washingtonpost.comSTATE OF DENIAL
Behind Public Optimism on Iraq, Administration Had Doubts

By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 1, 2006; Page A01

"We've made three tragic decisions," Garner told Rumsfeld at their meeting.

He cited the first two orders Bremer signed when he arrived, the first banning as many as 50,000 members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from government jobs and the second disbanding the Iraqi military. Now there were hundreds of thousands of disorganized, unemployed, armed Iraqis running around.

Third, Garner said, Bremer had summarily dismissed an interim Iraqi leadership group that had been eager to help the United States administer the country in the short term. "Jerry Bremer can't be the face of the government to the Iraqi people. You've got to have an Iraqi face for the Iraqi people," he said.

Garner made his final point: "There's still time to rectify this. There's still time to turn it around."

"They didn't see it coming," Garner added. "As the troops said, they drank the Kool-Aid."

Returning from a visit to Iraq, Robert D. Blackwill, the NSC's top official for Iraq, was deeply disturbed by what he considered the inadequate number of troops on the ground there. He told Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, her deputy, that the NSC needed to do a military review.

"If we have a military strategy, I can't identify it," Hadley said. "I don't know what's worse -- that they have one and won't tell us or that they don't have one."

"I give us a B-minus for policy development," he told a colleague on Feb. 5, 2005, "and a D-minus for policy execution."

On Feb. 10, 2005, two weeks after Rice became secretary of state, Zelikow presented her with a 15-page, single-spaced secret memo. "At this point Iraq remains a failed state shadowed by constant violence and undergoing revolutionary political change," Zelikow wrote.

In sum, he said, the United States' effort suffered because it lacked an articulated, comprehensive, unified policy.

In a column in The Washington Post on Aug. 12, 2005, titled "Lessons for an Exit Strategy," Kissinger wrote, "Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy."

He delivered the same message directly to Bush, Cheney and Hadley at the White House.

To emphasize his point, he gave Gerson a copy of a memo he had written to President Richard M. Nixon, dated Sept. 10, 1969.

"Withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public; the more U.S. troops come home, the more will be demanded," he wrote.

Card was enough of a realist to see that two negative aspects to Bush's public persona had come to define his presidency: incompetence and arrogance.

Continue Reading This Article...

View All Bookmarks - fc's Blog Control Panel

The Icons below will bookmark this post at the most popular Social Bookmark Sites

Tags ::  Politics · War In Iraq · Woodward · Bush · CHeney Administration

Senate OKs detainee interrogation bill

WASHINGTON - The Senate on Thursday endorsed President Bush's plans to prosecute and interrogate terror suspects, all but sealing congressional approval for legislation that Republicans intend to use on the campaign trail to assert their toughness on terrorism.

The 65-34 vote means the bill could reach the president's desk by week's end. The House passed nearly identical legislation on Wednesday and was expected to approve the Senate bill on Friday, sending it on to the White House.

Continue Reading This Article...

View All Bookmarks - fc's Blog Control Panel

The Icons below will bookmark this post at the most popular Social Bookmark Sites

Tags ::  Politics · Torture · Bush · CHeney Administration

Support the Confidence in Voting Act

The American people deserve an elections system that is beyond reproach -- a system where every vote counts and every vote is counted. That's why I urge you to support Senator Barbara Boxer's "Confidence in Voting Act" and ensure that it is passed before Congress adjourns this week.

Unfortunately, as we've seen in recent primary elections in Maryland, California, Georgia and other states, new electronic voting machines designed to make it easier for more people to vote are failing, and poll workers haven't been trained to use the new technology properly. Consequently, untold thousands of voters have been turned away from the polls or cast votes that weren't properly counted.

This is unacceptable in the United States of America. The "Confidence in Voting Act" is simple. It urges local jurisdictions to make paper ballots available at every polling place, so any voter who wants one can use one. What's more, this legislation defrays the cost by reimbursing local jurisdictions up to $.75 for each of these contingency paper ballots produced.

This is a win-win for local governments and for individual voters. The "Confidence in Voting Act" will make it easier for states to do the right thing in this November's election -- and it will make the American people more confident about the outcome.

I urge you to support Senator Boxer's "Confidence in Voting Act" and ensure that it passes before Congress adjourns in November.

View All Bookmarks - fc's Blog Control Panel

The Icons below will bookmark this post at the most popular Social Bookmark Sites

Tags ::  Politics · Vote · Vote 2006 · Confidence in Voting Act

Intel report:
Iraq a 'cause célèbre' for extremists

President says NIE leak was political, denies war has worsened terrorism

WASHINGTON - A declassified government intelligence report says the war in Iraq has become a 'cause célèbre' for Islamic extremists, breeding deep resentment of the U.S. that is likely to get worse before it gets better.

In the bleak report, released Tuesday on President Bush’s orders, the nation’s most veteran analysts conclude that despite serious damage to the leadership of al-Qaida, the threat from Islamic extremists has spread both in numbers and in geographic reach.

“If this trend continues, threats to U.S. interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide,” the document says. “The confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups.”

* The increased role of Iraqis in opposing al-Qaida in Iraq might lead the terror group’s veteran foreign fighters to focus their efforts outside the country.
* While Iran and Syria are the most active state sponsors of terror, many other countries will be unable to prevent their resources from being exploited by terrorists.
* The underlying factors that are fueling the spread of the extremist Muslim movement outweigh its vulnerabilities. These factors are entrenched grievances and a slow pace of reform in home countries, rising anti-U.S. sentiment and the Iraq war.
* Groups “of all stripes” will increasingly use the Internet to communicate, train, recruit and obtain support.

NIE pdf file     MSNBC Hardball :: videos

Ron Reagan :: Not safe. Not safer. Less safe.

View All Bookmarks - fc's Blog Control Panel

The Icons below will bookmark this post at the most popular Social Bookmark Sites

Tags ::  Politics · NIE · Iraq · Terrorism · Bush · Cheney Administration

Driving home a point with a big stiff finger in your face, pokin' ya here and there is enough to send hot salty þïšš running down both britches legs as faux boy found out the other day...   He will not soon forget that empty feeling in the pit of his stomach, the veins poppin' out on the side of his head and the fact that his little Šhït eating grin was just all he could muster...   in the face of the Big Dawg...

Few have ever felt the wrath of the Big Dawg up close and personal and you can bet your sweet Äšš those that have will never forget it.   Thanks to Big Dawg, the sound bites, multiple camera angles and videos and mp3's promulgated all over the internets, those who are brave enough to stand up and fight these evil republican ωhörëš in Washington D.C. will have plenty of trainin' film.

If you are like me and ya want to let Big Dawg know that we appreciate him tearing a few of 'um new Äššhölëš, then ease on over to this new blog and tell him yo'self that for the first time in a while, it feels good to be an American.   An American who will fight back and take no Šhït from a bunch of lilly-livered chicken-Šhït republican ωhörëš.

View All Bookmarks - fc's Blog Control Panel

The Icons below will bookmark this post at the most popular Social Bookmark Sites

Tags ::  Politics · Big Dawg · Bush · Cheney Administration