The Decider on Iran

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Aside from the boorishness of discussing more war with bread crumbs all over your chin, Bush’s pathetic simplification of our relationship with Iran–in a monologue he calls "strategic thinking"–is pretty alarming, even coming from Bush.

"The job of the president," he continued, through an ample wad of breadand sausage, "is to think strategically so that you can accomplish bigobjectives. As opposed to playing mini-ball. You can’t play mini-ballwith the influence we have and expect there to be peace. You’ve gottathink, think BIG. The Iranian issue," he said as bread crumbs tumbledout of his mouth and onto his chin, "is the strategic threat right nowfacing a generation of Americans, because Iran is promoting an extremeform of religion that is competing with another extreme form ofreligion. Iran’s a destabilizing force. And instability in that part ofthe world has deeply adverse consequences, like energy falling in thehands of extremist people that would use it to blackmail the West. Andto couple all of that with a nuclear weapon, then you’ve got adangerous situation. … That’s what I mean by strategic thought.

Okay. The Iranian issue is the strategic threat facing this generation of Americans. As opposed to, say, China? Because, while I don’t advocate bombing the Read more →

GAO Report: The Status of the Dispute

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Okay, here’s the Karen DeYoung report I was so impatient for yesterday. She lays out mostly the changes that I found here, ThinkProgress found here, and NSN found here.

A bleak portrait of the political and security situation in Iraq released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office sparked sharp protests from the top U.S. military command in Baghdad, whose officials described it as flawed and "factually incorrect."

The controversy followed last-minute changes made in the final draft of the report after the Defense Departmentmaintained that its conclusions were too harsh and insisted that someof the information it contained — such as the extent of a fall in thenumber of Iraqi army units capable of operating without U.S. assistance– should not appear in the final, unclassified version.

The GAO rejected several changes proposed by the Pentagonand concluded that Iraq had failed to meet all but two of nine securitygoals Congress had set as part of a list of 18 benchmarks of progress.But grades for two of the seven unmet security benchmarks — theelimination of havens for militia forces and the deployment of threeIraqi army brigades to assist the U.S. security plan in Baghdad — wererecast to reflect partial progress. Two other benchmarks, one politicaland one economic, were also described as "partially met." [my emphasis]

If I’m reading the bolded paragraph correctly, it says the military succeeded in burying the details about how few Iraqi army units can operate on their own; it was evident that the GAO had changed this benchmark from failing to mostly failing partial success, but I guess the actual numbers are even more damning than the Gentleman’s C grade on it is.

Still Holding My Breath for DeYoung and Ricks

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[Update: Here’s DeYoung’s take.]

So I’ve been holding my breath to see what Karen DeYoung and Tom Ricks had to say about today’s GAO report. After all, they were leaked the draft report last week, and they anticipated that BushCo might "soften" the report. Since there are clear signs the Administration did just that, I have been eagerly waiting for them to give us a catalog of the changes the Administration forced the GAO to make.

But I’m still holding my breath.

After posting soley the AP report for hours after the other mainstream outlets had posted their own stories, the WaPo is up with it’s own account finally. Only it’s not by DeYoung or Ricks.

Instead, we get an amazingly vanilla account of Comptroller General David Walker’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, without even a treatment of Walker’s suggestion that Petraeus is cooking the books.

For the moment, I’ll just assume I’m being impatient, that DeYoung or Ricks will have a full reporting comparing the two reports–and pointing out the clear spin–tomorrow. But I do hope they write this story before the Bush counter-campaign begins.

The GAO Report Busts the Administration in Its Lies

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I’m anxiously waiting the WaPo’s analysis of today’s GAO report. You’ll recall the WaPo reported last week that someone had liberated a copy of the GAO to prevent BushCO from "softening" its conclusions. But the numbers suggest that some of the conclusions were softened: whereas on Thursday, the WaPo reported Iraq had met three and partially met two of the benchmarks, the GAO has since added two more partially met objectives–on not providing a safe haven for outlaws, and on preparing three Iraqi brigades in Baghdad. In other words, over the weekend, Bush squeezed two more gentleman’s C’s out of the GAO.

More interesting still is the chart on page 12, which shows why Bush tried so hard to get GAO to give it some more passing grades. That chart shows shows how much more generous BushCo was in its July 2007 assessment. How else to explain that in July, BushCo found that Iraq had made satisfactory progress on eight benchmarks, whereas today’s softened GAO report finds that Iraq has made satisfactory progress on only three. And BushCo gave Iraq more positive grades than GAO did on two other benchmarks.

The GAO has quantified just how much lying Bush has already been Read more →

War Council

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If you haven’t already read Pat Lang on Bush’s surprise visit to Iraq today, do so now. For whatever PR value BushCo is trying to milk out of this visit (here’s C&L with coverage), Lang is persuasive that the chief reason for the visit is to bring his war cheerleaders together to develop a game plan for the next few weeks.

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 and Crocker as well. Anyone else of note? Any AEIers? Sounds like a council of war to me. Nice and isolated, minimal press interference and possibility ofoperational security planning breach.  Well thought out.  This will bea good place to get everyone "on board" and to coordinate tactics forthe Petraeus/Crocker show to come.

I’d love to know the answer to the questions Lang lays out. Learning who else attended this meeting would tell us a lot about ongoing strategy. Did they really have this meeting without anyone from OVP? For the record, I’m not entirely sure Hadley attended, though he could be considered an OVP mole if he did. And the WaPo quoted Ed Gillespie Read more →

Good Enough for Our Children, But Not Bush’s Vanity War

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I made the point this morning that the whole premise of No Child Left Behind is that, by determining whether every school–and every child–was passing or failing, you could require improvements on the schools.

Well, not surprisingly, Bush is unwilling to undergo the same kind of tough scrutiny that the six year olds in our nation’s schools undergo:

Stung by the bleakfindings of a congressional audit of progress in Iraq, the Pentagon hasasked that some of the negative assessments be revised, a militaryspokesman said Thursday.

[snip]

At the White House,officials argued that the GAO report, which was required by legislationPresident Bush signed last spring, was unrealistic because it assigned“pass or fail” grades to each benchmark, rather than assessingwhether the Iraqis have made progress toward reaching the benchmarkgoals.

"A bar was set so high, that it was almost not to be able to be met,” White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.

I don’t know which is more tempting–to point out the failure of the NCLB logic, so we can get funding for the borderline schools that are improving but not "passing." Or to force the NCLB logic onto Bush’s failure of a war so we can bring our men and women home?

The Report Liberation Review Process

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Remember back when someone liberated the Office of Special Counsel report finding Lurita Doan had violated the Hatch Act? I speculated that someone had liberated the report to prevent it from getting watered down in the review process.

I’ll bet Doan and her lawyer are pissed this report got leaked–kudosto whatever person in OPC liberated this report, which was provided toat least the WaPo and LAT. As the report notes, only President Bush canimplement the recommendation of the report, which is to fire Doan. Anybets on whether, by leaking the report, the chances are greater thatDoan will actually be canned for her illegal political activities?

Well, the propaganda has gotten so thick that now, when people liberate reports to ensure their harsh conclusions see the light of day, they tell you they are doing so. At least that’s what has happened with the GAO report finding that the Iraq effort has filed to reach most benchmarks.

A GAO spokesman declined to comment on the report before it is released. The 69-page draft, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is still undergoing review at the Defense Department,which may ask that parts of it be classified or request changes in itsconclusions. Read more →

The NIE: Iraq to Split in Three States

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Okay, that’s not precisely the conclusion the new NIE in Iraq draws. But it is the logical outcome of the key judgments its gives. Here are some key points, taken totally out of the context of the report, but which are otherwise direct quotes:

  • The IC assesses that the emergence of “bottom-up” security initiatives, principally among Sunni Arabs and focused on combating AQI, represent the best prospect for improved security over the next six to 12 months, but we judge these initiatives will only translate into widespread political accommodation and enduring stability if the Iraqi Government accepts and supports them. A multi-stage process involving the Iraqi Government providing support and legitimacy for such initiatives could foster over the longer term political reconciliation between the participating Sunni Arabs and the national government. We also assess that under some conditions “bottom-up initiatives” could pose risks to the Iraqi Government.
  • Such initiatives, if not fully exploited by the Iraqi Government, could over time also shift greater power to the regions, undermine efforts to impose central authority, and reinvigorate armed opposition to the Baghdad government.
  • The polarization of communities is most evident in Baghdad, where the Shia are a clear majority in more than half of all Read more →

House GOP Mutiny

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We’ve been hearing inklings of a BushCo plan for a veerrrrryyy slooowwww draw-down of troops. Scott Horton explains the reasoning more clearly than "serious" journalists would.

A major point driving the move has been the Congressional G.O.P. Bushwas told that if he pushed a straight continuation of the Surgestrategy after this fall, he would lose most of the CongressionalG.O.P. One senior Republican Congressional figure is said to have toldhim that the G.O.P. would be “committing suicide” if it went into the2008 elections with the Iraq War as the lead issue and no draw-down insight. Bush has been assured that he can hold the G.O.P. in Congresstogether with an extended, slow paced draw-down.

Now, I’m not surprised, nor will I be surprised when Duncan boasts of telling me so when this proposed draw-down turns into a mirage that gets vetoed by Dick.

But I do find it curious that Rove leaves–all the while promising glorious success in Iraq. Republicans–even Fox News–is surprisingly and publicly gleeful at his departure. And all of a sudden news of a draw-down is floated.

It would be logical for the Republican House to start demanding some changes, after their big losses last year. I guess the GOP Senate has already Read more →

It’s Going to Be One Heckova Political Year in Football

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Just a few weeks away, too! I can’t wait to turn the satellite back on.

It’s going to be an interesting year in football. Not only have the Patriots loaded up on targets for Tom Brady. But the following issues have arisen since the end of last season:

  • Keith Olbermann will be returning to sportscasting in NBC’s Sunday night prime time slot. He’s not likely to be overtly political–though I do hope it’ll get Joe Sixpack to consider tuning into his show. Olbermann will be accompanied by the conservative but very very pretty Tiki Barber, so the show has something for every … woman, at least.
  • A number of veterans are trying to get the NFL to help get documents relating to Pat Tillman’s death. In any case, the ongoing controversy with the Administration’s cover-up of the real reasons for Tillman’s death might begin to attract some Joe Sixpack  attention as the season gets into gear.
  • George Bush has appointed the gay-hating (but brilliant) Tony Dungy to a Presidential Council.

Hopefully, that last item, tied to Bush’s disappearing support, will convince Americans everywhere that the Colts are not America’s team.

Which is my way of warning you all that there might be an undue Read more →