Tribute

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Omar Mora and Yance Gray have died in Iraq, just weeks after they contributed to a powerful op-ed in the NYT. In tribute to their lives, I think it only appropriate to return to their op-ed, which offers a far more honest assessment of progress in Iraq than the Petraeus and Crocker dog-and-pony show. Mora, Gray, and their colleagues call for an assessment of progress in Iraq from the perspective of Iraqi civilians, not from an American-centered perspective.

Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from anAmerican-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observersto safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not aresounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of thelocal citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we takethis view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasinglyinsecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to producenormalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as wecontinue to arm each warring side.

They point out that the foundation of recent successes in Anbar Province–alliances with Sunni tribes–does not guarantee enduring loyalty.

However, while creating proxies is essential in winning acounterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies Read more →

Invite Admiral Fallon to Tell Us if We’re Safer

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You’ve no doubt heard that General Petraeus has no fucking clue whether sustaining the surge and succeeding in Iraq will make us safer. (To some degree, this is appropriate, because his command is limited to Iraq, and his job is to do the best job in Iraq he can.) You’ve also probably heard that some at the Pentagon have their own plan to get us out of the Iraq, fast.

NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared bya Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’srecommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoingdiscussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity.An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and isexpected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommenda very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of theexisting force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.” Thestrategy will involve unwinding the still large U.S. presence in bigforward operation bases and putting smaller teams in outposts. “Thereis interest at senior levels [of the Pentagon] in getting alternativeviews” to Petraeus, the official said. Among others, Centcom commanderAdmiral William Fallon is known to want to draw down faster Read more →

Holy Joe Bewails Free Speech

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Petraeus8_3MoveOn has a hot new ad in today’s NYT pointing out that Petraeus’ statements differ from all the known metrics out there. And boy has it made Sanctimonious Joe pissed. Not surprisingly, Joe is trying to call in those chits he got for agreeing to caucus with the Democrats in January.

The personal attack on Gen. David Petraeus launched today byMoveon.org is an outrageous and despicable act of slander that everymember of the Congress — Democrat and Republican — has a solemnresponsibility to condemn.

General Petraeus has served hiscountry honorably and selflessly for over thirty-five years. He hasrisked his life in combat and accepted lengthy deployments away fromhis family to defend our nation and its citizens from its enemies. Forthis, he deserves the respect, admiration, and gratitude of everyAmerican — not the disgraceful slander of Moveon.org.

Ithas been widely reported that Moveon.org has worked closely over thepast months with many members of the Democratic Party in coordinatingtheir efforts to derail the strategy that General Petraeus has beenleading in Iraq.

[snip]

As a member of the Senate Democratic caucus, I therefore call on SenateMajority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi todenounce Moveon.org in no uncertain terms for its Read more →

War and Propaganda Council

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BushCo says that–since they haven’t seen Petraeus in a week–they clearly couldn’t have given him a script for today’s hearing.

The White House and its allies on Capitol Hill have pushed back hard atthis critique. Administration officials said they are not directing orreviewing the testimony of Petraeus and Crocker. A senior militaryofficial close to Petraeus said the general’s congressional testimonyhas not been provided to the White House or the Pentagon "and the first time all will hear it will be in the hearing Monday."

White House officials acknowledge that they know the key elements ofthe Petraeus-Crocker assessment and recommendations. President Bushheard Petraeus and Crocker outline their main points in two lengthysessions — one by videoconference on Aug. 31, the other when he metthe two at an air base in Anbar province on Labor Day. Bush and Petraeus have not spoken since then.

"We’re not by any means in the dark," said one senior administration official, who would only speak on background. [my emphasis]

To which I’ll just recall what Pat Lang had to say about the trip to Anbar.

I note that the president’s travel party to AssadAir base in Anbar Province includes; Gates, Rice, Pace, Fallon, Lute,Hadley.  There, he will, of course, see Petraeus Read more →

The Hunt for Oil

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Does it surprise you that the first company to sign an oil deal with Iraqi Kurds is Hunt Oil, a company with very close ties to Bush and our country’s intelligence infrastructure?

Texas’ Hunt Oil Co. and Kurdistan’s regional government saidSaturday they’ve signed a production-sharing contract for petroleumexploration in northern Iraq, the first such deal since the Kurdspassed their own oil and gas law in August.A Hunt subsidiary,Hunt Oil Co. of the Kurdistan Region, will begin geological survey andseismic work by the end of 2007 and hopes to drill an exploration wellin 2008, the parties said in a news release.

Nope. It doesn’t surprise me, either. But I am interested in what it portends for long-term plans in Iraq.

First, some background. The Hunt family that owns Hunt Oil (it’s privately held, so we don’t get to scrutinize financial statements) is one of the big money Texas donors behind the Bush family political empire. Ray Hunt, the current chair of the company, is also on the board of Halliburton and the King Ranch, meaning he probably knows to duck when he goes quail hunting with Dick Cheney. Hunt is also on the board of trustees for Shrub’s new presidential library, which has Read more →

They Won’t Put Their Lies in Writing

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Well, I guess that’ll make it harder to prosecute General Petraeus for lying to Congress.

In the latest twist to the ongoing saga over the Petraeus White House report, a senior military official tells the Washington Times today that there will actually be no report at all:

A senior military officer said there will be nowritten presentation to the president on security and stability inIraq. “There is no report. It is an assessment provided by them bytestimony,” the officer said.

The only hard copy will be Gen. Petraeus’ opening statement toCongress, scheduled for Monday, along with any charts he will use inexplaining the results of the troop surge in Baghdad over the pastseveral months.

[snip]

While Petraeus’ statement to Congress will be made available,the public will not know what information he is providing to PresidentBush. The lack of transparency over Petraeus’ “report” will onlyintensify the high level of skepticism surrounding his statistics.

UPDATE: In a recent hearing, Sen. Norm Coleman(R-MN) said he recently met with Gen. Petraeus and was shown “thedata.” Coleman said the data is “very clear about a reduction inviolence. General Petraeus has those charts,” Coleman explained. Apparently, those charts will not be for public consumption.

You see, I’m sure if we had those Read more →

Our Latest Rent-a-Thuggish-Sheikh in Iraq

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Bush_and_risha_2I have little wisdom to add to this Abu Aardvark post, but I wanted to make sure people saw it:

It’s kind of lost in the shuffle of the coming battle over thevarious Iraq reports, but I find myself morbidly fascinated by thephotos and reports which have circulated in the Iraqi press aboutBush’s meeting in Anbar with the controversial head of the AnbarSalvation Council Sattar Abu Risha.   The pictures themselves speakvolumes:  look at Bush’s shit-eating grin and Abu Risha’s detachedcontempt, and figure out which is the supplicant in this scenario. 

An hour with Bush was really quite a coup for Sattar Abu Risha.   The head of the Anbar Salvation Council has a rather unsavory reputation as one of the shadiest figures inthe Sunni community, and as recently as June was reportedly on his way out.  As a report in Time described him,

Sheikh Sattar, whose tribe is notorious for highway banditry, is alsobuilding a personal militia, loyal not to the Iraqi government but onlyto him. Other tribes — even those who want no truck with terrorists —complain they are being forced to kowtow to him. Those who refuse riskbeing branded as friends of al-Qaeda and tossed in jail, or worse. Read more →

Or Maybe O’Hanlon Is the New Judy Miller

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Because for the life of me, I can’t understand how taking an "overly rigorous approach to the numbers" makes one "sloppy."

Yet according to Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policystudies at the Brookings Institution who has closely followedstatistics on Iraq for years, the average number of daily attacks onIraqi civilians and US/allied forces has declined from 160 in August2006 to 120 in August 2007.

The GAO’s data may not reflect the downwardtrend experienced last month, says Mr. O’Hanlon. During his recent tourthrough Iraq, he adds, every local briefing he received from the USmilitary said that attacks in that particular sector were down.

In addition, for the GAO to decline to judge whether attacks are sectarian or not is to take an overly rigorous approach to the numbers, says the Brookings expert.      

"I just think they were flat-out sloppy," he says of GAO.

Doesn’t taking a rigorous approach with numbers make you meticulous, as opposed to sloppy? (HT TP)

General Petraeus Is the New Judy Miller

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General Petraeus, lying to Congress is a crime.

Let’s just repeat that fact over and over. Because that’s what Petraeus is planning on doing on Monday, as Karen DeYoung (in an article buried on page A16) explains clearly. Go read the whole article, closely, for a description of the many methods of the Administration’s hocus pocus. But I’d like to focus on one particular tactic.

Reductions in violence form the centerpiece of the Bushadministration’s claim that its war strategy is working. Incongressional testimony Monday, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to cite a 75 percent decrease in sectarian attacks.

[snip]

When Petraeus told an Australian newspaper last week that sectarianattacks had decreased 75 percent "since last year," the statistic wasquickly e-mailed to U.S. journalists in a White House fact sheet. Asked for detail, MNF-I said that "last year" referred to December 2006, when attacks spiked to more than 1,600.

By March, however — before U.S. troop strength was increased underBush’s strategy — the number had dropped to 600, only slightly lessthan in the same month last year. That is about where it has remainedin 2007, with what MNF-I said was a slight increase in April and May"but Read more →

No Senators Knew

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There are a number of details that make Sidney Blumenthal’s latest appear to be a happy coincidence of timing. Just after Bush biographer Robert Draper reports that Bush still claims to have believed–in April 2006–that Iraq had WMD, Blumenthal comes out with an article tying up a lot of loose ends on Saddam Hussein’s Foreign Minister, Naji al-Sabri, proving Bush was briefed that Saddam did not have WMD.

On Sept. 18, 2002,CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office ontop-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons ofmass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bushdismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreignminister, a member of Saddam’s inner circle, although it turned out tobe accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.

But I think the timing may not be so coincidental. First, on Monday, General Petraeus will get up to make his version of Colin Powell’s UN speech. Petraeus will present information that is, even now, known to be false. Blumenthal’s article reminds of that Powell speech prominently.