's no question we're going in the wrong direction and we're not winning. The incidents have increased and the economic indicators--oil, which was supposed to pay for all of this, is below prewar levels. There's nothing that's happening that shows any sign of success.

Getting the Lowdown on Iraq
By SALLY B. DONNELLY

Posted Sunday, Nov. 20, 2005

If the Repulblican Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee wants to get a second opinion on how the war in Iraq is going, where does he turn? To the Pentagon, but not to the top brass this time. In an unusual closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill last week, Virginia's John Warner, joined by Democratic Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Mark Dayton of Minnesota, sat across the table from 10 military officers chosen for their experience on the battlefield rather than in the political arena. Warner rounded up the battalion commanders to get at what the military calls "ground truth"--the unvarnished story of what's going on in Iraq.

"We wanted the view from men who had been on the tip of the spear, and we got it," said John Ullyot, a Warner spokesman who declined to comment on what was said at the meeting but confirmed that some Capitol Hill staff members were also present. According to two sources with knowledge of the meeting, the Army and Marine officers were blunt. In contrast to the Pentagon's stock answer that there are enough troops on the ground in Iraq, the commanders said that they not only needed more manpower but also had repeatedly asked for it. Indeed, military sources told TIME that as recently as August 2005, a senior military official requested more troops but got turned down flat.

There are about 160,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq, a number U.S. commanders in the region plan to maintain at least through the Iraqi national assembly elections on Dec. 15. But the battalion commanders, according to sources close to last week's meeting, said that because there are not enough troops, they have to "leapfrog" around Iraq to keep insurgents from returning to towns that have been cleared out. The officers also stressed that the lack of manpower--rather than of protective armor or signal jammers--posed one of the biggest obstacles in dealing with roadside bombs, which have caused the majority of U.S. casualties in Iraq. The commanders, according to the meeting sources, said there are simply "never enough" explosives experts on the ground. So far, no officer has been willing to go on record to complain about the need for more troops. ...

the Senate resolution reflected not only poll-driven politics but also military reality. There is strong sentiment within the Pentagon to reduce the number of troops soon—no matter the continuing vehemence of the President's rhetoric—in order to avoid forcing exhausted troops into longer tours of duty. The current level of 160,000 troops could be cut in half by next summer. "The future of our military is at risk," Murtha said in his emotional press conference, accurately reflecting the views of the uniformed brass. "Our military and their families are stretched thin. Many say that the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on their third deployment."

Murtha, a Marine combat veteran of Vietnam, was speaking from the heart. He makes weekly visits to Washington-area military hospitals. He has spent a lifetime devoted to what he perceives to be the best interests of the U.S. military. But unlike McCain, Murtha does not seem to believe that the war against Islamist terrorism is the highest national priority. He said Iraq threatened to drain resources from "procurement programs that ensure our military dominance." On the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, he wondered if China were the real threat "down the road" and expressed dismay that "we only bought four or five ships this year."

In an odd way, Murtha sounded an awful lot like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who, according to high-ranking military officials, has seemed slightly annoyed that the war in Iraq has diverted resources from his real goal of "transforming" the military into a high-tech outfit that can scare the bejeezus out of China. Rumsfeld's Pentagon has refused to undertake the violent reordering of priorities—more special forces, more intelligence, zero boats—needed to fight a scruffy, labor-intensive struggle against an enemy that thrives in shadows in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Rumsfeld's relative indifference to the shooting war since the fall of Baghdad, combined with the President's garishly bellicose rhetoric and refusal to ask wartime sacrifices of the public, has led to a national embarrassment—a cloddish superpower that talks big and acts small—and is leading to an inevitable, irresponsible sidle out of Iraq.

• Murtha's muscle
• Murtha update
• Support this Marine!
• Out of order

Tags: Iraq, Middle East, War, Murtha, Foreign Policy, Schmidt

Pullout rejected 403-3

...At one point during the debate, Rep. Jean Schmidt, Ohio Republican and the newest member of the House, said she had received a call from a veteran and member of Ohio's state legislature , who said to send a message to Mr. Murtha: "Cowards cut and run, and Marines never do."

nstantly, two dozen Democrats shot to their feet and demanded her words be "taken down," a precursor to House punishment, because she insulted Mr. Murtha. Rep. Vic Snyder, Arkansas Democrat, said the use of Mr. Murtha's name and "coward" were in "too close a proximity" to let the matter go.

Ms. Schmidt withdrew her words, but not before Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr., Tennessee Democrat, seemed to be headed for a fight with Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican. Mr. Tancredo afterward said he had been arguing with another Democrat over some of the charges Democrats had hurled at Republicans during yesterday morning's budget vote, and said Mr. Ford must have thought the argument was about Mr. Murtha.

"Say it to Murtha," Mr. Ford repeatedly shouted at Mr. Tancredo while he was being restrained by other members. Mr. Tancredo said he replied he wasn't talking about Mr. Murtha and told Mr. Ford to go sit down.

"You guys are pathetic. Pathetic," Rep. Martin T. Meehan, Massachusetts Democrat, shouted.

Those on both sides said they had never seen an atmosphere so charged.

• Murtha update
• Support this Marine!
• Out of order

Tags: Iraq, Middle East, War, Murtha, Foreign Policy, Schmidt

Facing a backlash on Iraq at home and abroad, President Bush was planning to declare Saturday that an early withdrawal would be "a recipe for disaster" and to vow to stay in the war until "we have completed our mission."

His sharp retort, which was to be delivered at a U.S. military base south of Seoul, followed an unexpected setback. Just hours after Bush hailed South Korea for contributing more troops to Iraq than any other ally except Britain, South Korean defense officials revealed plans to withdraw one-third of their force.

Aides traveling with the president sought explanations from their South Korean counterparts while politely playing down the development in public.

Legal experts said Fitzgerald's decision to call upon a new grand jury is all but certainly because he is considering additional criminal charges in the case.

Two sources close to Karl Rove, the top Bush aide still under investigation in the case, said they have reason to believe Fitzgerald does not anticipate presenting additional evidence against the White House deputy chief of staff. Instead, lawyers involved in the case expect the prosecutor to focus on Woodward's admission that an official other than Libby told him about Plame one month before her identity was publicly disclosed in a July 14, 2003, column by Robert D. Novak.

GOP Lawmakers Float Ethics Probe of Murtha
By John Bresnahan
Roll Call Staff
Friday, Nov. 18

Republican lawmakers say that ties between Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and his brother’s lobbying firm, KSA Consulting, may warrant investigation by the House ethics committee.

"... a few minutes ago I received a call from a state representative in the 88th district of my state, Colonel Danny Buck. He asked me to send a message to Congress: don't cut and run. He also asked me to convey a message to Representative Murtha: cowards cut and run, Marines never do..."

• Iraq is sending a team to investigate whether U.S. targeted civilians with white phosphorus in Fallujah
• U.S. contractor charged with bribing Iraq reconstruction officials
• New study puts number of foreign fighters in Iraq at ... 3,000 or less
• Two in the U.K. charged with leaking secret transcript of Bush-Blair Iraq convo (see, they have an Official Secrets Act, we don't...)
• Pentagon to probe Douglas Feith's use of pre-war intel... key Democrat wants the probe to look into whether Pentagon intel chief lied to Congress in the run-up to war...

• White line
• Going medieval...

"What about the goal of creating a secular democracy in Iraq that respects the rights of women and non-Muslims?"

Give it up. It's not going to happen.

Tags: Iraq, Middle East, War, Foreign Policy

D.C. -- In another sign of rising discontent in Congress over the war in Iraq, perhaps the House's most influential Democrat on military issues called today for the immediate withdrawal of all American forces from that nation.

"The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring them home," said Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a former Marine intelligence officer in Vietnam and the senior Democrat on the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees military spending.

"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised,'' said Murtha, who in October 2002 voted for the resolution authorizing President Bush to take military action to oust Saddam Hussein. "It's a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of the members of Congress.''

Murtha's outspoken stand, which he shares with only a minority of House Democrats, shows the growing discontent within Congress over the war's progress.

Earlier this week, the Republican-led Senate passed a resolution calling on Bush to report every 90 days on the war in Iraq and for Iraqi forces to assume more control of security in their country starting next year. But the Senate voted down a Democratic proposal for a phased withdrawal.

Murtha's comments, announced in a Capitol speech carried live on cable new stations, came as Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have counter-attacked against their critics, saying charges that pre-war intelligence was falsified or hyped to justify war are outrageous and that pulling out of Iraq before the job is done would be disastrous.

Murtha, who retired as a reserve lieutenant colonel in 1994 after he had already served 20 years in the House, said the war had sapped the Army's strength, threatened its ability to meet other threats and ballooned the federal budget deficit.

The Bush administration is already required to send the House quarterly reports on the war, under a provision attached to spending legislation by Murtha and House Minority Leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-S.F.

The latest report made for disheartening reading, Murtha said, and convinced him that the U.S. presence in Iraq is fueling the insurgency, not helping to pacify the country. Oil production is still below pre-war levels. Much of the appropriated reconstruction money can't be spent because of the poor security situation. Unemployment is estimated at 60 percent, he said.

Most importantly for Murtha, the number of insurgent attacks is running at 700 a week, up from about 150 a year ago, and casualties continue, with more than 2,000 Americans killed and almost 16,000 wounded.

"We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf region,'' said Murtha, who every week visits wounded service personnel at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington or at the Bethesda naval hospital in suburban Maryland.

Murtha said troops should be withdrawn in stages, so their safety is not jeopardized. He suggested that all 148,000 could be withdrawn within six months, but that a "rapid deployment force'' should be kept somewhere else in the Middle East.

To anti-war Democrats in the House, Murtha's new position was a major boost.

"I think it's just perfect. It makes us closer to bringing our troops home. Hurrah!,'' said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, who early this year introduced a House resolution calling for withdrawal.

She said Murtha's stand may influence more Republicans to join the handful who already back withdrawal proposals in the House.

Murtha's call for withdrawal actually makes him more outspoken than the House's Out of Iraq Coalition. That group is circulating a petition among members calling for a floor debate and vote on a resolution that calls on Bush to give Congress a plan for withdrawal, and to start those withdrawals by next October, just a month before the mid-term congressional elections.

The coalition includes five Republicans, along with about five dozen Democrats.

Woolsey said Bush and Cheney are striking back at critics because "they're absolutely panicked and are trying everything they know to discredit those who tell the truth.''

Mr. Murtha, a 73-year-old Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam combat, lashed back at Vice President Dick Cheney, who in a speech to a conservative group on Wednesday night condemned critics of the Iraq war. "The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone, but we're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history," Mr. Cheney said in an address to the group, Frontiers of Freedom, in Washington.

Mr. Murtha was disdainful of the vice president's remarks, saying that "people with five deferments" had no right to make such remarks. Mr. Cheney, like millions of other young men of the era, avoided military service during the Vietnam war.

Chelsea met Tara while she was in Europe filming for her now cancelled show ‘Taradise’.

By all accounts the pair hit it off straight away, and as Chelsea had just split up with her long term boyfriend Ian Klaus they got down to some heavy duty partying.

Tara was seen staying at Chelsea swanky New York pad and they were partying the night away.

A ‘source’ told The Bosh: "It's almost like Chelsea dumped Ian for Tara. All of a sudden Tara was staying at Chelsea's in New York, and they were going out to Bungalow 8 and Nobu every night,"

However, after a wild weekend in Las Vegas, Chelsea’s mother, Hilary Clinton heard that the pair had been hanging out and put a stop to their friendship.

“Saddam is gone. It’s a good thing, but I don’t agree with what was done,” Clinton told students at a forum at the American University of Dubai.

“It was a big mistake. The American government made several errors ... one of which is how easy it would be to get rid of Saddam and how hard it would be to unite the country.”

Clinton’s remarks came when he was taking questions about the U.S. invasion, which began in 2003. His response drew cheers and a standing ovation at the end of the hour-long session.

Clinton said the United States had done some good things in Iraq: the removal of Saddam, the ratification of a new constitution and the holding of parliamentary elections.

“The mistake that they made is that when they kicked out Saddam, they decided to dismantle the whole authority structure of Iraq. ... We never sent enough troops and didn’t have enough troops to control or seal the borders,” Clinton said.

As the borders were unsealed, “the terrorists came in,” he said.

Clinton said it would have been better if the United States had left Iraq’s “fundamental military and social and police structure intact.”

But the MOST OUTRAGEOUS statement by Bob Woodward follows, and I credit the Washington Post for exposing this man's vanity and idiocy. The Post reports that Woodward pooh-poohed the Fitzgerald investigation into the Valerie Plame/CIA case -- even though he had vital information that was relevant to the investigation all along -- and knew it.

The President put his credibility on the line regarding this CIA case. The first White House official in 130 years was indicted because of this case -- and Bob Woodward is saying that it is an insignificant matter. And now he has a "smoking gun"?

Florida tested ‘Celestial Drops’ to see if they warded off citrus canker

By David Park Musella, Skeptical Inquirer

Florida's citrus crop contributes billions of dollars to the state's economy, so when that industry is threatened, anything that might help is considered. Back in 2001, when citrus canker was blighting the crop and threatening to reduce that vital source of revenue, an interesting — if not quite scientific — alternative was considered.

Katherine Harris, then Florida's secretary of state — and now a member of the U.S. House of Representatives — ordered a study in which, according to an article by Jim Stratton in the Orlando Sentinel, "researchers worked with a rabbi and a cardiologist to test ‘Celestial Drops,' promoted as a canker inhibitor because of its ‘improved fractal design,' ‘infinite levels of order,' and ‘high energy and low entropy.'"

The study determined that the product tested was, basically, water that had apparently been blessed according to the principles of Kabbalic mysticism, "chang[ing] its molecular structure and imbu[ing] it with supernatural healing powers."

...The Florida state government is frequently bombarded with new supposed cures and preventatives [for citrus canker]. Most of them are not tested by the state with government funds. But in this one case, at least, it appears that an exception was made: Six months were spent establishing testing protocols and, finally, testing Celestial Drops. In a letter to the state government, Wayne Dixon, the head of Florida's Bureau of Entomology, Nematology and Plant Pathology, reported that the "product is a hoax and not based on any credible known science." He added, "I wish to maintain our standing in the scientific community and not allow [the developers of Celestial Drops] to use our hard-earned credibility" to promote their product.

Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson begins his reelection year with a 55 - 31 percent lead over U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, the only announced Republican challenger in the 2006 Florida U.S. Senate race, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 57 - 33 percent Nelson lead in an August 31 poll by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN uh-pe-ack) University.

Democrats back Sen. Nelson 83 - 7 percent, while Republicans back Rep. Harris 63 -22 percent and independent voters go with Nelson 59 - 25 percent.

Florida voters have mixed opinions about Nelson, with 37 percent who say he should be reelected, 33 percent who say he shouldn't be and 29 percent undecided. He gets a 49 - 18 percent approval rating, with 33 percent undecided.

"Even though Florida voters are not enthusiastic about sending Bill Nelson back to the Senate, he will do fine as long as Katherine Harris is his opponent. Congressman Mark Foley would be almost as strong a Republican candidate for the Senate seat even though he is relatively unknown statewide compared to Harris," said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

Florida Republicans say 46 - 29 percent that they would prefer Rep. Harris over U.S. Rep. Mark Foley as their Senate candidate. Nelson leads Foley 55 - 27 percent.

Looking at the 2006 Governor's race, 56 percent of Florida Democrats are undecided on who should get their party's nomination, with 25 percent backing U.S. Rep. Jim Davis and 15 percent backing State Sen. Rod Smith.

Among Republicans, 38 percent pick Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher, while 36 percent pick State Attorney General Charlie Crist, a tie, with 24 percent undecided.

In possible general election matchups:
- Davis gets 40 percent to 39 percent for Crist, a statistical tie;
- Davis gets 41 percent to 38 percent for Gallagher;
- Crist beats Smith 41 - 36 percent;
- Gallagher beats Smith 41 - 36 percent.

"Tom Gallagher and Charlie Crist are tied in the battle for the Republican nomination for Governor, but either would be equally effective in the general election against a Democrat. 'Don't know' is still leading the Democratic race for Governor with U.S. Rep. Jim Davis a distant second, ahead of State Sen. Rod Smith," Richards said.

Woodward's testimony appears to change key elements in the chronology Fitzgerald laid out in his investigation and announced when indicting Libby three weeks ago. It would make the unnamed official -- not Libby -- the first government employee to disclose Plame's CIA employment to a reporter. It would also make Woodward, who has been publicly critical of the investigation, the first reporter known to have learned about Plame from a government source.

The testimony, however, does not appear to shed new light on whether Libby is guilty of lying and obstructing justice in the nearly two-year-old probe or provide new insight into the role of senior Bush adviser Karl Rove, who remains under investigation.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Rove, said that Rove is not the unnamed official who told Woodward about Plame and that he did not discuss Plame with Woodward.

The Washington Post and ABC News are reporting continuing erosion in the president's support, with 58% now doubting his honesty and trustworthiness. Of all the criticisms of the president, this last seems to me most unfair and inaccurate - but when the public gets mad at a leader, they get mad at him for everything.

The administration seems to believe that they can correct the situation by advancing a strong domestic agenda. I hope this is true - and I hope it is true that they still have a strong domestic agenda to advance. But I fear that the president's low numbers derive from Iraq, from the perception that the war is not going well, and from the administration's continuing failure to explain or justify the war in convincing terms. And for that reason I fear that these numbers will be very hard to reverse.

To: Bill O'Reilly, O'Reilly Factor Host : oreilly@foxnews.com
cc: John Moody,
Senior Vice-President, News: john.moody@foxnews.com

Dear Mr. O'Reilly:

Please add me (blog.reidreport.com) to your list of enemy bloggers. As much as I hate to consider myself to be anyone's enemy, you are simply out of your mind, and therefore, I feel it's my duty to oppose you -- well, not so much you, as the fact that you're nuts...

Have a wonderful day. Oh, and remember: if they bomb San Francisco, technically, they're still bombing America.

Sincerely,

Joy Reid
ReidBlog http://blog.reidreport.com

Good night, and good luck.

Previous:

• Bill O'Reilly invites terror attack on San Francisco!

Tags: Bill, O'Reilly, talk, Terrorism, News.

“The overall number is in the ballpark I would have expected, but that's a much bigger number at camp Bucca than I would have anticipated," Pike said. "You just don't hear that much about Camp Bucca. You would not have thought of it as being the primary holding facility.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., an abortion rights supporter and the only woman on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said she asked the conservative judge about a document released Monday showing Alito in 1985 telling the Reagan administration he was particularly proud to help argue that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

"He said first of all it was different then," she said. "He said, 'I was an advocate seeking a job, it was a political job and that was 1985. I'm now a judge, I've been on the circuit court for 15 years and it's very different. I'm not an advocate, I don't give heed to my personal views, what I do is interpret the law.'"

The Radisson was selected, according to our sources, because a Palestinian wedding party there was the opportunity for a mass-casualty strike on similar lines to the Passover Seder massacre of 17 Israelis at Netanya’s Park Hotel in March 2002. The attack on the Grand Hyatt struck the lobby where a group of senior Palestinian, Jordanian and Saudi intelligence officers were communing secretly and wiped out the entire group. Riyadh and Amman have not identified their officers. The Palestinians were Maj-General Bashir Nafeh, head of Palestinian military intelligence on the West Bank and Abed A-Lon a senior facilitator between the PA and Western intelligence. Palestinians were also hit at the Days Inn hotel.

The proposal on the Iraq war, from Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, and Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, would require the administration to provide extensive new quarterly reports to Congress on subjects like progress in bringing in other countries to help stabilize Iraq. The other appeals related to Iraq are nonbinding and express the position of the Senate.

The plan stops short of a competing Democratic proposal that moves toward establishing dates for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But it is built upon the Democratic approach and makes it clear that senators of both parties are increasingly eager for Iraqis to take control of their country in coming months and open the door to removing American troops.

Mr. Warner said the underlying message was, "we really mean business, Iraqis, get on with it." The senator, an influential party voice on military issues, said he did not interpret the wording of his plan as critical of the administration, describing it as a "forward-looking" approach.

"It is not a question of satisfaction or dissatisfaction," he said. "This reflects what has to be done." [NYT 11/15/05]

A bipartisan group of senators reached a compromise yesterday that would dramatically alter U.S. policy for treating captured terrorist suspects by granting them a final recourse to the federal courts but stripping them of some key legal rights.

The compromise links legislation written by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), which would deny detainees broad access to federal courts, with a new measure authored by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) that would grant detainees the right to appeal the verdict of a military tribunal to a federal appeals court. The deal will come to a vote today, and the authors say they are confident it will pass.

Graham and Levin indicated they would then demand that House and Senate negotiators link their measure with the effort by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to clearly ban torture and abuse of terrorism suspects being held in U.S. facilities.

"McCain's amendment needs to be part of the overall package, because it deals with standardizing interrogation techniques and will reestablish moral high ground for the United States," Graham said.

Such broad legislation would be Congress's first attempt to assert some control over the detention of suspected terrorists, which the Bush administration has closely guarded as its sole prerogative. By linking a provision to deny prisoners the right to challenge their detention in federal court with language restricting interrogation methods, senators hope to soften the administration's ardent opposition to McCain's anti-torture provision -- or possibly win its support.

The Justice and Defense departments have expressed strong support for legislation that would curtail a flurry of civil litigation coming out of the military's detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to some senators involved in the negotiation. "The truth is, this is something the administration would dearly like," Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said of the language curtailing detainee access to the courts.

Andy Borowitz puts forth his theory of Pat Robertson's evolution (hat tip to Jay Tea at Wizbang, who joins Mark from Tempus Fugit in declaring their blogs a a "Robertson free zone." Y'know, I'd love to do that, too, but the guy is just too much fun to watch...

Up next, some guy in Dover, Pennsylvania actually takes Robertson seriously... Ohmigod, there's another one! But not the York Disptach -- they give Old Marion the thumbs down. And Robertson's folly prompts Leonard Pitts to reveal that he was a "C" student in science! Hey, doesn't that make him presidential timber...? And last but not least, we go as far away from home as the Sydney Morning Herald to learn that not only does Pat Robertson insult God's intelligence, "intelligent design" does too...

Previous:

• Crazy ole' Pat Robertson - PA hellfire edition

Tags: Pat, Robertson, intelligent design

President Bush used the occasion of Veteran’s Day to attack critics of the Iraq war as unpatriotic. In the face of the overwhelming evidence that the war was started on false premises, the president has the audacity to state that anyone who raises questions about the origins of the war are hurting our soldiers and giving aid and comfort to our enemies. The president makes no sense and has no shame.

Bush makes no sense because he pulled a bait and switch and asks us not to notice. He asked Congress for a blank check to use force if necessary against the government of Saddam Hussein because they supposedly had weapons of mass destruction which they might use against us. Since this was false, we had no reason to attack Iraq. Indeed, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has pointed out that the war was illegal.

The original bait was false, but the switch is equally outrageous. What is the mission now? Hussein is in jail so we are no longer there to fight him. Bush is acting like a drunk who stumbles into the wrong house in the subdivision and then pulls out his gun and starts shooting when the homeowners start bickering among themselves about the best way try to drive him out. Why not just leave and let everyone live a little longer?

Of course, Bush is not himself bearing arms. It is our young men and women who are doing so. It is Bush who has cavalierly sent our volunteer soldiers, overwhelmingly working class, into harm’s way on false pretenses and keeps them there without justification. He demands the rest of us cheer on this misuse of our own sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, friends and neighbors. But the truly moral thing to do is to stand up and speak truth to power, insist that our young not be sacrificed to an ignoble cause in which torture becomes as routine as drinking a few beers on Saturday night.

Bush calls out Senator John Kerry by name because he was one of those who voted to give him a blank check and now criticizes the war. But John Kerry is following the fine example of Senator J. William Fulbright, who shepherded the Tonkin Gulf resolution through Congress and then led in criticizing the Vietnam War and the false pretenses that President Lyndon Johnson used to escalate it. ...

• On reflection
• Hack attack
• The Bushies' Big Time historical re-write
• Decoding Donald Rumsfeld
• The boys who cried 'nuclear'

"There's no question that Iraq was a threat to the people of the United States."
• White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan, 8/26/03

"We ended the threat from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction."
• President Bush, 7/17/03

Iraq was "the most dangerous threat of our time."
• White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 7/17/03

"Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States because we removed him, but he was a threat...He was a threat. He's not a threat now."
• President Bush, 7/2/03

"Absolutely."
• White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an "imminent threat," 5/7/03

"We gave our word that the threat from Iraq would be ended."
• President Bush 4/24/03

"The threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be removed."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 3/25/03

"It is only a matter of time before the Iraqi regime is destroyed and its threat to the region and the world is ended."
• Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke, 3/22/03

"The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."
• President Bush, 3/19/03

"The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations."
• President Bush, 3/16/03

"This is about imminent threat."
• White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03

Iraq is "a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/31/03

Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/03

Iraq "threatens the United States of America."
• Vice President Cheney, 1/30/03

"Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/29/03

"Well, of course he is.”
• White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett responding to the question “is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?”, 1/26/03

"Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons. Iraq poses a threat to the security of our people and to the stability of the world that is distinct from any other. It's a danger to its neighbors, to the United States, to the Middle East and to the international peace and stability. It's a danger we cannot ignore. Iraq and North Korea are both repressive dictatorships to be sure and both pose threats. But Iraq is unique. In both word and deed, Iraq has demonstrated that it is seeking the means to strike the United States and our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/20/03

"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. ... Iraq is a threat, a real threat."
• President Bush, 1/3/03

"The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands."
• President Bush, 11/23/02

"I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?"
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 11/14/02

"Saddam Hussein is a threat to America."
• President Bush, 11/3/02

"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq."
• President Bush, 11/1/02

"There is real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to American in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein."
• President Bush, 10/28/02

"The Iraqi regime is a serious and growing threat to peace."
• President Bush, 10/16/02

"There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists."
• President Bush, 10/7/02

"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency."
• President Bush, 10/2/02

"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is."
• President Bush, 10/2/02

"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined."
• President Bush, 9/26/02

"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/19/02

"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02

"Iraq is busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents, and they continue to pursue an aggressive nuclear weapons program. These are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam Hussein can hold the threat over the head of any one he chooses. What we must not do in the face of this mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or to willful blindness."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 8/29/02
Source: Center for American Progress

On Veterans Day, President Bush chose to forgo the traditional Veterans Day activities and instead "hit back" against his critics – those calling for a strategy for success in Iraq. President Bush was joined in his offensive over the weekend with remarks by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadleyand RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman. Bush’s latest case is based on three flawed points: 1) that Congress had the same pre-war intelligence as the White House; 2) that the Senate investigation found no administration manipulation of the intelligence; and 3) that world intelligence agencies agreed with the administration’s assessment of the Iraqi threat. While President Bush is entitled to try to defend his record, he is not entitled to his own facts.

Congress did not have the “same intelligence” as the White House. In his speech, Bush claimed that Congress "had access to the same intelligence" as his administration. This is false. According to the Washington Post, Bush and his aides had access to “much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material.” Even Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) acknowledged that the differences in intelligence seen by Congress and the White House “may be a concern to some extent.”

The Senate Intelligence Report showed that there was manipulation of the evidence. President Bush claimed that "abipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs." This claim is wrong on two counts. First, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence “has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions.” Second, the Senate Intelligence Committee's Phase I report found, according to the LA Times (7/10/04), that the unclassified public version of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was manipulated. "[C]arefully qualified conclusions [in the classified NIE] were turned into blunt assertions of fact. "

The entire world was not in agreement with the Bush administration. Bush defenders all say that other intelligence agencies agreed with the administration’s findings. "Every intelligence agency in the world, including the Russians, the French ... all reached the same conclusion," Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said on CBS' "Face the Nation." The truth is many of our friends and allies believed that, based on the intelligence they had, the threat of Iraq did not rise to the level of justifying immediate force. France, Germany and Russia all believed that the evidence presented did not justify utilizing their last resort – declaring war.

The Right Way in Iraq
By John Edwards
Sunday, November 13, 2005; B07

I was wrong.

Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told -- and what many of us believed and argued -- was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda.

It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake. It has been hard to say these words because those who didn't make a mistake -- the men and women of our armed forces and their families -- have performed heroically and paid a dear price.

The world desperately needs moral leadership from America, and the foundation for moral leadership is telling the truth.

While we can't change the past, we need to accept responsibility, because a key part of restoring America's moral leadership is acknowledging when we've made mistakes or been proven wrong -- and showing that we have the creativity and guts to make it right.

The argument for going to war with Iraq was based on intelligence that we now know was inaccurate. The information the American people were hearing from the president -- and that I was being given by our intelligence community -- wasn't the whole story. Had I known this at the time, I never would have voted for this war.

George Bush won't accept responsibility for his mistakes. Along with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, he has made horrible mistakes at almost every step: failed diplomacy; not going in with enough troops; not giving our forces the equipment they need; not having a plan for peace.

Because of these failures, Iraq is a mess and has become a far greater threat than it ever was. It is now a haven for terrorists, and our presence there is draining the goodwill our country once enjoyed, diminishing our global standing. It has made fighting the global war against terrorist organizations more difficult, not less.

The urgent question isn't how we got here but what we do now. We have to give our troops a way to end their mission honorably. That means leaving behind a success, not a failure. ...

...Military experts and strategic thinkers differ over whether the insurgency in Iraq can be quelled and a legitimate government stabilized on a timeline and a budget that the American people will support. Will it turn out to be "the greatest strategic disaster in our history," as retired Army Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, the Army's chief of intelligence and director of the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration, recently asserted? Or will it someday be seen as "a hard struggle" toward an eventual victory, albeit a struggle through "the crucible with the blood and the dust and the gore," as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers said in his final congressional testimony in September before retiring? Myers acknowledged that "we've made lots of mistakes along the way." But, he said, that was because "we are trying to do in Iraq what has never been done before."

But there is broad agreement now that if the United States salvages a victory in Iraq, it will come in spite of the initial war planning, not because of it. Rumsfeld's own advisory think tank, the Defense Science Board, took a long look at this issue last year and concluded that the architects of the Iraq war -- led by Rumsfeld -- lacked necessary knowledge of Iraq and its people, and that they failed to factor in well-known lessons of history.

"It is clear that Americans who waged the war and who have attempted to mold the aftermath have had no clear idea of the framework that has molded the personalities and attitudes of Iraqis," the board declared in a report bearing the official seal of the Department of Defense. "It might help if Americans and their leaders were to show less arrogance and more understanding of themselves and their place in history. Perhaps more than any other people, Americans display a consistent amnesia concerning their own past, as well as the history of those around them."

While it appears that most Jordanians have accepted that Mr. Zarqawi was involved - with many saying they are sickened by his actions - there is little criticism for those who scapegoat Israel. A former prime minister, Tahir Masri, who said it was clear that Israel was not involved in this attack, said he understood why so many people blame Israel.

"You have to understand, Baghdad was the capital for Arabs and Muslims for 1,000 years," Mr. Masri said. "It is occupied by Americans now. Jerusalem and Baghdad are both occupied. It is too much for ordinary people to bear. If you add to it the misery that people are facing because of the lack of democracy and humiliation by their rulers, that kind of scapegoat we have to have."

• 54% of Republicans happy with Alito ... Liberals unhappy by 40% to 16% ...
• "21% say their mid-term election vote will reflect support for the president, 39% say they'll be sending signal of opposition; amid 1998 Lewinsky scandal, just 23% said they'd be signaling opposition to Clinton."
• "Congress draws 57% disapproval, highest in nine years." ... "a 43% plurality of rural and small-town voters wants Democrats to control Congress. Republican Party is viewed negatively overall by 43% to 32% margin, but so are Democrats, 36% to 33%."
• Bush sporting "net negative approval ratings of seven percentage points among white men, 25 points among senior citizens, and 33 points among independents."
• "Six in 10, including 43% of Republicans, say there should be a public investigation and hearings into exposure of operative Valerie Plame's identity. ... Among conservatives, 60% say other administration officials aside from Libby may have acted illegally. Fully 69% of Americans hold Cheney personally responsible for the matter; 54% hold Bush responsible."
• "Better news for the president: 55% say administration has "taken the right course" on treatment of terror-war prisoners abroad, compared with 30% who say tactics have "gone too far.""
• Just a third want fast approval of immigrant guest-worker plan, blanket spending reduction, or making tax cuts permanent. (Emphasis WSJ's)
• "After publicity in CIA-leak case, White House adviser Rove has name recognition among almost two-thirds of Americans. Overall, his 35% negative rating dwarfs his 10% positive mark. Bush's 2004 supporters divide: 19% positive, 18% negative."

There's more stuff on the 2008 pretend presidential match-ups and more which you can read here. Enjoy.

Tags: News, politics, Bush, Republicans

Fifty-two percent of Americans believe Cheney “deliberately misused or manipulated pre-war intelligence about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities in order to build support for war,” including 22 percent of Republicans and 54 percent of independents.

Most worrisome for the White House: the base seems to be cracking. When asked whether anyone in the administration “acted unethically” in the case involving the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name, a 54-percent majority of Americans said they did—and 30 percent of Republicans said they did. And 45 percent of Americans believe someone in the “Bush administration broke the law and acted criminally”—including 22 percent of Republicans.

• Mongolia
• China
• Argentina
• Bolivia
• Iceland
• Malta
• San Marino (several)
• Guinea Bissau
• Philippines (2)
• Haiti
• Germany
• Nicaragua
• Ireland (2)
• Sri Lanka
• Guyana
• Swizerland
• Latvia
• Panama
• Finland

Prime Ministers:

• United Kingdom
• India
• Pakistan
• Sri Lanka (at least twice)
• Israel
• Central African Republic
• Portugal
• Dominica
• Norway
• Yugoslavia
• Lithuania
• Bangladesh
• France
• Poland
• Canada
• Turkey
• Burundi
• Rwanda
• Bulgaria
• Haiti
• Guyana
• New Zealand
• Mongolia
• Senegal
• South Korea
• Finland
• Peru
• Mozanbique
• Macedonia
• Ukraine

Neither:

• The United States

Yes, there are others, but it's still interesting ... Here's the complete list.

Tags: women, presidents

President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.

Neither assertion is wholly accurate.

The administration's overarching point is true: Intelligence agencies overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and very few members of Congress from either party were skeptical about this belief before the war began in 2003. Indeed, top lawmakers in both parties were emphatic and certain in their public statements.

But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions. [Wash Post, 11/11/05]

Chalabi Pushes Iran Card in Last Ditch Self-Promotion Offensive

Washington D.C. – Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi has been playing hard ball with Bush administration officials during his eight day trip to Washington D.C.

According to senior associates of the Iraqi official, who have accompanied him to meetings with Bush administration officials, Mr. Chalabi has been threatening his friends in the Bush administration that if they do not support his candidacy to become the next prime minister of Iraq that there will be no way to contain Iran. He has told them in no uncertain terms that he is the only one who can make the Iranians behave.

Such threats, whether accurate or not, ring sweetly in the ears of an administration desperately in search of solutions for a troubled region. Under harsh pressure from Israel’s Prime Minister Sharon to do something about Iran, the White House has approved a series of “highly intrusive and provocative’ intelligence operations against the government of Iran”, according to a highly placed official who formerly worked as an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency. These intelligence monitoring operations consist of everything from aerial surveillance missions that straddle Iranian airspace that are launched from Iraq and Kazakhstan, to even more controversial operations that shall remain nameless for the time being.

Last Monday, the Iranian government announced that it had found the wreckage of two U.S. unmanned spy planes. Iranian officials described the crash of a Shadow 200 RQ-7 drone in Ilam Province and of a Hermes drone in the Khoram Abad area of Iran. The Pentagon issued no comment to the Iranian claims.

Mr. Chalabi, a convicted embezzler in Jordan, is a known friend of Iran. He visited that country before arriving in Washington D.C. earlier this week. In his last ditch quest for power, Chalabi reiterated to U.S. officials that Iran’s unpredictable President Ahmadinejad may decide to play the oil card as a weapon against the United States. Specifically, he told them that President Ahmadinejad might team up with President Chavez of Venezuela, thereby withholding substantial amounts of oil from the international marketplace, as a means of driving up the price of a barrel of oil. At present, the United States relies on 7.4% of its petroleum products from Venezuela. Meanwhile, Iran provides 5% of all oil production globally. “If Iran and Venezuela decided to team up and squeeze the United States, Uncle Sam might have to scream uncle,” explained one of Chalabi’s friends.

Chalabi also took advantage of uneasiness within the Bush White House over Iran’s desire to manufacture a nuclear weapon. Though he acknowledged U.S. and European efforts to move Iran’s nuclear activities to Russia, he said he was the only one to convince Iran not to use uranium enrichment conversion for unsafe purposes.

The Bush administration knows Chalabi is a friend of Iran, perhaps too close of a friend, given that he is currently under investigation for passing vital U.S. intelligence secrets to Tehran. Nevertheless, much of what Mr. Chalabi has told his old friends in the Bush administration has pleased them. For example, he has talked openly here about the nature of the future government of Iraq, as to whether it should be Islamist or secular. This is a topic Washington and Iran are worlds apart on.

Furthermore, Chalabi also told Washington of the growing unhappiness in Tehran, among certain classes, with President Ahmadinejad. He reported that billions of dollars in capital has been removed from Iran and placed in banks in Dubai by fearful Iranians. In addition, he told U.S. officials about Iranian concerns over a poorly constructed Russian nuclear research reactor in Bushehr, Iran that Iranians fear may trigger another Chernobyl-like disaster. Lastly, he relayed the degree to which Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was growing increasingly unhappy with President Ahmadinejad.

In spite of Chalabi’s record as a double-dealer and a record of being an unreliable source, the Bush administration is becoming increasingly interested in backing a coalition government in Iraq that places Chalabi and former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, as the rightful leaders of that country.

"You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium and I say, 'Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds,' " O'Reilly said Tuesday on his radio show as San Franciscans were approving the two measures. Perhaps, he didn't realize that