Bush's Legacy - Iraq Reconstruction

This is un. Be. Lieveable. A new 513 page report on the history of the reconstruction of Iraq , or lack of, is about to be released with the New York Times obtaining an advance unpublished copy. The report basically states that the Pentagon's reconstruction efforts have been a complete failure. A complete $100 BILLION failure.

The history, the first official account of its kind, is circulating in draft form here and in Washington among a tight circle of technical reviewers, policy experts and senior officials. It also concludes that when the reconstruction began to lag — particularly in the critical area of rebuilding the Iraqi police and army — the Pentagon simply put out inflated measures of progress to cover up the failures.

In one passage, for example, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is quoted as saying that in the months after the 2003 invasion, the Defense Department “kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces — the number would jump 20,000 a week! ‘We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.’ ”

[...]

...In an illustration of the hasty and haphazard planning, a civilian official at the United States Agency for International Development was at one point given four hours to determine how many miles of Iraqi roads would need to be reopened and repaired. The official searched through the agency’s reference library, and his estimate went directly into a master plan.

[...]

...The history records how Mr. Garner presented Mr. Rumsfeld with several rebuilding plans, including one that would include projects across Iraq.

“What do you think that’ll cost?” Mr. Rumsfeld asked of the more expansive plan.

“I think it’s going to cost billions of dollars,” Mr. Garner said.

“My friend,” Mr. Rumsfeld replied, “if you think we’re going to spend a billion dollars of our money over there, you are sadly mistaken.”

In a way he never anticipated, Mr. Rumsfeld turned out to be correct: before that year was out, the United States had appropriated more than $20 billion for the reconstruction, which would indeed involve projects across the entire country.

Mr. Rumsfeld declined to comment on the history, but a spokesman, Keith Urbahn, said that quotes attributed to Mr. Rumsfeld in the document “appear to be accurate.” Mr. Powell also declined to comment.

I really, really wish I could say this is a surprise, but when the Bush government loses $8 billion in cash that was flown to Iraq on pallets, nothing is surprising anymore.

T Minus 195 Days

"I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I thnk, and, well, I assume it's what I said."

- Happy 76th Birthday Donald Rumsfeld

NY Times: Army Buried Study Faulting Iraq Planning

Michael Gordon reports that the RAND Corporation submitted a study in the summer of 2005 critical of and identifying problems with every organization or leader involved in the reconstruction of Iraq. The report was buried by the Army.

Asked why the report has not been published, Timothy Muchmore, a civilian Army official, said... “After carefully reviewing the findings and recommendations of the thorough RAND assessment, the Army determined that the analysts had in some cases taken a broader perspective on the early planning and operational phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom than desired or chartered by the Army... Some of the RAND findings and recommendations were determined to be outside the purview of the Army and therefore of limited value in informing Army policies, programs and priorities.”

In other words, the report was too detail-oriented to be of any use to the government. We don't want details. It just needed to state that all was well in the rabbit hole. Anything other than that could undermine the propaganda.

Could it also be due to the fact that the study was critical of George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and Gen. Tommy Franks?

One serious problem the study described was the Bush administration’s assumption that the reconstruction requirements would be minimal. There was also little incentive to challenge that assumption, the report said.
“Building public support for any pre-emptive or preventative war is inherently challenging, since by definition, action is being taken before the threat has fully manifested itself,” it said. “Any serious discussion of the costs and challenges of reconstruction might undermine efforts to build that support.”
Another problem described was a general lack of coordination. “There was never an attempt to develop a single national plan that integrated humanitarian assistance, reconstruction, governance, infrastructure development and postwar security,” the study said.

Lack of coordination? On only has to look at Hurricane Katrina and the FEMA fiasco to know that "lack of coordination" is the Bush administration's middle name. Besides, it's hard work to coordinate the running of a country when all coordination recources are being used for voter supression, firing US attorneys, rendition, torture, rigged elections and caging lists, not to mention the coordination of hiding the truth in any study done or report published (or not published) from the American public.

The Surge Protectors

If I hear one more politician or pundit or wingnut talk show host say the words, "The surge worked," my head is going to explode. It doesn't matter who says it or how many times it is repeated. THE SURGE DID. NOT. WORK. The surge is not working. The surge will never work.

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of President Bush's "surge" speech in which he laid out the ground work for troop escalation in Iraq , thinly disguising it by calling it a surge. Do you remember that fateful night? I certainly do. I was sitting on my living room couch, wondering what Raisinbrain was going to say. After all, the Democrats had just taken over in Congress after a stirring election in November of 2006, and it looked like we were turning the tide.

There was President Bush, looking all presidential in his purple polka dot tie, standing in front of a library of books he'd never read, that vacant stare in his eye. And then he said this: "The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people -- and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."

Whaaaa?! Holy shit! For the first time in six years, the man actually took responsibility for something. On national television. Did some left-wing operative secretly change the script on the teleprompter? Was this a speech, not calling for more of the same, not asking for the American people to continue to trust him, but actually admitting accountability? Could this be the turning point of a bad administration gone mediocre?

Wait, he wasn't finished: "So America will change our strategy to help the Iraqis carry out their campaign to put down sectarian violence and bring security to the people of Baghdad. This will require increasing American force levels. So I've committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq."

What happened next remains a fuzzy mystery. I think I knocked myself out for a few seconds because my jaw hit the floor. Literally. I can still see the indentation of my chin on the living room floor. Ah, memories.

I did wake up just in time to hear this: "I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people..."

Well at least he got something right. Not the "open-ended" thing, the "support" thing. And there was Bush listing the conditions for the Iraqi government to adhere to if they wanted our continued support:

- Iraqi government must establish authority by taking responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November

- pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis

- spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs

- empower local leaders by holding provincial elections later this year

- reform de-Baathification laws and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution

-deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad's nine districts for a total of 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades

That was one year ago yesterday. Let's see, check, check, check, check, check and... check. In one year, the Iraqi government has accomplished NONE of those benchmarks.

President Bush was basically giving cover to Iraq with our troops. We needed to give them more time to secure Iraq and lead them towards the path of political reconciliation. That has not happened. Therefore, the surge has NOT worked. The surge has FAILED.

And now John "100 Years in Iraq" McCain and Holy Joe "Bomb Iran" LIEberman write an op-ed piece in the Murdoch Street Journal titled... wait for it... "The Surge Worked." (Boom!)

Here are a couple of tidbits from that stellar article:

"...conditions in that country have been utterly transformed from those of a year ago, as a consequence of the surge."
Well, how the hell can you argue with that?

"...Sunni Arabs who once constituted the insurgency's core of support in Iraq have been empowered to rise up against the suicide bombers and fanatics in their midst..."
Could that be because we're paying them?

"...violence across the country has dropped dramatically..."
Well, when there's no one left to kill due to ethnic cleansing and with over 4 million Iraqi refugees since the war started, it's not a surprise that violence has dropped. And let's not get carried away with that drop. As Thomas Ricks stated on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night, "I think Iraqis recognize that large parts of Baghdad are more peaceful than they were, but violence is basically back to 2005 levels. And that was no picnic, 2005; it's just that 2006 was pure hell."

"As the surge should have taught us by now, troop numbers matter in Iraq."
We knew that from the beginning. So did Generals Shinseki and Zinni. Remember General Shinseki? He was forced to resign after disagreements with the greatest defense secretary ever, Donald Rumsfeld.

So the next time someone tells you "the surge worked," maybe you could explain to them that the whole point of the ESCALATION was to give the Iraqi puppet government time to get its shit together, which hasn't happened, and will never happen while we are still there. Use the list of unattained benchmarks above as talking points. Help them understand that a falsehood repeated over an over doesn't make it true.

Or better yet, just punch them in the mouth and walk away. You'll probably feel better.

Oh, and by the way Wall Street Fucking Journal: stop calling LIEberman and "Independent Democrat." There's no such thing. Either you are a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent, a Libertarian, a Constitutionalist, a Green, a Socialist, a Communist, etc. There is no "Independent Democrat" Party. It doesn't fucking exist! And if it did, LIEberman would be kicked out of that one too!

Johann Hari: Ship of Fools

Hate to the nth degree. I knew there are people like this out there, but this is staggering. This article is a must read for all of us.

EXCERPT:

The Iraq war has been an amazing success, global warming is just a myth – and as for Guantanamo Bay, it's practically a holiday camp... The annual cruise organised by the 'National Review', mouthpiece of right-wing America, is a parallel universe populated by straight-talking, gun-toting, God-fearing Republicans.

I am standing waist-deep in the Pacific Ocean, both chilling and burning, indulging in the polite chit-chat beloved by vacationing Americans. A sweet elderly lady from Los Angeles is sitting on the rocks nearby, telling me dreamily about her son. "Is he your only child?" I ask. "Yes," she says. "Do you have a child back in England?" she asks. No, I say. Her face darkens. "You'd better start," she says. "The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they'll have the whole of Europe."

It only gets better.

War in Iraq - 4th Anniversary

With the 4th anniversary of the official start of the War in Iraq, and as of this writing, 3,217 American soldiers dead, 32,544 wounded, approximately 650,000 Iraqi dead, and an estimated cost to date of almost $500 billion, I thought it would be fitting to go back and quote the thoughts of some of our fearless leaders in the war on terror.

*September 17, 2001-
President George W. Bush on Osama bin Laden: "I want justice. And there's an old poster out West… I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive.'"

* March 14, 2002-
Bush on Osama bin Laden: "I truly am not that concerned about him."

* Feb. 7, 2003-
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: "It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."

* Feb. 27, 2003-
Rumsfeld: "What is, I think, reasonably certain is the idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far from the mark."

* March 4, 2003-
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz: "The notion that it would take several hundred thousand American troops just seems outlandish."

* March 16, 2003-
Vice President Cheney, on NBC's Meet the Press: "I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . . I think it will go relatively quickly, . . . (in) weeks rather than months."

* April 23, 2003-
USAID Director Andrew Natsios: "In terms of the American taxpayers contribution, [$1.7 billion] is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries and Iraqi oil revenues...The American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this."

* May 1, 2003-
President Bush: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

* June 14, 2003-
Cheney: "...I think has been fairly significant success in terms of putting Iraq back together again and certainly wouldn't lead me to suggest or think that the strategy is flawed or needs to be changed."

* June 20, 2005-
Cheney: "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

Saddam's Done By Saturday

From the AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein will be executed no later than Saturday, said an Iraqi judge authorized to attend his hanging. The former dictator's lawyers said he had been transferred from U.S. custody, but an Iraqi official said he was still in the hands of American guards.


And there you have it. Hussein will be executed. No interviews. No "tell all" book from prison. Maliki signed the death sentence, by Iraqi law. Oh, by the way, if he had refused to sign it, one of the two Iraqi vice presidents could have signed it. Oh yeah, if they also refused to sign it, Saddam would have been executed anyway. Nice law, huh?

He was officially guilty of this: An Iraqi appeals court upheld Saddam's death sentence Tuesday for the killing of 148 people who were detained after an attempt to assassinate him in the northern Iraqi city of Dujail in 1982.

1982? But that was before this:


Yes, that is Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam Hussein's hand in December of 1983, over a year after the crime for which he was convicted. When we have use for them, they are our allies, but when they know too much...