ABC publishes story to keep troops in Iraq beyond 2009, and then quickly takes the story off its web site

This is disgusting! Last night, ABC News published a damning story where U.S. officials told ABC News that the senior commanders in Iraq were expecting to keep the troop surge going until December, and were expecting to make this recommendation in the September report to Congress. The U.S. officials told ABC News that there were two plans being considered that would provide a partial U.S. withdrawal of the 150,000 U.S. troops to between 100,000 to 130,000 troops. These U.S. troops would remain in Iraq well beyond January 2009. I first saw the story last night on Americablog. In addition, this ABC News story was been picked up on Think Progress, and Eschaton. When looking into the story this morning, I discover that theABC News story has been deleted, from the ABC News website. Fortunately, Americablog has posted the entire ABC News story in text format here:

Soldiering On

ABC News Learns of Plans to Keep Troops in Iraq Beyond 2009

June 1, 2007 —

U.S. officials tell ABC News that the troop levels in Iraq cannot be maintained at the present level, either politically or practically, with the military stretched so thin.

But that does not imply an immediate drawdown. Officials tell ABC's Martha Raddatz the senior commanders in Iraq -- Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno and Gen. David Petraeus -- want the surge to continue until at least December, and expect to report enough progress by September to justify the extension.

The drawdown would begin in February 2008, although each of the two generals supports a slightly different plan.

Plan one, which officials say is being pushed by Odierno, calls for a reduction in troops from roughly 150,000 today to 100,000 by December of 2008.

Petraeus champions a slightly different approach that would be to cut the troops down to roughly 130,000 by the end of 2008, with further reductions the following year.

Presence in Iraq Beyond 2009

There is also discussion of how long troops will remain in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates envisions "some presence" on the part of the United States that "provides reassurance to our friends and to governments in the region, including those that might be our adversaries, that we're going to be there for a long time," Gates said.

A senior official said one long-term plan would have 30-50,000 U.S. forces in Iraq for 5-10 years beyond 2009.

During that period, the bulk of the troops would be deployed to bases at strategic points throughout Iraq to respond to crisis in those areas. Camp Victory would continue to operate as the U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad.

Iraq's president tells ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "This Week" this Sunday that Iraqi forces can take over, but no time soon.

When asked when the Iraqi army will be ready to defend its country, Jalal Talabani said, "I think the end of the next year."

But officials have serious doubts about that statement. And as far as the plans for troops, they could all change over the coming months.

This story is especially damning for the Bush administration since it clearly shows that the senior commanders in Iraq-- Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno and Gen. David Petraeus --have every intention of staying in Iraq, and continuing the war until after President Bush leaves office. This completely contradicts the Bush administration's PR-spin that an assessment of the surge would take place in September. According to this June 1, 2007 Christian Science Monitor story, the "final elements of the surge of US forces announced in January are arriving in Iraq over the next week or so." The Pentagon has finished sending the U.S. forces to Iraq for this Bush surge. And Petraeus has already now determined that the troop surge has been a success in September, and will recommend to Congress to continue the war. This supposed September assessment on the Bush troop surge is a complete lie. Petraeus will tell Congress whatever the Bush administration tells him to keep the Iraq war going until after President Bush leaves office. And ABC News revealed this complete Bush lie in this story. Look what the story says. Petraeus will report that there will be just enough progress in September to keep the war going. This type of PR-spin has apparently been taking place during the last couple of months. According to this Think Progress story, on May 17, Petraeus told IraqSlogger reporter Jane Arraf that "Come September, I don’t think we’ll have anything definitive in September [although] certainly we’ll have some indicators on the political side in Iraq...." This April 28, 2007 New York Times story reveals that the Bush administration was planning to "maintain the increased numbers of American troops in Iraq well into next year." In this March 8, 2007 New York Times story, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno recommended that the troop surge be maintained until February 2008. It is all about keeping the troops in Iraq until after President Bush leaves office. Also, if you look at the two plans for the partial withdrawals, the Pentagon is just pulling out the number of troops that were used in the original Bush troop surge--it is not a complete U.S. withdrawal. In one sense, this is another Bush PR-spin to keep the war going. If the Iraq war continues to go badly, then the Bush administration may just offer one of these two timetables as a "concession" to the congressional Democrats' demand for a complete U.S. withdrawal. President Bush is in a corner here. He needs to report some type of U.S. success in Iraq in order to continue the war. Otherwise, Republican congressmen, who have been consistently supporting the Bush war in Iraq, may end up supporting Democratic legislation to withdrawal U.S. troops from Iraq for the sake of their own political careers. That is why September is such a looming deadline--it is the last month for continuing the Iraq war funding before 2008, and the elections. What we could see here is the Bush administration offering its own version of a withdrawal timetable to simply pull out the surge forces, but leave the main U.S. force in Iraq intact. This will give the congressional Republicans a way to both support a partial U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, and to support the Bush administration's continued war in Iraq. It is nothing more than a short-term political solution to a losing war.

But there is more to this ABC News story. The second question that I have is why did ABC News quickly pull this story off its website? Because this story shows that the Bush administration has no intention of providing to both Congress, and the American people, an accurate, honest assessment of the troop surge this September. Did the Bush administration threaten ABC News to pull this story off their website, or else ABC News reporters will no access with any White House or Pentagon officials for future news stories? This behavior within the Bush administration has taken place before. According to this May 23, 2007 Editor and Publisher story:

NEW YORK Staffers at McClatchy's Washington, D.C., Bureau -- one of the few major news outlets skeptical of intelligence reports during the run-up to the war in Iraq -- claims it is now being punished for that coverage.

Bureau Chief John Walcott and current and former McClatchy Pentagon correspondents say they have not been allowed on the Defense Secretary's plane for at least three years, claiming the news company is being retaliated against for its reporting.

"It is because our coverage of Iraq policy has been quite critical," Walcott told E&P. He added, "I think the idea of public officials barring coverage by people they've decided they don't like is at best unprofessional, at worst undemocratic and petty."

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman called such assertions "absurd," adding, "There is no basis of fact for that allegation. It is not true. There are always more people who would like to travel with the secretary than seats available."

Jonathan Landay, a former Pentagon correspondent and one of the co-authors of McClatchy's pre-war coverage, said he last traveled on the plane with then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2004 to Istanbul, Turkey, for a NATO economic summit. Since then, he says, none of McClatchy's people have flown. "It is unusual because we get aboard about two out of three trips [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice makes," Landay said. "They have a different policy at the Pentagon. We are definitely being discriminated against."

Drew Brown, who covered the Pentagon on several occasions between 2002 and 2007 before leaving McClatchy for Stars and Stripes, claimed he was never allowed to travel with Rumsfeld or current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who took over several months ago. "I asked a couple of times, and they gave me a non-committal answer," Brown said. "The Department of Defense took the outlets they were able to influence, the wire [services] and the big newspapers. I don't think they really care about anyone outside the Washington Beltway."

Nancy Youssef, a former McClatchy Baghdad bureau chief who took over the Pentagon beat April 9, said Gates has been on four trips since she arrived and she has been denied access to all of them. "They just sort of brushed it off," she said. "I bring it up every time, and every time it doesn't happen."

If the Pentagon denied access to McClatchy reporters because they would push the Pentagon's own PR-spin on the Iraq war, then is it not possible that someone in either the Pentagon, or the Bush administration, threatened ABC News to pull this story of their website? I can only speculate here. It is possible that ABC News pulled the story off their website after a certain period of time to make room for new stories. But if that is the case, why hasn't the story been archived? If there was supposed to be a correction to the story, then why didn't ABC News provide the correction? What we have here is that ABC News simply deleted the entire story without any explanation. WHY?

Interestingly enough, Raw Story has reported that ABC News has published and deleted this story. According to Raw Story:

ABC News has apparently pulled a story alleging that they had discovered US plans to keep troops in Iraq beyond 2009.

The story, posted around 8 pm Friday, was gone by Saturday morning. The link listed in Google News now takes a user to a default page not found.

"You've requested an ABCNews.com page that does not exist," the page says.

According to the article, officials said 50,000 troops could remain for '5 to 10 years' beyond 2009.

"ABC News Learns of Plans to Keep Troops in Iraq Beyond 2009," however, remains listed in Google News.

ABC could not immediately be reached for comment.

So ABC News, please explain to us WHY did you delete this story off your news site?

Update: I've cross-posted this story through The Daily Kos. The commentary thread on my DKos post and DKos user Junglered1's posting is starting to get interesting. One of the simplest explanations that I never realized is that Petraeus inadvertently told the truth to ABC News about the Bush game plan for continuing this surge. This Bush White House has pushed so many lies, so many contradictions, and so much PR-spin upon the American public, that it is even hard for me to catch some of the simplest explanations. Petraeus gave ABC News the Bush game plan for the continued troop surge. The Bush administration didn't want that game plan to be publicized. This really brings up the big question of what did the Bush administration do to threaten, or even blackmail, ABC News to delete this story? Inquiring minds want to know.

Update II: DKos user Skarce has provided the video of this ABC News story by Martha Raddatz. You can view the story through YouTube here:



I've also learned through DKos user OneCrankyDom that the story also up on The New York Times. This could end up on the Sunday talk shows....

Update III: THE ABC NEWS STORY IS BACK! Junglered1 included this comment that the ABC News story has reappeared on its website. I did a quick read of it, and it appears the same as the Americablog text story. There are some rewrites in the first four paragraphs of the new ABC story, over that of the original Americablog story, but the information within the new ABC story is essentially the same. Makes you wonder if ABC was getting a lot of criticism for deleting this story.