Category Archives: Iraq

Donald Rumsfeld tells the Council on Foreign Relations — the striped-pants elite, and not the province of fools — that “To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links” al Qaeda with Saddam Hussein. Then he gets back to the office, gets beat up, and says he was “misunderstood”.

What possessed Rumsfeld to tell the truth without thought of the Rovian consequences? Having done it, how was he whipped [in the political sense] into taking it back?

Or, perhaps, is this whole line of speculation mistaken? Perhaps Rumsfeld has some more basic and widespread psychological problem coping with, or denial of, reality?

Or, maybe Bushness is catching? If your Leader carries his own reality distortion field, there must be a powerful groupthink pressure to deny reality too. And there sure seems to be a lot of reality denial in this crew. Consider just this week's examples, the cases of Paul Bremer and of course Dr. Condoleezza Rice.

But the emperor really doesn't have any clothes….

New York Times: How the White House Embraced Disputed Iraqi Arms Intelligence—it seems the administration knew (or, for those who didn't read intelligence reports, should have known) that “the government’s foremost nuclear experts had concluded” that the aluminum tubes on which the administration based much of its claim that Iraq was trying to build nuclear weapons “were most likely not for nuclear weapons at all.” Oddly, though, CIA head George Tenet seems for a long time to have made no effort to learn about the views of his most expert subordinates, or to understand the reasons for their disagreement with the analysts favored by the White House.

I think that chunks of this article collate facts already in corners of the public record, e.g. the 9/11 commission report or previously-ignored and buried Washington Post reports, rather than breaking new ground. [Update: did the Daily Show scoop everyone?] Even so, in putting the pieces together into a narrative, the article paints a new and even more disturbing picture of a deeply dysfunctional administration. These guys shouldn’t be trusted with your dollar, must less your lives, fortunes, or sacred honors.

What a pity we didn’t get this article before the debate on international issues. Still, I suppose it’s fair game for the Vice-Presidential debate.

Guess who said this:

If Bush is re-elected, there are only two possible outcomes in Iraq:

• Four years from now, America will have 5,000 dead servicemen and women and an untold number of dead Iraqis at a cost of about $1 trillion, yet still be no closer to success than we are right now, or
• The U.S. will be gone, and we will witness the birth of a violent breeding ground for Shiite terrorists posing a far greater threat to Americans than a contained Saddam.

Nope. Not Howard Dean. Nope not Kerry or Edwards. Nope, not a politician. Not some wild-eyed radical. A military planner: MSNBC – 'Staying the Course' Isn't an Option brings you this radical thought from “Retired Air Force Col. Mike Turner” described as “a former military planner who served on the U.S. Central Command planning staff for operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.”

(ex-Pentagon spotted via Pandagon)

Quoted from uggabugga:

Remember June 28? Here is how PBS’ News Hour reported what happened that day: (emp add)

The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq transferred sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government two days ahead of schedule, in an effort to avert possible insurgent attacks.

The unexpected handover ceremony came at mid-morning Baghdad time, the middle of the night in the U.S. The event was convened hastily and secretly inside Baghdad’s heavily guarded green zone.

Sounds grim, doesn’t it? But here is what Bush had to say about it in today’s radio address: (emp add)

We’re making steady progress in implementing our five-step plan toward the goal we all want: completing the mission so that Iraq is stable and self-governing, and American troops can come home with the honor they have earned.

The first step was achieved on June 28th, not only on time, but ahead of schedule, when the coalition transferred full sovereignty to a government of Iraqi citizens.

Not only was it “ahead of schedule” but it was done in such a manner that the people in Baghdad were not inconvenienced. Since the handover was performed “secretly”, that meant no traffic jams or other problems that a public event would have caused. But somehow Bush failed to mention that this morning.

Is anyone prepared to defend this by arguing it depends on what the meaning of “lying” is?

The facts in the column may be substantively cribbed from innumerable blogs, but it has that trademark Dowd cattiness. And, oh yes, it's so true:

Dance of the Marionettes: It's heartwarming, really.

President Bush has his own Mini-Me now, someone to echo his every word and mimic his every action.

For so long, Mr. Bush has put up with caricatures of a wee W. sitting in the vice president's lap, Charlie McCarthy style, as big Dick Cheney calls the shots. But now the president has his own puppet to play with.

All last week in New York and Washington, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi of Iraq parroted Mr. Bush's absurd claims that the fighting in Iraq was an essential part of the U.S. battle against terrorists that started on 9/11, that the neocons' utopian dream of turning Iraq into a modern democracy was going swimmingly, and that the worse things got over there, the better they really were.

…

Every time the administration takes a step it says will reduce the violence, the violence increases.

Mr. Bush doesn't seem to care that by using Mr. Allawi as a puppet in his campaign, he decreases the prime minister's chances of debunking the belief in Iraq that he is a Bush puppet – which is the only way he can gain any credibility to stabilize his devastated country and be elected himself.

Actually, being the president's marionette is a step up from Mr. Allawi's old jobs as henchman for Saddam Hussein and stoolie for the C.I.A.

It's hilarious that the Republicans have trotted out Mr. Allawi as an objective analyst of the state of conditions in Iraq when he's the administration's handpicked guy and has as much riding on putting the chaos in a sunny light as they do. Though Mr. Allawi presents himself as representing all Iraqis, his actions have been devised to put more of the country in the grip of this latest strongman – giving himself the power to declare martial law, bringing back the death penalty and kicking out Al Jazeera.

Bush officials, who proclaim themselves so altruistic about bringing liberty to Iraq, really see Iraq in a creepy narcissistic way: It's all about Mr. Bush's re-election.

The only odd thing is that Dowd is surprised. With this crowd everything is about their re-election. It's part of why they are so dangerous. With the Reaganites you frequently believed that large swatches of policy might actually be dictated by some crazed belief they were good for the nation (not environmental policy, and arguably not Stockmanomics, but much defense and foreign policy at least).

The effort required for any well-informed person to hold that belief about this lot is much more than mere cognitive dissonance could describe. It needs at least a Marcuse to encompass it.

Josh Marshall has the perfect summary of Iyad Allawi's “state” visit to the US.

Talking Points Memo: Here we have a US-installed foreign head of state, whose travel schedule is determined by the US State Department, visiting the US to buoy the president's election campaign and spouting demonstrable lies in order to support a retrospective rationale for war that the White House wants Americans to believe but lacks the gall to state explicitly.

(As someone said, Bush has a 100% approval rating among foreign leaders he appointed.)