Category Archives: Iraq

Great compilation at The Democratic Party | It's Working? That Old Line Again?:

“The terrorists and the Baathists loyal to the old regime will fail because America and our allies have a strategy, and ours trategy is working.”
President Bush
November 1, 2003

“Our strategy is working.”
Vice President Cheney
September 28, 2004

“That's our strategy. And it is working and it is going to work, for the good of the country.”
President Bush
June 24, 2005

“Our strategy is working.”
White House's “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq”
November 30, 2005

“This approach is working.”
President Bush
December 7, 2005

“It is a concrete example of how our strategy is working.”
Frm. White House spokesman Scott McClellan
March 20, 2006

“It took time to understand and adjust to the brutality of the enemy in Iraq. Yet the strategy is working.”
President Bush
March 20, 2006

Expect to be worked over again next week when the White House issues its report under Gen. Petraeus's name.

boingboing reprints an allegation that Wesley Clark knew that the administration decided to attack Iraq (and several other countries) long, long before the actual invasion:

“About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, ‘Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.’ I said, ‘Well, you’re too busy.’ He said, ‘No, no.’ He says, ‘We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.’ This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, ‘We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘I guess they don’t know what else to do.’ So I said, ‘Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al Qaeda?’ He said, ‘No, no.’ He says, ‘There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.’ He said, ‘I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.’ And he said, ‘I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.’ So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, ‘Are we still going to war with Iraq?’ And he said, ‘Oh, it’s worse than that.’ He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, ‘I just got this from upstairs’—meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office—“today.” And he said, ‘This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.’ I said, ‘Is it classified?’ He said, ‘Yes, sir.’ I said, ‘Well, don’t show it to me.’ And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, ‘You remember that?’ He said, ‘Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!’”

Clark only told this story for the first time recently. If true, and if it wasn't just contingency planning but a real “go” order, didn't he have a duty to speak out much sooner?

Below I quote a very disturbing story from the Army of Dude blog by Alex Horton, a 22 year old from Frisco, Texas.

Last week I heard a story of official blackmail similar to this one from a friend who is a reserve officer regarding the treatment of some career officers he knows — so this blackmail isn't limited to the enlisted ranks.

Army of Dude: Happy Dependence Day!: Four years of war and this Army is a skeleton of its former self. Equipment is broken or obsolete, thousands are dead and wounded and many of us can’t wait to get off the Hindenburg. For awhile, deployments were kept to a year, with at least twelve months back home to recuperate, to get new equipment, to bury the dead. To keep the surge going, deployments have been extended to fifteen months to keep the year at home from shrinking down to nine or less months. The number of people getting out was devastating, so the Army needed a new plan to keep people in. New slogan and advertising campaign? Check. Stop loss program? Check. Bigger bonuses? Check. Guaranteeing non-deployable positions at training posts and recruiting stations, acknowledging people are scared stiff to go to Iraq? Check. Still the numbers are low. After watching too many 80s gang movies, someone thought of such a simple, foolproof idea: good ol’ fashioned blackmail.

Before we left Baghdad, the re-enlistment briefs got a little more disturbing. Instead of letting you know what a bum you’ll become if you leave the Army after your enlistment, they put it in simple terms: if you don’t re-enlist, you’ll be thrown in 5th Brigade, the Stryker unit on Ft. Lewis that was being stood up, and yes, they were deploying as soon as they could. So you might as well stay where your friends are and come back to Iraq with them. Otherwise, you’ll be taking your chances by getting your ass stop-lossed and sent to Iraq in as little as six months to a year after you returned. Better off with the sure thing. Here’s a pen, junior. If you got out after July 2008, you were screwed. I, on the other hand, was in the clear since I was getting out at the end of 2007. The options were re-enlist, extend to meet the unit’s needs, or take no action. I checked take no action, which meant my name would be added to the pool of possible candidates for 5th Brigade. No matter. It was of no consequence if I separated from the Army in 3rd or 5th Brigade. A lot of us were in that boat. Still, it spooked us that someone could come to us with a list and a smile and say in so many words that we were fucked into another deployment unless we added years to our contracts. In short, the thanks we got for serving our country was being forced into a game of Russian Roulette. Take the risk, pull the trigger. See what happens.

I suggest you tell this story the next time anyone dares suggest that anything short of calling for withdrawal amounts to “supporting the troops.”

Charles Pierce links the current Iraq debacle to our national failure to punish the people behind Iran-Contra—in part due to an earlier round of presidential pardons. There more than something to that, but I think it goes deeper.

Today's brazenly pardoned crimes may be linked to yesterday's brazenly pardoned crimes, but today's policy blunders have their roots a bit earlier: it was much worse for your career (both iin the bureaucracy and in the legislature) to be right too early about Vietnam than it was to be wrong too long. And too many people in DC have learned all those lessons all too well.

Four years ago, GW Bush told US attackers in Iraq to bring them on. And they did.

Since then, 3,372 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq, and tens of thousands more injured or wounded. (Details.) Not to mention the civilian death and destruction.

And for what, exactly?