posted on June 12, 2005 06:06:52 AM new
A briefing paper prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers eight months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq concluded that the U.S. military was not preparing adequately for what the British memo predicted would be a "protracted and costly" postwar occupation of that country.
The eight-page memo, written in advance of a July 23, 2002, Downing Street meeting on Iraq, provides new insights into how senior British officials saw a Bush administration decision to go to war as inevitable, and realized more clearly than their American counterparts the potential for the post-invasion instability that continues to plague Iraq.
In its introduction, the memo "Iraq: Conditions for Military Action" notes that U.S. "military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace," but adds that "little thought" has been given to, among other things, "the aftermath and how to shape it."
Precursor to Downing Street Memo
The July 21 memo was produced by Blair's staff in preparation for a meeting with his national security team two days later that has become controversial on both sides of the Atlantic since last month's disclosure of official notes summarizing the session.
In those meeting minutes — which have come to be known as the Downing Street Memo — British officials who had just returned from Washington said Bush and his aides believed war was inevitable and were determined to use intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and his relations with terrorists to justify invasion of Iraq.
The "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," said the memo — an assertion attributed to the then-chief of British intelligence, and denied by U.S. officials and by Blair at a news conference with Bush last week in Washington. Democrats in Congress led by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), however, have scheduled an unofficial hearing on the matter for Thursday.
‘Benefits/Risks’
Now, disclosure of the memo written in advance of that meeting — and other British documents recently made public — show that Blair's aides were not just concerned about Washington's justifications for invasion but also believed the Bush team lacked understanding of what could happen in the aftermath.
In a section titled "Benefits/Risks," the July 21 memo states, "Even with a legal base and a viable military plan, we would still need to ensure that the benefits of action outweigh the risks."
Saying that "we need to be sure that the outcome of the military action would match our objective," the memo's authors point out, "A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise." The authors add, "As already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point. Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden."
That memo and other internal British government documents were originally obtained by Michael Smith, who writes for the London Sunday Times. Excerpts were made available to The Washington Post, and the material was confirmed as authentic by British sources who sought anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter.
Trail of miscalculations
The Bush administration's failure to plan adequately for the postwar period has been well-documented. The Pentagon, for example, ignored extensive State Department studies of how to achieve stability after an invasion, administer a postwar government and rebuild the country. And administration officials have acknowledged the mistake of dismantling the Iraqi army and canceling pensions to its veteran officers — which many say hindered security, enhanced anti-U.S. feeling and aided what would later become a violent insurgency.
Testimony by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the chief architects of Iraq policy, before a House subcommittee on Feb. 28, 2003, just weeks before the invasion, illustrated the optimistic view the administration had of postwar Iraq. He said containment of Hussein the previous 12 years had cost "slightly over $30 billion," adding, "I can't imagine anyone here wanting to spend another $30 billion to be there for another 12 years." As of May, the Congressional Research Service estimated that Congress has approved $208 billion for the war in Iraq since 2003.
The British, however, had begun focusing on doubts about a postwar Iraq in early 2002, according to internal memos.
A March 14 memo to Blair from David Manning, then the prime minister's foreign policy adviser and now British ambassador in Washington, reported on talks with then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. Among the "big questions" coming out of his sessions, Manning reported, was that the president "has yet to find the answers . . . [and] what happens on the morning after."
The big question’
About 10 days later, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw wrote a memo to prepare Blair for a meeting in Crawford, Tex., on April 8. Straw said "the big question" about military action against Hussein was, "how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be any better," as "Iraq has no history of democracy."
Straw said the U.S. assessments "assumed regime change as a means of eliminating Iraq's WMD [weapons of mass destruction] threat. But none has satisfactorily answered how that regime change is to be secured and how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be any better."
Later in the summer, the postwar doubts would be raised again, at the July 23 meeting memorialized in the Downing Street Memo. Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, the British intelligence service, reported on his meetings with senior Bush officials. At one point, Dearlove said, "There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman, appearing June 5 on "Meet the Press," disagreed with Dearlove's remark. "I think that there was clearly planning that occurred."
Persistent doubts
The Blair government, unlike its U.S. counterparts, always doubted that coalition troops would be uniformly welcomed, and sought U.N. participation in the invasion in part to set the stage for an international occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, said British officials interviewed recently. London was aware that the State Department had studied how to deal with an invasion's aftermath. But the British government was "shocked," in the words of one official, "when we discovered that in the postwar period the Defense Department would still be running the show."
The Downing Street Memo has been the subject of debate since the London Sunday Times first published it May 1. Opponents of the war say it proved the Bush administration was determined to invade months before the president said he made that decision.
Neither Bush nor Blair has publicly challenged the authenticity of the July 23 memo, nor has Dearlove spoken publicly about it. One British diplomat said there are different interpretations.
Last week, it was the subject of questions posed to Blair and Bush during the former's visit to Washington.
Asked about Dearlove being quoted as saying that in the United States, intelligence was being "fixed around the policy" of removing Hussein by military action, Blair said, "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all." He then went on to discuss the British plan, outlined in the memo, to go to the United Nations to get weapons inspectors back into Iraq.
Bush said he had read "characterizations of the memo," pointing out that it was released in the middle of Blair's reelection campaign, and that the United States and Britain went to the United Nations to exhaust diplomatic options before the invasion.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
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President George Bush: "Over time the truth will come out."
President George Bush: "Our people are going to find out the truth, and the truth will say that this intelligence was good intelligence. There's no doubt in my mind."
Bush was right. The truth did come out and the facts are he misled Congress and the American people about the reasons we should go to war in Iraq.
Few people know about this memo because the mainstream media, in service to Bush, kept it quiet.
This passage is significant. It refers to Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, referred to only as "C" in the memo, and his impressions from a visit to the United States:
"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the U.N. route ... There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
The memo helps establish five key facts in understanding how the still-deadly war in Iraq unfolded:
1. By mid-July 2002, eight months before the war began, President Bush had decided to invade and occupy Iraq.
2. Bush had decided to 'justify' the war 'by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.
3. Already, 'the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
4. Many at the top of the [U.S.] administration did not want to seek approval from the United Nations (going 'the U.N. route').
5. Few in Washington seemed much interested in the aftermath of the war.
posted on June 12, 2005 07:21:18 AM new
Sorry, but the American public, with a few exceptions, seem to not really care about this.
They "support the troops" with a stupid "Made in China" piece of plastic on their car but don't care that this administration has killed so many troops not just with bad preparations but with their total lack of aftermath planning.
I bet if you asked 90% of Americans how many troops were killed in the last week they wouldn't know.
Bush & Company just didn't care. Didn't care about the Iraqi's or American troops.
posted on June 12, 2005 08:51:07 AM new
"To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be a 'high crime' under the Constitution's impeachment clause."
John Dean
Findlaw, June 2003.
That's exactly what the Downing Street Memo, first reported a month ago by The Times of London, proves…
posted on June 14, 2005 11:10:09 AM new
Memo's verified.
WASHINGTON — It started during British Prime Minister Tony Blair's re-election campaign last month, when details leaked about a top-secret memo, written in July 2002 — eight months before the Iraq war. In the memo, British officials just back from Washington reported that prewar "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" to invade Iraq.
Just last week, President Bush and Blair vigorously denied that war was inevitable.
“No, the facts were not being fixed, in any shape or form at all,” said Blair at a White House news conference with the president on June 7.
But now, war critics have come up with seven more memos, verified by NBC News.
One, also from July 2002, says U.S. military planners had given "little thought" to postwar Iraq.
“The memos are startlingly clear that the British saw that there was inadequate planning, little planning for the aftermath,” says Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
And there's more. To prepare Blair for a meeting at the president's ranch in April 2002, a year before the war, four other British memos raised more questions.
After a dinner with President Bush’s then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Blair's former national security adviser David Manning wondered, “What happens on the morning after” the war?
In yet another 2002 memo, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw asked, “What will this action achieve? Can (there) be any certainty that the replacement regime will be better? Iraq has had no history of democracy.”
Monday, Rice, now U.S. secretary of state, told Chris Matthews from MSNBC-TV's “Hardball,” “I would never claim that the exact nature of this insurgency was understood at the time that we went to war.”
Vice President Dick Cheney also told a National Press Club luncheon Monday, “Any suggestion that we did not exhaust all alternatives before we got to that point, I think, is inaccurate.”
In fact, current and former diplomats tell NBC News they understood from the beginning the Bush policy to be that Saddam had to be removed — one way or the other. The only question was when and how.
posted on June 14, 2005 11:16:34 AM new
But..but...but Helen....Michael Jackson was aquitted !
Surely that's more important then all the Americans lives lost on a little fib.
posted on June 14, 2005 12:23:19 PM newThe truth keeps on coming as incorrectly perceved by the demoncrats.
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Downing Street' Memo Has Left Wingers Drooling
By Bobby Eberle
June 13, 2005
If there's one thing left wingers love, it's a good, old-fashioned conspiracy. Give them a small nibble of a "claim" of wrong doing against the current White House, conservatives, or Republicans, and the left wing fringe will pounce into action. Facts? Data? Evidence? Those items are simply minor inconveniences to their "analysis" of right wing efforts to rule the world, steal elections, plant White House reporters, or a host of other perceived dirty deeds.
Like chum in a pool of sharks, the left has been stirred into a frenzy over the so-called "Downing Street" memo. This document, written by a British foreign policy official, chronicles a meeting among British officials including Prime Minister Tony Blair. The memo conveys a sense of the direction America was heading in regard to dealing with Saddam Hussein and Iraq, prior to the commencement of military operations. The memo contains a passage that the left is now calling the "smoking gun" that they say shows President Bush purposely manipulated intelligence information to build the case for war. Once again, the left wing zealots are putting facts and evidence aside and letting their conspiracy theory fears run wild.
The memo in question was written by Matthew Rycroft on July 23, 2002. Rycroft, an aide to British foreign policy advisor David Manning, describes a "perceptible shift in attitude" of American officials with regard to Iraq and adds the following:
"Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Rycroft added that National Security Council was losing patience with United Nations deliberations on Iraq and suggested that there was little discussion in Washington "of the aftermath after military action." However, the comment of "intelligence and facts" being "fixed" is what has the left spun up. According to their thinking, this "proves" that Bush lied about Iraq and doctored the intelligence to support his case. What the left refuses to acknowledge is that along with public statements by both President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, and several independent investigations, no evidence has ever been presented to support the claims by the left wing fringe.
In comments to reporters in Washington, DC on Tuesday, Blair reminded the audience that the memo in question was written before the coalition went before the U.N. It was through the U.N. process of debate and resolutions (and Saddam Hussein's noncompliance) that Blair says resulted in eventual military action and Saddam's removal from power.
"No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all," Blair said, responding to a reporter's question. "Now, no one knows more intimately the discussions that we were conducting as two countries at the time than me. And the fact is we decided to go to the United Nations and went through that process, which resulted in the November 2002 United Nations resolution, to give a final chance to Saddam Hussein to comply with international law. He didn't do so. And that was the reason why we had to take military action."
President Bush noted that the memo first surfaced during Blair's recent reelection campaign and added that the idea of his team having their minds made up about using military force against Saddam couldn't be "farther from the truth."
"My conversation with the Prime Minister was, how could we do this peacefully," Bush told reporters. "Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option. The consequences of committing the military are -- are very difficult. The hardest things I do as the president is to try to comfort families who've lost a loved one in combat. It's the last option that the President must have -- and it's the last option I know my friend had, as well."
In July 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that the Bush Administration did not influence the intelligence findings. In particular, the committee noted that it "did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities." The independent Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction concluded in its report that the Intelligence Community "did not make or change any analytic judgments in response to political pressure to reach a particular conclusion."
When looking at the left wing blog sites, it's as if the above findings, resulting from months of interviews, investigations, and evidence collection, didn't exist. One web site dedicated to the "Downing Street" memo, describes the memo's contents as "shocking." The web site goes on to say that documents such as the memo make it "at least possible" that a crime "may have been" committed by the Bush administration. It's "at least possible" that a crime "may have been" committed? What kind of statement is that? It's also "at least possible" that there "may be" aliens hidden in New Mexico. No, I don't have evidence to support that claim, but there is "talk" by "some" that the aliens exist. Hmmm... must be a fact, right?
DowningStreetMemo.com adds that the memo "summarizes all of the key components of Bush's deception" and "may not tell us anything we didn't already know, but it does offer hard evidence that the Bush administration misled the country into war." Hard evidence? Clearly these folks are not reading the same memo as I am.
Left field comments are not just reserved for web sites. Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel recently compared President Bush's "fraud" regarding Iraq to the Holocaust of World War II. "It's the biggest fraud ever committed on the people of this country," Rangel told WWRL Radio's Steve Malzberg and Karen Hunter, according to NewsMax.com. "This is just as bad as six million Jews being killed. The whole world knew it and they were quiet about it, because it wasn't their ox that was being gored."
Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy added that the memo confirms President Bush "distorted and misrepresented the intelligence in its attempt to link Saddam Hussein with the terrorists of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, and with weapons of mass destruction that Iraq did not have." Leave it to Kennedy and Rangel to not let the facts get in the way of politics and posturing.
The mangling of intelligence information regarding the threat Saddam Hussein posed to his neighbors and the rest of the world is a matter that deserved all the analysis, hearings, and investigations that it received. In the course of those investigations and hearings, it was determined, not once, but at least twice that the Bush administration did not influence the intelligence community regarding Iraq. The "Downing Street" memo adds nothing to this debate, yet the left wing fringe howls about the "evidence" and "proof" it provides.
Perhaps the far left simply has no grasp of the basic concepts of analysis and investigation. More likely, they simply see the facts as obstacles to their goal of tearing down an administration and dividing the country. Shout loud enough, and people will listen. That seems to be their strategy. Luckily for America, more and more people are tired of the rhetoric and are simply tuning them out. My suggestion is that they help me find the aliens. I could use a hand.
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Downing Street Memo Mostly Ignored in U.S.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
WASHINGTON — A British government memo that critics say proves the Bush administration manipulated evidence about weapons of mass destruction in order to carry out a plan to overthrow Saddam Hussein (search) has received little attention in the mainstream media, frustrating opponents of the Iraq war.
The "Downing Street Memo" — first published by The Sunday Times of London on May 1 — summarizes a high-level meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair (search) and his senior national security team on July 23, 2002, months before the March 2003 coalition invasion of Iraq.
The memo suggests that British intelligence analysts were concerned that the Bush administration was marching to war on wobbly evidence that Saddam posed a serious threat to the world.
Click here to read the memo.
In the memo, written by top Blair aide Matthew Rycroft (search), Foreign Secretary Jack Straw indicated in the meeting that it "seemed clear" Bush had already decided to take military action.
"But the case was thin," reads the memo on Straw's impressions. "Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
The memo also paraphrased former head of the British Secret Intelligence Services, Richard Dearlove, fresh from meetings in the United States. The memo said Dearlove believed "military action was now seen as inevitable."
"Bush wanted to remove Saddam Hussein, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD," the memo reads. "But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy," according to Dearlove's impressions.
"The NSC (National Security Council) had no patience with the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
The memo, which received sporadic reporting in major newspapers in the United States throughout May, has sparked an outcry from more than 88 Democratic members of Congress who have signed two letters to President Bush demanding a response.
Led by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the signatories are mostly representatives who opposed the war in Iraq and make up the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Conyers says the mainstream media have ignored the story and let President Bush off the hook. He noted that liberal blogs and alternative media have been keeping the story alive. "But these voices are too few and too diffuse to overcome the blatant biases of our cable channels and the negligence and neglect of our major newspapers," Conyers said in a recent statement.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan has said there is "no need" to respond to the memos, the authenticity of which has not been denied.
Dante Zappala does not agree. For Zappala, the Downing Street Memo strikes a critical and personal chord. His brother, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, 30, a soldier in the Pennsylvania National Guard, was killed in Baghdad 13 months ago on what Zappala said was a mission to find weapons there.
"My family knows the consequences of the decision they made to go to war," said Zappala, 29, of Philadelphia. He is a member of Military Families Speak Out, a group that opposes the war and, according to Zappala, now has more than 2,000 members.
"I can't speak for what the TV news decides to focus their attention on," Zappala said. "They seem to have a willful deference to all relevant information. I think they've really just dropped the ball on this."
But not everyone believes the Downing Street Memo represents a "smoking gun" and deserves more attention.
"As a smoking gun it leaves a lot to be desired," said Kevin Aylward, a northern Virginia-based technology consultant who runs the conservative-leaning blog, Wizbangblog.com. "It's interesting, but it's probably fourth- or fifth-hand information."
Aylward added: "I suspect the more interesting story at this point, seeing it three weeks later, is who is behind the letter-writing campaign to push it in the media."
Several popular left-leaning blogs have taken up the cause to keep the story alive, encouraging readers to contact media outlets. A Web site, DowningStreetMemo.com, tells readers to contact the White House directly with complaints.
"This is a test of the left-wing blogosphere," said Jim Pinkerton, syndicated columnist and regular contributor to FOX News Watch, who pointed out that The Sunday Times article came out just before the British election and apparently had little effect on voters' decisions.
"In many ways that memo might prove all of the arguments the critics of the war have made," he added. "But the bulk of Americans don't agree, or don't seem that alarmed, so it is a power test to see if they can drive it back on the agenda."
Ellis Henican, a columnist for New York Newsday and a FOX News contributor, said the allegations of evidence-fixing had been made before the 2004 election by former senior administration officials Richard Clarke (search) and Paul O'Neill (search), and while many people believe they were right, it had little impact on the re-election of Bush in November.
"It's a little late," he said of the memo story, adding that people are resigned to the fact that the United States is in Iraq for the long term, regardless of what events led to the war. "We're kind of stuck."
That's no excuse, said Zappala, who argues someone has to be made accountable for the lives lost on false pretenses. "The goal was always to invade Iraq whatever obstacles, legal and moral, were in our way," he said. "I feel that we deserve an amount of accountability by our officials for the decisions they make."
A word to the wise ain't necessary, it's the stupid ones that need the advice."
- Bill Cosby
21 Dead, 40 Wounded in Guerrilla Violence today, Tuesday, June 14, 2005.
"My count of dead and wounded for Monday is many times higher than that in the mainstream media, whether the Washington Post or even the wire services. The numbers are arrived at by collating incidents reported in AFP and by Knight Ridder, and adding in incidents and casualties reported in the Baghdad daily, al-Zaman. Bad as things are in Iraq, I still don't think the full tragedy is getting out to the American public." Juan Cole.
posted on June 14, 2005 12:38:15 PM newIf there's one thing left wingers love, it's a good, old-fashioned conspiracy.
Boy...that's sure the truth.
But since they have no suggestions/solutions to offer....at least it keeps them entertained. Hoping to find just ONE that can be used against this President. But so far...they're batting zero.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on June 14, 2005 01:01:50 PM new
The Downiong street memo is not being ignored despite the right wing medias control and focus on the "freak of the day".
It is getting attention and not just in America but around the world....sorry folks, it isn't going away.
It is definite proof(as if we needed MORE) that We, as a nation , were lied to by the bush administration.
Rant away bush worshippers.....the truth is coming to get ya
posted on June 14, 2005 01:13:55 PM new
Anyone that believes that there was any planning about what would happen after the initial invasion should be asking themselves who planned it. To go to war with a country and then have absolutely no strategy is insane.
The body counts for the insurgents reported killed have been jacked up just to make it look good, trying to prove they are making progess.
Anyone notice that they still keep training security officers and then they put them unarmed on buses and they are all wiped out again? You'd think they would clue in by now but it seems like they don't even care otherwise they'd be trying to work out another plan. I don't believe there is anyone really planning anything too much.
Anyone notice that there is a shortage of recruits anxious to sign up and go to Iraq?
posted on June 14, 2005 03:23:39 PM new"You can fight terrorist on their home ground or on American streets." "It's obvious you demoncRATs want the fight on American streets.
Continued U.S. occupation of Iraq will only serve to anger and humiliate the people of Iraq. Where there were originally no terrorists, the Iraq war and occupation has produced angry young men who will be wiilling to join al-Qaeda in attacking U.S. interests. We won't get a chance to fight them on the street, Bear. That's not how terrorists operate. And, as you should be able to see by now, world terrorism cannot be fought on the ground.
posted on June 14, 2005 03:29:56 PM new
Not sure if anyone sees a solution to this. If America pulls out now they leave the complete country in a mess (after a select few managed to rape what they could out of it). I wouldn't expect other countries anxious to jump in and take over the enormous task of settling the insurgency as well as cleaning up the huge environmental damage and rebuilding the country at their own expense and the loss of their own young men and women. If America stays it means more monetary and human sacrifice in a dragged out war for many years.
If America pulls out and any other country even gets a whiff of America planning to 'bring us democracy' you can bet they'll all gang together against America or anyone else involved with them after seeing the Iraqi example of how it's done.
And in the end I hope Bush and his close-knit gang get blamed for this terrible war and that it will go down in history with the blame entirely on their shoulders and not on the USA as a country or its citizens which for the most part are good people.
posted on June 14, 2005 03:42:56 PM new
Regardless of party affiliation,
Any suggestions, whether from a democrat or a republican or an independent, of a workable solution should offer it only because it is in the best interest of this nation as a whole.
posted on June 14, 2005 04:05:20 PM new
I said nothing about angering "our enemies around the world". You must have linda's specks upon your nose duh squirrell.
posted on June 14, 2005 04:48:36 PM newContinued U.S. occupation of Iraq will only serve to anger and humiliate the people of Iraq
Where there were originally no terrorists, the Iraq war and occupation has produced angry young men who will be wiilling to join al-Qaeda in attacking U.S. interests.
So you agree it is better for those terrorists to congregate in one place, rather that search world wide for them.
I guess that is why Iraqi's are aiding US forces by standing up for themselves, identifying terrorist hideouts and roadside IED's.
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Ordinary Iraqis Wage a Successful Battle Against Insurgents
posted on June 14, 2005 05:57:25 PM new
"A little while later they hate them too and it starts all over"
of course they would hate them-if they didnt they would have nothing to b*tch about.
why do you think these assh*le liberals keep posting the number of death casualites? They want to prove they were right and the administration was wrong.They could care less about the soldiers themselves,they love it when something goes wrong and soldiers die-it gives these losers something to complain about-it makes them happy and they can post pics of coffins that Helen enjoys so much- .If everything was going good in Iraq,they would be all pissed off because they would have nothing to b*tch about and the last thing they would ever want to do is admit the administration was doing some good.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Baseball season has started,but they have it all wrong.3 strikes and you're out,4 balls you walk.I can tell you right now a man with 4 balls could not possibly walk
posted on June 14, 2005 06:07:37 PM new
Military action won't end insurgency, growing number of U.S. officers believe
By Tom Lasseter, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Sun Jun 12, 4:52 PM ET
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A growing number of senior American military officers in Iraq have concluded that there is no long-term military solution to an insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis and more than 1,300 U.S. troops during the past two years.
Instead, officers say, the only way to end the guerilla war is through Iraqi politics - an arena that so far has been crippled by divisions between Shiite Muslims, whose coalition dominated the January elections, and Sunni Muslims, who are a minority in Iraq but form the base of support for the insurgency.
"I think the more accurate way to approach this right now is to concede that ... this insurgency is not going to be settled, the terrorists and the terrorism in Iraq is not going to be settled, through military options or military operations," Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said last week, in a comment that echoes what other senior officers say. "It's going to be settled in the political process."
Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, expressed similar sentiments, calling the military's efforts "the Pillsbury Doughboy idea" - pressing the insurgency in one area only causes it to rise elsewhere.
"Like in Baghdad," Casey said during an interview with two newspaper reporters, including one from Knight Ridder, last week. "We push in Baghdad - they're down to about less than a car bomb a day in Baghdad over the last week - but in north-center (Iraq) ... they've gone up," he said. "The political process will be the decisive element."
The recognition that a military solution is not in the offing has led U.S. and Iraqi officials to signal they are willing to negotiate with insurgent groups, or their intermediaries.
"It has evolved in the course of normal business," said a senior U.S. diplomatic official in Baghdad, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of U.S. policy to defer to the Iraqi government on Iraqi political matters. "We have now encountered people who at least claim to have some form of a relationship with the insurgency."
The message is markedly different from previous statements by U.S. officials who spoke of quashing the insurgency by rounding up or killing "dead enders" loyal to former dictator Saddam Hussein. As recently as two weeks ago, in a Memorial Day interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," Vice President Dick Cheney said he believed the insurgency was in its "last throes."
But the violence has continued unabated, even though 44 of the 55 Iraqis portrayed in the military's famous "deck of cards" have been killed or captured, including Saddam.
Lt. Col. Frederick P. Wellman, who works with the task force overseeing the training of Iraqi security troops, said the insurgency doesn't seem to be running out of new recruits, a dynamic fueled by tribal members seeking revenge for relatives killed in fighting.
"We can't kill them all," Wellman said. "When I kill one I create three."
Last month was one of the deadliest since President Bush declared the end of major combat operations in May 2003, a month that saw six American troops killed by hostile fire. In May 2005, 67 U.S. soldiers and Marines were killed by hostile fire, the fourth-highest tally since the war began, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an Internet site that uses official casualty reports to organize deaths by a variety of criteria.
At least 26 troops have been killed by insurgents so far in June, bringing to 1,311 the number of U.S. soldiers killed by hostile action. Another 391 service members have died as a result of accidents or illness.
The Iraqi interior minister said last week that the insurgency has killed 12,000 Iraqis during the past two years. He did not say how he arrived at the figure.
American officials had hoped that January's national elections would blunt the insurgency by giving the population hope for their political future. But so far, the political process has not in any meaningful way included Iraq's Sunni Muslim population.
Most of Iraq's Sunnis Muslims, motivated either by fear or boycott, did not vote, and they hold a scant 17 seats in the 275-member parliament.
There was a post-election lull in bloodshed, a period that saw daily attack figures dip into the 30s. But with the seating of the interim government on April 28, attacks spiked back to 70 a day. More than 700 Iraqis have been killed since then.
The former Iraqi minister of electricity, Ayham al-Samarie, has said he's consulted with U.S. diplomatic officials about his negotiations with two major insurgent groups to form a political front of sorts. There has been similar talk in the past - notably by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's administration, which spoke of inclusion through amnesty - but nothing has come of it.
At the heart of the problem is the continued failure of U.S. and Iraqi officials to bring the nation's Sunni minority, with more than five million people, to the political table. Sunnis now find themselves in a country ruled by the Shiite and Kurdish political parties once brutally oppressed by Saddam, a Sunni.
With Shiites and Kurds stocking the nation's security forces with members of their militias, Sunnis have been marginalized and, according to some analysts in Iraq, have become more willing to join armed groups.
Since September of last year, some 85 percent of the violence in Iraq has taken place in just four of Iraq's 18 provinces: the Sunni heartland of al Anbar, Baghdad, Ninevah and Salah al Din.
U.S. officials prefer not to talk about the situation along religious lines, but they acknowledge that one of the key obstacles to resolving Iraq's problems is the difference between Sunni and Shiite religious institutions.
Shiites are organized around their marja'iya, a council of clerics - led in Iraq by Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani - that issues religious edicts that Shiite faithful follow as law. Sunnis, on the other hand, have no such unifying structure.
The difference was made clear in January when one list formed under the guidance of Sistani was the choice of almost all Shiites voting. Those Sunnis who did go to the polls split their votes among a myriad of organizations including those backed by a presumptive monarch, a group of communists and a religious group that may or may not have been boycotting the election.
Sunni Muslims near downtown Baghdad have only to drive down the street to see how precarious their position in Iraqi politics and society is these days. On roads near the party headquarters for the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is in large part shaping the policy of the nation, Kurdish militia members patrol the streets.
The troops are ostensibly part of the nation's army, but they still wear militia uniforms and, as is the case with some in Kurdistan, many either can't or won't speak Arabic. One of the roads they patrol has been named Badr Street, for the armed wing of the Supreme Council. There is a large billboard with the looming face of Abdul Aziz al Hakim, the Supreme Council's leader.
Unless Sunnis develop confidence that the government will represent them, few here see the insurgency fading.
Asked about the success in suppressing the insurgency in Baghdad recently - the result of a series of large-scale raids that in targeted primarily Sunni neighborhoods - Brig. Gen. Alston said that he expects the violence to return.
"We have taken down factories, major cells, we have made good progress in (stopping) the production of (car bombs) in Baghdad," Alston said. "Now, do I think that there will be more (bombs) in Baghdad? Yes, I do."
posted on June 14, 2005 06:17:15 PM new
Crow,
Every time I read one of your posts, I take pity on you, your family and anyone that has anything to do with You.
posted on June 14, 2005 06:35:26 PM new
Think as you wish, classicrock but please know that there are some of us who would truly like to see a resolution and were hoping that things would be somewhat better after the elections in Iraq.
I know whenever my friends, family or associates talk about this we're still hoping for a miracle and we don't want to see things get worse....... do you think anyone wants to send their kids off to this war? We happen to value life and think of the troops as individuals and worry for their safety.
The reality is that the insurgency is growing worldwide, not just in Iraq. It affects us all so it would be pretty stupid for anyone to hope things gets worse just because they happen to dislike Bush.
posted on June 14, 2005 06:37:31 PM new
I'm from the late great state of New York. I like Hillary. I just don't think she would make a good President. She does have a nice ???? what do they call it?
Booty?
posted on June 14, 2005 07:01:07 PM new
Interesting article, Helen. If more took time to read what the American military officers are saying, they may clue in to some reality of the true situation in Iraq.
posted on June 15, 2005 05:44:43 AM new
Right, Kiara!!! The poor wing-nuts are fodder for whatever propaganda the Bush guys dish out. They lap it up like little puppy-dogs.
As noted previously on ThinkProgress, the American media had failed to report on the British Briefing Papers – covered by the British media last September – that showed that the British felt the pre-war evidence for attacking Iraq was weak and that the U.S. lacked a plan to address the post-war situation. Using the Downing Street Minutes to bring light to these Briefing Papers, the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus wrote a front-page story this weekend calling attention to the charges in those documents.
In a headline entitled, “Memo: U.S. Lacked Full Postwar Iraq Plan,” Pincus uncovered a British memo warning of post-war instability that would arise because the Bush administration was unrealistic about the post-war phase. A number of the Papers in the Pincus article are attached below. As one of the Papers warns, the U.S. had no plans for “what happens on the morning after [attacking Iraq].”
The main thrust of the British Briefing Papers certainly focused on the Bush administration’s failure to plan, but there’s another key point in the Papers which Pincus chose not to highlight, a point which meshes well with the revelations in the Downing Street Minutes. As you know, the Downing Street Minutes said the Bush administration“fixed” the intelligence around its policy of attacking Iraq. The British Briefing Papers lend further credence to this point.
