Musharraf declares state of emergency

This is from MSNBC News:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan on Saturday, ahead of a crucial Supreme Court ruling on his future as president, thrusting the country deeper into political turmoil as it struggles to contain spreading Islamic militancy.

Seven Supreme Court judges immediately rejected the emergency, which suspended the current constitution. The government blocked all television transmissions in major cities other than state-run Pakistan TV, and telephone services in the capital, Islamabad, were cut.

Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto flew from Dubai on Saturday and was sitting on a plane at Karachi airport, waiting to see if she would be arrested or deported, her spokesman Wajid Hasan said after speaking to the former prime minister by telephone from London.

Witnesses said 100 police and paramilitary troops were deployed at her home in Karachi, though it was not immediately clear if they were there as a protective cordon or to apprehend the opposition leader. A bomb disposal squad was also at the scene.

“The chief of army staff has proclaimed a state of emergency and issued a provisional constitutional order,” a newscaster on PTV said, adding that Musharraf would address the nation at 11 p.m. (7 p.m. ET).

A copy of the emergency order obtained by The Associated Press justified the declaration on the grounds that “some members of the judiciary are working at cross purposes with the executive” and “weakening the government’s resolve” to fight terrorism.

PTV reported that a new chief justice had been appointed to replace Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, whom Musharraf tried and failed to oust this spring, sparking a popular movement against military rule. Judge Abdul Hameed Dogar was sworn in by Musharraf in his place.

The state of emergency follows weeks of speculation that the military leader, who took power in a 1999 coup and later made Pakistan a U.S. ally in its war on terror, could take the step. Military vehicles patrolled and troops blocked roads in the administrative heart of the capital.

Pakistan has become a pressure cooker of which Musharraf is having trouble keeping the lid on. It has gotten so bad that you now have both the executive branch and judicial branch fighting it out over power. There is only so much that the Pakistani military can crack down, before the people finally say enough and start a revolution. I don't know if we've gotten to that point yet in Pakistan. But I think it is coming.

Ahmadinejad denied access to Ground Zero

I pulled the headline off Carpetbagger, and it just boggles my mind here. The original source story is through The New York Times:

A remark by Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly that the Police Department was considering a request by Iran that its president visit ground zero set off complaints yesterday before the department corrected itself.

Late in the day, it said, the request had already been turned down.

Iran asked this month that its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, be permitted to visit ground zero when he attends the opening of the United Nations General Assembly next week.

Paul Browne, the chief spokesman for Commissioner Kelly, said the request — that Mr. Ahmadinejad be allowed to lay a wreath at the former site of the World Trade Center — had been made by Iranian officials earlier this month in a meeting that was also attended by officials of the United States Secret Service and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Mr. Browne said the request was rejected because the Iranians wanted Mr. Ahmadinejad to visit the area of ground zero where construction is under way, but he said that any additional request that he appear near the site of the 9/11 terrorist attack would also be denied out of concerns about security. Although relatives of the victims were allowed to visit the site briefly on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, members of the public are not allowed into the area.

Now I don't know what Ahmadinejad's political motivations are for visiting Ground Zero, but it feels like the U.S. is responding like a petty child here for refusing this request. President Ahmadinejad is certainly going to politically look good in the world view by laying a wreath at Ground Zero of the September 11th terrorist attacks. The problem here is that Ahmadinejad is going to politically look good in the world view even if his request is rejected by the United States, and by its own head of state, King George The Deciderer. Ahmadinejad, and Iran, had no connection to the September 11th terrorist attacks. For all I know, Iranians died in the attack, and Ahmadinejad wanted to pay his own respects to the victims of the attack. But by refusing to allow Ahmadinejad, who is a Muslim head of state, to participate in acknowledging the horrors of this September 11th attacks, the United States makes itself look very childish and petty in the view of the Muslim world, where the U.S. is currently embroiled in its disastrous war in Iraq. If Ahmadinejad were allowed to lay his wreath at Ground Zero, it may have been viewed in the world as a positive sign for the U.S. here. But then again, we're stuck with some fairly incompetent leaders in our country:

The possibility of a visit to ground zero, as suggested by Mr. Kelly yesterday, provoked a cool response from the White House.

“This is a matter for the City of New York, but ground zero would be an odd place for the president of a country that is a state sponsor of terror to visit,” said Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman.

Before the department’s clarification, the presidential candidates condemned the prospect of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s visiting ground zero.

“It is unacceptable,” said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. “Under no circumstances,” said Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York. “Ahmadinejad’s shockingly audacious request should be met with a vehement no,” said the former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney.

There is a big problem with the leadership of our presidential candidates here. The Republican presidential candidates are responding to this Ahmadinejad controversy in simplistic terms--Ahmadinejad is an “Islamofascist” nutcase, who should not be allowed to lay a wreath at Ground Zero. Ahmadinejad hates the U.S. and is developing Iranian nukes to give to terrorists--mushroom clouds in New York. It makes great anti-Iranian slogans that can be used for a Bush PR-campaign to go to war in Iran. But what I find even more amazing is that the Clinton campaign is also jumping on this simplistic GOP bandwagon. The Clinton campaign cannot allow Ahmadinejad to visit Ground Zero, because then the Clinton campaign would be targeted by the GOP as being "weak" against terrorists and Iran--even as the Republicans continue to target the Democrats as being "weak." By pandering to this self-serving Republican PR, Hillary Clinton shows her campaign as being "weak" towards agreeing to these simplistic GOP views. And it is not that simplistic as the Republicans want it to be--it is a complicated, nuanced problem that cannot be answered in a simplistic, macho term. There are ways to allow Ahmadinejad to lay his wreath at Ground Zero, and also to provide a "cool" U>S. response to Ahmadinejad's ceremony. One of Carpetbagger's commentators, Swan, suggested that Ahmadinejad should be allowed to lay his wreath at Ground Zero, but also allow the entire NYPD and NYFD to show up and watch Ahmadinejad at Ground Zero. There is a strong political and psychological statement that the U.S. could give to Ahmadinejad--we accept that you want to pay your respects to the victims of the September 11th tragedy, but we're also watching you. Unfortunately, the Republican Party does not understand nuance, and have been successful at forcing the Democrats to play this simplistic game.

U.S. diplomat tells Iran to back off in Gulf

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS John C, Stennis steams out of the naval base at Kitsap Bremerton, Wa., on Tuesday on its way to the Gulf. Master Chief Jerry Mclain / AP

This is off MSNBC News:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - A second U.S. aircraft carrier strike group now steaming toward the Middle East is Washington’s way of warning Iran to back down in its attempts to dominate the region, a top U.S. diplomat said here Tuesday.

Nicholas Burns, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, ruled out direct negotiations with Iran and said a rapprochement between Washington and Tehran was “not possible” until Iran halts uranium enrichment.

“The Middle East isn’t a region to be dominated by Iran. The Gulf isn’t a body of water to be controlled by Iran. That’s why we’ve seen the United States station two carrier battle groups in the region,” Burns said in an address to the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center, an influential think-tank.

“Iran is going to have to understand that the United States will protect its interests if Iran seeks to confront us,” Burns continued.

Iran is in a standoff with the West over its defiance of U.N. demands to halt uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Iran says its atomic program is aimed solely at generating energy, but the United States and some of its allies suspect it is geared toward making weapons. The U.N. imposed limited sanctions on Iran last month.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last week that Iran is “ready for anything” in its confrontation with the United States.

Iran conducted missile tests on Monday, the first of five days of military maneuvers southeast of Tehran.

[....]

The American aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis and several accompanying ships are heading toward the Gulf to join an aircraft carrier group already in the region, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Stennis is expected to arrive in late February.

The Stennis’s arrival in the Middle East will mark the first time since the U.S.-led Iraq invasion in 2003 that the United States has had two carrier battle groups in the region.

The U.S. Navy said Tuesday that the minesweeper USS Gladiator arrived in the Persian Gulf, one of six such ships — four American, two British — now plying the Gulf for anti-ship mines. U.S. officials have long said Iran was likely to block busy Gulf shipping lanes in a conflict.

So, the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis is heading out to the Persian Gulf to join the Eisenhower. The Stennis will be in the Gulf by late February. U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs Nicholas Burns is rattling sabers against Iran, demanding that Iran halt its nuclear program before any negotiations between Iran and the U.S. can start. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is telling the U.S. to go "F#@$" itself by conducting Iranian missile tests. And the president will be making his SOTU speech tonight--with his own harsh words against Iran.

We're heading towards another war.

Kurdish Iraqi soldiers are deserting to avoid the civil war in Baghdad

This is just amazing. I found this off McClatchy News:

Kurdish soldiers from northern Iraq, who are mostly Sunnis but not Arabs, are deserting the army to avoid the civil war in Baghdad, a conflict they consider someone else's problem.

The Iraqi army brigades being sent to the capital are filled with former members of a Kurdish militia, the peshmerga, and most of the soldiers remain loyal to the militia.

Much as Shiite militias have infiltrated the Iraqi security forces across Arab Iraq, the peshmerga fill the ranks of the Iraqi army in the Kurdish region in the north, poised to secure a semi-independent Kurdistan and seize oil-rich Kirkuk and parts of Mosul if Iraq falls apart. One thing they didn't bank on, they said, was being sent into the "fire" of Baghdad.

"The soldiers don't know the Arabic language, the Arab tradition, and they don't have any experience fighting terror," said Anwar Dolani, a former peshmerga commander who leads the brigade that's being transferred to Baghdad from the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.

Dolani called the desertions a "phenomenon" but refused to say how many soldiers have left the army.

This is just amazing. The Maliki government is trying to send Kurdish soldiers into Baghdad to stop the violence and civil war that is raging between the Shiites and Sunnis. Maliki knows he can't send Shiite soldiers into Baghdad, since his government and military have been infiltrated with Shiite extremists. The Shiites would go about with their own version of ethnic cleansing against the Sunnis. Sunni soldiers won't do much good in quelling the violence around Baghdad--they will align themselves with the Sunnis insurgents in Baghdad and kill the Shiites there. The civil war between the Shiites and Sunnis would continue on. So Maliki is trying to insert a third ethnic group in Baghdad to stop the violence between two other ethnic groups.

The problem here is that it will never work. Continuing with the McClatchy article:

In interviews, however, soldiers in Sulaimaniyah expressed loyalty to their Kurdish brethren, not to Iraq. Many said they'd already deserted, and those who are going to Baghdad said they'd flee if the situation there became too difficult.

"I joined the army to be a soldier in my homeland, among my people. Not to fight for others who I have nothing to do with," said Ameen Kareem, 38, who took a week's leave with other soldiers from his brigade in Irbil and never returned. "I used to fight in the mountains and valleys, not in the streets."

Kareem said he knew that deserting was risky, but he said he'd rather be behind bars in Kurdistan than a "soldier in Baghdad's fire." Without the language and with his Kurdish features, he was sure he would stand out, he said. He's a Kurd, he said, and he has no reason to become a target in an Arab war.

Now he drives a taxi in Sulaimaniyah, eking out a living and praying that he doesn't get caught.

Other soldiers in Sulaimaniyah also said they didn't want to be involved in someone else's war.

Farman Mohammed, 42, celebrated the Muslim Eid holiday with his family last month and didn't go back when he heard that he might be deployed to Baghdad. Afraid for his life, he found a new job and settled in with his family.

"The fanatic Sunnis in Baghdad kill the Shiites, and vice versa. Both of them are outraged against the Kurds. They will not hesitate to kill us and accuse us of being collaborators with the occupiers," he said. "How can we face them alone?"

Those who are planning to go to Baghdad said they didn't want to be considered cowards.

Mohammed Abdoul, 41, reluctantly prepared to leave for the Iraqi capital earlier this week. Fear clouded his mind.

"I don't know why we should interfere in this Sunni-Shiite war," he said. "If I am going to face a difficult task in Baghdad and feel sectarian tension, I will leave the army forever, come back to Sulaimaniyah and work in the market."

Here is the real problem with this war--none of the three ethnic groups identify themselves in terms of a single national identity of Iraq. They see themselves as Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. And they are only willing to fight for their own ethnic interests, rather than for a greater Iraq that encompasses all three ethnic groups. Maliki is grasping at straws here, trying to send Kurds into Baghdad in order to stop the violence taking place between the Shiites and Sunnis. What Maliki doesn't realize is that he is no longer a leader of a single nation, but rather he’s a puppet residing in the breakup of Iraq into three nations--each with their own ethnicity, culture, and religion.

And they are all three fighting against each other for territory, power, and oil.

US attacks Iranian Consular Office in Iraq--5 Iranians Detained

This is quickly going through the mainstream media. From the New York Times:

American forces backed by helicopters raided the Iranian consulate in the mainly Kurdish city of Erbil in northern Iraq before dawn today, detaining at least five Iranian employees in the building and seizing some property, according to Iraqi and Iranian officials and witnesses.

Kurdish forces were in control of the consulate building when a reporter went there after the raid. There was broken glass on the pavement outside the building, and no sign of the Iranian flag.

A statement from the United States military today did not mention the Iranian consulate specifically, saying only that six people were taken into custody in “routine security operations” in the Erbil area. Other than saying they were “suspected of being closely tied to activities targeting Iraqi and Coalition forces on Jan. 11,” the statement did not say who the people were.

But the American statement did warn that “the Coalition will continue to work with the Government of Iraq to prevent interference by hostile actors in Iraq’s internal security affairs.”

Statements by the Iranian government were more explicit. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said that United States forces arrested five Iranian staff members at the consulate early this morning, and confiscated computers and documents.

The Iranian embassy in Baghdad has sent a letter of protest to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, Mr. Hosseini told the IRNA news agency.

The United States has just attacked Iran. One question I will pose here--is it a coincidence that U.S. attacked an Iranian consulate just one day after President Bush made this remark in his surge speech:

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

This was a blatantly bold American intelligence-gathering mission to find any evidence of Iran providing support to either al Qaeda terrorists or insurgents in Iraq. This Washington Post article has some interesting details on the raid:

The [Islamic Republic News Agency] IRNA report said that U.S. forces entered the Iranian consulate in Irbil, in Iraq's Kurdish-dominated north, and seized computers, documents and other items. The report said five staff members were taken into custody.

[....]

U.S. officials have not confirmed the raid but did say in a press release that they had taken six people into custody in Irbil during the course of "routine security operations." The release said the individuals were "suspected of being closely tied" to attacks on Iraqi and U.S. forces.

The U.S. government is not confirming or denying that they attacked the Iranian consulate office. Instead, the U.S. government is saying that six people were taken into custody during "routine security operations," which will now be considered "enemy combatants. If these individuals were a part of the Iranian diplomatic staff, then they are going to disappear for a long time, while American intelligence officials will torture and question them. Documents and computers were taken to examine, and probably use as "proof" that Iran was aiding Iraqi insurgents and terrorists.

Both the New York Times and WaPost stories provide witnesses who saw the attack. According to the NY Times:

Muhamad Ahmad, a designer who lives near the consulate in Erbil, said he was awakened by the sound of gunfire and helicopters, which is unusual in the relatively calm Kurdish areas of Iraq.

And the WaPost story:

Although U.S. officials have not confirmed that an Iranian diplomatic building was involved in today's raid, a man who lives next to the consulate, Sardar Hassan Mohammed, 34, said he saw what he believed to be U.S. forces surrounding the building with their vehicles before entering it. Mohammed said at least five people were taken.

An official with the Kurdistan Democratic Party, who declined to give his name, said the U.S. troops confiscated belongings inside the consulate in addition to arresting people inside.

Interestingly, there may be two sources here regarding the confiscation of belongings in the Iranian consulate. The IRNA specifies that documents and computers were taken from the consulate. I don't know who the IRNA source is for this detail. But we have this official from the Kurdistan Democratic Party who also confirms the IRNA press release that the U.S. forces "confiscated belongings inside the consulate." President Bush announced in his surge speech that he will "interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria," and seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq." This was just the opening salvo in what could be a "secret" Bush administration war against Iran. There is just one problem with this--I don't think Iran will take this lightly. This escalation can get hot very quickly, and the United States will find itself in wars on three different fronts--Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran.

We can not win this three-front war.

Thoughts on President Bush's "Surge" Speech

Okay, let's get some thoughts out on President Bush's "Surge" speech from last night.

The first thing I noticed about this speech was the total lack of animation, or emotion with Bush's delivery of this speech. President Bush spoke in a dull, monotone voice--there was no passion, emotion, nothing. It was almost like the president was replaced by a robot--The New and Improved Bushatron 2000, complete with no emoticons! The president was looking into the camera like he was a deer caught in the headlights of a semi-truck.

Now let's look at the transcript of the speech. I'm going to pull some quotes out from the speech and comment on them. The text of the speech is from The New York Times:

The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.

Talk about an admission of guilt here! President Bush only now admits the responsibility for mistakes in Iraq six years into his presidency! The president is already well into his second term. The 2006 congressional midterm elections are over. And the next elections are for the 2008 presidency. This is way too little, way too late, and President Bush will get away with this without any punishment. But let's go back to that comment again--Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me. Where mistakes have been made. If you look at this Bush administration's past six years, and the past four years of the war in Iraq, President Bush has never admitted a mistake. What we get here is this vague comment of President Bush accepting responsibility for mistakes, if they've been made by the administration. And the Bush administration doesn't even know if mistakes have been made in this war. But if there have been mistakes, then where mistakes have been made, then the president will accept responsibility. There is a slick parsing of the language here--President Bush is accepting responsibility for mistakes in this Iraq war that he can't seem to find.

We benefited from the thoughtful recommendations of the Iraq Study Group — a bipartisan panel led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton.

You've got to love how Bush talks about the "thoughtful recommendations of the Iraq Study Group." Of course, Bush tossed the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group in the trash. And now he's embracing the ISG report in order to market his escalation of the Iraq war.

The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow — would — would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people. On Sept. 11, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq.

Remember the Domino Theory? It was a great little theory, proposed by the Eisenhower administration, to express the dangers of Communist expansion into Southeast Asia. The theory went like this. If Communist-backed "national liberation" movements succeeded in the nations of Vietnam, then Laos, and then Cambodia, these three nations would fall under de facto control of both Communist China, and the Soviet Union. The more Southeast Asian nations which fell under this Communist control, the greater the Communist threat was to neighboring countries, such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and perhaps even spreading into Taiwan, Japan and Australia. It is like watching a line of dominos fall, even though you only knocked one end domino down. The only way to stop these nations from falling under Communist control was to take direct action against these Communist liberation movements. Thus, the Domino Theory was a major factor in prompting the United States to enter into the Vietnam War. There was just one problem with the Domino Theory--it never really occurred. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fell under Communist influence, but that was it--it never spread beyond those three nations in Southeast Asia.

Guess what--The Domino Theory is back! Radical Islamic extremists would grow — would — would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. The "radical Islamic extremists" would first take over Iraq, and then turn towards the moderate, peaceful Mideast nations of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Israel--spreading their Islamofascism throughout the Middle East, and then throughout the world. At least that is what George W. Bush wants you to believe. And the real nightmare scenario that Bush planted in this new Middle East Domino Theory is that the "radical Islamic extremists" would possess Iranian nuclear weapons. Remember Condi Rice's comment on a smoking gun turning into a mushroom cloud? They are using the same metaphor here. Only this time, President Bush is calling for an escalation of the Iraq war, and possibly a war with Iran, to keep nuclear weapons out of both Iran, and the "radical Islamic extremists." The Bush administration's original arguments for invading Iraq was to also keep Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons.

Al Qaeda is still active in Iraq. Its home base is Anbar Province. Al Qaeda has helped make Anbar the most violent area of Iraq outside the capital. A captured Al Qaeda document describes the terrorists’ plan to infiltrate and seize control of the province. This would bring Al Qaeda closer to its goals of taking down Iraq’s democracy, building a radical Islamic empire, and launching new attacks on the United States at home and abroad.

Anbar Province is an overwhelmingly Sunni Arab province in Iraq. While the political system in Anbar may have collapsed, allowing al Qaeda to fill this power vacuum, I would say that the situation in Anbar is far more complex. Anbar has become a province of chaos and anarchy, where control is diffused among al Qaeda terrorist groups, Iraqi Sunni insurgents, tribal leaders, and who knows what or who else is there. Each of these groups will have their own agenda in this lawless province--say, the Sunni insurgents would be more interested in attacking Shiites. But what we have here in Bush's speech is that al Qaeda is responsible for "taking down Iraq’s democracy, building a radical Islamic empire, and launching new attacks on the United States at home and abroad." And Bush even claims to have a captured al Qaeda document which reveals this strategy. What Bush doesn't want to say is that the sectarian violence against Iraqis is being caused by Iraqis--Shiite Iraqis are fighting Sunni Iraqis. Instead, the American public is continually being fed the same PR-line of al Qaeda is responsible for the insurgency in Iraq.

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region.

If there is one set of comments by President Bush that really scare me, it is right here. I have not really seen any evidence of either the governments of Iran or Syria providing support for terrorists in Iraq--I could be wrong here. I have not seen any evidence of Iran providing support to terrorists or insurgents in Iraq. I know that both Syria and Iran have supported Palestinian militant groups that have engaged in terrorist attacks against Israel, but that is not Iraq.

We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

Those three sentences sound like a Bush call to war against Iran. And President Bush is backing up that call by sending another carrier strike group into the Persian Gulf region. A U.S. attack against Iran will be a disaster of proportions that I can't comprehend. We don't have enough troops on the ground in Iraq to take on both Iraqi insurgents and the Iranian army, which numbers around 350,000. Then there is the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Force, which was intended to guard the Iranian Revolution, and assist the Islamic clerics in the enforcement of the Iranian government's Islamic codes and morality. This force numbers between 100,000 to 350,000 with ground, air, and naval units. President Bush is looking at a potential attack against fresh Iranian military forces, where our own armed forces, and reserves, have been under the strain of Iraqi combat operations, and could end up breaking down.

This is not a winning strategy.

There are a few other minor comments that I found rather surprising. Consider this:

Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship.

I wonder who the speechwriter was that put this in? There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship? How about a victory ceremony on the deck of an aircraft carrier? I'm sorry, Mr. President, but that victory ceremony on the deck of a battleship took place after the Japanese emperor Hirohito announced, on radio, that the Japanese government accepted the Allied conditions of the Potsdam Declaration, thus completing Japan's surrender to the Allies during the Second World War. Saddam never surrendered his country to the American forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Instead, he went into hiding. Saddam was finally captured on December 15, 2003--eight months after Bush made his "Mission Accomplished" speech. There is a big difference here between a government that surrenders its authority and sovereignty to an invader, and a government that goes into hiding after an invader takes control of the country--there is no surrender by that government to the invader. The nation, and its people, have not surrendered its sovereignty to that invader--look at the Sunni reaction to both Saddam's capture and his execution. Instead of a unified Iraqi population that accepts the surrender of Iraq's sovereignty to the U.S., we have a divided country along sectarian lines where the Shiites, who accept the toppling of Saddam's regime which results in their own ascendance to power in Iraq; the Sunnis, who oppose the complete Shiite rule out of fear that the Shiites will force the Sunnis into a permanent minority status in Iraq; and the Kurds, who move closer to their own goal of establishing an autonomous homeland for themselves. Of course, Bush is right about one thing--a U.S. victory in Iraq will not be like past victories our fathers and grandfathers achieved. Victory in Iraq will be more like a hollow victory of Vietnam, where politicians will boldly announce that victory has been achieved while the rest of America will know that the U.S. was soundly defeated.

And finally, I love President Bush's version of bipartisanship:

Acting on the good advice of Senator Joe Lieberman and other key members of Congress, we will form a new, bipartisan working group that will help us come together across party lines to win the war on terror. This group will meet regularly with me and my administration. It will help strengthen our relationship with Congress.

Bipartisanship for Bush is Joe Lieberman, who is pretty much the Bush administration's lapdog regarding the Iraq war. Lieberman is a hawk, who completely supports President Bush's proposed troop surge. That is not true bipartisanship, where President Bush will have to seriously work with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on forging a compromising position regarding a new U.S. war strategy for Iraq. This is the stale, Bush administration's version of bipartisanship--a rubber stamp.

I will say that this speech was another rehash of the same, tired, old policies that this Bush administration is trying to force upon the American public so that the Bush neocons can continue this war. This surge of American troops was another plan to keep the U.S. in Iraq until after 2008, where Bush can then shove this mess to his successor, claiming he did everything he could in this war. This surge of troops is just another attempt to salvage Bush's presidential legacy--let someone else take the fall for losing Iraq. But I've said that in previous posts. It is the same game of keeping these neocon extremist policies alive for the next two years, before the next election. That is the writing on the wall here--keep the war going until the next election. Keep the war going so that Bush can hand it off to the next president and save his legacy. Keep the war going so that the PNAC neocons can blame the next president for losing the war, and not following the neocon agenda. Keep the war going so that President Bush cannot be regarded as a failure.

Just keep the war going.

Iraqi deaths tripled to 22,950 in later half of 2006

I guess we are winning in Iraq. I found this article in the Washington Post:

BAGHDAD, Jan. 7 -- More than 17,000 Iraqi civilians and police officers died violently in the latter half of 2006, according to Iraqi Health Ministry statistics, a sharp increase that coincided with rising sectarian strife since the February bombing of a landmark Shiite shrine.

In the first six months of last year, 5,640 Iraqi civilians and police officers were killed, but that number more than tripled to 17,310 in the latter half of the year, according to data provided by a Health Ministry official with direct knowledge of the statistics. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, said those numbers remained incomplete, suggesting the final tally of violent deaths could be higher.

Graphic showing an increase in Iraqi war deaths. From the Washington Post

Last year's spike in casualties occurred despite an ambitious U.S. military operation in the capital, Together Forward, that involved thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops cordoning off some of the deadliest neighborhoods and conducting house-to-house searches.

"We have been in a reaction mode in many ways to the events that occurred because of the [February] bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, and that began a cycle of sectarian violence that we've been working very, very, very hard to keep under control," Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the former second-ranking commander in Iraq, told reporters last month.

"Now, I'm not in any way happy with what I see in Baghdad. The level of violence is way too high," he added.

So Iraqi deaths have tripled in the later half of 2006 in spite of the ambitious U.S. military operation Together Forward. And these deaths have been attributed to the rising level of sectarian violence--especially between the Shiites and the Sunnis. If Together Forward couldn't even put a dent in the level of violence in Iraq, then how the heck will President Bush's proposed 20,000 troop increase going to help? Continuing with the WaPost article:

The Health Ministry's full-year death toll of 22,950, although incomplete, is higher than the 13,896 violent deaths of civilians, police officers and soldiers reported Jan. 1 by Iraq's ministries of defense, health and interior. The United Nations, in a November report, estimated that more than 28,000 Iraqi civilians had died violently in the first 10 months of 2006, but that count was disputed by the government. The differences in the numbers could not be reconciled.

Iraq's death toll from violence is controversial because it provides a vivid report card on the difficulty of U.S. and Iraqi efforts to bring order to the country. Neither the U.S. government nor the military provides death totals for Iraqis.

It is ironic how the U.S. government or military refuses to provide death totals for the Iraqi civilian casualties. There have been plenty of rumors of how the U.S. military has been under-reporting American casualty figures since the war started. The U.S. military already discounts Iraqi casualties killed in car bombing and mortar attacks. So in one sense, it doesn't surprise me that we are not only starting to see an increase in the sectarian violence taking place in Iraq, but also the increased exposure of the U.S. military and government's under-reporting of these casualty figures.

This war in Iraq is now out of control.

More Bush White House game of musical chairs!

This is off the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 — President Bush has decided to name Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus as the top American military commander in Iraq, part of a broad revamping of the military team that will carry out the administration’s new Iraq strategy, administration officials said Thursday.

President George W. Bush has replaced General George Casey, seen here in June 2006, with Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, as the man in charge of all US and coalition forces in Iraq. (AFP/File/Brendan Smialowski)

In addition to the promotion of General Petraeus, who will replace Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the choice to succeed Gen. John P. Abizaid as the head of the Central Command is expected to be Adm. William J. Fallon, who is the top American military officer in the Pacific, officials said.

The changes are being made as the White House is considering an option to increase American combat power in Baghdad by five brigades as well as adding two battalions of reinforcements to the volatile province of Anbar in western Iraq.

President George W. Bush announced the replacement of the top US general in the Middle East, John Abizaid, seen here in 2006, and the senior general in Iraq, George Casey, media reported. Abizaid is being replaced by Adm. William J. Fallon. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Alex Wong)

[....]

Senior administration officials said that the choice of General Petraeus was part of a broader effort to change almost all of the top American officials in Iraq as Mr. Bush changes his strategy there.

“The idea is to put the whole new team in at roughly the same time, and send some clear messages that we are trying a new approach,” a senior administration official said Thursday.

Admiral William J. Fallon (L) and Lt. Gen. David Petraeus (R) in an undated composite image. President Bush is planning to name a new ambassador and military commanders for Iraq as he prepares to make a fresh start on a worsening problem that has mired his administration and threatens his legacy. (PACOM/DOD/Handout/Reuters)

In addition to the military changes, Mr. Bush intends to appoint the ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, as the new United States ambassador to the United Nations, a senior administration official said Thursday.

“It was clearly time to move the players around on the field,” said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Mr. Bush had yet to announce the changes. “This helps the president to make the case that this is a fresh start.”

There are a couple of items to note here. First, Casey was skeptical that a troop surge in Iraq would improve the situation. According to this December 20, 2006 International Herald Tribune story:

[Defense Secretary Robert] Gates said his talks with General George Casey Jr., the top ground commander in Iraq, and General John Abizaid, the top U.S. general for the Middle East, had included discussion of "the possibility of a surge and the potential for what it might accomplish."

But at a news conference with Gates standing next to him, Casey indicated he wanted to see a more thorough plan for how the additional troops would be used before he would endorse the idea.

"Additional troops have to be for a purpose," he said. "I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, but what I want to see happen is, if we do bring more American troops here, they help us progress toward our strategic objectives."

My guess here is that Casey was open to a surge of American troops who would provide training for the Iraqi security forces. Once the training was completed, then the U.S. could start withdrawing its forces while having the Iraqi security forces police the country. However, the Bush White House decided to go the opposite direction of increasing American forces to provide security in Iraq. Casey became a liability to the Bush administration since he was not a "yes man" regarding the Bush strategy for the war. Consider this January 2, 2007 New York Times story:

President Bush began 2006 assuring the country that he had a “strategy for victory in Iraq.” He ended the year closeted with his war cabinet on his ranch trying to devise a new strategy, because the existing one had collapsed.

The original plan, championed by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Baghdad, and backed by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, called for turning over responsibility for security to the Iraqis, shrinking the number of American bases and beginning the gradual withdrawal of American troops. But the plan collided with Iraq’s ferocious unraveling, which took most of Mr. Bush’s war council by surprise.

In interviews in Washington and Baghdad, senior officials said the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department had also failed to take seriously warnings, including some from its own ambassador in Baghdad, that sectarian violence could rip the country apart and turn Mr. Bush’s promise to “clear, hold and build” Iraqi neighborhoods and towns into an empty slogan.

This left the president and his advisers constantly lagging a step or two behind events on the ground.

Over the past 12 months, as optimism collided with reality, Mr. Bush increasingly found himself uneasy with General Casey’s strategy. And now, as the image of Saddam Hussein at the gallows recedes, Mr. Bush seems all but certain not only to reverse the strategy that General Casey championed, but also to accelerate the general’s departure from Iraq, according to senior military officials.

General Casey repeatedly argued that his plan offered the best prospect for reducing the perception that the United States remained an occupier — and it was a path he thought matched Mr. Bush’s wishes. Earlier in the year, it had.

But as Baghdad spun further out of control, some of the president’s advisers now say, Mr. Bush grew concerned that General Casey, among others, had become more fixated on withdrawal than victory.

Now, having ousted Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Bush sees a chance to bring in a new commander as he announces a new strategy, senior military officials say. General Casey was scheduled to shift out of Iraq in the summer. But now it appears that it may happen in February or March.

By mid-September, Mr. Bush was disappointed with the results in Iraq and signed off on a complete review of Iraq strategy — a review centered in Washington, not in Baghdad. Whatever form the new strategy takes, it seems almost certain to include a “surge” in forces, something that General Casey insisted earlier this year he did not need and which might even be counterproductive.

In a telephone interview on Friday, General Casey continued to caution against a lengthy expansion in the American military role. “The longer we in the U.S. forces continue to bear the main burden of Iraq’s security, it lengthens the time that the government of Iraq has to take the hard decisions about reconciliation and dealing with the militias,” he said. “And the other thing is that they can continue to blame us for all of Iraq’s problems, which are at base their problems.”

Casey became a critic of the Bush administration's war strategy. Therefore, Casey had to go.

Gen. John P. Abizaid was also a critic of the Bush administration's Iraq war policy, but on a different level. In this August 3, 2006 New York Times story, Abizaid told the Senate Appropriations Committee that the sectarian violence in Iraq was causing the country to head towards a civil war:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 — The commander of American forces in the Middle East bluntly warned a Senate committee on Thursday that sectarian violence in Iraq, especially in the capital, Baghdad, had grown so severe that the nation could slide toward civil war.

he commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, also acknowledged that since the security situation remained so unstable, significant reductions in American forces were unlikely before the end of this year.

Asked by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, whether Iraq risked falling into civil war, General Abizaid replied, “I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.”

In March, General Abizaid told the Senate Appropriations Committee that sectarian violence in Iraq was replacing the insurgency as the greatest threat to security and stability.

Now back in August of 2006, the Bush White House has been refusing to call Iraq a civil war--a complete contradiction to what the generals are saying. According to this August 3, 2006 ABC News story:

[President] Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have steadfastly refused to call the situation in Iraq a civil war, although Rumsfeld at a news conference on Wednesday acknowledged that the violence is increasing.

I'm starting to wonder if we're seeing the opening details of a massive Bush administration CYA plan for Iraq. The Bush administration has got to know now that the war in going in their favor. The Republicans lost control of Congress because of Iraq. The American people have turned against this war--according to the latest January 4, 2007 CBS News poll, an incredible 76 percent of the American public believe that President Bush even has a plan for Iraq, 72 percent of the American public disapprove of Bush's handling of the Iraq war, and President Bush's job approval rating is at 30 percent, with 63 percent of Americans disapproving of his performance. Bush may also be looking ahead as to what his legacy will be with history--especially considering how the Iraq war is descending further into chaos and disaster. What we could be seeing here is the start of a major CYA plan by the Bush White House. First, someone in the administration probably leaked the story of a proposed troop surge in Iraq, with the sacrifice theme, to both prepare the American people for President Bush's announcement to escalate this war, and perhaps to steal a little thunder from the Democrats opening day in Congress. Next we have this week's game of White House musical chairs—John Negroponte moving from intelligence czar to State, Harriet Miers resigning as White House counsel, and this sudden removal of both Generals Casey and Abizaid. Negroponte and Miers musical chairs may have been the result of protecting the Bush White House from the impending Democratic congressional investigations. The sacking of Casey and Abizaid was necessary to stifle any criticism of the Bush administration's war, and to replace those two with simple "yes men" generals to follow Bush. President Bush will outline his new plan for escalating the Iraq war during his State of the Union address--complete with sappy talk of sacrifice. And more Americans will be sent to their deaths in Iraq.

All of this is being played out to keep the U.S. in Iraq until Bush's second term ends. The new president will be stuck with cleaning up this mess, allowing Bush to claim that he didn't lose the war in Iraq. This CYA strategy also plays into the hands of the PNAC neocons still in the Bush White House. The PNAC neocons can still maintain the permanent U.S. bases in Iraq for the next two years, or perhaps longer--depending upon the 2008 president and still control the oil reserves in Iraq. It is all about control--control of Iraq, the war, the oil resources, the permanent bases, and especially time--time for George Bush to leave the White House and thrust the stinking pile of crap that is this Iraq war, into the hands of his 2008 successor. Any deviation from this strategy of control could force this administration to collapse upon its own incompetence and failures.

Some more thoughts on the upcoming Bush troop increase

I'd like to continue here on some of the comments I've made regarding President Bush's proposed troop increases. I originally started commenting on this issue through my posting of Keith Olbermann's Special Commentary on the American troop surge and Bush's proposed calls for "sacrifice." There are two major stories regarding this issue. The first is the breaking BBC story on this troop surge:

US President George W Bush intends to reveal a new Iraq strategy within days, the BBC has learnt.

The speech will reveal a plan to send more US troops to Iraq to focus on ways of bringing greater security, rather than training Iraqi forces.

The move comes with figures from Iraqi ministries suggesting that deaths among civilians are at record highs.

The US president arrived back in Washington on Monday after a week-long holiday at his ranch in Texas.

The BBC was told by a senior administration source that the speech setting out changes in Mr Bush's Iraq policy is likely to come in the middle of next week.

Its central theme will be sacrifice.

The speech, the BBC has been told, involves increasing troop numbers.

The exact mission of the extra troops in Iraq is still under discussion, according to officials, but it is likely to focus on providing security rather than training Iraqi forces.

The proposal, if it comes, will be highly controversial.

Already one senior Republican senator has called it Alice in Wonderland.

The need to find some way of pacifying Iraq has been underlined by statistics revealed by various ministries in the Iraqi government, suggesting that well over 1,000 civilians a month are dying.

First I want to say that I'm not surprised that the Bush administration is proposing this troop surge. There have been plenty of rumors and stories in the mainstream media, over the past couple of months, saying that the Bush White House is considering adding more troops. On January 1, 2007, I posted a story where the Bush administration was considering sending an increase of 20,000 American troops into Iraq, but that Marine Corps General James Conway wondered if there was a justifiable military reason for this increase. I also have a December 20, 2006 story, where Secretary of State Condi Rice said that President Bush was considering an increase of American troops in Iraq. And I have a December 19, 2006 story, where the Bush White House and the Joint Chiefs engaged in a major argument over the troop surge. So this proposed Bush troop surge has been bandied about for some time--perhaps ever since the Iraq Study Group's report has been released.

But the BBC story does present one incredible detail regarding this proposed surge. And that is the new Bush theme of "sacrifice." This sacrifice theme is just another Bush PR-ploy in continuing to sell this disaster of a war to the American people, even though the American people have expressed their desire for getting out of Iraq. The BBC story says that Bush will make a speech regarding this troop increase within days--probably during Bush's State of the Union Speech. The State of the Union speech is a perfect time for this announcement. Since this story of the troop surge has likely been leaked to the media by Bush officials, the mainstream media will spend a huge amount of time spinning this increase before Bush's SOTU address. Bush will certainly weave this theme of sacrifice in his SOTU speech, perhaps invoking a number of references from Franklin Roosevelt. I can certainly see Bush trying to equate his new theme of sacrifice in the global war on terror, with that of FDR asking the American people to make sacrifices during the Second World War. We'll have to see what happens when President Bush makes his SOTU address.

The second story I want to talk about here is this MSNBC story on the Bush troop surge:

WASHINGTON - Although nothing is final until President Bush puts his stamp on it, administration officials tell NBC News the president has all but decided on a temporary surge of additional American forces into Iraq in an effort to bring sectarian violence in Baghdad under control.

While no one is talking specific numbers, military officials believe it would involve some 20,000 additional soldiers and Marines.

Most of the increase would be achieved by extending the deployments of those troops already in Iraq by 90 days and accelerating the deployments for troops scheduled to deploy by sending them into Iraq sooner.

Administration and some military officials believe that without adequate security, particularly in Baghdad, any progress in Iraq would be difficult if not impossible.

Once the level of violence is brought under control, the U.S. military could then conceivably concentrate on accelerating the training for Iraqi security forces and the turnover of more territory to the Iraqis.

There are a couple of details in this story that is not found in the BBC story. First, there is the continued confirmation that this surge will be around 20,000 troops. This number has also been raised countless times over the past couple of months. The MSNBC story provides more details on this strategy, where the surge of American troops will be needed to provide greater security around Baghdad before the U.S. can provide accelerated training of Iraqi security forces. Instead of increasing American forces in Iraq to provide training, we get this complicated plan of increasing American troops to provide security before we can train the Iraqi forces. The big question to ask here is how long will it take for this small surge of 20,000 American troops can provide enough security in Iraq so that they can accelerate the training of Iraqi security forces? Because I don't think that an increase of 20,000 American troops will be enough to provide security in Iraq, or even Baghdad.

But there is more in this MSNBC story:

But administration officials stress the military option is only one part of a larger, more comprehensive strategy.

The plan also would throw more U.S. money at Iraq for reconstruction and a jobs program.

In addition, the U.S. would turn up the political heat by pressuring the Shiite-led government to aggressively crack down on the Shiite militias, particularly the Mahdi Army led by Muqtada al-Sadr, believed responsible for killing hundreds of Iraqi Sunnis in a bloody round of sectarian retributions.

At the same time the U.S. would appeal to moderate Sunnis to work harder to reach some kind of conciliation with the Shiite majority or risk being entirely shut out of any future government in Iraq.

The plan, of course, is fraught with peril. Some U.S. generals — and many experts outside the current military — warn that a short-term surge in forces will not have any long-term effect on the violence in Iraq. Even worse, they fear it will result in a dramatic increase in American casualties, just as the number of U.S. forces killed in the Iraq war has topped 3,000.

Talk about a huge contradiction here! First, the Bush administration wants the Iraqi government to crack down on the Shiite militias that are engaging in a civil war with the Sunnis. The Maliki government is not going to even attempt to crack down on Sadr's Mahdi Army--not unless Maliki wants to commit political suicide. Second, Bush is continuing to side with the Shiites in this ethnic civil war, mainly by continuing to support Maliki, over that of the Sunnis. There is no way the Sunnis are going to reconciliate with the U.S. here. Finally, if the Bush administration either forces Maliki to crack down on Sadr's army, or have U.S. troops attempt to crack down on the Shiite militias, then those U.S. soldiers in Iraq are going to be targeted by both Shiites and Sunnis. It is bad enough that U.S. forces are sitting in a county engaged in an ethnic and religious civil war, but it is going to be a real disaster if the U.S. starts picking sides in this war.

White House musical chairs: Miers resigns from White House counsel, Negroponte moves from Intel czar to No. 2 position at State

This is going to be a busy day for news at the Bush White House. We're seeing another game of musical chairs going on here. I'm going to start with this Washington Post story, titled Miers Resigns As White House Counsel:

WASHINGTON -- Harriet Miers, President Bush's failed Supreme Court nominee and longtime adviser, on Thursday submitted her resignation as White House counsel.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the president reluctantly accepted her resignation, which takes effect Jan. 31. He said a search for a successor is under way.

White House counsel Harriet Miers is seen in this October 20, 2005 file photo in Washington. Miers, whose nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court justice was withdrawn, has resigned effective Jan. 31, the White House said on Thursday. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts (UNITED STATES)

Bush nominated Miers in October 2005 to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, but she dropped out under fire from conservatives who questioned her qualifications and would not support her.

Asked why she was leaving, Snow said: "Basically, she has been here six years."

He said Miers, 61, a loyal adviser to the president for years, has been having conversations with White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten about leaving for some time and both agreed that it was time for a change at the White House office of legal counsel.

[....]

Snow said Miers' departure did not signal the beginning of an exodus of senior officials after six bruising years at the White House. Asked if other officials were poised to go, Snow said, "I'm aware of none and anticipate none."

You have to love this Tony Snow quote of how Bush officials are not leaving after six years--Sorry, no exodus here! They may not be leaving the administration, but they are certainly shifting their chairs here. We have Miers leaving the White House today, and just yesterday the news broke that intelligence czar John Negroponte is moving to the State Department. This is from the New York Times, titled Intelligence Chief to Shift to Deputy State Dept. Post:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 — John D. Negroponte, whom President Bush installed less than two years ago as the first director of national intelligence, will soon leave his post to become the State Department’s second-ranking official, administration officials said Wednesday.

Mr. Negroponte will fill a critical job that has been vacant for months, and he is expected to play a leading role in shaping policy in Iraq. But his transfer is another blow to an intelligence community that has seen little continuity at the top since the departure of George J. Tenet in 2004 as director of central intelligence.

Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte steps to the podium to deliver remarks at Georgetown University in Washington in this Friday, Feb. 17, 2006 file photo. Negroponte will resign after 20 months in the job to become the deputy secretary of state, two U.S. government officials said Wednesday night, Jan. 3, 2007. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

Mr. Negroponte had been brought to the intelligence job to help restore credibility and effectiveness to agencies whose reputations were badly damaged by failures related to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and mistaken prewar assessments of Iraq’s illicit weapons. He has maintained a low public profile but provides Mr. Bush with a briefing most mornings.

President Bush has hailed the establishment of the intelligence post as an essential step in helping prevent another terrorist attack. On paper, the director of national intelligence outranks the deputy secretary of state, raising questions about why the White House would seek — and why Mr. Negroponte would agree to — the shift.

The move, expected to be announced this week, comes as the president prepares to announce a new strategy for Iraq as sectarian violence worsens there and approval ratings sag at home.

The administration has had great difficulty filling the State Department position. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has asked several people who have turned down the post, according to senior State Department officials.

But administration officials interviewed on Wednesday would not say whether Mr. Negroponte was moving because the White House saw him as uniquely qualified for the diplomatic post, or because President Bush was dissatisfied with his performance as intelligence chief, or whether it was a combination of the two.

Mr. Negroponte has served as ambassador to the United Nations and to Iraq, and administration officials say Ms. Rice was trying to recruit him to bring more Iraq expertise to her office.

Administration officials from two different agencies said Wednesday that the leading candidate to become the new intelligence chief is J. Michael McConnell, a retired vice admiral who led the National Security Agency from 1992 to 1996. Admiral McConnell was head of intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Gen. Colin L. Powell during the first Persian Gulf war, in 1991.

Something is going on here that I just can't put my finger on. Are the rats leaving this sinking Bush ship? Is there a power struggle going on in the Bush administration between the PNAC neocons and the newly arriving real politick people who served under Poppy Bush--think Robert Gates replacing Don Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary. Are we seeing another buildup of a siege mentality in the Bush White House--especially now that the Democrats are opening the new session of the 110th Congress, where investigations into the Bush scandals will be starting soon? I would even have to wonder if there is a connection between Negroponte's move to State and Bush's upcoming announcement of increasing American troops in the Iraq war, considering his "expertise" on Iraq that Secretary of State Condi Rice has never had.

Something is going on in the Bush White House. We'll just have to wait for more to come.

Rice: Iraq is "worth the investment"

I found this off MSNBC News:

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told The Associated Press on Thursday that Iraq is “worth the investment” in American lives and dollars and said the U.S. can still win a conflict that has been more difficult than she expected.

In an interview at the State Department, the nation’s highest-ranking black government official also said the United States is ready to elect a black president.

Rice was asked whether an additional $100 billion the Pentagon wants for the Iraq and Afghan wars might amount to throwing good money after bad in Iraq. President Bush and Congress have already provided more than $500 billion for the two conflicts and worldwide efforts against terrorism, including more than $350 billion for Iraq.

“I don’t think it’s a matter of money,” Rice said. “Along the way there have been plenty of markers that show that this is a country that is worth the investment, because once it emerges as a country that is a stabilizing factor you will have a very different kind of Middle East.”

“I know from the point of view of not just the monetary cost but the sacrifice of American lives a lot has been sacrificed for Iraq, a lot has been invested in Iraq,” Rice said.

Bush would not ask for continued sacrifice and spending “if he didn’t believe, and in fact I believe as well, that we can in fact succeed,” Rice said.

Rice said the Bush administration should be remembered for far more than the Iraq war. She ticked off foreign policy commitments and accomplishments including increased aid to fight AIDS and malaria in Africa and a peace deal ending two decades of North-South warfare in Sudan.

I have no words for Rice's "investment" of 3000 American lives and $500 billion of American treasure in Iraq. What have we gotten in return for this "investment?" An ethnic civil war that's raging in Iraq? A broken down military, where soldiers are leaving after being forced into multiple tours, or the broken equipment.

What is our return on this "investment?"

I don't know how many times I've said this, but the war in Iraq is a disaster. It is a failure! This war is a bad investment for the United States--generating incalculable losses for the American people. And yet, here we have Condi Rice continuing the fantasy spin, saying the war is "worth the investment," as we continue to sink more American lives and American treasure in this failure. Rice claims that Iraq will become a "stabilizing factor" which will reshape "very different kind of Middle East." Does Condi Rice even read the newspapers? Iraq has not been stabilizing--but rather de-stabilizing into civil war. And yet, the Bush White House continues their ridiculous spin. It has gotten to the point where Rice claims that the Bush administration should be remembered for more than just the Iraq war, citing such minor accomplishments of fighting the AIDS epidemic in Africa, or talking about a peace deal in the Sudan. What Rice fails to realize is that war in Iraq is the defining policy for the Bush administration. With so much invested into this war--3,000 American dead and $500 billion spent--it is impossible to either downplay this foreign policy failure, or even claim that the Bush administration's other "accomplishments," can make up for this disaster.

And yet, the Bush White House continues spinning.

Bush: 'Victory in Iraq is Achievable'

Well, how about some more White House spin in the bubble machine! This is from The Washington Post:

President Bush acknowledged today that 2006 has been a disappointing year for U.S. troops and the Iraqi people, as the optimism of a newly elected government in Baghdad gave way to a successful strategy by "the enemies of liberty" to foment sectarian violence. And he warned that "difficult choices and additional sacrifices" lie ahead in 2007.

In a year-end news conference at the White House, Bush also said he is leaning toward increasing the "permanent size" of the Army and Marine Corps to meet the challenges of a long struggle against Islamic extremists. But he said he has not yet made up his mind whether to boost U.S. forces in Iraq in the short term.

Despite his comment yesterday in an interview with The Washington Post that the United States is currently "not winning" in Iraq, he said today that he continues to believe that "victory in Iraq is achievable" and that U.S. forces will eventually prevail.

Talk about the contradictions in spin here! Bush is now contradicting himself daily. First, Bush wants to increase the permanent size of the Army and Marines, but he fails to realize that the Army is not getting the recruits that is needed to generate this increase. In fact, the Army has to lower their standards just to maintain their recruiting goals. I've certainly written plenty of posts on just how bad the Army is breaking down here, here, here, here, here, and here. And I'm sure there are even more articles on the military problems that can be found on the Internet.

But that is not the only contradiction here. In an interview with the Washington Post, Bush actually said that the U.S. was not winning the war in Iraq. Here's the quote through the WaPost interview:

President Bush acknowledged for the first time yesterday that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq and said he plans to expand the overall size of the "stressed" U.S. armed forces to meet the challenges of a long-term global struggle against terrorists.

As he searches for a new strategy for Iraq, Bush has now adopted the formula advanced by his top military adviser to describe the situation. "We're not winning, we're not losing," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. The assessment was a striking reversal for a president who, days before the November elections, declared, "Absolutely, we're winning."

And now you look at today's press conference, Bush is contradicting himself, saying:

Asked why he continues to follow a path of maintaining U.S. forces in Iraq indefinitely against what polls show is the will of most Americans, Bush said, "I am willing to follow a path that leads to victory. . . . Victory in Iraq is achievable. It hadn't happened nearly as quickly as I hoped it would have."

Would you like another contradiction? How about Bush contradicting what the Pentagon has just reported regarding al Qaeda in Iraq. Here is what Bush said today about al Qaeda in Iraq:

Bush said it was important to analyze what has gone wrong in Iraq as he considers options for a new strategy there. He credited a foreign-led radical group affiliated with the al-Qaeda terrorist network with carrying out a "successful" strategy to ignite sectarian strife in Iraq between minority Sunni Muslim Arabs and the country's Shiite Muslim majority.

President Bush isn't even bothering to listen to his Pentagon generals. This is what the Pentagon said yesterday through CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army has replaced al Qaeda in Iraq as "the most dangerous accelerant" of the sectarian violence plaguing Iraq for nearly a year, according to a Pentagon report.

Attacks by Iraqi insurgents and sectarian militias jumped 22 percent from mid-August to mid-November, and Iraqi civilians suffered the bulk of casualties, according to the quarterly report released on Monday.

The average number of attacks reported each week jumped during that period from nearly 800 to almost 1,000, the report said.

The two most prominent militias -- the Mehdi Army and the Badr Organization -- are armed wings of Shiite political parties whose support is crucial to the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The Mehdi Army in particular "exerts significant influence in Baghdad and the southern provinces of Iraq and on the government of Iraq," and fights periodic battles with Badr supporters, according to the report. The Badr Organization is affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

The violence taking place in Iraq is not caused by al Qaeda, or foreign terrorist networks, but rather through the Iraqis themselves--specifically the Mehdi Army and the Badr Organization. This is Shiite Iraqis fighting Sunni Iraqis. Al Qaeda has nothing to do with igniting sectarian strife in Iraq between Shiites and Sunnis--the Iraqis are doing this all by themselves.

Of course, Bush is contradicting the American people as well. Here is what Bush is saying in today's press conference:

[Bush] said he does not believe that "most Americans want us just to get out now," and he warned that "retreat" from Iraq would embolden Islamic extremists, hurt U.S. credibility and "dash the hopes of millions who want to be free." Such a move would also enable radicals to have safe havens from which to plot further attacks on the United States, he said.

Of course, we all know that Bush doesn't bother reading the polls. Here's the December 11, 2006 CBS News poll:

(CBS) Americans believe the war in Iraq is going badly and getting worse, and think it's time for the U.S. either to change its strategy or start getting out, according to a CBS News poll.

Forty-three percent say the U.S. should keep fighting, but with new tactics, while 50 percent say the U.S. should begin to end its involvement altogether. Only 4 percent say the U.S. should keep fighting as it is doing now.

Just 21 percent approve of President Bush's handling of the war, the lowest number he's ever received, and an 8-point drop from just a month ago. Most of that drop has been among Republicans and conservatives. Three-quarters of Americans disapprove of how the president is handling Iraq.

Opposition to the war is now taking on historic proportions, with 62 percent saying it was "a mistake" to send U.S. troops to Iraq — slightly more than told a Gallup Poll in 1973 that it was a mistake to send U.S. forces to Vietnam.

Americans generally agree with the assessment of the Iraq Study Group, which called the situation in Iraq "grave and deteriorating." But fewer than half — 46 percent — think Mr. Bush will seriously consider the bipartisan panel's recommendations; 43 percent think he will not.

Seventy-one percent say the war is going badly, including 39 percent who believe the war is going very badly. Just 25 percent say it's going well. The negative assessment of the war was shared by a majority of Republicans, Democrats and Independents.

Half of all Americans believe the situation in Iraq is getting worse, while fewer than one in 10 think it's getting better.

Only 15 percent of Americans — the lowest number ever — say the U.S. is currently winning the war. And for the first time, a majority (53 percent) believes it's not likely that the U.S. will ultimately succeed.

Of course, I've got the numbers for the December 12, 2006 Washington Post poll, the December 9, 2006 Newsweek poll, and the December 8, 2006 AP-Ipsos Poll. Each of these polls show the same results--a majority of the American public oppose the Bush administration's war in Iraq. They believe that the U.S. is not winning the war. The American public desperately wants a change in course regarding U.S. war in Iraq--mainly by supporting the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. But, we all know that President Bush has tossed the ISG report in the trash.

I'm sure there are even more contradictions in this Bush press conference than what I've found. I have not had a chance to read through the transcripts here. But even with this quick-and-dirty glance at the WaPost story on the Bush press conference, it is just incredible at how the president is living in a fantasyland--contradicting himself daily when compared to even the news stories that have come out this month. What is going to come out of the Bush White House next year--flying pink elephants, elves, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Clause?

CBS News Poll--More bad news for Bush

I'm just amazed at how the latest poll numbers are showing the same trend regarding American's views on the Iraq war. This is from the CBS News Poll:

(CBS) Americans believe the war in Iraq is going badly and getting worse, and think it's time for the U.S. either to change its strategy or start getting out, according to a CBS News poll.

Forty-three percent say the U.S. should keep fighting, but with new tactics, while 50 percent say the U.S. should begin to end its involvement altogether. Only 4 percent say the U.S. should keep fighting as it is doing now.

Just 21 percent approve of President Bush's handling of the war, the lowest number he's ever received, and an 8-point drop from just a month ago. Most of that drop has been among Republicans and conservatives. Three-quarters of Americans disapprove of how the president is handling Iraq.

Opposition to the war is now taking on historic proportions, with 62 percent saying it was "a mistake" to send U.S. troops to Iraq — slightly more than told a Gallup Poll in 1973 that it was a mistake to send U.S. forces to Vietnam.

Americans generally agree with the assessment of the Iraq Study Group, which called the situation in Iraq "grave and deteriorating." But fewer than half — 46 percent — think Mr. Bush will seriously consider the bipartisan panel's recommendations; 43 percent think he will not.

Seventy-one percent say the war is going badly, including 39 percent who believe the war is going very badly. Just 25 percent say it's going well. The negative assessment of the war was shared by a majority of Republicans, Democrats and Independents.

Half of all Americans believe the situation in Iraq is getting worse, while fewer than one in 10 think it's getting better.

Only 15 percent of Americans — the lowest number ever — say the U.S. is currently winning the war. And for the first time, a majority (53 percent) believes it's not likely that the U.S. will ultimately succeed.

Sixty percent think that Iraq will never become a stable democracy — the highest number ever — while 85 percent now characterize the situation there as a civil war.

Fifty-seven percent say Mr. Bush needs to make major changes in his Iraq policy, while 29 percent think only minor changes should be made. Just 8 percent think no changes in U.S. policy are needed.

By a 2-1 margin, Americans now say they have more confidence in congressional Democrats to handle the war than in the president.

Nearly six in 10 Americans want to see some kind of a drawdown in U.S. troop levels, including 25 percent who want all U.S. forces removed from Iraq.

Only 39 percent of Americans now say taking military action against Iraq was the right thing to do, tying the lowest number ever, while 55 percent say the U.S. should have stayed out. The country was evenly divided on this question as recently as a year ago.

A PDF file showing the results of the poll can be seen here.

Now there are some interesting little details regarding this poll. CBS News asked the question What should U.S. do in Iraq now? It is this question, the gave this split response of "Forty-three percent say the U.S. should keep fighting, but with new tactics, while 50 percent say the U.S. should begin to end its involvement altogether." While there is a clear majority of Americans wanting to get out of Iraq, the majority is only seven percentage points. In a sense, the American public is stuck trying to figure out how to resolve Iraq. One interesting aspect is how the American public has latched on to the Iraq Study Group as a resolution--with 48 percent of the American public agreeing with the recommendations in the ISG report, 19 percent disagreeing, and a high 26 percent who do not know. This statistic is pretty much in line with the December 9th Newsweek poll. There is one number that really surprises me, and that is the 85 percent of Americans who "now characterize the situation there as a civil war." So not only does the American public disapprove of President Bush's handling of Iraq, are willing to embrace the ISG recommendations, but a majority now believes that Iraq is in a civil war. None of this is good news for a Bush White House more intent on spinning the Iraq news, rather than trying to find a resolution to Iraq. Already, President Bush has postponed his major Iraq speech until after 2007:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 — The White House said Tuesday that President Bush would delay presenting any new strategy for Iraq until early next year, as officials suggested that Mr. Bush’s advisers were locked in internal debates on several fronts about how to proceed.

The absence of an immediate new American plan for Iraq is adding to anxiety among Iraq’s moderate neighbors, who identify with the country’s minority Sunni Arab population, and has opened the way for new proposals from many quarters, in Iraq as well as in Washington, about the next steps. But several administration officials said Mr. Bush had concluded that the decisions about troops, political pressure and diplomacy were too complicated to rush in order to lay out a plan to the nation before Christmas.

[....]

A senior administration official said Mr. Bush had decided over the last two days to prolong the deliberations based on a concern that a pre-Christmas announcement might quickly be overtaken by events. That happened to Mr. Bush in late 2005 after he used a series of speeches to unveil a “Plan for Victory” for victory in Iraq.

“The president knows he’s got only one shot at this speech,” said a senior administration official involved in the debate. “He didn’t want to make half-way announcements.”

Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said the administration was continuing to “whittle away at options” and seeking more information from advisers, but already had a clear idea of the general outlines of his new approach. Mr. Bush also wanted to allow more time for Robert M. Gates, the incoming defense secretary, to weigh the military options he will ultimately have to carry out, the spokesman said. But Mr. Snow acknowledged that the debate continued.

“Look, there is one camp — it is the camp that works for the president,” Mr. Snow said. “Now, people are going to have disagreements, and there may be some areas on which there are still going to be debates, but most have kind of been ironed out. I would not rule out the fact that there may be some discussion on some points.”

The Bush marketing spin continues--only problem is that nobody seems to be listening.

7 out of 10 Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of Iraq

This is off The Washington Post:

In a new Post-ABC News poll, seven in 10 Americans disapprove of the way the president is handling the situation in Iraq -- the highest percentage since the March 2003 invasion. Six in 10 say the war was not worth fighting.

While both gauges on the war have been negative since late 2004, Bush's approval rating on Iraq has deteriorated further since early October, likely weakened by recent high-profile criticisms of the administration's Iraq policy.

The bleak appraisals of the war include the release last week of the much-anticipated report from the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan government advisory panel, which described conditions in Iraq as "grave and deteriorating."

In other words, the American public has been digesting the Iraq Study Group, and has decided that they still don't like President Bush's "stay the course" strategy. Some more details with the WaPost story:

In this poll, 36 percent approve of how Bush is handling his job, which is the second lowest percentage in Post-ABC polls since Bush took office in 2001; 62 percent disapprove.

And as has been true throughout this year, the intensity of sentiment runs starkly against the president: Those who strongly disapprove of Bush's job performance outnumber those who strongly approve by nearly a 3-to-1 margin.

While Bush enjoys significant support among Republicans (77 percent approve), just three in 10 independents, and three in 10 moderates, approve of his job performance. Democrats continue to give an overwhelmingly negative assessment of how Bush is handling his job (86 percent disapprove, 75 percent do so "strongly").

Attitudes about the Iraq war also showed a deep political division. Eighty-one percent of Democrats and 65 percent of independents say the war in Iraq was not worth fighting, while most Republicans -- 69 percent -- say that on balance the war was worth fighting.

Overall, 61 percent of Americans feel the war was not worth fighting. Half of Americans feel "strongly" that the war was not worth fighting, double the number who strongly believe that it was.

I should also note how this WaPost poll has the same results as the December 9th Newsweek poll, and the December 8th AP-Ipsos poll. The American public is now opposed to this war--no amount of Bush marketing spin can change that cold hard reality.

And yet, the Bush administration is completely blind to this. Here is part of the transcript to December 11th White House Press briefing with Tony Snow:

Q There's a new Newsweek poll that says that 67 percent of Americans would support keeping large numbers of U.S. military personnel in Iraq for no more than another year or two. Now we know that the President doesn't like to take very much notice of polls, and this week he's talking to a lot of experts and listening to them, but it seems that the American people are also speaking very loudly. I'm wondering how much is he going to factor in what they seem to be saying?

MR. SNOW: Well, let me put it this way --

Q And is he going to be listening to them?

MR. SNOW: The President has listened, but the other thing that will be interesting is what I talked about before. Public opinion is not something chiseled in stone. Quite often it's shaped by, among other things, political campaigns. And now there's an opportunity for both parties to work together.

And I think when the President comes out and has an opportunity to make clear what the goals are -- and, again, I don't know that there's widespread disaffection with the notion of a free, democratic Iraq standing on its own, with the United States supporting that, and as Iraq becomes more capable having American forces move out, and to do those swiftly as possible. I think that's something that the American public can support, and Democrats and Republicans alike can support.

We understand right now the anxiety about the situation in Iraq. And the President shares it. But on the other hand, the costs of leaving short of victory could be utterly catastrophic for the region and for the United States. The President has outlined that many times, therefore understanding not only what the stakes are for not completing the job, but also with the promise for completing the job. It's important for people to consider.

In other words, the Bush administration is not going to listen to what the American people are saying. Public opinion is not something chiseled in stone. Mr. Snow is actually right on this topic--public opinion can change, be shaped, and adapted according to political policies and events. The big problem for both Tony Snow and President Bush is that American public opinion has changed to a negative liability against the Bush administration over the long term. What was once American support for the war has changed to American opposition. And yet, the Bush administration refuses to acknowledge the American people's desire for change--for getting out of Iraq. In fact, Snow actually deflects the question of the American public's dissatisfaction of the U.S. war in Iraq with a supposed "disaffection with the notion of a free, democratic Iraq standing on its own...." The question was never about American public opinion on a free, democratic Iraq standing on its own. The question was that the American public would only support keeping American troops in Iraq for no more than two years--the American public wants a timetable for withdrawal. And the Bush administration still refused to accept a timetable. Continuing with the White House transcript:

Q So seeing as they're also saying that they do want a timetable -- both CBS and the Newsweek poll are saying that --

MR. SNOW: Well, as I said, Victoria, let's wait for the President to deliver his speech. My guess is that you will see, when the President is addressing the American people and addressing many of the concerns you're talking about, it will create a basis of support.

More White House spin here--let's not talk about timetables now. Let's wait until the president makes his big Iraq speech--whenever that will be. And after President Bush makes his big Iraq speech, the American people will embrace him and throw flowers at his feet. And of course, when the president does make that big speech, the attention will be focused on whatever the president said in his speech, whiles the American public's desire for a withdrawal timetable will be forgotten--at least until the next public opinion poll.