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Hillary's New Haters
Anti-war lefties have had it with Clinton. Now they don't have to take it anymore.

by Kristen Lombardi
December 13th, 2005 11:10 AM

William Stricklin harbors a special affinity for Hillary Clinton. The Arkansas native and Harlem resident goes so far as to credit Clinton with his life. Were it not for educational reforms she instituted as Arkansas's first lady in the late 1970s and early '80s, he would never have attended college and found his way to New York City, where he has felt more at home than at his family's Hatfield hog farm.
So when Clinton became New York's junior senator in 2000, Stricklin, a progressive Democratic activist, considered it "so perfect." He explains, "I thought, 'She helped me years ago and I can help her.' And now this . . . "

By "this," he means the Iraq war—or more precisely, Clinton's position on the Iraq war. Stricklin, who heads the Village Independent Democrats, cannot forget her stance—not the way the senator voted in 2002 to give President Bush authority to invade Iraq, nor the way she has refused to back down from her vote ever since. Says Stricklin of the politician who once inspired him, "She is on the wrong side."

Conventional wisdom has it that Hillary Clinton enjoys a solid lock on her liberal base, and here in New York her star power often translates into a free pass. But a surprising number of the state's progressives have become disaffected with their senator these days. Frustrated with the hard-right climate on Capitol Hill, people are upset with what they regard as Clinton's cautious, middle-of-the-road style. They don't like her restraint on such big lefty issues as civil liberties and abortion rights. And they certainly don't like her position on the war—indeed, angry activists have taken to hounding her whenever they can. To wit: the dozens of Code Pinkers protesting last week outside Crobar, in Chelsea, where her husband Bill headlined a fundraiser for her 2006 re-election bid.

Steven Skyles-Mulligan, the president of the Chelsea Reform Democratic Club, one of the more progressive clubs in town, says his members' unhappiness with Clinton has been brewing for years. "It's like the old adage, 'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it.' A lot of people have that attitude," he explains. "There is a sense that people don't have to sit back and take it anymore."

And they don't. Not after last week, when not one but two anti-war candidates emerged to take on Clinton in the Democratic primary next year. For the senator, that means the trouble has just doubled. No sooner had word spread of the freshly announced challengers—Steve Greenfield, of New Paltz, and Jonathan Tasini, of Manhattan—than they found an audience.

Last Tuesday, peace activists who'd just heard about Tasini's candidacy showed up at his kickoff at a Union Square hotel, offering him a hand. They listened raptly as he launched into a speech on his candidacy and its "centerpiece"—the war. Standing before a blue banner—TASINI! VOTE FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN—the labor activist read from a six-page prepared text. When he said he's entering the U.S. Senate race to "give voice" to New Yorkers who oppose the war, the 30 or so crowd members cheered. When he said Clinton "must be held accountable" for supporting it, they shouted. And when he described her as "out of touch with the values of New Yorkers," they gave him an ovation.

A similar scene played out on December 5, just a day earlier, when Greenfield made his candidacy official on the Columbia University campus. Himself an alumnus, Greenfield, a musician, took the podium before a half-dozen or so students and a retired professor, offering his own passionate remarks. He called himself the Senate candidate of choice for "peace activists, progressives, and all Democrats" and vowed to "fight aggressively to bring our troops home."

When he finished, the professor sang his praises. "I want to congratulate you for stepping forward," he said, and for giving Clinton a needed challenge. "I'm ashamed Columbia didn't support you more fully. So I'd like to make up for it," he added.

And with that, he wrote Greenfield a check.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If the anti-war candidates have touched a nerve, it's one they understand. For while these guys seem to have materialized, suddenly and simultaneously, on the political scene, they've been sowing the seeds of their candidacies for months, gauging the vibe in the Democratic grassroots, pondering the logistics of insurgent campaigns.

"It's not like I'm emerging out of a vacuum and landing here saying, 'I'll just hit the ground running,' " Greenfield says.

For him, the idea of running started in February at a New Paltz anti-war rally he'd helped organize. Nearly 1,000 people turned out to hear Representative Maurice Hinchey, a legendary New York progressive, deliver a fiery speech opposing the Iraq war. The crowd went wild. When Hinchey left the podium, Greenfield recalls, "I said, 'You should run against Hillary.' " His response? "No." Not one Democratic politician Greenfield approached that day had any desire to take on the senator.

"I was crestfallen," Greenfield says. "Here we are at this anti-war rally and we're going to support a pro-war senator."

Around the same time, Tasini was grappling with the same realization. Several people he describes as "very strongly opposed to the war" were casting about for a candidate. They suggested he run. A former union president, he's good on the stump. He didn't take the idea too seriously—at first. But then, he thought about how his friends and colleagues view the war. "I know what people are feeling," he says.

That's not all these guys thought about. They considered what they'd need to build a credible campaign and where they'd find foot soldiers—the way they might enlist supporters across the state to donate time and money from, say, the Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean camps. And they considered what other folks had to say.


Jonathan Tasini is a labor activist
photo: Steven Sunshine
"I didn't discourage him," says Michael Sussman, a former Orange County Demo-cratic Committee member, of Greenfield. Sussman counts himself "one of those lib- erals disaffected with Hillary Clinton," especially over the war. He wants someone—anyone—to stand up and hold the senator accountable. "Someone has to say to Clinton, 'You haven't represented us,' " he explains. "I see that as Steve's endeavor and I support it."

Jeff Cohen, the founder of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, who lives in Wood- stock, sounds a similar note. When Tasini consulted him about a Senate bid, he relays, "I got excited. I am excited." Cohen worked for the 2003 Kucinich for President outfit, and he has always believed progressives' support for Clinton is thin. But with the Bush II era, they've grown more "radicalized," he says, and more disappointed with Clinton.

"The base is fed up with Democrats who echo Bush rhetoric about staying the course in Iraq," he explains, adding, "I think Jonathan's campaign will be supercharged."

At this early stage, at least, the anti-war challengers are gaining some momentum. News of the candidacies was picked up by the mainstream press and has circulated over peace listservs and liberal blogs. Just days into the campaigns, both men have begun trolling for support among activists, visiting peace groups and attending club functions. Already, Greenfield has logged hundreds of miles crisscrossing the state. And Tasini starts an upstate campaign swing this week.

The candidates have their share of distinctions, of course (see sidebar). But their central message sounds the same: The war must end now; the troops must be brought home; the billions of dollars pouring into Iraq must go to solving domestic problems with health care, Social Security, and poor job growth.

It's a campaign message made for the state's energized anti-war activists, many of whom are already on board. Manna Jo Greene of Rosendale, who traveled to Iraq in 2003 on a well-publicized peace vigil, plans to volunteer for Greenfield's bid. "It's long overdue that Hillary's constituents have an alternative and let her know that positions she's taken have not reflected the majority of her constituents," she says.

Carol Husten of Brooklyn, a new Tasini backer and one of 18 grandmothers recently arrested in Times Square for protesting the war, puts it more ominously: "This is just what we needed. . . . Hillary had better be prepared."

Clinton does seem to be trying. When asked about her two anti-war challengers last week at an upstate event, the senator replied simply, "I have no argument with anyone who wants to run for any office." And her campaign declined to comment for the Voice. But the senator has been talking more about the war these days.

Last month, she sent a well-circulated, 1,600-word e-mail to her constituents, offering her strongest words yet. She defended her vote to authorize force, although she made plain that President Bush had misled her with "false assurances, faulty evidence, and mismanagement." She even called for a plan to begin withdrawing troops next year.

Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic consultant, sees the senator's e-mail as "the beginning of a shift" in her hawkish war stance and expects her to become more visibly critical of the Bush administration. The anti-war candidates, he notes, can actually help Clinton as she moves into that role. "They will give her a chance to cement her position on the left and allow her to re- emphasize her criticisms," he says.

To hear the political analysts, progressive Democrats aren't about to abandon their popular senator for Greenfield, Tasini, or any anti-war candidate. After all, only the anti-war left has begun rising up against Clinton. Most other factions have given Clinton cover. Says one observer with ties to various progressive circles, "I bet you won't get people who are part of the political machinery talking critically about Clinton. Hillary has the left in her corner no matter what."

Maybe so. But a surprising number of progressives who don't identify with the anti-war movement are at least listening. Get-out-the-vote powerhouses like the Village Independent Democrats, the Chelsea Reform Democratic Club, and Democracy for NYC all expect to vet the challengers and consider the alternatives. For Clinton, they insist, getting their endorsements won't be a walk in the park. Says Skyles-Mulligan, of the Chelsea club, "Senator Clinton is out of touch. She has a vulnerability that she needs to fix."

Whether that vulnerability translates into votes for Greenfield or Tasini is another matter. And not even disgruntled liberals believe the opponents will end up unseating Clinton. The anti-war underdogs don't have the senator's might—her $14 million, and counting, war chest; her worldwide name recognition; her popularity in the state. And neither holds any illusion that the New York State Democratic Committee will give him its blessing. They expect to get their names on the ballot through electoral fiat, gathering 15,000 signatures from New York Democrats from 15 districts statewide by July.

Yet even a long shot can play an important role in advancing the progressive movement, says Charles Lenchner of White Plains, who helped found the Progressive Democrats of America. As he sees it, any anti-war challenger to Clinton who can get himself on the September primary ballot and get people to vote for him wins. That would mean he had mobilized hundreds of thousands of people across the state, leaving behind a more robust network.

"We want to engender a feet-in-the-streets campaign to build up the Democratic Party," Lenchner says.

Even the candidates see their efforts as a test for progressives. Now they will have a choice, someone who better reflects their views. Says Greenfield, "If this is what you believe and if this is what you say is important to you, don't elect Hillary Clinton."

Tasini puts it a different way: "The challenge is to get past the haze and celebrity and ask voters what they believe in. If given a choice, do they choose Republican lite?"

No one is bracing for that test more than Stricklin, of the Village Democrats. On the one hand, there are what he terms his "personal loyalties" to Clinton. On the other, his ideals. A challenge to Clinton from the left, he says, "means there will be a struggle for our club with the endorsement." He adds, "It will be a dogfight like we've never seen and I dread it like a beating." go to next article in news ->

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Bush backs Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rove
Wed Dec 14, 2005 8:22 PM ET



By Adam Entous

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush offered strong endorsements on Wednesday to two architects of the Iraq war, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, and said he was as close as ever to top political adviser Karl Rove despite his role in the CIA leak case.

Rebuffing Democratic calls for a shake-up over Iraq war strategy and speculation about rifts within the White House, Bush said he had no intention of removing Rumsfeld as defense secretary, crediting him with doing a "heck of a job." Rumsfeld and the vice president, Cheney, have been frequently accused by critics of pushing the war on false pretenses.

In an interview with Fox News, Bush said his relationship with Cheney had "only gotten better," and he remained "very close" to Rove, who could face charges in the criminal investigation into the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

"We're still as close as we've ever been," Bush said of Rove, brushing aside reports he was angry at his deputy chief of staff, who initially denied any role in the Plame leak. "We've been through a lot. You know, when we look back at the presidency and my time in politics, no question that Karl had a lot to do with me getting here, and I value his friendship."

Bush also said he hoped indicted Texas Republican Rep. Tom DeLay would regain his post as House of Representatives majority leader. But Bush added, "I don't know whether I can expect that."

Bush's words of praise for Rumsfeld were similar to those he used to describe Michael Brown, when Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, faced criticism for the slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

Bush said of Rumsfeld, "He's conducted two wars and at the same time has helped transform our military from a military that was constructed for, you know, the post-Cold War to one that is going to be constructed to fight terrorism."

Asked if Rumsfeld would stay in the administration until the end of his second term, Bush said: "Yes. Well, (the) end of my term is a long time, but I tell you, he's done a heck of a good job, and I have no intention of changing him."

Rumsfeld has been criticized for the conduct of the Iraq war, with some prominent Democrats, including Massachusetts Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry demanding his resignation. Rumsfeld has also had frosty relations even with fellow Republicans in Congress.

Last week, Rumsfeld said he had no plans to retire from the post more than 2 1/2 years into the Iraq conflict.

CHENEY RELATIONSHIP 'ONLY GOTTEN BETTER'

Bush acknowledged there was "massive speculation" about his relationship with Cheney -- "whether I like him or don't like him."

"The truth of the matter is that our relationship hasn't changed hardly at all. He's a very close adviser. I view him as a good friend," Bush said. "I'd say the relationship -- it's only gotten better."

DeLay was forced to step down as House majority leader in September when he was first indicted for his suspected role in the Texas campaign financing controversy.

Bush said he believed DeLay was innocent and hoped the powerful Texas Republican would return to being majority leader "cause I like him, and plus, when he's over there, we get our votes through the House."

Bush said he was not that familiar with the federal investigation into the dealings of Jack Abramoff, a once-powerful lobbyist who also had links to DeLay.

"But it seems like to me that he was an equal money dispenser, that he was giving money to people in both political parties," Bush said.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Pentagon loses responsibility for rebuilding Iraq
By Caroline Daniel andGuy Dinmore in Washington
Published: December 15 2005 02:00 | Last updated: December 15 2005 02:00

President George W. Bush yesterday announced that the State Department would lead all US post-conflict reconstruction, a move that supercedes the controversial decision to give that task to the Pentagon in Iraq following the 2003 invasion.

The announcement came as Mr Bush delivered the last of four speeches intended to rebuild public support for the war on the eve of today's election for Iraq's first official parliament.

In the speeches, which have outlined the administration's military, economic and politicial strategy for Iraq, the president has tried to address growing criticisms that he was out of touch by addressing in unusually frank terms some of the errors made in the post-war period. But he insisted that the US had learned from those mistakes and had developed a clear strategy for victory.

"We have fixed what was not working," he said. "Our tactics continue to change."

Today's vote, he said, was "a watershed moment in the story of freedom. Iraqis will go to the polls to choose a government that will be the only constitutional democracy in the Arab world."

The presidential directive, issued this month but announced yesterday, will also reinforce the political power of the State Department's office of reconstruction and stabilisation, with a mission to anticipate state failures, prevent conflict and co-ordinate post-war efforts.

Carlos Pascual, the senior State Department official heading that office, said it was "important to get on paper" that the secretary of state would be in charge of future post-war reconstruction policies and planning.

The 2003 decision to hand control of the reconstruction to the Pentagon has been widely criticised and led to a degree of inter-agency friction. State Department experts who had planned for the post-war period were pushed aside by Pentagon officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, who strongly resisted the notion of nation-building.

A former senior official involved in what he called the "chaos" of post-war reconstruction efforts in Iraq said yesterday's announcement also affirmed the growing power and influence of Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state.

Mr Bush's speeches have each included an usually candid admission of the difficulties the US has faced in Iraq. Yesterday, he reiterated in particularly blunt terms that "it is true that much of the [pre-war] intelligence turned out to be wrong".

Anthony Cordesman, senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, welcomed the new tone. "One of the great problems the administration had was it kept trying to spin the news. For the first time they have been stating it will take time, blood and money to finish the job."

Mr Cordesman said the transfer of more control to the State Department did not mark an institutional victory over the defence department, but reflected "the assertion of pragmatism".

"One of the great oddities of Condi Rice is that she has succeeded in being far more of a centrist," he said.

Pelosi Hails Democrats' Diverse War Stances

By Dan Balz

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said yesterday that Democrats should not seek a unified position on an exit strategy in Iraq, calling the war a matter of individual conscience and saying differing positions within the caucus are a source of strength for the party.

Pelosi said Democrats will produce an issue agenda for the 2006 elections but it will not include a position on Iraq. There is consensus within the party that President Bush has mismanaged the war and that a new course is needed, but House Democrats should be free to take individual positions, she sad.

"There is no one Democratic voice . . . and there is no one Democratic position," Pelosi said in an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors.

Pelosi recently endorsed the proposal by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) for a swift redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq over a period of six months, but no other party leader followed, and House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) publicly opposed her.

She said her support for Murtha was not intended to forge a Democratic position on the war, adding that she blocked an effort by some of her colleagues to put the Democrats on record backing Murtha.

Her comments ruling out a caucus position appeared to put Pelosi at odds with some other party officials. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean recently said Democrats were beginning to coalesce around a strategy that would pull out all troops over the next two years. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said on the day Murtha offered his plan, "As for Iraq policy, at the right time, we'll have a position."

Pelosi, one of the most liberal Democrats in the House, opposed the war and, as the senior Democrat on the intelligence committee before the invasion, argued that Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat to the United States. She served as Democratic whip when Congress authorized Bush to go to war, and she rallied 126 Democratic votes against the measure when then-Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), the Democratic leader, supported the White House.

Pelosi said she had not consulted with Dean or Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) before taking her position. Her action angered some Democrats, who believed it left the party vulnerable to criticism from the Republicans, but cheered the party's antiwar activists who want party leaders to challenge Bush more vigorously on the war.

Meanwhile, House Republicans are planning to seek a vote as early as today on a resolution saying that an "artificial timetable" for the withdrawal of troops is "fundamentally inconsistent with achieving victory in Iraq."

In a wide-ranging interview, Pelosi labeled the Republican-controlled Congress "the most corrupt in history" and repeated her assertion that Democrats will make ethics a central issue next year. She said that the issue and ethical climate in the country point to Democratic gains next year, and noted that if the elections were held today, Democrats would take control of the House.

If Democrats are able to win the majority next year, Pelosi pledged aggressive oversight of the administration on issues including the war, intelligence and how the government responded to Hurricane Katrina.

Pelosi said Democrats scored significant victories recently, the biggest coming on Social Security, on which she said Democratic opposition to Bush's proposed private or personal accounts blocked any hopes the White House had for changing the government retirement insurance program this year.

"Not only did we take him down on that, but we took down a lot of his credibility as being somebody who cared about 'people like me,' " she said.


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Experts Cautious in Assessing Iraq Election

By Robin Wright

For President Bush, the strong turnout for Iraq's election yesterday may represent the best day since the fall of Baghdad 32 months ago because all major factions participated in the political process, according to U.S. and Middle East analysts. But the sobering reality, they added, is that the vote by itself did not resolve Iraq's lingering political disputes.

After weeks of an increasingly divisive debate at home that helped sink the president's approval rating to an all-time low, the Bush administration appeared buoyed by the throngs at the polls and the low violence. Flanked in the Oval Office by six young Iraqis, all with a purple-stained finger signifying they had voted, Bush called the election a "major milestone" on the road to democracy.

"This is a major step forward in achieving our objective, which is . . . having a democratic Iraq, a country able to sustain itself and defend itself, a country that will be an ally in the war on terror and a country that will set such a powerful example to others in the region, whether they live in Iran or Syria," he said.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the turnout was a defeat for those behind the beheadings and suicide bombings. Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told a Pentagon town hall meeting via video teleconference from Baghdad that the United States should now expect the insurgency to "gradually reduce."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iraq is "going to be a great nation again" because of its defiance. "There are posters in Iraq today that say, 'Vote and you will die,' from the terrorists," yet people still turned out in record numbers, she told Fox News.

But even some Republicans urged caution in assessing the results yesterday, while congressional Democrats called on the White House to use the election to accelerate the transition and create the conditions for the redeployment of U.S. forces out of Iraq.

In Baghdad for election day, Republican Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) said the vote provided a "second chance," but he also warned that the successful day should not be interpreted as a solution to Iraq's problems. "Really, in many ways, they're just beginning," he said in an interview with NBC's "Today" show.

Anthony H. Cordesman, a Persian Gulf military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed. He said the vote is not the long-awaited turning point but rather a trigger for launching a new political process next year that will include amending a constitution. That, he said, will better determine whether Iraq has a chance of emerging out of turmoil.

One looming danger is that the most dedicated wings of the insurgency, the foreign fighters and Islamic extremists, may only become more determined or vicious. "The steady grind of this guerrilla war is going to go on. The elections are not relevant to it, and that's what is going to matter to the American people," warned Juan R.I. Cole, an Iraq expert at the University of Michigan.

Others acknowledged the election's success but said it came too late. "It's the best moment since Baghdad fell . . . but it's at least 18 months late," said Henri J. Barkey, a former State Department Iraq policy planning expert now at Lehigh University. "The fall of Saddam Hussein was a moment. This is just a moment of relief."

Although Democrats expressed hope that the election marked the beginning of a healing process in Iraq, some called for it to be made a catalyst for policy adjustments.

In a letter to the White House, 26 House Democrats -- including the minority whip and nine members of the Armed Services Committee -- outlined four principles that they said should guide U.S. policy after the election, including a significant drawdown of U.S. troops in the next 12 months and the transfer of key nation-building responsibilities to Iraq's neighbors and the international community.

Bush is expected to try to capitalize on the vote to resist calls for setting a timetable for a U.S. exit from Iraq. He will play host today to a bipartisan group from Congress that will discuss Iraq, officials said.

Among those scheduled to join the president, Vice President Cheney and their foreign policy team are Democratic Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), Mark Pryor (Ark.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.), as well as Republican Sens. Norm Coleman (Minn.), Olympia J. Snowe (Maine), Arlen Specter (Pa.), Pete V. Domenici (N.M.) and John Thune (S.D.).

Staff writers Dan Balz and Josh White contributed to this report.


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House GOP Bill Rejects Iraq Withdrawal By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 40 minutes ago



House Republican leaders drafted legislation on Thursday that rejects calls for withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq as "fundamentally inconsistent with achieving victory" and said they would force a vote on Friday.

It would be the second time in five weeks that GOP leaders maneuvered for a vote on the war in the face of Democratic calls for a timetable for withdrawal.

Some Democrats accused Republicans of playing politics with the war and a group of their colleagues sent President Bush a letter describing what they believe should be the U.S. position in Iraq.

The GOP resolution expresses the commitment of the House "to achieving victory in Iraq."

It "honors the tremendous sacrifices" of U.S. forces and praises Iraqis for voting in parliamentary elections Thursday. The election is "a crucial victory for the Iraqi people and Iraq's new democracy, and a defeat for the terrorists who seek to destroy that democracy," the resolution says.

U.S. forces, the measure said, would be required in Iraq "only until Iraqi forces can stand up so our forces can stand down, and no longer than is required for that purpose."

The resolution seeks to put the House again on record as rejecting an immediate troop pull out.

Some House Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, have lined up behind calls by Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., for U.S. troops to start coming home.

In the Senate, several Democrats have said forces need to begin withdrawing after Thursday's elections, provided they are successful.

The House GOP resolution says, "Setting an artificial timetable for the withdrawal of United States Armed Forces from Iraq, or immediately terminating their deployment in Iraq and redeploying them elsewhere in the region, is fundamentally inconsistent with achieving victory in Iraq."

That is a veiled reference to the proposal Murtha put forth last month to withdraw the nearly 160,000 troops in Iraq "at the earliest practicable date" and establish a quick-reaction force and a nearby presence of Marines in the region.

Seeking to kill momentum that was building behind Murtha's call for withdrawal, House Republicans forced a vote rejecting the immediate pullout of U.S. forces just before adjourning for Thanksgiving break. Democrats called the quick vote a political ploy that prevented thoughtful debate on Murtha's proposal

Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said House Republicans hope Democrats will stand with them in backing the fresh GOP resolution.

But Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, called the resolution a cheap political stunt. "Once again, the Republicans in the House are playing politics with the war and demeaning those who are serving our nation," the longtime war opponent said.

A Pelosi spokeswoman, Jennifer Crider, said Democrats sought changes "that would reflect the bipartisan spirit that a resolution like that should be offered with" but they were rebuffed.

House Democrats have been voicing disparate positions on Iraq in the weeks since Murtha announced his proposal, and some members have been taking steps aimed at building a consensus position.

On Thursday, a group of 26 party members — led by Rep. Ellen Tauscher (news, bio, voting record) of California — sent a letter to President Bush urging him to follow four principles they say should guide future policy in Iraq.

"Over the next twelve months the United States should stand down its military personnel and participation in Iraq as the Iraqi government takes increased responsibility for its political and security needs," the letter said.

Signatories included Democratic whip Rep. Steny Hoyer (news, bio, voting record) of Maryland and the senior Democrats on the Armed Services and Intelligence committees, Reps. Ike Skelton of Missouri and Jane Harman of California, respectively.



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Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan wars wearing on public

The Norman Transcript

Beyond the more than 2,400 American lives lost, the financial cost of prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is wearing on the American people.

U.S. Rep. John Murtha, the Vietnam War combat veteran who has raised serious questions about future efforts in Iraq, said on the NBC Today Show last week that he expects an additional $100 billion will be requested for the war effort in 2006.

That's in addition to what the military effort has cost since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the $50 billion the Pentagon will receive this month for Iraq operations in the early part of the year. Add it all up and it comes to nearly half a trillion dollars.

The impact on the nation's deficit is sure to surface during a Congressional election year. The Pentagon's final request could differ from what aides are relating and the president's budget numbers won't become public until February.

The changing nature of the wars makes it hard to put a price tag on future costs. But any change in the administration's war strategy will have a profound impact on the year-end price tag.

One report in The New Yorker magazine last week said the U.S. may gradually withdraw troops and rely more on airpower. The concern is whether Iraqi troops could be trusted enough to call for bombing on true insurgent targets and not political opponents, according to the magazine.

The Associated Press reports a large funding request for military operations angers voters on all parts of the political spectrum. Conservatives want to rein in government spending and moderates and liberals want to draw down or end the war effort while still appearing to support troops during wartime.

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Bush calls criticism of war 'irresponsible'
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 15, 2005


President Bush yesterday called Democratic criticism of the Iraq war "irresponsible" and predicted that today's parliamentary elections in Iraq will vindicate his embattled policy.
"We are living through a watershed moment in the story of freedom," he said in the culmination of four major speeches laying out his strategy for victory. "Iraqis will go to the polls to choose a government that will be the only constitutional democracy in the Arab world."
Mr. Bush reiterated his concession that Iraq did not have the weapons of mass destruction he cited as his rationale for war.
"It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," he said at the Woodrow Wilson Center in the District's Ronald Reagan building. "As president, I'm responsible for the decision to go into Iraq, and I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities."
That did not satisfy Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
"It's not enough to say the intelligence was wrong," the Massachusetts Democrat said. "Whatever flaws existed in the intelligence were far outweighed by the devious way the administration manipulated the intelligence."
Mr. Bush slammed Democrats for suggesting "we misled the American people."
"Some of the most irresponsible comments about manipulating intelligence have come from politicians who saw the same intelligence we saw, and then voted to authorize the use of force against Saddam Hussein," he said. "These charges are pure politics.
"Whatever our differences in Washington, our men and women in uniform deserve to know that once our politicians vote to send them into harm's way, our support will be with them in good days and bad."
The president continued to warn that a rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops, which was proposed by some Democrats, would only strengthen terrorists. Americans agreed with him 58 percent to 13 percent, according to a poll released yesterday by the Pew Research Center.
The poll also found that 56 percent of Americans think progress is being made in the establishment of democracy in Iraq. Asked whether today's elections will make Iraq more stable, 37 percent of respondents said yes, 9 percent said no and 47 percent predicted no change.
Mr. Bush said the change would be dramatic because voter turnout among Sunni Arabs is expected to rise.
"As Sunnis join the political process, Iraqi democracy becomes more inclusive and the terrorists and Saddamists are becoming marginalized," he explained.
The president cautioned that "the elections will be followed by days of uncertainty. We may not know for certain who's won the elections until the early part of January."
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said the elections must be a turning point. "Iraq must get its political house in order" over the next four months so that U.S, troops can begin to come home, he said.

Iraq debate rips at congressional wounds Fri Dec 16, 6:40 PM ET



Republicans in the US Congress seized on the large turnout in Iraq's election to expose sharp Democratic Party divisions on when to bring US troops home.

President George W. Bush's majority party forced a resolution enshrining a commitment to "victory in Iraq," which rejected calls for a timetable for withdrawal, through the House of Representatives by 279 votes to 109.

The vote exposed Democratic disagreements over the state of the war, as 59 opposition lawmakers joined Republicans in voting for the resolution.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who has endorsed calls by fellow Democrat congressman John Murtha for withdrawal from Iraq within six months, accused Republicans of pulling off a cheap political trick.

"Instead of using these elections as an occasion to unify, once again the Republican majority brings to the House floor a divisive resolution to denounce those who disagree," Pelosi said.

"It is not democratic and also insists that if you want to congratulate the people of Iraq, you have to support the status quo."

Texas Republican Tom DeLay, who has stepped down as Republican majority leader to fight money laundering charges, lambasted Democrats.

"They point to the war's costs, its difficulties, and our setbacks -- and despite the catastrophic consequences of failure, call for an immediate retreat and surrender."

The resolution forced Democrats into an unpleasant dilemma -- either line up with their Republican tormentors or risk being accused of rejecting victory.

Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said "early withdrawal would not achieve anything but embolden the Islamist fanatics who were dealt a deadly blow to their plans" at the ballot box.

"A strong bipartisan support for this resolution would send a clear message that this House is in this until our mission is achieved," she said.

Veteran Democrat Tom Lantos accused the Republicans of using the courage of Iraqis who went to the polls to score a cheap political victory, by limiting time in the debate and using the election as a political prop.

"It is a sad day, indeed, when the Iraqi people have to teach the United States Congress a lesson in democracy," Lantos said, decrying the "ugly, divisive and unnecessary debate."

The White House and Republicans have succeeded in drawing public attention to Democrat divisions over Iraq: while some opposition lawmakers favor immediate withdrawal, others reluctantly agree with Bush's contention that US troops must stay on.

The issue becomes more and more sensitive with each month passes, as next November's mid-term congressional elections loom.

US public support for the war in Iraq has plummetted, as US deaths now number 2,154 plus thousands more wounded.

But the Bush administration hopes the elections will mark a watershed in Iraq's troubled history since the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Lantos was frustrated in his attempts to introduce an alternative resolution that did not mention the withdrawal of US troops.

Democrats are still fuming at what they saw as dirty Republican tactics over Iraq last month.

On that occasion, Republicans introduced a motion calling for an immediate withdrawal of US forces, designed to quell a political firestorm sparked by Murtha.

The resolution, which Democrats were forced to reject, was defeated by 403 votes to three.



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Bush Says Iraq War Is Good for Israel
By FORWARD STAFF
December 16, 2005

In sharp contrast to the growing consensus of Jerusalem's security and political establishment, President Bush argued this week that Israel's safety depends on democratization of the Arab world.

"If you're a supporter of Israel, I would strongly urge you to help other countries become democracies," President Bush declared Monday, in a major address defending American policy in Iraq and his wider vision for the region. "Israel's long-term survival depends upon the spread of democracy in the Middle East."

Israeli security officials argued the opposite view at this month's American-Israeli strategic dialogue, warning that regime change and democratization threatened to destabilize the Middle East. Israel sees its security tied to regimes such as Egypt and Jordan, and fears that democratization could turn those countries against Israel.

"I am skeptical when it comes to the supposition that democracy is a panacea. Not all democracies are good," said General Shlomo Brom, former chief of the Israeli army's strategic planning division. "What about a democracy in Egypt — let's say — which is governed by the Muslim Brotherhood? Would Egypt then have better relations with Israel than under Mubarak's regime?"

As the American-Israeli debate quietly heats up, the Bush administration's approach is creating fault lines within the Jewish community. On Tuesday, the Republican Jewish Coalition took out a full-page advertisement attacking the Reform synagogue movement over its recent call for the United States to develop an exit strategy for the war in Iraq.

Neither the Republican Jewish Coalition ad nor the Reform statement mentioned Israel. But some pro-Israel activists and Israeli observers criticized Bush's comments, saying they could end up fueling claims that Jerusalem and Jewish groups pushed the United States into an unpopular war.

"American Jews don't want American soldiers to be dying for Israel," said Martin Raffel,
associate executive director of the Jewish Council of Public Affairs, a public-policy coordinating umbrella group consisting of 13 national organizations and 123 local community-relations councils.

"Would Israel benefit from democracy in the Middle East? Yes. But so would Europe, and America and the whole international community," Raffel said. "So why would the president select supporters of Israel? Supporters of Western civilization would want to see democratization in the Middle East, along with Israel."

Israeli experts voiced similar concerns.

"It could put Israel in a very awkward situation with the American public, if Israel would be the excuse for losing more American soldiers every day," said Danny Rothschild, a retired major general who once served as the Israeli army's top administrator in the West Bank.

In a speech on Wednesday, Bush criticized anti-war opponents who would suggest that America went to war for Israel. At the same, he and other Republicans defending his foreign policy by linking it to Israel's security needs.

Senator John Warner of Virginia, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently argued in an interview with MSNBC that a premature American pullout would "put Israel in a very tenuous and vulnerable position." And a GOP activist, Bruce Blakeman, told the Forward that Israel's security has always played a key role in the president's thinking on Iraq.

"The president realized not only that Saddam Hussein was a danger to America, but that Saddam Hussein had designs on attacking Israel," said Blakeman, whose brother Brad is a former Bush aide. "There was a concern that an attack on Israel would turn into a regional war, with Syria and Iran joining in on Iraq's side."

While some Israelis and Jewish communal leaders worried about Bush's remarks, Blakeman told the Forward that "concern for the well-being of Israel is not confined to the Jewish community."

"The vast majority of Americans realize that Israel is a strong democracy in a region where there has been no democracy and an ally that shares our values," Blakeman said.

But several Israeli experts insisted that any pro-war argument — even a valid one — linked to Israel's security could end up undermining American public support for the American-Israeli relationship. And while most Israeli experts contacted by the Forward predicted that an American withdrawal would unleash a wave of terrorism directed at American allies in the region, several still challenged the premise that the United States should remain in Iraq.

"I maintain that the U.S. presence there actually causes harm to some of our interests," said Brom, who is currently a guest scholar at the federally funded United States Institute of Peace in Washington. "Take Iran. America's presence in Iraq does not allow an appropriate dealing with the Iranian problem. It also erodes, over time, the powerful image of the United States. That's not good for Israel, as an ally of the U.S."

Still, Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice-chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said few dispute that a premature pullout would create instability, threatening several U.S. allies, including Israel, and several Arab states. "That is not to say that we went to war because of Israel or we stayed at war because of Israel," Hoenlein said, "but one of the consequences of making the wrong step of leaving Iraq prematurely would be Israel.... I don't think that there is any division in the Jewish community that I know of on that."

A very public dispute did erupt this week between Jewish groups over Iraq, with the Union for Reform Judaism and the Republican Jewish Coalition exchanging rhetorical blows. At issue was the Reform union's resolution last month calling for a strategy to end America's presence in Iraq.

On Tuesday, the Republican group published a full-page ad in The New York Times, addressing the Union for Reform Judaism and stating: "Freedom is worth fighting for." The ad was signed by several prominent Jewish Republican elected officials, former ambassadors, senior military officers, rabbis and former senior officials with Jewish groups. The Republican ad argues that it is "misleading and wrong" for the Reform movement to suggest that "American Jews oppose the president on Iraq."

By Tuesday evening, the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Rabbi David Saperstein, had sent a scathing open letter to the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Matt Brooks. The Reform union's president, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, and its chairman of the board, Robert Heller, sent a letter to Bush.

"Respectfully but firmly, Mr. President, we want our leaders to tell us the truth, the whole of it, and we therefore call on your administration to adopt a policy of transparency," Yoffie and Heller wrote. "With regard to troop withdrawal, we call not only for a clear exit strategy but also for specific goals for troop withdrawal to commence after the completion of parliamentary elections scheduled for later this week and then to be continued in a way that maintains stability in Iraq and empowers Iraqi forces to provide for their national security."


With reporting by Ori Nir in Washington, Guy Leshem in Tel Aviv, and Ami Eden and E.J. Kessler in New York.

Because Western Culture is generally biased in favor of religion--however it is
defined and/or practised, it is extraordinarily difficult for social commentary to
critiqe the role of religion in any social system. This is particularly problematic
in the United States and other American countries. In this regard we are more like
Muslim countries than we are like European and Asian countries. Following the counsel of the relatively more enlightened religions such as that represented by
Robinson can be helpful. Since religion is going to be an important player in
the social system for quite some time, a more enlightened religious orientation
is necessary for our well being, but not sufficient. There is still a great need to
promote a secular democratic philosophy and humanatarian values based on
universal principles derived from the arts and sciences which encompass the
collective wisdom and experience of human kind.

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VP Cheney Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 35 minutes ago



Vice President Dick Cheney made a surprise visit to Iraq Sunday under heavy security, touring the country after parliamentary elections that he suggested were a major step toward drawing down U.S. forces.

"The participation levels all across the country were remarkable," Cheney told reporters after an hourlong briefing from the war's top military commanders. "And that's exactly what need to happen as you build a political structure in a self-governing Iraq that can unify the various segments of the population and ultimately take over responsibility for their own security."

The daylong tour was so shrouded in secrecy that even Iraq's prime minister said he was surprised when he showed up for what he thought was a meeting with the U.S. ambassador only to see Cheney waiting to greet him.

Cheney's tour of the country came on the same day that President Bush was giving a prime-time Oval Office address to the nation on Iraq.

Cheney's aides said the timing was a coincidence, but regardless, the two events combined in a public relations blitz aimed at capitalizing on the Iraqi elections to rebuild U.S. support for the unpopular war.

The vice president visited with Iraq's leaders and military commanders in the Green Zone, saw an Iraqi troop training demonstration at Taji air base, lunched with soldiers who provided security for Thursday's election and gave a speech to troops.

Cheney flew around the Baghdad area in a pack of eight fast-moving Blackhawk helicopters with guns mounted on the sides. He flew along the airport road that has been the site of many insurgent attacks and passed over the courthouse where Saddam Hussein's trial is being held.

He saw rows of housing for soldiers at Camp Victory, fortified by concrete walls. Smoke from the trash fires burning throughout the occupied city drifted up toward his chopper.

A majority of Americans have said they disapprove of Bush's handling of the war and the White House has been pushing back hard against calls for troop withdrawals.

"You've heard some prominent voices advocating a sudden withdrawal of our forces from Iraq," Cheney told hundreds of service members gathered to hear a "mystery guest." "Some have suggested that the war is not winnable and a few seem almost eager to conclude the struggle is already over. But they are wrong. The only way to lose this fight is to quit and that is not an option."

Cheney last visited Iraq in March 1991, when he was defense secretary for the current president's father. He became the highest ranking official in the current administration to visit the country since Bush's unannounced trip on Thanksgiving Day 2003.

His first stop was the U.S. ambassador's residence, where he had an hourlong briefing with Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, top U.S. commander Gen. George Casey and Gen. John Abizaid, chief of Central Command.

While he was inside, a suspicious vehicle was stopped about a mile away and Secret Service agents warned there might be a loud blast if security forces decided to detonate it. But no blast was heard and Cheney went on to have meetings there with Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Talabani, his finger still stained purple as proof that he had voted three days earlier, thanked Cheney profusely for coming and called him a "hero of liberating Iraq." Cheney said even though final results are not in, he is encouraged by preliminary figures showing a jump in turnout in areas such as Al-Anbar province with large populations of Sunni Muslims, who have been the backbone of the insurgency.

"The terrorists know that as freedom take hold the ideologies of hatred and resentment will lose their appeal," Cheney told the troops.

At Taji air base, home of the 9th Iraqi Army Division, Cheney saw tanks that the Iraqis have rebuilt from scratch and watched while they practiced a vehicle sweep at a security checkpoint.

While Cheney was surrounded by U.S. forces guarding him with guns at the ready, the Iraqi soldiers had no weapons but held their arms out like they were carrying imaginary guns.

The unannounced stop in Iraq came at the beginning of a five-day tour aimed at strengthening support for the war on terror. The vice president and his wife, Lynne, planned to make stops in Oman, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia before returning to Washington early Thursday morning.

Cheney's staff kept the Iraq portion secret from reporters traveling with him, waiting to reveal the plan until Air Force Two was preparing for refueling in the United Kingdom. Once on the ground, Cheney's entourage transferred from his red, white and blue 757 to an unmarked C-17 cargo plane that would fly overnight en route to Baghdad International Airport.

Mrs. Cheney did not go along, but stayed on the 757 that headed on to Oman. Cheney's aides said any reporter who did not agree to keep the trip secret until the vice president was prepared to leave Iraq would be sent on to Oman with his wife.

After touting last week's elections in Iraq, Cheney was celebrating another emerging democracy at the opening of the Afghan parliament Monday.



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Outside View: The art of leaving Iraq
By William S. Lind
UPI Outside View Commentator
Published December 17, 2005


WASHINGTON -- The main question about the war in Iraq was never whether it would go well or go badly. The question was whether it would go bad fast or go bad slowly. So far, it has gone bad slowly, which was always the greater probability. But the possibility remains that it could go bad fast. The greatest likelihood may be during that most delicate of military arts, the withdrawal.

At least behind closed doors, a consensus is emerging in Washington that America will leave Iraq in 2006. Whether the White House will accept that consensus or resist it is yet to be seen, but the result will be the same either way. At this point, the Bush administration has about as much credibility on Capitol Hill as Napoleon had in Paris after Waterloo. On the House side particularly, where every seat is up next November, the watchword is sauve qui peut. As Dr. Johnson said, being about to be hanged concentrates the mind wonderfully.


An Office of the Secretary of Defense run by Donald Rumsfeld that assumed the war would be easy may also assume a withdrawal will be easy. History offers a note of caution. In war, getting in is often simpler and safer than getting out. The Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld recently warned that America's withdrawal from Iraq could prove messy, for Americans as well as Iraqis. Xenophon's Anabasis might serve as a useful if not entirely encouraging preview. The 10,000 did make it back to Greece, most of them anyway, but few enjoyed the journey.

What scenarios should our planners and policy-makers consider? As the best case, logic suggests that Iraq's December elections might be seen by Iraq's "key man," Shiite Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, as the turning point. A new, Shiite-dominated government will probably be elected to a four-year term. What better move for him than to issue a fatwa saying that it's time for the Americans to leave? His Shiites are getting restive at the American presence, he has to compete for his leadership role with firebrand Moqtada al-Sadr, and as the man who kicked the foreign occupiers out, he could reach across Iraq's central divide to offer a deal to the Sunnis, perhaps restoring a real Iraqi state. In the face of a Sistani fatwa, Iraq's government would almost certainly have to ask the American troops to leave.

Our response should be, "Hallelujah!" This would give us the golden bridge we need, a way out where we could claim with at least some credibility that we were not beaten. It would also probably mean a relatively safe and orderly exit. The Bush administration has said we would leave if the Iraqis asked us to, and the new U.N. resolution under which our presence in Iraq is authorized requires us to do so. If the White House resisted, it would get trampled into the dirt on Capitol Hill by elephants and donkeys alike.

As the worst case, we should envision what might happen if Israel or the United States or both attack Iran. Israel has recently indicated that unless international efforts to secure Iran's nuclear program succeed, an Israeli military action is likely sometime next year. Iran has said publicly that it will regard an Israeli attack as an attack by America also. If Iran's influence in Shiite southern Iraq is as great as reports suggest it is, the obvious Iranian response would be to blow up the magazine by attacking the American lines of supply -- and withdrawal -- that come up from Kuwait. Add a Shiite insurgency to that of the Sunnis, and an American withdrawal could start to look like Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, with sand substituting for snow.

There are of course a wide range of possibilities between these two extremes. An American withdrawal might lead to a truce with nationalist elements of the Iraqi resistance; they would have succeeded in their objective and would have no need to continue fighting us. Jihadi elements, however, might redouble their efforts, both to humiliate the Americans and to prevent the emergence of a real Iraqi state. In Shiite country, a lot of young men might think it's now or never if they want a piece of the glory of having fought the world's greatest superpower. Moqtada al-Sadr might turn his Mahdi Army loose on us again, as part of his bid for power in a post-American Iraq.

The question of how we withdraw from Iraq should be at the top of the Pentagon's planning tasks. If the same kinds of optimistic assumptions that guided our invasion of Iraq also shape our plans for withdrawal, we could find ourselves in what one old Pentagon planner used to call "a fine kettle of fish."

--

(William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation.)

Outside View: Al-Qaida's mistake

By William S. Lind

UPI Outside View Commentator

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- The suicide bombings in Jordan recently carried out by al-Qaida in Iraq seem to have blown back on the jihadis. According to Western press reports, almost all those killed were Moslems, including a Palestinian wedding party. Outrage among Jordanians has compelled al-Qaida to issue a quasi-apology, saying the wedding party was not its target. Had Abu Musab al-Zarqawi been a tad more clever, he might have apologized for the "collateral damage."

A column in the Oct. 12 International Herald Tribune by professor of Islamic Studies Bernard Haykel suggests that a rift is opening up among jihadis over the tactic of suicide bombing. Haykel writes, "In fact, growing splits among jihadis are beginning to undermine the theological and legal justifications for suicide bombing. ... There are strong indications from jihadi Web sites and online journals, confirmed by conversations I have had while doing research among Salafis, or scriptural literalists, that the suicide attacks are turning many Muslims against the jihadis altogether. ..."

If we look at this practice from a Fourth Generation War (4GW) picture, what do we see? On the surface, it looks as if Islamic non-state elements are making a major blunder. Fourth Generation war theory, drawing from the late U.S. Air Force Col. John Boyd, argues that the moral level of war is the most powerful, the physical level is the weakest and the mental level lies somewhere in between. It would seem obvious that when Islamic elements set off bombs that kill other Islamics, they work against themselves at the moral level.

To some degree, this is certainly the case. Bombings such as those in Jordan do turn some Moslems against al-Qaida in other similar groups.

We might try here to reason by analogy. When the United States drops bombs from aircraft or otherwise dumps firepower on Iraqi cities, towns and farms, it alienates the population further. As the FMFM 1-A argues, success for an outside, occupying power requires de-escalation, not escalation of violence.

But here is where the picture grows murky. The fact is, both sides don't get to operate by the same rules in 4GW. While the very strength of the intervening power means it must be careful how it applies its strength, that is much less true of the weaker forces opposing it. This is an aspect of what respected Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld calls the power of weakness. Viewed from the moral level, a weak force can get away with tactics that damn its vastly stronger enemy. Its weakness itself tends to justify whatever it does.

Suicide bombing is itself a tactic of the weak (which does not mean it is ineffective). The United States bombs from aircraft, where the pilot operates in complete safety against 4GW opponents, with rare exceptions. At the moral level, that safety works against us, not for us. In contrast, the fact that 4GW fighters often have to give their lives to place their bombs works for them. Their combination of physical weakness and apparent heroism leads civilians from their own culture to excuse them much, including "collateral damage" they would never excuse if the bomb came from an American F-18.

Does this mean that al-Qaida and its many clones can ignore the deaths and injuries they cause among fellow Islamics? No. They have to be careful not to go too far, as al-Qaida clearly did in Jordan. But they can still get away with a great deal we could not get away with. The same rules do not apply to all, and much stricter, more disadvantageous rules apply to us than to them. Is that fair? Of course not. But whoever said there was anything fair about war?

--

(William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation.)

--

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of World Peace Herald or United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

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Outside View: The hazards of spin
By Anthony H. Cordesman
UPI Outside View Commentator
Published December 17, 2005


WASHINGTON -- The sharp gap between the evolution of the insurgency and the almost endless U.S. efforts to use the media and politics to spin a long and uncertain counter-insurgency campaign into turning points and instant victory has done America, the Bush Administration, and the American military great harm. Spin and shallow propaganda lose wars rather than win them. They ultimately discredit a war, and the officials and officers who fight it.

Iraq shows that it is critical that an administration honestly prepares the American people, the Congress and its allies for the real nature of the war to be fought. To do so, it must prepare them to sustain the expense and sacrifice through truth, not spin. There is only so much shallow spin that the American people or Congress will take. It isn't a matter of a cynical media or a people who oppose the war; rubbish is rubbish. If the United States spins each day with overoptimistic statements and half-truths, it embarks on a process that will sooner or later deprive itself of credibility -- both domestically and internationally.


Iraq is another warning that serious counter-insurgency campaigns often take five to 15 years. They don't end conveniently with an assistant secretary or a president's term in office. Again and again we deny the sheer length of serious counter-insurgencies. Planners, executers, and anyone who explains and justifies such wars needs to be far more honest about the timescales involved, just how long we may have to stay, and that even when an insurgency is largely over, there may be years of aid and advisory efforts.

The insurgency raises lessons about warfighting that go beyond the details of military strategy and tactics, and provide broader lessons that have been surprisingly consistent over the more than 40 years from Vietnam to Iraq.

First, warfighters must focus relentlessly on the desired outcome of the war and not simply the battle or overall military situation. In strategic and grand strategic terms, it doesn't matter how well the war went last month; it doesn't matter how the United States is doing tactically. The real question warfighters must ask is whether the United States is actually moving toward a strategic outcome that serves the ultimate interests of the United States. If warfighters don't know, should they spend the lives of American men and women in the first place?

The United States, and any military force engaging in counter-insurgency warfare, should teach at every level that stability operations and conflict termination are the responsibility of every field-grade officer. And, for that matter, of every civilian. Warfighters need to act on the principle that every tactical operation must have a political context and set of goals. The United States needs to tie its overall campaign plan to a detailed plan for the use of economic aid at every level, from simple bribery to actually seeking major changes in the economy of a given country.

Second, warfighters need to understand, as Gen. Rupert Smith has pointed out, that Iraq has shown that enemies will make every effort to try win counter-insurgency conflicts by finding ways to operate below or above the threshold of conventional military superiority. It is stupid, as some in the U.S. military have done, to call Iraqi insurgents cowards or terrorists because they will not fight on our terms. The same remarkably stupid attitudes appeared in 19th century colonial wars and often cost those foolish enough to have them the battle. The Madhi's victories in the Sudan are a good example.

The United States has to be able to fight in ways that defeat insurgents and terrorists regardless of how they fight. Insurgents are not cowards for fighting us in any way that leads to the highest cost to us and the least cost to them. If they can fight below the U.S. threshold of conventional superiority, then technology is at best a limited supplement to U.S. human skills, military professionalism, and above all, our ability to find ways to strengthen local allies.

It is far more important, for example, to have effective local forces than more technology. Net-centric is not a substitute for human-centric, and for that matter, human-centric isn't a substitute for competent people down at the battalion level. Systems don't win. Technology doesn't win.

Third, warfighters and their political leaders need to acknowledge that enemies can fight above the threshold of U.S. conventional ability, not just beneath it. The character of America's political system, culture, and values are not the answer to winning the political and ideological dimension of many counter-insurgency campaigns. There is no reason Americans should think it can win an ideological struggle over the future of Islam and/or the Arab world. Our Muslim and Arab allies, in contrast, may well be able to win this struggle, particularly if the United States works with them and not against them.

U.S. public diplomacy and political actions can have a major impact in aiding counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism. But Iraq shows that the local, cultural, ethnic, religious and political issues have to be fought out in such wars, and must be fought out largely by our ally on the ground and other Islamic states. The United States can help, but cannot win, or dominate, the battle for hearts and minds. Moreover, only regional allies with the right religion, culture, and legitimacy can cope with the growing ability of ideologically driven opponents to find the fault lines that can divide us from local allies by creating increased ethnic and sectarian tensions.

Fourth, the United States does need to improve our counter-insurgency technology, but cannot win with "toys." Technology is a tool and not a solution. Israeli technology failed in Lebanon as U.S. technology did in Vietnam, and some of the same IED systems that helped defeat Israel have now emerged in Iraq: those twin IR sensors, the shaped charges, the radio-controlled devices, the foam painted to look like rocks. Like Israel, the United States can use technical means to defeat many IEDs, but not enough. Moreover, it is possible that the total cost of every insurgent IED to date is still lower than the cost of one AH-1S that went down over Iraq.

Fifth, the best "force multiplier" will be effective allies, and interoperability with a true partner. If it is true that the United States can win most counter-insurgency campaigns if it creates strong allies, the United States must act decisively on this principle. U.S. victories will often only be a means to this end. The real victories come when the United States has allied troops that can operate against insurgents in the field, and a friendly government to carry out nation building and civil action activities at the same time. The United States really begins to win when it can find ways to match the military, political, economic, and governance dimension.

Creating a real partnership with allies means respect; it doesn't mean creating proxies or tools. It means recognizing that creating the conditions for effective governance and police are as important as the military. So is the creation of effective ministries. Iraq shows all too clearly that if you focus on the ministry of defense and ignore the ministry of the interior -- and even more difficult if you ignore the ministry of finance -- this just doesn't work.

In most places, the actual counter-insurgency battle is local and as dependent on police and effective governance as effective military forces. In hyper-urbanized areas, which represent many of the places where we fight, the city is the key, at least as much as the national government. And, incidentally, Iraq has already shown time after time that it is difficult to sustain any victory without a lasting presence by local police and government offices

Sixth, political legitimacy in counter-insurgency is measured in local terms and not in terms of American ideology. Effective warfighting means the United States must recognize something about regional allies that goes against its present emphasis on "democracy." In most of the world, "legitimacy" has little to do with governments being elected, and a great deal to do with governments being popular.

By all means, hold elections when they do more good than harm. But bringing the people security, the rule of law, human rights and effective governance is far more important. In many cases, elections may be disruptive or bring people to power who are more of a problem than a solution. This is particularly true if elections come without the preconditions of mature political parties, economic stability, a firm rule of law and checks and balances. In most cases, the United States and its allies will still need to worry about the people who don't win -- people, ethnicities, and sects who will not have human rights protection. If anyone thinks there is a correlation between democracy and human rights, they got through college without ever reading Thucydides. The Melian dialogue is the historical rule, not the exception.

Seventh, the United States needs to have a functional interagency process and partner our military with effective civilian counterparts. Iraq has shown that political leaders and senior military cannot afford to bypass the system, or to lack support from the civilian agencies that must do their part from the outset. The United States needs to begin by deciding on the team it needs to go to war, and then make that team work. It is one of the oddities historically that Robert McNamara got his largest increase in U.S. troops deployed to Vietnam by bypassing the interagency process. The Bush Administration began by going through an interagency process before the war, but largely chose to ignore it after January 2003.

This is the wrong approach. Counter-insurgency wars are as much political and economic as military. They require political action, aid in governance, economic development and attention to the ideological and political dimension. The United States can only succeed here if the interagency process can work.

At another level, the United States needs civilian risk-takers. It needs a counterpart to the military in the field. There is no point in supporting the staffing of more interagency coordination bodies in Washington unless their primary function is to put serious resources into the field. The United States is not going to win anything by having better interagency coordination, and more meetings, unless the end result is to put the right mix of people and resources out in the countryside and where the fighting takes place.

The United States needs put a firm end to the kind of mentality that overstaffs the State Department and intelligence community in Washington, and doesn't require career civilians to take risks in the field. Foreign Service officers should not be promoted unless they are willing to take risks. The United States can get all the risk-takers we want. There already is a flood of applications from qualified people. It can also ensure continuity and expertise by drawing on the brave group of people already in Iraq and Afghanistan -- a remarkable number of whom are contract employees -- and giving them career status.

In the process, the United States also needs to "civilianize" some aspects of its military. It needs to improve both their area and language skills, create the added specialized forces it needs for stability and nation building operations, and rethink tour length for military who work in critical positions and with allied forces. Personal relationships are absolutely critical in the countries where the United States is most likely to fight counter-insurgency wars. So is area expertise and continuity in intelligence.

Counter-insurgency needs a core of military and civilians who will accept 18- to 24-month tours in key slots. The problem today is often that the selection system does not focus on the best person but rather on external personnel and career planning considerations. Moreover, it fails to recognize that those who take such additional risks should be paid for it in full, and be given different leave policies and promotion incentives. Today, a solider who is only a battalion commander is only a battalion commander. The key officers are those with area and counter-insurgency skills that go beyond the combat unit level. Those officers need to have more diverse skills, and deal adequately with the broader dimension of war, and stay long enough to be fully effective.

Finally, humancentric warfare does not mean "super-soldiers" or super-intelligence officers. This is a particular problem for warfighting intelligence, given the limits of today's technical systems and means. It is also a problem because Iraq shows that developing effective U.S.-led and organized HUMINT may often be impossible.

It is true that better intelligence analysis and HUMINT are critical. But, there will be many times in the future where we will also have to go into counter-insurgency campaigns without being able to put qualified Americans in the field quickly enough to recruit effective agents and develop effective HUMINT on our own.

Does that mean HUMINT isn't important? Of course it doesn't; it is a useful tool. But to create effective HUMINT abilities to deal with security issues, the United States will need an effective local partner in most serious cases of both counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism. Having allied countries, allied forces, or allied elements, develop effective HUMINT will be a critical answer to U.S. shortcomings.

--

(Anthony J. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke chair of Strategy at the center for strategic and International studies in Washington DC. This is taken from his latest CSIS paper "The Iraqi war and its strategic lessons for counter-insurgency.")

--

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of World Peace Herald or United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

Bush goes on the offensive as political battles multiply 2 hours, 42 minutes ago



Amid unrelenting political setbacks, US President George W. Bush has gone on the offensive, slamming Congress for stalling an anti-terrorism law and defending his decision to spy on Americans.

The decision to block renewal of the USA Patriot Act is "irresponsible" and "endangers the lives of our citizens," Bush declared in an unusual televised broadcast of his weekly radio address.

In the same address Bush acknowledged and took full responsibility for wiretapping of Americans disclosed by the New York Times on Friday.

Despite parliamentary elections in Iraq Thursday and their potential to improve sentiment about the Iraq war, the domestic political climate remains very difficult for the US president, and shows no signs of letting up.

After accepting on Thursday Congress' desire to explicitly reaffirm a ban on torture because a standoff risked blocking the defense budget, Bush suffered another setback on Friday.

Yet again, it was methods used in the war on terror that planted trouble in Congress.

Republican headquarters was unable to prevent the blocking of the Patriot Act in the Senate because of concern among majority Republicans that new powers granted law enforcement agencies in their counterterrorism investigations could lead to eavesdropping on citizens and their persecution.

The simultaneous disclosure that Bush has authorized wiretaps on hundreds, maybe even thousands of people, could have a problematic, even devastating impact on the future of the Patriot Act, said Arlen Specter, the influential Republican chairmen of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But the president, acting in the name of national security, sought Saturday to sweep all the worries aside.

"The terrorists want to attack America again and inflict even greater damage than they did on September the 11th," Bush said.

This threat, according to Bush, not only justifies new resources for law enforcement agencies but also a highly-classified wiretapping program that he said he authorized "in the weeks following the (September 11, 2001) terrorist attacks" and planned to re-authorize again "as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from Al-Qaeda and related groups."

Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, who has been waging a battle against the Patriot Act, immediately accused the president of trying to play on fears to pursue strictly political objectives.

"What he's doing, I believe, is illegal," Feingold said Saturday on CNN television.

Even though the fate of the Patriot Act could be President Bush's most nettlesome political problem, it is by no means the only one.

Congress, which was supposed to finish its work and adjourn for Christmas holidays, had to continue working through the weekend in order to wrap up unfinished business.

Many of the administration's priorities are stalled or about to die. Because of fissures in Republican ranks, re-authorization of tax cuts, adoption of new spending cuts, and the defense budget still have not been approved.

Work on many of these bills is complicated by the desire of the Bush administration and many Republican lawmakers to open a pristine natural area, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to oil exploration.

This proposal, which was to be included into the spending cuts program, could now be attached to the defense budget, which could open a new political battle over the reserve.



Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.


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December 17, 2005
U.S. Wants Reasons for Troops to Stay in Iraq

latest news and polls

(Angus Reid Global Scan) – Many adults in the United States believe their president should present a clear case for the continuation of the current troop deployment in Iraq, according to a poll by Hart/McInturff released by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News. 54 per cent of respondents think that George W. Bush has not given good reasons for why the U.S. must keep troops in Iraq.

The coalition effort against Saddam Hussein’s regime was launched in March 2003. At least 2,153 American soldiers have died during the military operation, and more than 16,000 troops have been injured. 50 per cent of respondents are less confident that the war in Iraq will come to a successful conclusion, down eight points since November.

Iraqi voters renewed their National Assembly on Dec. 15. Preliminary reports indicate that the turnout was 70 per cent in the entire country.

Yesterday, Bush said his goal is "to have an Iraq that can defend itself and sustain itself, an Iraq that will help us defeat the terrorists in this war on terror, an Iraq that will serve as such a powerful example for other countries in the region that share the same desires as the Iraqi citizen—that is the desire to live in a free world and a free society." 68 per cent of respondents believe there should not be an immediate troop withdrawal.

Polling Data

Do you think that George W. Bush has or has not given good reasons for why the United States must keep troops in Iraq?

Dec. 2005
Nov. 2005

Has given good reasons
42%
38%

Has not given good reasons
54%
58%

Not sure
4%
4%



Do you think that the United States should maintain its current troop level in Iraq to help secure peace and stability, or should the United States reduce its number of troops now that Iraq has adopted a

constitution? More specifically, do you think that we should have an immediate and orderly withdrawal of all troops from Iraq, or not?

Yes, should have an immediate withdrawal
27%

No, should not have an immediate withdrawal
68%

Depends
3%

Not sure
2%



And do you feel more confident or less confident that the war in Iraq will come to a successful conclusion?

Dec. 2005
Nov. 2005

More confident
39%
32%

Less confident
50%
58%

Depends / Some of both
6%
6%

Not sure
5%
4%



Source: Hart/McInturff / The Wall Street Journal / NBC News
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,006 American adults, conducted from Dec. 9 to Dec. 12, 2005. Margin of error is 3.1 per cent.

Poll: Majority Oppose Immediate Iraq Exit

Updated 12:56 AM ET December 18, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8eifk2gc&src=ap

By WILL LESTER

WASHINGTON (AP) - A solid majority of Americans oppose immediately pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, citing as a main reason the desire to finish the job of stabilizing the country, an AP-Ipsos poll found.

Some 57 percent of those surveyed said the U.S. military should stay until Iraq is stabilized, while 36 percent favor an immediate troop withdrawal. A year ago, 71 percent of respondents favored keeping troops in Iraq until it was stabilized.

In an effort to build public support for his Iraq policy, President Bush planned an Oval Office address for Sunday night to discuss the U.S. mission and what lies ahead in 2006.

The speech will be his first from the Oval Office since March 2003 when he announced the invasion of Iraq. In the past two weeks, the president has given four speeches on Iraq.

In the poll, when people were asked in an open-ended question the main reason the U.S. should keep troops in Iraq, 32 percent said to stabilize the country and 26 percent said to finish the rebuilding job under way.

Only one in 10 said they wanted to stay in Iraq to fight terrorism; just 3 percent said to protect U.S. national security.

"You've got to finish the job," said Terry Waterman, a store manager from Superior, Wis. "The whole world is looking to us for leadership. We can't have another Vietnam."

Other recent polling has found that when given additional options, many people favor a step somewhere in between having troops leave immediately and staying until the country is stabilized.

After months of unrelenting violence, millions of Iraqis turned out this past week to choose a parliament. Early estimates placed the voter turnout close to 70 percent of 15 million Iraqis voting.

Some 49 percent of Americans now say the war with Iraq was a mistake, according to the poll of 1,006 adults conducted Tuesday through Thursday. That compares with 53 percent in August. Two years ago, only 34 percent of those surveyed said the war was a mistake.

Two years ago, after ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was captured, 64 percent of respondents said the war was the right thing to do. Now, 42 percent say it was the right decision.

Over the past two years, some of the biggest shifts on whether the war was a good decision or a mistake have come among married people with children, those with low incomes and those with a high school education or less.

"Whether the war is a mistake is less relevant than what we should do now," said John McAdams, a political scientist at Marquette University in Milwaukee. "A fair number of people may think it's a mistake, but still don't want to lose."

___

Associated Press Manager of News Surveys Trevor Tompson contributed to this story.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
US vice president Richard Cheney arrives on unannounced visit to Baghdad

December 18, 2005, 3:44 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile’s exclusive sources report he has come to deal with the formation of the Iraq government coalition in the light of surprises emerging in the preliminary counting of Iraq’s general election results.

Our sources reveal early indications that the big winner is the Shiite Risaliya list headed by Ayatollah Taki Mudrassi, rival of Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Radical cleric Moqtada Sadr’s list in the United Iraq Alliance bloc has performed strongly. Former prime minister Iyad Allawi’s mixed Iraqi List has made solid gains of an estimated 30% of the Sunni Muslim vote and 20% among the Shiites. The Kurdish alliance appears to have lost ground but is still expected to hold the balance of power in the future National Assembly. Ahmed Chalabi’s party appears to have fared badly.

Copyright 2000-2005 DEBKAfile. All Rights Reserved.

December 18, 2005
Bush Administration Mounts Broad Defense of Iraq War
By BRIAN KNOWLTON,
International Herald Tribune
WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 - The Bush administration today mounted a broad defense both of the war in Iraq and of some tactics in the domestic fight against terrorists, tactics that Democrats said might be illegal.

As Vice President Dick Cheney made a surprise visit to Iraq today to congratulate voters there on their recent parliamentary elections, President Bush prepared for a rare Oval Office address tonight to celebrate those elections - his first speech from that venue since announcing in March 2003 that he had ordered the invasion of Iraq, but his fourth speech on security matters in six days.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meantime, appeared on television to defend a newly disclosed government program of warrantless eavesdropping on people in the United States thought to have some connection to terrorists. The 2001 terror attacks, she said, injected a "certain urgency" into the need for timely surveillance, and she asserted that President Bush had acted with full legal authority.

"We simply can't be in a situation in which the president is not responding to this different kind of war on terrorism," Ms. Rice said on the Fox News Channel, reflecting Mr. Bush's own defense of the program in televised remarks on Saturday, and his insistence that previous practices had proved insufficient.

But two Democratic senators, Carl Levin of Michigan and Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, said that President Bush might have broken the law.

"The issue here is whether the president of the United States is putting himself above the law," Mr. Feingold, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said on CNN, "and I believe he has done so here."

The Republican chairman of that committee, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who on Friday had called the surveillance "a violation of our law beyond any question," moderated his tone today, but still said that he would hold hearings to investigate the matter.

Mr. Specter said today that "whether it was legal, I think, is a matter that has to be examined." Noting that the administration had asserted that the president had both constitutional and statutory authority for the program, Mr. Specter added, "I'd like to know specifically what the administration has in mind."

He also accused Democrats of "a stampede to judgment."

Ms. Rice spoke a day after Mr. Bush acknowledged ordering the National Security Agency to go beyond its core mission of intercepting foreign electronic communications and undertake secret eavesdropping in the United States.

President Bush has gone to some effort to underscore the importance of the relatively peaceful Iraqi elections as a historic landmark. That such news has had to vie for attention with recent Congressional attacks on administration security policy appears to have engendered White House frustration.

That was perhaps reflected when Vice President Cheney's wife, Lynne Cheney, told a CNN interviewer that questions about criticisms of administration policy was "really wrongheaded." Pointing to the Iraqi elections, she said, "Now, that's the story from this week, and that's what I think we should focus on."

But it would have been difficult for the White House to ignore the recent defections of some Republican lawmakers on key security votes, as well as the poll results showing the broad unpopularity of the war.

The administration's latest legislative setback came Friday, hours after The New York Times disclosed the secret surveillance program, when Democratic senators and a handful of Republicans - some mentioning the Times article - blocked reauthorization of the Patriot Act, the legislation passed in late 2001 that had expanded presidential powers to conduct surveillance, with warrants.

A day earlier, Mr. Bush had been forced to accept an amendment sponsored by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, to limit the interrogation techniques that C.I.A. officers and other nonmilitary personnel can use.

All of that left Ms. Rice on the defensive today, particularly over the decision to allow secret domestic surveillance.

Critics of such monitoring note that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows secret surveillance when approved by a special court that operates inside the Justice Department. This court has rarely rejected administration requests.

But Ms. Rice asserted that FISA, a 1978 act, had not anticipated anything like the 2001 terror attacks - and that more aggressive surveillance might have helped prevent them. "We don't ever want to be caught again in a situation in which we were before 9/11," Secretary Rice said on Fox, adding that the unmasking of such a secret program was "really a serious matter."

On Saturday, Mr. Bush said that as a result of the public disclosure of the program, "our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk."

In acknowledging that he had ordered the eavesdropping program, the president called it "a vital tool in our war against the terrorists" and defended it as being "fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities."

Secretary Rice said that lawyers from the White House, the Justice Department and the National Security Agency had cleared the program; and that Congressional leaders of both parties were briefed at the program's inception.

But Democrats bridled today at what they said was a White House effort to spread responsibility.

The Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, asked on Fox whether he had been among those briefed, allowed that he had been "a couple of months ago" but that "the president can't pass the buck on this one," adding, "This is his program, he's commander-in-chief."

"Congress has not been involved in setting up this program," he said.

Senator McCain, the Republican whose unbending stance on torture demonstrated his willingness to take on the Bush administration, was studiously careful when he was offered several opportunities to criticize the surveillance program.

He reminded a questioner on ABC that "September 11th, as we know, changed everything."



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http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/ar...t_iraq_pullout/

Powell opposes fast Iraq pullout
By Reuters | December 18, 2005

LONDON -- Former US secretary of state Colin Powell said yesterday that it would be a tragic mistake to pull US troops out of Iraq as quickly as possible.

In an interview with the BBC, Powell also said that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney had gone behind his back directly to President Bush ahead of the US-led invasion in March 2003.

But he said the United States owed it to the Iraqi people to keep its troops there as long as they were needed, and could be involved in Iraq for years to come.

''I don't think that the United States military at its current strength can sustain this level of deployment for an extended period of time," Powell said. ''So one way or the other I think a drawdown will begin in 2006," he said.

''But essentially just to walk away, to say that we're taking all of our troops out as fast as we can, would be a tragic mistake," said Powell, a retired general and former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

Powell said the United States had invested a great deal in Iraq and said the Iraqi people deserved the freedom and democracy they were promised after Saddam Hussein was overthrown.

''We have to stay with them until they decide . . . they don't need us any longer. And even then, I suspect, there will be a continuing relationship and presence of some significance for some years to come."

Powell also backed comments made by his former chief of staff Larry Wilkerson that he had sometimes been cut out of decisions taken by Rumsfeld and Cheney in the run-up to the war.

''Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney and I occasionally would have strong differing views on matters. And when that was the case we argued them out, we fought them out, in bureaucratic ways," he said.

''Now what Larry [Wilkerson] is suggesting in his comments is that very often maybe Mr. Rumsfeld and the Vice President Cheney would take decisions into the president that the rest of us weren't aware of. That did happen, on a number of occasions.

''Mr. Rumsfeld and I had some serious discussions, of a not pleasant kind, about the use of individuals who could bring expertise to the issue [of postwar planning]. It ultimately went to the White House and the rest is well known."

On another topic, Powell said that the controversial practice of rendition -- moving terrorism suspects from one country to another -- is not new and European governments should not be surprised by it. Powell's successor, Condoleezza Rice was forced to defend the practice during a recent trip to Europe.



© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washingt...k_iraq_pullout/

Most in US don't favor quick Iraq pullout
Poll finds support for troops staying
By Will Lester, Associated Press | December 18, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A solid majority of Americans oppose immediately withdrawing US troops from Iraq, citing as a main reason the desire to finish the job of stabilizing the country, an Associated Press-Ipsos poll found.

Some 57 percent of those surveyed said the US military should stay until Iraq is stabilized; 36 percent favor an immediate withdrawal. A year ago, 71 percent favored keeping troops in Iraq until it was stabilized.

In an effort to build support for his Iraq policy, President Bush plans an Oval Office address tonight to discuss the US mission and what lies ahead in 2006.

The speech will be his first from the Oval Office since March 2003 when he announced the invasion. In the past two weeks, he has given four speeches on Iraq.

In the poll, when people were asked in an open-ended question the main reason the United States should keep troops in Iraq, 32 percent said to stabilize the country and 26 percent said to finish the rebuilding job underway.

Only 1 in 10 said they wanted to stay in Iraq to fight terrorism; just 3 percent said to protect US national security.

''You've got to finish the job," said Terry Waterman, a store manager from Superior, Wis. ''The whole world is looking to us for leadership. We can't have another Vietnam."

Other recent polling has found that when given additional options, many people favor a step somewhere in between having troops leave immediately and staying until the country is stabilized.

After months of unrelenting violence, millions of Iraqis turned out last week to choose a parliament. Early estimates placed the voter turnout close to 70 percent of Iraq's 15 million registered voters.

Some 49 percent of Americans now say the war with Iraq was a mistake, according to the poll of 1,006 adults conducted Tuesday through Thursday. That compares with 53 percent in August. Two years ago, only 34 percent of those surveyed said the war was a mistake.

Two years ago, after ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was captured, 64 percent of respondents said the war was the right thing to do. Now, 42 percent say it was the right decision.

Over two years, some of the biggest shifts on whether the war was a good decision or a mistake have occurred among married people with children, those with low incomes, and those with a high school education or less.

''Whether the war is a mistake is less relevant than what we should do now," said John McAdams, a political scientist at Marquette University in Milwaukee. ''A fair number of people may think it's a mistake, but still don't want to lose."



© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Bush's Candor on Iraq Draws Praise By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

Democrats and Republicans are applauding President Bush for acknowledging mistakes in Iraq and taking responsibility, but critics say he still has not given Americans a realistic plan that will lead to the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

"I know that some of my decisions have led to terrible loss — and not one of those decisions has been taken lightly," Bush declared in a televised speech to the nation Sunday, his first from the Oval Office since announcing the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The President will also hold a news conference Monday at 10:30 a.m. EST.

Bush held out the promise that when the Iraqi military gains strength and self-government moves forward, "it should require fewer American troops to accomplish our mission. I will make decisions on troop levels based on the progress we see."

The language was not specific enough for Bush's critics.

"While I appreciate the president's increased candor, too much of the substance remains the same and the American people have still not heard what benchmarks we must meet along the way to know that progress is being made" and when the troops "can begin to come home," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

His House counterpart, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., said: "Tonight the president acknowledged more of the mistakes he has made in Iraq, but he still does not get it. Iraq did not present an imminent threat to the security of the United States before he began his war of choice."

Bush said that despite setbacks, "Not only can we win the war in Iraq — we are winning the war in Iraq."

There is a difference, he said, between "honest critics who recognize what is wrong, and defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right."

That drew a rebuttal from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass.

"It's wrong for him to silence his critics by calling them defeatists," said Kennedy. "Every American — including those that thought this war should never have been fought — understands that we have no choice for own security but to win in Iraq."

Bush should acknowledge, "as his own generals do, that the Iraq war has emboldened the terrorists and increased their ranks," Kennedy said.

Critics also said a change in direction is essential.

Iraqis must be told the United States will reconsider its presence unless the new constitution is revised to give the minority Sunni Arab community a stake in running the country, said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich.

"They've got to share power, they've got to share oil resources," said Levin, senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. There can be a significant withdrawal of U.S. troops only if there are enough capably trained Iraqi soldiers by the end of 2006, he said.

On NBC's "Meet the Press" earlier Sunday, Levin said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has "ducked the question" of whether the United States would tell the Iraqis they need to change their new constitution.

"The amendment process is there and it ought to be used," said Rice, also appearing on NBC.

In his speech, Bush said it is important "for every American to understand the consequences of pulling out ... before our work is done. We would abandon our Iraqi friends and signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep its word."

"The president said we must not pull out of Iraq `before our work is done,'" said Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis. "He needs to understand that our brave servicemen and women won a resounding victory in the initial military operation, and their task is now largely over."

Bush said some look at Iraq and conclude that "the war is lost," but "not even the terrorists believe it. We know from their own communications that they feel a tightening noose — and fear the rise of a democratic Iraq."

Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., Armed Services Committee chairman, said Bush's speech "was a high-water mark in his acknowledgment that mistakes have been made and that he has to accept his share of the blame.

"But he remains resolute, as he should, in continuing our help to the Iraqi people so that they can achieve a self-sufficient government and become a truly sovereign nation," Warner added.

Bush's Oval Office address followed a string of weekend attacks by insurgents in Iraq that pierced three days of relative calm. It also topped off an 18-day span in which Bush made five speeches conceding setbacks amid progress in Iraq.

"We have six more months to get this right," Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), D-Del., said on MSNBC, but added that "the president has to move."

To abandon Iraq now would be a "serious, serious mistake," said Biden. "If we, in fact, lose in Iraq — that is, if a Shia-style, Iranian-style government is set up — it will be terrible for us for a long time."



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http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?articleid=8285

December 21, 2005
Two False Options

by William S. Lind
In his address to the American people last Sunday evening, President George W. Bush said, "Yet now there are only two options before our country: victory or defeat." As usual, Mr. Bush is wrong.

Victory is not an option, and it never was. The strategic objectives the Bush administration set for this war – a peaceful, democratic Iraq that would be an American ally, a friend of Israel, a source of unlimited oil and of basing rights for large American forces – were never attainable, no matter what we did. Strategies invented in Fairyland cannot be implemented in the real world. Pity the military that is ordered to try.

Defeat is an option. In my last column I described one way that could occur, an Israeli a