http://www.statenews.com/op_article.phtml?pk=37352
Anti-war is not pro-fascist

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged the troops fighting in Iraq in his speech Tuesday at the American Legion's annual convention. But he didn't stop there. He went on to say how lucky the country is to have President Bush, "a leader of resolve at a time of war" and a "president who works every day to fulfill his vow to bring the enemy to justice or to bring justice to the enemy." Rumsfeld even managed to squeeze in a brief recognition of his beloved Boy Scouts.
But the majority of his speech was about America's fascists.

And by fascists, Rumsfeld meant critics of the Bush administration's Iraq and counterterrorism policies.

The secretary of defense painted a picture of morally confused Westerners disagreeing with military strategies and buying into the far too cynical and negative news media.

Turns out it's not that the war in Iraq is failing because of mismanagement and poor postwar planning, but more accurately — according to Rumsfeld — because of critics' "destructive" views.

Rumsfeld's argument polarizes Americans into two vastly different groups — either you're with him, or you're against him. Either you're patriotic, or you're a fascist. Either you support the Bush administration, or you support terrorism. Either you're right, or you're utterly wrong.

If only it were that easy.

Questioning and criticizing your government does not make you a fascist, it certainly doesn't make you a supporter of terrorism and it doesn't even make you unpatriotic. Issues — especially political issues at a time of war — are not black and white.

Rumsfeld also takes a popular Bush administration tactic and attacks the media's Iraq war coverage. He cites the lack of coverage of Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, a soldier in Iraq who saved at least 100 lives and was justifiably awarded a Medal of Honor, as an example of "some quarters" focusing "on dividing our country." Then he goes on to complain about the "10 times as many mentions" of the abuse at Abu Ghraib by one soldier.

First, Smith was awarded the medal in 2005, and it garnered a more than 1,200-word story on The Washington Post's front page, as well as several other mentions in newspapers throughout the country — and that's just from the print media. As usual, Rumsfeld is apparently convinced it's all the media's fault — as though The New York Times, The Washington Post and other outlets mismanaged postwar Iraq.

The abuse in Abu Ghraib prison had far greater consequences for the U.S. and its ability to properly fight terrorism or any conflict in which the country is involved, like Iraq. The embarrassment of the scandal has tarnished our image, not only in regard to human rights, but also in our constant war to win the "hearts and minds" of those living in the Middle East.

The coverage of Abu Ghraib, according to the gospel of Rumsfeld, is an example of the media's goal to "distort" the truth about "our troops and our country." The media reports on the incompetence of the government — it does not cause it.

Rumsfeld did make one good point in his speech. He said Americans "over time will evaluate and reflect on what is happening in this struggle and come to wise conclusions."

And they have. Poll after poll, like the latest from CNN, shows the majority of Americans don't have confidence in the president or support the war in Iraq.

Rumsfeld's finally right — Americans have come to a "wise conclusion."

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6640

September 1, 2006
Policy Analysis no. 577

The American Way of War: Cultural Barriers to Successful Counterinsurgency
by Jeffrey Record

Jeffrey Record teaches strategy at the Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama, and is the author of eight books, including Dark Victory: America's Second War against Iraq and the forthcoming The Specter of Munich: Reconsidering the Lessons of Appeasing Hitler and Beating Goliath: Why Insurgencies Win. The views he expresses in this paper are his own and do not necessarily represent those of the Air War College, the United States Air Force, the U.S. Department of Defense, or any other U.S. government agency.

The U.S. defeat in Vietnam, embarrassing setbacks in Lebanon and Somalia, and continuing political and military difficulties in Afghanistan and especially Iraq underscore the limits of America's hard-won conventional military supremacy. That supremacy has not delivered decisive success against nonstate enemies practicing protracted irregular warfare; on the contrary, America's conventional supremacy and approach to war—especially its paramount reliance on firepower and technology—are often counterproductive.

The problem is rooted in American political and military culture. Americans are frustrated with limited wars, particularly counterinsurgent wars, which are highly political in nature. And Americans are averse to risking American lives when vital national interests are not at stake. Expecting that America's conventional military superiority can deliver quick, cheap, and decisive success, Americans are surprised and politically demoralized when confronted by Vietnam- and Iraq-like quagmires.

The Pentagon's aversion (the Marine Corps excepted) to counterinsurgency is deeply rooted in the American way of warfare. Since the early 1940s, the Army has trained, equipped, and organized for large-scale conventional operations against like adversaries, and it has traditionally employed conventional military operations even against irregular enemies.

Barring profound change in America's political and military culture, the United States runs a significant risk of failure when it enters small wars of choice, and great power intervention in small wars is almost always a matter of choice. Most such wars, moreover, do not engage core U.S. security interests other than placing the limits of American military power on embarrassing display. Indeed, the very act of intervention in small wars risks gratuitous damage to America's military reputation.

The United States should abstain from intervention in such wars, except in those rare cases when military intervention is essential to protecting or advancing U.S. national security.


Full Text of Policy Analysis no. 577 (PDF, 129 KB) - go to link to access

© 2006 The Cato Institute
Please send comments to webmaster

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools...cas/5301720.stm
Bush pledges 'terror war' victory
President Bush is making a series of speeches ahead of the polls
Bush speech
President George W Bush has said victory in Iraq is essential to the US winning the "war on terror" against the Islamist groups ranged against it.
The US would not leave Iraq until victory was achieved, he told military veterans in Salt Lake City, Utah.

And he warned Iran of "consequences" if it continued to defy the international community over its nuclear programme.

The speech is one of a series in which Mr Bush is defending his security strategy as mid-term polls approach.

"The war we fight today is more than a military conflict," Mr Bush said. "It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st Century."

'Twisted view of Islam'

He said those who brought down the World Trade Center in New York five years ago were united with car bombers in Baghdad, Hezbollah militants who shot rockets into Israel, and terrorists who had recently attempted to bring down flights between Britain and the US.

"Despite their differences, these groups form the outline of a single movement, a worldwide network of radicals that use terror to kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology," he said.


This war will be difficult, this war will be long - and this war will end in the defeat of the terrorists
President Bush

"And the unifying feature of this movement, the link that spans sectarian divisions and local grievances, is the rigid conviction that free societies are a threat to their twisted view of Islam."

Mr Bush said agreeing to calls from within the US to bring the troops home would create a disaster in the Middle East.

"Many of these folks are sincere and they're patriotic but they... could not be more wrong," he said.

"If America were to pull out before Iraq could defend itself, the consequences would be absolutely predictable, and absolutely disastrous.

"We would be handing Iraq over to our worst enemies - Saddam's former henchmen, armed groups with ties to Iran, and al-Qaeda terrorists from all over the world who would suddenly have a base of operations far more valuable than Afghanistan under the Taleban."

He added: "This war will be difficult, this war will be long - and this war will end in the defeat of the terrorists."

Warning to Iran

The president also condemned the government of Iran, which he said was supporting terrorist groups like Hezbollah and defying the international community with its nuclear activities.

"It is time for Iran to make a choice. We've made our choice - we will continue to work closely with our allies to make a diplomatic solution, but there must be consequences for Iran's defiance and we must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon," he said.

Mr Bush is to make several more speeches on Iraq and security in the next two weeks.

Correspondents say his Republican Party fears unease over the Iraq war could damage its standing in mid-term polls on 7 November.





Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/5301720.stm

Published: 2006/08/31 17:27:11 GMT

© BBC MMVI

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/08/3..._of_history.php
Rumsfeld's Misuse Of History
John Prados
August 31, 2006


John Prados is a senior analyst with the National Security Archive in Washington, DC. His forthcoming book is Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Ivan Dee Publisher).

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, said the philosopher George Santayana a century ago. Knowing the facts of history is crucial to much of what we do as a nation and a people, but so is how it is used. And the Bush administration’s use of history—and specifically its use of “appeasement”—requires comment because it is both dangerous and misleading.

In the past week Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has twice invoked the historical analogy to appeasement—referring to the years just before World War II, culminating in the Munich conference of September 1938—to frame the globe’s current struggle with terrorism in apocalyptic terms. Vice President Dick Cheney has used the same analogy, without even gracing it with a name, to defend what he calls the “battle for the future of civilization.”

Both sought friendly audiences, confident they would not be challenged. Rumsfeld, most recently, spoke before the American Legion (interesting, isn’t it, how the Legion and the VFW have been treated to so many key public manipulations in the past few years) and Cheney at Offut Air Force Base in Nebraska, famous as the home of the Strategic Air Command and today the center of the United States Strategic Command.

Cheney’s line, which he has used before also, was that today’s jihadists are “not an enemy that can be ignored, or negotiated with, or appeased.” Cheney speaks of the enemy as a “totalitarian empire,” Rummy refers to it as “the rising threat of a new type of fascism.”

At least Rumsfeld acknowledges his resort to historical analogy, recounting his little portion of the Munich story and adding that “once again, we face similar challenges.” His history is directly tied to Munich, where Britain and France negotiated with Adolf Hitler a “settlement” that skewered Czechoslovakia but succeeded only in gaining the Allies a few months before Hitler invaded Poland, igniting global conflict.

The Bushies clearly intend to evoke an atmosphere of shattering events, but their history is fractured and misleading, and their use of this analogy is a throwback to the methods that led America into Vietnam, among the nation’s greatest errors of the last century. In invoking Munich, Secretary Rumsfeld claims that the Western approach was based upon “a sentiment that took root that contended that if only the growing threats . . . could be accommodated, then the carnage . . . could be avoided.” He further presents this as “cynicism and moral confusion” and “a strange innocence” about the world.

None of this is true. There was no mass political movement demanding appeasement of Germany. Rather there was a specific policy choice—made primarily by Sir Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister of the time—to mollify Hitler and gain time for rearmament. In fact, the French wanted to stand on their alliance with the Czechs and fight Hitler, but were persuaded to back down. The British might even have been right within a certain narrow framework: For years they had restricted defense spending and were just starting to correct that, while Hitler’s promises—both to his military and his Italian allies—envisioned no war before 1942, which could have enabled an allied military buildup to bear fruit. The widely accepted charge that the Allies were wrong to “appease” Hitler stemmed in part from Neville Chamberlain’s extravagant declaration that Munich had brought “peace for our time”—when only a short time later World War II broke out.

That was the lesson of Munich, at least until Vietnam. There the Munich analogy was used repeatedly to justify intervention and escalation. Here is President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1954, writing to Sir Winston Churchill: “We failed to halt . . . Hitler by not acting in unity and in time . . . the beginning of many years of stark tragedy and desperate peril.” Eisenhower wanted support to jump into the Vietnam War at the time of Dien Bien Phu. Ironically, Churchill, whom Rummy today makes the hero of his Munich triptych, turned Ike down.

In February 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson invoked Munich in his reasoning for responding to a terrorist incident in the Central Highlands by beginning the bombing of North Vietnam. That summer, when LBJ sent U.S. armies to fight in Vietnam, he invoked Munich again. As Johnson’s secretary of state, Dean Rusk repeatedly mentioned the dangers of appeasement. It was the effort to avoid another Munich that led to years of stark tragedy and desperate peril in Vietnam.

The correct lesson to be drawn from Munich today is that when presidents and their administrations raise its specter, it is a sure sign they want to pursue extravagant policies, usually of violence, based on narrow grounds with shaky public support. Today the Munich analogy functions as a provocation, a red flag before a bull. It is dangerous because it claims that the only solution to any situation is to fight—Cheney’s point exactly. Having done nothing beyond silly propaganda—despite its own claims—to undermine the jihadists by eliminating the economic and political oppression that form the basis of jihadist appeal, the Bush people counsel that the fight is everything and that talking is “appeasement.” We have seen in Lebanon lately just how misguided is that approach.

Bush administration history is like their reality—faith-based. President Bush himself, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, characterized those who saw and spoke the truth about the run-up to the Iraq war as “revisionists”—historians who try to change the conventional wisdom about the past. Cheney not long ago declared it was “inexcusable” to repeat that truth. The same speeches that contain the Munich claims portray the Iraqi and Afghan people as “awakening to a future of hope and freedom” (Cheney) and say the U.S. strategy in Iraq “has not changed” (Rumsfeld).

The faith is that if you repeat falsehoods enough times the public will believe them. There is another historical analogy there—a real one—to Adolf Hitler’s henchman, Josef Goebbels. He called it the “Big Lie.” No wonder the administration’s flacks need friendly audiences.

http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/bost31.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PETER W. GALBRAITH
The true Iraq appeasers

By Peter W. Galbraith | August 31, 2006

IN HIS MOST recent justification of his Pentagon stewardship, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reached back to the 1930s, comparing the Bush administration's critics to those who, like US Ambassador to Britain Joseph P. Kennedy, favored appeasing Adolf Hitler. Rumsfeld avoided a more recent comparison: the appeasement of Saddam Hussein by the Reagan and first Bush administrations. The reasons for selectivity are obvious, since so many of Hussein's appeasers in the 1980s were principals in the 2003 Iraq war, including Rumsfeld.

In 1983, President Reagan initiated a strategic opening to Iraq, then in the third year of a war of attrition with neighboring Iran. Although Iraq had started the war with a blitzkrieg attack in 1980, the tide had turned by 1982 in favor of much larger Iran, and the Reagan administration was afraid Iraq might actually lose. Reagan chose Rumsfeld as his emissary to Hussein, whom he visited in December 1983 and March 1984. Inconveniently, Iraq had begun to use chemical weapons against Iran in November 1983, the first sustained use of poison gas since a 1925 treaty banning that.

Rumsfeld never mentioned this blatant violation of international law to Hussein, instead focusing on shared hostility toward Iran and an oil pipeline through Jordan. Rumsfeld apparently did mention it to Tariq Aziz, Iraq's foreign minister, but by not raising the issue with the paramount leader he signaled that good relations were more important to the United States than the use of poison gas.

This message was reinforced by US conduct after the Rumsfeld missions. The Reagan administration offered Hussein financial credits that eventually made Iraq the third-largest recipient of US assistance. It normalized diplomatic relations and, most significantly, began providing Iraq with battlefield intelligence. Iraq used this information to target Iranian troops with chemical weapons. And when Iraq turned its chemical weapons on the Kurds in 1988, killing 5,000 in the town of Halabja, the Reagan administration sought to obscure responsibility by falsely suggesting Iran was also responsible.

On Aug. 25, 1988 -- five days after the Iran-Iraq War ended -- Iraq attacked 48 Kurdish villages more than 100 miles from Iran. Within days, the US Senate passed legislation, sponsored by Claiborne Pell, Democrat of Rhode Island, to end US financial support for Hussein and to impose trade sanctions. To enhance the prospects that Reagan would sign his legislation, Pell sent me to Eastern Turkey to interview Kurdish survivors who had fled across the border. As it turned out, the Reagan administration agreed that Iraq had gassed the Kurds, but strongly opposed sanctions, or even cutting off financial assistance. Colin Powell, then the national security adviser, coordinated the Reagan administration's opposition.

The Pell bill died at the end of the congressional session in 1988, in spite of heroic efforts by Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts to force it through by holding up a raft of administration nominations.

The next year, President George H.W. Bush's administration actually doubled US financial credits for Iraq. A week before Hussein invaded Kuwait, the administration vociferously opposed legislation that would have conditioned US assistance to Iraq on a commitment not to use chemical weapons and to stop the genocide against the Kurds. At the time, Dick Cheney, now vice president, was secretary of defense and a statutory member of the National Security Council that reviewed Iraq policy. By all accounts, he supported the administration's appeasement policy.

In 2003, Cheney, Powell, and Rumsfeld all cited Hussein's use of chemical weapons 15 years before as a rationale for war. But at the time Hussein was actually doing the gassing -- including of his own people -- they considered his use of chemical weapons a second-tier issue.

The Reagan and first Bush administrations believed that Hussein could be a strategic partner to the United States, a counterweight to Iran, a force for moderation in the region, and possibly help in the Arab-Israel peace process. That was, of course, an illusion. A ruthless dictator who launched an attack on his neighbor, Iran, who used chemical weapons, and who committed genocide against his own Kurds was never likely to be a reliable American ally. Hussein, having watched the United States gloss over his crimes in the Iran war and at home, concluded he could get away with invading Kuwait.

It was a costly error for him, for his country, and eventually for the United States, which now has the largest part of its military bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire. Meanwhile the architects of the earlier appeasement policy now maintain the illusion that they have a path to victory, if only their critics would shut up.

Peter W. Galbraith, a former US ambassador to Croatia, is author of ``The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End."



© 2006 The New York Times Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...3101051_pf.html

U.S. force in Iraq at 140,000

By Will Dunham
Reuters
Thursday, August 31, 2006; 6:15 PM



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has expanded its force in Iraq to 140,000 troops, the most since January and 13,000 more than five weeks ago, the Pentagon said on Thursday, amid relentless violence in Baghdad and elsewhere.

This follows July's decision by commanders to augment the U.S. military presence in Baghdad to try to curb escalating sectarian violence that has heightened concern about all-out civil war in Iraq.

Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a military spokesman in Iraq, said there are now about 15,000 U.S. troops operating in Baghdad.

As American troops continue to fight a tenacious insurgency nearly 3 1/2 years into the war, U.S. military deaths in Iraq reached at least 64 in August -- increasing from 43 in July and ending three straight monthly declines.

August's total still was about average for a war in which 63.7 U.S. troops have died per month. Deaths have ranged from a low of 20 in February 2004 to a high of 137 in November of that year. There have been 2,635 U.S. military deaths since war began in March 2003, and another 19,773 troops have been wounded in action, the Pentagon said.

Recent moves including the Pentagon's July 27 decision to delay for up to four months the scheduled departure from Iraq of about 4,000 soldiers from an Alaska-based brigade have indicated significant U.S. troop cuts are unlikely in the near future.

The Pentagon said the U.S. force, which stood at 127,000 on July 25, now numbers 140,000.

A defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. force likely will remain at about the current level in the coming months, but could shrink a bit by the end of the year depending on conditions in Iraq.

The arrival of fresh troops as part of the routine rotation of U.S. forces also has contributed to the current increase because some of those they are replacing have not yet left, officials said.

This summer's expansion of the U.S. force came in response to a surge of violence particularly in the capital -- much of it between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims.

U.S. military officers in Baghdad have said violence including murders declined in August from July's high levels but that there are still about 56 attacks per day in the capital.

President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, all have expressed a desire to reduce the U.S. presence in Iraq if Iraqi security and political conditions permit.

Casey on Wednesday said he foresaw Iraqi government security forces assuming control of security in their own country within 12 to 18 months with "very little" support from U.S.-led forces. But Casey said it was not clear when Iraqi troops would be able to go it alone and the United States could start withdrawing troops.

As recently as June, when the U.S. force stood at 125,000 with 14 combat brigades, Casey offered a plan to reduce by two brigades -- roughly 3,500 each -- this fall, with perhaps two more gone by December. His plan envisioned the U.S. force shrinking to five or six combat brigades by December 2007.

Currently all or parts of 18 combat brigades are in Iraq, according to the Pentagon.

The U.S. force in Iraq peaked last October and December at around 160,000 troops to help protect two Iraqi elections.

© 2006 Reuters

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/083106G.shtml

Soldiers Die, CEOs Prosper
By Derrick Z. Jackson
The Boston Globe

Wednesday 30 August 2006

More than 2,600 US soldiers have died in Iraq. July's toll for Iraqi civilians was 3,500, the deadliest month of the US occupation. Iraq's civil war is on pace to kill 25,000 to 30,000 civilians by year's end. If you add in the tens of thousands of deaths from the 2003 invasion (we do not know the exact number because the Pentagon won't comment), researchers will inevitably say that the body count has crossed 100,000.

All of this madness to stop a madman, Saddam Hussein.

The litany of US mistakes and excessive force has the Pentagon commissioning at least two secret strategy studies in Afghanistan and Iraq. "This is a struggle for the soul of the Army," said Colonel Peter Mansoor, the head of the Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center.

Just as odorous, a mountain of corporate cash grows next to the piles of bodies. In this bizarre war where Iraqi civilians fear both suicide bombers and the United States, the biggest sacrifice that President Bush asked of American civilians was to get on a plane and show those terrorists a thing or two by going to Disney World.

Defense contractors took that request to a logical extreme. They built their own fantasy land.

There is no evidence of a contractor having a soul in the 13th annual Executive Excess CEO survey by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, and the Boston-based United for a Fair Economy. The report found that 34 defense CEOs have been paid nearly $1 billion since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

As soldiers have died in displaying personal patriotism, the pay gap between soldiers and defense CEOs has exploded. Before 9/11, the gap between CEOs of publicly traded companies and army privates was already a galling 190 to 1. Today, it is 308 to 1. The average army private makes $25,000 a year. The average defense CEO makes $7.7 million.

"Did this surprise us? No, because we've been watching since Sept. 11," said Betsy Leondar-Wright, communications director for United for a Fair Economy. "While the rest of us were worrying about terrorism and mourning the people who died, the CEOs were maneuvering their companies to take advantage of fear and changing oil supply, not just for competition but for personal enrichment."

The top profiteers after 9/11 were the CEOs of United Technologies ($200 million), General Dynamics ($65 million), Lockheed Martin ($50 million), and Halliburton ($49 million). Other firms where CEO pay the last four years added up to $25 million to $45 million were Textron, Engineered Support Systems, Computer Sciences, Alliant Techsystems, Armor Holding, Boeing, Health Net, ITT Industries, Northrop Grumman, Oshkosh Truck, URS, and Raytheon.

While Army privates died overseas earning $25,000 a year, David Brooks, the disgraced former CEO of body-armor maker DHB, made $192 million in stock sales in 2004. He staged a reported $10 million bat mitzvah for his daughter. The 2005 pay package for Halliburton CEO David Lesar, head of the firm that most symbolizes the occupation's waste, overcharges, and ghost charges on no-bid contracts, was $26 million, according to the report's analysis of federal Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

"Those examples take the cake, especially because it's all related to their government contracts, which is money straight out of the taxpayer's pocket," Leondar-Wright said.

The Executive Excess report, with the help of the Wall Street Journal's 2006 survey of executive compensation, made similar observations of oil executives as their firms enjoy record profits during war. The pay gap between the average oil and gas CEO and the average oil worker is 518 to 1. The general national CEO to worker gap is 411 to 1. The report said that the typical oil construction laborer would have to work 4,279 years to match the $95 million pay last year for Valero Energy CEO William Greehey.

This is so out of line that the authors of the Executive Excess report recommend wartime pay restraints for defense CEOs and a permanent congressional watchdog panel for contract fraud and waste. Companies that cannot adhere to restraints should be ineligible for contracts, they said.

The report said "democracies decay when one segment of society flourishes at another's expense." Leondar-Wright said, "It is now at the point where we have lost any sense of proportion. There is no sense of shared sacrifice, no sense that we're all in this together." Spreading democracy to Iraq is far-fetched when defense and oil CEOs speed its decay at home. They are all in it for themselves, at our expense.

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"IT IS EASIER TO MAKE WAR THAN TO MAKE PEACE."

--Georges Clemenceau, French politician, recently quoted by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in his speech in Salt Lake City
http://www.bartleby.com/66/34/12634.html


RUMSFELD'S FOUR QUESTIONS: THE SECRETARY'S GHASTLY SPEECH TO THE AMERICAN LEGION - FRED KAPLAN (SLATE, AUGUST 30): The view that America -- not the enemy -- is the real source of the world's trouble is widespread not because of "the media" or "blame-America-first" liberals, nor because Iran and North Korea have more skillful propagandists (or, if they do, it's time for Condoleezza Rice to hire a better public-diplomacy staff). No, a country's global image is usually formed not by what its leaders say but rather by what they do.
http://www.slate.com/id/2148344/

MEDIA ROUNDTABLE WITH MR. EDELMAN FROM THE PENTAGON - NEWS TRANSCRIPT (OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE [PUBLIC AFFAIRS], U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, AUGUST 28): Eric Endelman, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy: 'We've re-established a policy planning capability in the principal deputy undersecretary's shop, something that had gone away back in the 1993 transition. And we've also put an element there for support to public diplomacy, because although the strategy in the global war on terror calls for an element that counters ideological support to terror, we have very little direct role in that.'
http://www.defenselink.mil/Transcripts/Tra...anscriptID=3707

RUMMY SAYS THE "WAR ON TERROR" IS JUST LIKE WORLD WAR TWO - JOSEPH A. PALERMO (HUFFINGTON POST, AUGUST 31): There are 30 historical differences to consider between the two.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-pal...html?view=print


PIPE DOWN, RUMMY: RUMSFELD'S CRANKY OUTBURST MANGLES A HISTORICAL ANALOGY, BAD-MOUTHS LEGITIMATE CRITICS, AND ILLUSTRATES ONCE AGAIN WHY THE DEFENSE SECRETARY SHOULD RESIGN EDITORIAL (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 3)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editor...ment-editorials


NEW ENEMIES DEMAND NEW THINKING: THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE CLARIFIES AND EXPANDS ON WHAT HE SAID IN HIS RECENT SPEECHES ABOUT APPEASING EXTREMISTS - DONALD H. RUMSFELD (LOS ANGELES TIMES, SEPTEMBER 1)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...omment-opinions

http://rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=ht...0100610_pf.html

Pentagon Gives Gloomy Iraq Report

By ROBERT BURNS
The Associated Press
Friday, September 1, 2006; 2:52 PM



WASHINGTON -- Sectarian violence is spreading in Iraq and the security problems have become more complex than at any time since the U.S. invasion in 2003, the Pentagon said Friday.

In a notably gloomy report to Congress, the Pentagon said illegal militias have become more entrenched, especially in Baghdad neighborhoods where they are seen as providers of both security and basic social services.

The report described a rising tide of sectarian violence, fed in part by interference from neighboring Iran and Syria and driven by a "vocal minority" of religious extremists who oppose the idea of a democratic Iraq.

Death squads targeting mainly Iraqi civilians are a growing problem, heightening the risk of civil war, it said.

"Death squads and terrorists are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife," the report said, adding that the Sunni-led insurgency "remains potent and viable" even as it is overshadowed by the sect-on-sect killing.

"Conditions that could lead to civil war exist in Iraq, specifically in and around Baghdad, and concern about civil war within the Iraqi civilian population has increased in recent months," the report said. It is the latest in a series of quarterly reports required by Congress to assess economic, political and security progress.

A growing number of members of Congress are calling for either a shift in the Bush administration's Iraq strategy or a timetable for beginning a substantial withdrawal of American forces. Although administration officials say progress is being made in Iraq, U.S. commanders have increased U.S. troop levels by about 13,000 over the past five weeks, to 140,000, mainly due to increased violence in the Baghdad area.

In response to the Pentagon's report Friday, the Senate's top Democrat, Harry Reid of Nevada, said it showed the Bush administration is "increasingly disconnected from the facts on the ground in Iraq."

"It is time for a new direction to end the war in Iraq, win the war on terror, and give the American people the real security they deserve," Reid said.

Col. Thomas Vail, commander of a 101st Airborne brigade operating in the mostly Shiite areas of eastern Baghdad, told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday that an intensified effort to root out insurgents and quell sectarian violence in the capital is bearing fruit, leading to a decrease in sectarian murders in recent days.

"They understand a big stick," he said, referring to a bigger U.S. and Iraqi force confronting militias and others responsible for violence like the barrage of coordinated attacks across eastern Baghdad that Iraqi police said killed at least 64 people and wounded more than 286 within a half hour Thursday.

Peter Rodman, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, in a separate session with reporters, said that despite progress this summer in reviving the Iraqi economy, raising electricity production and increasing the number of trained Iraqi troops, the security conditions have deteriorated.

The report covered the period since the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki was seated May 20.

From that date through Aug. 11, the average number of attacks per week against Americans and Iraqis was 792, up 24 percent from the previous period of Feb. 11 to May 19. The 792 figure was the highest for any counting period since the war began. The previous high was 641 in the Feb. 11 to May 19 period.

"The last quarter, as you know has been rough," Rodman said. "The levels of violence are up and the sectarian quality of the violence is particularly acute and disturbing."

That assessment was tempered by a degree of optimism that the Iraqi government _ with support from U.S. troops _ will succeed in quelling the sectarian strife.

Optimism among ordinary Iraqis, however, has declined, the 63-page report said.

When asked if they believe "things will be better" in the future, the percentage of Iraqis responding positively has dropped over the past year _ whether they were asked to look ahead six months, one year or five years _ according to polling data cited in the report.

"The security situation is currently at its most complex state since the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom," the report said, using the U.S. military's name for the war that was launched in March 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein.

© 2006 The Associated Press

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&...&d=1&m=9&y=2006

America Is Losing Iraq: Is Anybody Watching?
Danny Schechter, Arab News

In the world of mainstream media, there is always something “breaking.” Who wants to hear about old news when there are so many new disasters to keep up with?

As a new hurricane threatens, the watch is on and reporters get out their storm gear. JonBenet is still getting massive coverage, and Tom Cruise is back in the news — always good for a story or three.

And this is the week of the Katrina anniversary and every news organization in America is doing specials and recycling footage.

But there is one word missing, and that word is, class?

Iraq!

Watch the Katrina specials and see how many references there are to the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guards bringing “freedom” to Iraq when they should have been helping with relief and rescue in their hometowns.

How many references will there be to the costs of the war compared to the costs of the monies allocated to reconstruction but not yet sent or spent?

One recent report placed the costs of the war at $1.75 billion per week. The cost of Iraq war calculator is set to reach $318.5 billion on Sept. 30, 2006. With the skyrocketing costs of the war in Iraq, worldwide military spending soared.

Wouldn’t you think that that alone would have our news media all over the story?

If you think that, think again.

Flashback to March 2003 and remember the 24-hour war-a-thon with round-the-clock coverage and all the war all the time. Remember all the “experts” who told us how we were going to “go in and get it over with.” Remember President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech. It felt so great to be American when we seemed to be winning.

And then look at most of our news reporting today. What do you see just three short years later?

Iraq has been reduced to a litany of bloody incidents and body counts. For many, it is both boring and hard to follow, and so they tune out. Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, terrorists, insurgents, private militias? Whatever happened to “us” and “them?” No wonder that when the JonBenet Ramsey story resurfaced the TV channels flocked to it like flies to a flame. When I worked for network TV, we had a term for stories we lost interest in. We would say, “Been there, done that!”

In the nation’s newsrooms, the triage has begun — with Iraq sounding more and more like something that happened long ago. Get ready for more History Channel specials and somber retrospectives that help us to believe that we can be forgiven for thinking of the Iraq war in the past tense.

Besides, covering Iraq is so dangerous.

Few reporters want to take so many risks for so little “face time” on TV. And there are hardly any “positive” stories to report — even though the conservative media keep beating the bushes for them. Their latest ploy, now that Zarqawi and Al-Qaeda are supposedly out of action, is to blame it all on Iran. In that way, they take the US off the hook and start getting us ready for the next war.

Meanwhile, the death count rises with the Iraqi summer heat.

To read this whole sordid story in gripping black and white, check out Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber’s new book “The Best War Ever.” It is filled with facts but reads like fiction because it’s hard to believe that Americans have put with this abysmal, disastrous failure. All the flag waving and 9/11 cheerleading can’t put this tragic Humpty Dumpty together again.

And part of the reason is that much of our media has been asleep at the switch, still taking President Bush’s and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s pronouncements at face value. Rumsfeld visited Baghdad last month and, with a straight face, talked about the “great progress” made since last year. How many times can that broken, out-of-tune record be played?

Thankfully, it’s been several months since Vice President Cheney has re-declared that the insurgency is in its “last throes,” and it appears that “winning the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis” has been dropped from the official Whitehouse list of talking points.

Isn’t time for the networks to pull the plug on presidential press conferences and Bushian blather like they have on political party conventions? If there was ever a case for admitting the emperor has no clothes, this is it. Who in the press corps(e) will have the courage to turn their backs on the Rumsfeld Comedy Hour once and for all?

Now there are some media outlets beginning to draw these lessons and tell the truth.

The NY Times which shamefully did so much to sell the war is now returning to its senses with more stories than can no longer be suppressed of setbacks in the field and corruption at home.

But even it seems more caught up with “perception” and image” stories than connecting the dots about demoralized and ineffective military effort and the continuing erosion of US influence and “progress” in a country devolving into a civil war US policies contributed to — without accountability.

Many Democrats are starting to hammer at the incompetence of those fighting the war without being willing to admit that the whole pre-emptive adventure is as flawed as the Vietnam War before it.

So here we are in the last week of the summer of ‘06. Much of America is on vacation along with the news media that seems to have withdrawn from Iraq before the government has the guts to.

Now is the time for all good news consumers to come to the aid of their media and demand coverage and courage to stop the bloodletting and save what’s left of our national honor. We need to find the news that is there to be found and keep the Iraq war issue alive.

— News dissector Danny Schechter edits Mediachannel.org. He wrote “When News Lies” about Iraq media coverage (Newsdissector.org/store.htm.) This article comes from The Smirking Chimp. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...3101535_pf.html

Bush Takes His Case to Veterans
War in Iraq Depicted as One Against Radical Islamic Terrorism

By Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 1, 2006; A09



SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 31 -- President Bush renewed his effort to shore up flagging public support for fighting the Iraq war, appearing before one of the country's major veterans groups to cast the war as part of a larger ideological struggle against radical Islamic terrorism.

In an impassioned new statement of familiar White House themes, Bush described the war in Iraq as part of the same struggle that has pitted U.S. forces against the Taliban in Afghanistan, has found Israel battling Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and has involved the administration in a so-far unsuccessful diplomatic initiative to force Iran to give up activities that the White House thinks will lead to the development of a nuclear weapon by that Islamic republic.

"The war we fight today is more than a military conflict," Bush said Thursday. "It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century."

Bush's speech here before thousands of mostly supportive veterans at the annual convention of the American Legion was the first in a series of addresses that White House officials hope will rally an electorate that polls indicate is tiring of the three-year war in Iraq. While others in his administration, including Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, have suggested unnamed critics may be appeasing terrorists, Bush said the detractors are simply mistaken.

"Many of these folks are sincere, and they're patriotic. But they could . . . not be more wrong," the president said. "If America were to pull out before Iraq can defend itself, the consequences would be absolutely predictable and absolutely disastrous."

He said a premature withdrawal of more than 130,000 U.S. troops would "be handing Iraq over to our worst enemies: Saddam's former henchmen, armed groups with ties to Iran and al-Qaeda terrorists from all over the world who would suddenly have a base of operations far more valuable than Afghanistan under the Taliban."

Bush also repeated his assertion that the advance of democracy will bring to power in the Middle East countries that oppose terrorism, although free elections in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories have given power to Hezbollah and Hamas, both deemed by the United States to be terrorist entities.

Judging by the applause, Bush's message that the fight against Islamic radicals is akin to the battle against the Nazis and Soviet communists resonated with the legionnaires.

"If we are willing to stay the course, we will win," said Bill Osborne, a Vietnam War-era veteran from Kansas. "Perseverance is the key. . . . A job half-finished is a job not worth starting."

Clancy Lux, another Vietnam War-era veteran from Florida, whose son is serving in the Marines in Iraq, said he is discouraged that more Americans do not see the war in Iraq the way Bush does. "People need to open their eyes -- he is on the right track," Lux said. "If we quit too early before we finish the job, we will lose."

The audience was not entirely supportive. Richard Witbart, a former schoolteacher and local official from Illinois who served in the Navy in World War II, said he believes the troops should be brought home and that the United States should not have invaded Iraq. "It just wasn't the right thing to do," he said. "We were not being attacked by Iraq."

Indeed, even in a state that provided Bush his largest percentage of the vote in 2004, his presence was polarizing. Rocky Anderson, the mayor of Salt Lake City and a fierce critic of the war, led an anti-Bush rally Wednesday that drew a crowd of several thousand to deliver a symbolic indictment of the president for failing to uphold the Constitution. For their part, White House aides organized a boisterous and friendly welcoming rally with Utah's largely Republican congressional delegation for when Bush stepped off Air Force One late Wednesday.

Although billed as a major address by his aides, Bush's speech Thursday employed rhetoric that has become a staple of his speeches on terrorism and Iraq. He said that if the country gives up the fight in Baghdad, "we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities."

He also repeated his mantra that the status quo in the Middle East before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks represented a false stability -- and that "the lack of freedom in the Middle East made the region an incubator for terrorist movements." Many Middle East experts believe that the war in Iraq has radicalized the region and spawned more terrorists.

Bush also described as "encouraging" the initial results of a new U.S.-Iraqi plan to provide security for Baghdad, which has been engulfed in sectarian violence in recent months. The plan, which involved the redeployment of thousands of troops to the capital, was widely deemed a failure at first, though U.S. commanders say they have seen improved security in recent weeks.

Bush also rejected the suggestion advanced by some experts on Iraq that the country has descended into civil war. "Our commanders and our diplomats on the ground in Iraq believe that's not the case," Bush said. "They report that only a small number of Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, while the overwhelming majority want peace and a normal life in a unified country."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=2075096&C=america

Posted 09/01/06 11:49Print this story Pentagon: Conditions for Civil War Exist in Iraq

By WILL DUNHAM, REUTERS


Conditions that could lead to a civil war exist in Iraq, the Pentagon said in a new report on Sept. 1, as the "core conflict" has changed into one pitting Sunni Muslims against Shi’ites, with the Sunni Arab insurgency overshadowed.
The Pentagon’s congressionally-mandated report provided a sober assessment of the situation in Iraq over the past three months, saying attacks increased by 15 percent over the prior three months and casualties among Iraqis surged 51 percent.
"Conditions that could lead to civil war exist in Iraq," the report stated, adding that concern about civil war has increased within the Iraqi civilian population.
"Nevertheless, the current violence is not a civil war, and movement toward a civil war can be prevented," added the report, which said the security environment was at its most complex state since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 that toppled President Saddam Hussein.
Rising sectarian fighting between minority Sunnis, who controlled Iraq under Saddam, and the majority Shiites, who are ascending in power after decades of oppression, defines the emerging nature of violence in Iraq, the report stated.
The release of the report comes as the Bush administration pursues a campaign to bolster sagging U.S. public support, with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others attacking critics two months before U.S. congressional elections.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,112122,00.html

Rapid-Fire Attacks in Iraq Kill 47
Associated Press | September 01, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A barrage of coordinated bomb and rocket attacks on eastern Baghdad neighborhoods killed at least 47 people and wounded more than 200 within half an hour on Thursday, police and hospital officials said.

The latest spasm of violence - which included explosives planted in apartments, car bombs and several rocket and mortar attacks on mainly Shiite neighborhoods in the capital - came even as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Iraqi forces should have control over most of the country by year's end.

The Baghdad bombings - csentered on neighborhoods controlled by Shiite militias, some of which Sunni Arabs accuse of running death squads - brought the day's death toll across the country to at least 68.

Attackers rented apartments and shops in buildings a few days ago and planted explosives in them, detonating them by remote control almost simultaneously Thursday evening, said Maj. Gen. Jihad Liaabi, director of the Interior Ministry's counterterrorism unit.

One of the targeted buildings was a medical center housing doctors' offices in al-Hamza Square on the outskirts of the Sadr City slum in east Baghdad, he told state television.

The attacks occurred between 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. and included a car bomb at a market, another behind a telephone exchange building and several rocket and mortar attacks, police said.

Police and witnesses said bodies, many of them charred, had still not been recovered from the buildings and the death toll could rise.

Earlier in the day, a suicide car bomber killed two people at a gas station, while a British Embassy convoy was targeted in the upscale Mansour neighborhood in western Baghdad. Two passers-by were wounded in the convoy attack, police said.

The bloodshed was part of a violent week that has left hundreds of Iraqis dead.

The U.S. military also announced that two American Soldiers and a Marine were killed Wednesday. According to an Associated Press count, that death brings to 18 the number of U.S. Soldiers killed since Sunday.

But authorities said they were optimistic about the handover of security control.

Al-Maliki said Iraqi forces will assume responsibility for Dhi Qar province in the south in September, making it the second of Iraq's 18 provinces that local forces would take control over.

"This makes us optimistic and proud because we managed to fulfill our promise," al-Maliki said. Iraqi authorities took over Muthanna province in the south from the British in July.

Dhi Qar is populated mainly by Shiite Muslims. Compared to more volatile areas, such as Anbar province in the west and Baghdad, it has been spared much of the sectarian violence. However, U.S. commanders recently expressed concern about the growing influence of Shiite militias in the area, many of whom they say receive support from Iran.

"This year will witness the handing over of other provinces, and we hope that by the end of the year, our security forces will take over most of the Iraqi provinces," al-Maliki said.

The Defense Ministry said it would sign a memorandum with coalition forces on Saturday "about strategic control and operations." U.S. authorities said the Defense Ministry would begin assuming direct operational control of the country's armed forces.

Handing over territory from coalition control to Iraqi control is a key part of any eventual drawdown of U.S. troops in the country.

On Wednesday, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, said Iraqi troops were on course to take over security control from U.S.-led coalition forces over the next 12-18 months with little coalition help.

President Bush insisted American troops must remain in Iraq until the country's forces are capable of full control.

"If America were to pull out before Iraq could defend itself, the consequences would be absolutely predictable, and absolutely disastrous," Bush said as he began a pre-election series of speeches in the United States.

"We would be handing Iraq over to our worst enemies - Saddam's former henchmen, armed groups with ties to Iran and al-Qaida terrorists from all over the world who would suddenly have a base of operations far more valuable than Afghanistan under the Taliban," he said.

Despite the rash of violence over the past week, U.S. officials have lauded the results of a security crackdown in the capital that they say has resulted in a dramatic fall in sectarian killings. They reported the murder rate in Baghdad dropped almost 50 percent in August compared to July, but that figure could not be independently confirmed.

The crackdown by Iraqi and U.S. forces began Aug. 7, targeting some of the capital's most problematic neighborhoods. In the past, similar operations have lowered violence for short periods of time, but attacks then escalate after American forces leave.

In other violence Thursday, according to police:

- Gunmen in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killed two brothers in a cotton shop.

- Gunmen killed a police colonel and his bodyguard and wounded another bodyguard in Hibhib, 12 miles east of Baqouba.

- Police found the bodies of four men in southern Baqouba. All had been shot.

- Gunmen shot and killed a member of the Oil Ministry's security service and wounded another in Baghdad.

- An Iraqi soldier in civilian clothing was shot and killed in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

- In Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, the bullet-riddled body of a young woman was brought to the morgue after being dumped on a main road.

- Gunmen killed a former intelligence official in Saddam Hussein's regime as he was walking in Mahaweel area, about 35 miles south of Baghdad.

Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Growing doubts in U.S. about military strategy
Doubts about the war on terrorism are growing. Most people worry that the cost in blood and money may be too high, and they don't think al-Qaida kingpin Osama bin Laden will ever be caught, an AP-Ipsos poll found.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14618513/from/ET/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060901/ap_on_...crats&printer=1

Rumsfeld reaches out to Democrats
By ANNE PLUMMER FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer


Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld reached out to Democrats late Friday, opening up the door for them to retract their stinging indictment of him as Pentagon chief.

In a letter to Congress's top Democrats, Rumsfeld said recent remarks he made during a speech in Salt Lake City were misrepresented by the media, including by the Associated Press. Rumsfeld said he was "concerned" by the reaction of Democrats, many of whom called for his resignation and said he was treading on dangerous territory.

"I know you agree that with America under attack and U.S. troops in the field, our national debate on this should be constructive," Rumsfeld wrote Friday.

During his speech before thousands of veterans Tuesday, Rumsfeld said the world faces "a new type of fascism" and warned against repeating the pre-World War II mistake of appeasement. He alluded to critics of the Bush administration's war policies in terms associated with the failure to stop Nazism in the 1930s, "a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among the Western democracies."

Without explicitly citing Bush critics at home or abroad, he said "it is apparent that many have still not learned history's lessons." Aides to Rumsfeld said later he was not accusing the administration's critics of trying to appease the terrorists but was cautioning against a repeat of errors made in earlier eras.

"Thought and careful preparation went into what I said," Rumsfeld wrote in the letter. "It is absolutely essential for us to look at lessons of history in this critical moment in the war on terror." I was honored by the reception my statements received from our veterans.

Democrats said Friday they stood by their remarks.

"We did read the speech and he makes comparisons to World War II" that are unjustified, said Brendan Daly, spokesman for House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. "He needs to explain that. We stand behind what we said."

Pelosi, D-Calif., had said: "If Mr. Rumsfeld is so concerned with comparisons to World War II, he should explain why our troops have now been fighting in Iraq longer than it took our forces to defeat the Nazis in Europe."

"It's always been clear what Secretary Rumsfeld said," said Rebecca Kirszner, a spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "What's not clear is that he has a strategy in Iraq and to keep America safe. This letter doesn't change that."

Sen. Jack Reed (news, bio, voting record), D-R.I., also "stands by his earlier comments," said spokeswoman Regan Lachapelle. "No one has misread history more than Secretary Rumsfeld, especially when it comes to Iraq."

Senate Democrats were expected to meet Wednesday to discuss several issues, including whether they will try to force a vote of no confidence on Rumsfeld. Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., has vowed to push legislation next week calling for Rumsfeld to resign.

"Nothing can change the fact that Secretary Rumsfeld insulted the patriotism of the American people, and he needs to be held accountable for it," Boxer said Friday.

Text of Rumsfeld's speech: http://www.defenselink.mil/Speeches/Speech.aspx?SpeechID1033




Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


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Navy Lawyer Charged In Classified Information Leak:

A Navy lawyer at the Naval Air Station-Jacksonville is facing a
military trial that could put him behind bars for 30 years after
Navy
officials charged him with passing along secret information while he
was stationed at Guantanamo Bay.
http://www.news4jax.com/news/9763859/detail.html


Pentagon moves toward monitoring media:

The U.S. command in Baghdad is seeking bidders for a two-year, $20
million public relations contract that calls for monitoring the tone
of Iraq news stories filed by U.S. and foreign media.
http://tinyurl.com/r6com

Pentagon Issues Grim Iraq Report

WASHINGTON-"Conditions that could lead to civil war exist,"
military analysts tell Congress. Military and civilian deaths now
exceed 3,000 a month. By Julian E. Barnes.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/e7r...Io30G2B0HpgZ0EE

U.S. Test Missile Hits Mock Warhead

WASHINGTON-The defense system intercepts a target made to mimic a
North Korean weapon. Critics say it was not a real-world
assessment. By Julian E. Barnes.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/e7r...Io30G2B0Hpga0EL

Donald Rumsfeld: New Enemies Demand New Thinking

The secretary of Defense clarifies and expands on what he said in
his recent speeches about appeasing extremists.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/e7r...Io30G2B0HpS30EE

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060901/pl_afp/usiraqpolitics

Iraq on brink of civil war: Pentagon report Fri Sep 1, 6:31 PM ET



WASHINGTON (AFP) - The conflict in Iraq has all the makings of a civil war, which can nonetheless be avoided, according to a US Defense Department report.

"Conditions that could lead to civil war exist in Iraq. Nevertheless, the current violence is not a civil war, and movement toward civil war can be prevented," said the quarterly Pentagon report to Congress.

"Concern about civil war within the Iraqi civilian population and among some defense analysts has increased in recent months.

"The security situation is currently at its most complex state since the initiation of Operation Iraq Freedom," the report said.

In the past three months, "the average number of weekly attacks increased 15 percent over the previous reporting-period average, and Iraqi casualties increased by 51 percent compared to the previous quarter," it said, noting most of the violence occurred in Baghdad.

Release of the report on Iraq, where 138,000 US troops are fighting, comes as the administration of President George W. Bush launches a new spin campaign to put a better face on the increasingly unpopular war before November legislative elections.

Bush recently raised the stakes of the ideological war over Iraq and flatly refused to withdraw, likening the war in Iraq to the battle against Nazism and and fascism.

"We're not leaving so long as I'm the president. That would be a huge mistake," said the president, whose job approval ratings have sunk partly because of the war.

Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have already fired the campaign's opening salvos, giving speeches accusing Bush's critics of failing to understand the terrorist threat to the United States.

Reaction from opposition Democrats was quick.

"The Pentagons new report today indicates that President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfelds speeches are increasingly disconnected from the facts on the ground in Iraq," Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said in a statement.

"Even the Pentagon acknowledges Iraq is tipping into civil war," he said.

Pentagon: Conditions exist for civil war in Iraq
Conditions that could lead to a civil war exist in Iraq, reflecting the "most complex" security challenges since the U.S. invasion in 2003, the Pentagon said Friday in a report to Congress.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14622992/from/ET/

U.S. offers $20 million to monitor Iraq stories
The U.S. command in Baghdad is seeking bidders for a two-year, $20 million_ public relations contract for monitoring the tone of news stories about the Iraq war filed by U.S. and foreign media.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14621718/from/ET/

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0901/dailyUpdate.html

Polls show opposition to Iraq war at all-time high
Sixty percent also say terrorism is more likely in US because of Iraq.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

A series of polls taken over the last few weeks of August show that support for the war in Iraq among Americans is at an all-time low. Almost two-thirds of Americans in each of three major polls say that they oppose the war, the highest totals since pollsters starting asking Americans the question three years ago. Many of the polls were conducted in advance of the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York.

A new Associated Press/Ipsos poll that surveyed the country, and more specifically residents of Washington and New York, shows that many feel the cost in blood and money in Iraq may already be too high and that Osama bin Laden will never be found. The poll also showed that 60 percent of Americans believe that the war in Iraq has increased the chances of a terrorist attack in the US.

"I think there's a fatigue about the price of doing these activities," said Robert Blendon, a specialist in public opinion at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "There's also a concern about the competency of how well we're doing them."

Some of the divisions are from political differences. For example, Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to think the cost of the terror fight may be too high and twice as likely to think Iraq is making terrorism worse. And this comes when the nation has gone five years without an attack � possibly making the terror war seem less urgent to some.

Popular support for the war on terror helped neutralize opposition to the Iraq war for a long time, said political analyst Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. "Now the negative effect of Iraq is dragging down support for the war on terror," he said.


On the question of which political party can do a better job of protecting the US, both parties lost support since an April poll. But in another sign of trouble for the Bush administration, the AP/Ipsos poll also shows that more Americans believe the Democrats will do a better job than Republicans, 47-40 percent.

A new CNN poll shows that only about one-third of Americans now support the war in Iraq, with 61 percent opposed. Fifty-one percent of Americans see President Bush as a strong leader, although he doesn't do well in other areas of the survey.

Most Americans (54 percent) don't consider him honest, most (54 percent) don't think he shares their values and most (58 percent) say he does not inspire confidence. Bush's stand on the issues is also problematic, with more than half (57 percent) of Americans saying they disagree with him on the issues they care about. That's an indication that issues, not personal characteristics, are keeping his approval rating well below 50 percent ...
Bush dismissed a question about his popularity during a news conference Monday.

"I don't think you've ever heard me say: 'Gosh, I better change positions because the polls say this or that,'" he told reporters. "I've been here long enough to understand, you cannot make good decisions if you're trying to chase a poll." He added, "I'm going to do what I think is right, and if, you know, if people don't like me for it, that's just the way it is."

A Princeton Survey Research Associates International poll conducted Aug. 24-25 for Newsweek shows that 63 percent of Americans disapprove of the way the president has handled Iraq. A CBSNews/New York Times poll conducted Aug. 17-21 shows 65 percent of Americans disapprove of the way the president is dealing with Iraq. Among those who identified themselves as independents, 67 percent disapprove.

Finally, a survey by Quinnipiac University Polling Institute found that 60 percent of Americans believe screening of people who look "Middle Eastern" at airports and train stations is OK.
Quinnipiac's director of polling, Maurice Carroll, said he was surprised by the apparent public support for racial profiling. "What's the motivation there -- is it bigotry, or is it fear or is it practicality?" he said.

The Quinnipiac poll also found that Americans considered the 9/11 attacks of more significance than the attack on Pearl Harbor. But the findings varied considerably among age groups, with 9/11 being the most important event among those 35 and under, but with Pearl Harbor being more important those 65 and older.

"People have fresh memories of 9-11 and many don't have any memories at all of Pearl Harbor, and those who do don't have fresh memories of it," said Bruce Schulman, a Boston University professor of history and American studies. "We also feel pretty confident that we know how the results of Pearl Harbor turned out, and we certainly don't know what the consequences of 9-11 are going to turn out to be.

http://graphics.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/i...tary_report.pdf

Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq

http://www.netscape.com/viewstory/2006/09/...nter&frame=true

New Enemies Demand New Thinking
The secretary of Defense clarifies and expands on what he said in his recent speeches about appeasing extremists.
By Donald H. Rumsfeld, DONALD H. RUMSFELD is the U.S. secretary of Defense.
September 1, 2006


IN THE LAST FEW DAYS I have had the opportunity to speak at the annual conventions of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion. It is always a humbling experience to be in the presence of those who have served and fought for our country during some of our darkest, most trying times — when it was unclear whether our way of life would prevail.

We are again engaged in conflicts that are testing whether we believe that the defense of liberty is worth the cost. And again, there are those who disagree with the mission, who question whether it is worth the sacrifice. This is to be expected in a time of war.

Today, some think that World War II and the Cold War were black-and- white affairs: good versus evil. But there were always those who thought that we should retreat within our borders.

In an effort to avoid repeating the carnage of World War I, much of the Western world tried to appease the growing threats in Europe and Asia in the years before World War II. Those who warned against the rise of Nazism, fascism and communism were often ridiculed and ignored.

The enemy we face today is different from the enemies we have faced in the past, but its goal is similar: to impose its fanatical ideology of hatred on the rest of the world.

In speaking to our veterans, I suggested several questions to guide us during this struggle against violent extremists:



• With the growing lethality and availability of weapons, can we truly afford to believe that vicious extremists can somehow be appeased?

• Can we really continue to think that free countries can negotiate a separate peace with terrorists?

• Can we truly afford to pretend that the threats today are simply "law enforcement" problems rather than fundamentally different threats requiring fundamentally different approaches?

• Can we truly afford to return to the destructive view that America — not the enemy — is the real source of the world's troubles?

These are the central questions of our time, and, as in all periods of conflict, we have no choice but to face them honestly.

The last question is particularly important, because this is the first war of the 21st century — a war that, to a great extent, will be fought in the media on a global stage. We cannot allow the terrorists' lies and myths to be repeated without question or challenge.

We also should be aware that the struggle is too important — the consequences too severe — to allow a "blame America first" mentality to overwhelm the truth that our nation, though imperfect, is a force for good in the world.

Consider that a database search of the nation's leading newspapers turns up 10 times as many mentions of one of the soldiers punished for misconduct at Abu Ghraib than of Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, the first recipient of the Medal of Honor in the global war on terror.

Then there is the case of Amnesty International, a long-respected human-rights organization, which called the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay the "gulag of our times" — a reference to the vast system of Soviet prisons and labor camps where innocent citizens were starved, tortured and murdered. The facility at Guantanamo Bay, by contrast, includes a volleyball court, basketball court, soccer field and library (the book most requested is "Harry Potter"). The food, served in accordance with Islamic diets, costs more per detainee than the average U.S. military ration.

With examples like these prevalent in the world media, I do worry about the lack of perspective in our national dialogue — a perspective on history and the new challenges and threats that free people face today. Those who know the truth need to speak out against the myths and distortions being told about our troops and our country. My remarks at the Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion conventions have generated much discussion. I encourage everyone to read what I actually said at defenselink.mil/speeches.

The War Is Lost

By Paul Craig Roberts

The Pentagon’s latest quarterly “progress” report to Congress on Iraq is a grim tale of a lost war. The Pentagon told Congress what Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and propaganda organs such as Fox “News” never tell the American public, namely:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14829.htm

Does Hezbollah’s strategic victory against the Israel Defense Forces in Lebanon mean the military balance in the Middle East has been inalterably changed? The answer depends on the ability of the Israelis to study and learn – a process in which the United States is well advised to engage as well. Straus Military Reform Project Adviser Col. Chet Richards explains.



September 5, 2006


Crossroads at the Litani



As its tanks file back from the Litani River, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) joins the club of advanced military forces that have failed against non-state enemies. It’s a growing fraternity that already includes France, Britain, India, the USSR, and, of course, the United States. What happens next, however, is more interesting than the loss itself.

In the near term, Israelis can be forgiven some pessimism.
They will have to expect that Hezbollah will reconstitute. Given the level of destruction Israel has wreaked on non-Shiite targets, it is a good bet that some new Hezbollah supporters will be Sunni, Druze, or even Christian. The Maronite Catholic Patriarch of Lebanon has already convened a religious conference that condemned Israeli “aggression” and praised the resistance.

Because these non-state groups—and only these groups—have successfully waged war on Israel, and, by continuing the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, on the West, they are gaining legitimacy with the Arab street. This legitimacy comes at the expense of existing Arab state governments because these governments are seen as de facto allies of Israel: they aren’t going to confront the IDF and they keep non-state resistance organizations under a tight leash. If popular sentiment continues to swing towards Hezbollah and the other resistance groups, some Arab governments will be overthrown. As the foreign minister of Qatar recently lamented, “The street is not with us.”

Legends will arise to inspire and sustain this new generation of fighters. In place of “Remember the Alamo!” it will be “Remember Aitaroun!” Muslim children had been taught the tales of heroic figures, from Khalid ibn al-Walid, who led 7th century Arab armies during multiple conquests, to Saladin, who defeated the Crusaders. Now they will have contemporaries to emulate.

Perhaps most worrying of all, after some 60 years, an effective opponent to the IDF has finally evolved. The Israelis have fought the Arabs so long that they have violated an ancient rule of strategy: Don’t train your enemies. The Lycurgan Law of Sparta explicitly warned against repeated attacks on the same enemy. It served them well for centuries, but when Sparta flouted this rule against emerging rival Thebes, it lost so decisively at Leuctra (371 B.C.) that it never recovered.

On the other hand, none of this has to prove fatal.
In the arena of strictly military issues, Israel should come out fine after some hard self-examination. Tactically, the war was no great surprise. Advancing armies have always had problems against dug-in and tenacious defenders armed with modern weaponry. But well-prepared forces know how to deal with this situation—the Marines did take Iwo Jima—and the IDF can recover its competence. Strategically, there was also nothing new. Country-wide bombing campaigns have never delivered on their promises. Kosovo, which the IDF took as its inspiration, dragged on 76 days longer than its advertised three and ended only when NATO cobbled together a ground threat and Russia pulled the rug out from under Milosevic.

Whether Israel will emulate the United States, which absorbed the lessons of Vietnam, or the USSR, which did not long survive Afghanistan, will depend on how well they solve higher-level problems:

• Israel must get over its fixation with state opponents. It now needs neighbors who can control the non-state groups that are its real nemeses. In particular, the Palestinians either need to be formed into a state of the type that Israel can deter or easily defeat, or they need to be given to such a state.

• Israel must also abandon the idea that war is a play in some rational chess game of states. One move they should foreswear immediately is the notion of using acts of war to “send signals.” They’ve been sending signals since 1949, and anybody interested in receiving them already did long ago. In any case, it should be clear by now that military force is more often effective when kept as a threat.

• Finally, when Israel must show the knife, it needs a more sophisticated military doctrine than attrition warfare. It’s very difficult to win a war of attrition against groups that espouse martyrdom. And even when it is successful, the resulting death and destruction are certain to create new enemies. Oddly, an Israeli historian and strategist, Martin van Creveld, wrote the seminal work on non-state/”fourth generation” warfare, The Transformation of War. The Israeli leadership might dust it off.

To some degree, these three points apply to the United States. We also run an immediate risk with our smallish (135,000) occupation force isolated in Iraq, and every day we stay, we’re rolling the dice against longer odds. Iraq is a country of 27 million people, 60 percent of them Shiites who were thrilled about Hezbollah’s victory. It is not fortuitous that our supply lines from Kuwait run for hundreds of miles though predominantly Shiite provinces.

# # #

Chet Richards writes for the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information. He is a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and the author of Neither Shall the Sword: Conflict in the Years Ahead.

Winslow T. Wheeler
Director
Straus Military Reform Project
Center for Defense Information @ www.cdi.org/smrp
202 797-5271 in DC
301 840-8992 in MD
301 221-3897 cell
winslowwheeler@comcast.net

A WARRIOR'S WARNING ON IRAQ - GEORGE F. WILL (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 3): Sen. John Warner, the five-term Virginia Republican who chairs the Armed Services Committee, defines the U.S. objective in Iraq not in terms of a glittering achievement, democracy, but as avoiding something appalling -- the Iraqi oil fields in jihadists' hands.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0101452_pf.html


IRAQ LESSONS: LEARNING FROM MISTAKES - CLIFFORD D. MAY (NATIONAL REVIEW, SEPTEMBER 1): Iraq may never look like Switzerland. But is it too much to expect that it should be neither the playground of a gangster nor a base for terrorists?
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmU5O...jFiODM2OGQ0OWU=


IN KURDISTAN, IRAQ SEEMS A MILLION MILES AWAY: THE AUTONOMOUS REGION IS AN OASIS OF SAFETY IN COMPARISON TO OTHER, VIOLENCE-STRICKEN AREAS BORZOU DARAGAHI; (LOS ANGELES TIMES, SEPTEMBER 4): The regional government announced over the weekend that it would no longer fly the red, white and black flag of Iraq, opting for the sun-splashed red, white and green banner that has been a symbol of Kurdish independence for 60 years.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...-home-headlines


IRAQ'S COMPLICATIONS: THE ADMINISTRATION'S NEW RHETORIC ON THE WAR DOESN'T BEAR MUCH RELATION TO THE CRITICAL SITUATION IT FACES EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 3): The war President Bush would like to fight -- between an emerging democracy and its totalitarian enemies -- can't be won if it is crosscut by a sectarian conflict.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6090200757.html


WHO'S REALLY MORALLY AND INTELLECTUALLY CHALLENGED? - JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY (MIAMI HERALD, FLORIDA, SEPTEMBER 2/COMMON DREAMS): We can't win in Iraq with the current U.S. force, strategy and tactics, even using the White House's fluid definition of victory, which currently is that we'll somehow train and equip Iraqi soldiers and police who will take control of the country and allow us to begin bringing our soldiers home.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0902-23.htm


A CIVIL WAR, BUT NOT OURS - EDITORIAL (MADISON CAPITAL TIMES, SEPTEMBER 2/COMMON DREAMS): Someday soon reality will force the White House to acknowledge that the misadventure in Iraq has gone horribly awry.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0902-22.htm


BUSH TEAM STILL IN DEEP DENIAL - CYNTHIA TUCKER (BALTIMORE SUN, SEPTEMBER 4): For now, tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors and Marines in Iraq are stuck in a quagmire.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines


RUMSFELD'S FANTASY EASY TO SEE THROUGH - LEONARD PITTS JR. (BALTIMORE SUN, SEPTEMBER 3): People are beginning to see that the only terrorism in Iraq is that which we, by our presence, have helped create.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines


POLLS SHOW OPPOSITION TO IRAQ WAR AT ALL-TIME HIGH: SIXTY PERCENT ALSO SAY TERRORISM IS MORE LIKELY IN US BECAUSE OF IRAQ - TOM REGAN (CSMONITOR.COM, SEPTEMBER 4)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0901/dailyUpdate.html


THE SPOILS OF WAR: A REPORTER ACCUSES THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION OF TURNING NATION-BUILDING INTO A PORK BUFFET [REVIEW OF ?BLOOD MONEY: WASTED BILLIONS, LOST LIVES, AND CORPORATE GREED IN IRAQ? BY T. CHRISTIAN MILLER] - MICHAEL HIRSH (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 3): The Bush administration seems about to give up on the reconstruction, slashing its funding even as it extends the U.S. troop presence in Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...3101162_pf.html


THE BEST WAR EVER: AN INTERVIEW WITH SHELDON RAMPTON - KEVIN ZEESE (COUNTERPUNCH, SEPTEMBER 1): Sheldon Rampton, co-author of "The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq": ?Th[e] [American] combination of cultural isolationism and international interventionism has taken political form under Bush as unilateralism: the idea that we can successfully invade and occupy a country as far away and alien to our own culture as Iraq."
http://www.counterpunch.org/zeese09012006.htm

DISPATCHES: SOLDIERS' BLOGS, WASHINGTON'S BLUNDERS [IN IRAQ] - MICHAEL HIRSH (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 3): Everyone, it seems, is vying to be part of the official history of the Iraq debacle these days.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6083101158.html


PENTAGON TO CONGRESS: BUSH IS WRONG -- THE WAR IS LOST - PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS (COUNTERPUNCH, SEPTEMBER 4): Having lost the Iraq war, the neoconservatives are determined to initiate war with Iran.
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts09042006.html

http://www.antiwar.com/solomon/?articleid=9653

September 6, 2006
Spinning the Troop Levels in Iraq

by Norman Solomon
This month began with 140,000 American troops in Iraq – 13,000 more than in late July.

Almost 30 months have passed since Time magazine's mid-April 2004 cover story, "No Easy Options," reported that "foreign policy luminaries from both parties say a precipitous U.S. withdrawal would cripple American credibility, doom reform in the Arab world, and turn Iraq into a playground for terrorists and the armies of neighboring states like Iran and Syria."

Back then, according to the USA's largest-circulation newsmagazine, "the most" that the president could hope for was that "some kind of elected Iraqi government will eventually emerge from the wreckage, at which point the U.S. could conceivably reduce the number of its troops significantly. But getting there requires a commitment of at least several more months of American blood and treasure."

As I noted in my book War Made Easy, which came off the press nearly 18 months ago,

"Hedge words were plentiful: 'the most' that could be hoped for was that 'some kind' of elected Iraqi government would 'eventually emerge,' at which time the United States 'could conceivably' manage to 'reduce' its troop level in Iraq 'significantly,' although even that vague hope necessitated a commitment of 'at least several more months' of Americans killing and dying. But in several more months, predictably, there would still be no end in sight – just another blank check for more 'blood and treasure,' on the installment plan."

President Bush keeps demanding those blank checks, and Congress keeps cutting them. What Martin Luther King Jr. called "the madness of militarism" provides ample justifications. For Bush, one of them involves couching the choices ahead in military terms – to be best judged by military leaders. This is, in essence, an effort to short-circuit democracy.

Bush likes to tell reporters that U.S. troop levels in Iraq hinge on the assessments from top military commanders. This explanation is so familiar that it's hardly newsworthy. But journalists – and the public – should take a hard look at that rhetorical scam.

Civilian control of the military means that the president is accountable to citizens, not generals. But – despite the growing opposition to the Iraq war, as reflected in national opinion polls – the president fervently declares his commitment to the U.S. war effort. Rather than directly proclaim that he will ignore public opinion, Bush prefers to shift the discussion from domestic political accountability to ostensible military necessity.

That's where the it's-up-to-the-generals gambit comes in. As soon as the question is re-framed around what multi-star generals say, a closed loop turns into a tightening noose. And a fraud. After all, until the moment of retirement, the generals are in a chain of command – with the president, as commander in chief, at the top.

The president's claim that key deployment decisions rest in the hands of military chiefs is not only a dodge. It's also manipulative – shoving public discourse toward the mindset of assessing military tactics instead of ethical choices. And the claim dangerously encourages the idea that military leaders should have a major say in U.S. foreign-policy decisions.

Most of the time, the shift of responsibility is a subtle matter. But sometimes it's quite flagrant. Either way, the news media often play along with the abuse of the democratic process.

More than two years ago, in early May 2004, confirmation emerged that U.S. troop deployments would stay higher and longer in Iraq than previously stated. The New York Times reported the story under the headline "U.S. Commander to Keep 135,000 Troops in Iraq Through 2005."

Such headlines marked the success of efforts to portray the troop-level decisions as military calculations rather than presidential choices. And the spin wasn't only coming from the headline writer. "The commander of American forces in the Middle East, putting on hold the goal of reducing troops in Iraq, plans to keep at least 135,000 soldiers there through 2005, Pentagon and military officials said," the Times lead reported.

Fast forward more than two years, to a story that broke last month. The Associated Press reported on ascending U.S. troop totals in Iraq: "The increase comes as the U.S. Marine Corps is preparing to order thousands of its troops to active duty in the first involuntary recall since the early days of the war." The explanation from the head of the Marines' manpower mobilization, Col. Guy A. Stratton, was telling. "Since this is going to be a long war," he said, "we thought it was judicious and prudent at this time to be able to use a relatively small portion of those Marines to help us augment our units."

But it's not up to military officers to decide whether this is going to be a long war. Under the Constitution, in theory, the president and Congress share that power – derived from the consent of the governed. We must hold the president and Congress accountable.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington...ay/15453716.htm

Commentary
Top military leaders insist new U.S. strategy is desperately needed in Iraq
By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
McClatchy Newspapers

Debating issues of war and peace and America's role in the world aren't off limits in this fourth year of war in Iraq, and they aren't a sign of anything but the health and vibrancy of our democracy, however much President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld might wish otherwise in a tough election season.


In hopes of furthering that debate, this week I asked more than a dozen top Army and Marine Corps generals - active duty and retired, dissidents and administration loyalists - to address what we should do now in Iraq.


All of them agreed that America's strategy and tactics in Iraq have failed, and that President Bush's policy of "staying the course" in Iraq isn't likely to produce anything but more frustration, more and greater problems for the United States in a dangerous world, and more and bloodier surprises for the 135,000 American troops in Iraq.


"Lack of security and lack of governance have pushed Iraq into the rise of a civil war," said one retired senior general. "The message is clear: We have a failed strategy, and we need new leadership and a new strategy to secure (our) interests in the region." The U.S. has important issues in the Middle East - not least of them Iran, he said, "but we cannot do much while bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan."


"The problem thus far, as you know, has been lack of serious planning, poor selection of people in charge ... screwed-up assessments and assumptions, no building of international and regional cooperation, trust in non-credible exiles and too much spin and ad hoc-ery," said retired Marine Gen. Tony Zinni, who formerly headed the U.S. Central Command, with responsibility for 32 nations, including Iraq and Afghanistan.


Zinni, who was among those who counseled continued containment of Saddam Hussein's Iraq rather than war and regime-change, continued: "The current bankrupt course we are staying is focused only, or almost only, on security and is not complete even in that area."


"Until we back up and assess what we have gotten ourselves into, I fear we will see a repeat of the war in Vietnam," said retired Marine Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, who recently called for firing Rumsfeld. "Our military will again fight a series of battles and engagements in Iraq without the overall purpose that a good campaign plan provides."


The need for change, all the officers agreed, is urgent if the U.S. to avoid a catastrophe whose ripple effects would cripple American influence in the Middle East and worldwide, leaving us a superpower in name only, and a beleaguered superpower at that.


Though it's far more difficult today because of lost opportunities, Zinni said, if the administration acted fast, a better outcome could be pulled out of the flames. To get Iraq right, he said, would take five to seven years, "and it means a much more comprehensive and well-planned set of programs to build political, economic, social and security institutions."


Even retired Army Col. Larry Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to Gen. Colin Powell at the State Department in President Bush's first term and now an outspoken critic of the administration's policies in Iraq, said there's still a way to succeed.


"First, you have to think big," Wilkerson said. "Not stupid big, the way Cheney and Bush and Rumsfeld do, but smart big the way Teddy Roosevelt used to do."


Some retired officers such as Wilkerson and Zinni spoke on the record; others, including all still on active duty, would speak only on background for obvious reasons. But there was a broad consensus among them that a new U.S. strategy is desperately needed in Iraq, and on the outlines of one:


-Review America's military options.


None of the officers I interviewed recommended an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, and a few suggested sending more U.S. troops to Iraq. "You have to be willing to let the GIs on the ground continue to do what they have been doing recently, fighting smart rather than dumb ... doing counter-insurgency and not fighting on the northern plains of Europe," Wilkerson said.


Most of the officers, however, agreed that the administration has relied too heavily on the military and shortchanged economic and political efforts in Iraq.


One senior general who's still on active duty and has broad experience in the Middle East argued that the United States should announce that it wants no permanent, long-term American bases in Iraq; that we aren't planning to stay forever. "By pouring concrete and building these huge bases, we are reinforcing what the insurgents are telling the people," he said.


Some, like retired Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, who resigned as the director of operations for the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, said the time has come to begin discussing withdrawing U.S. troops.


Newbold said that he takes what he called a "distinctly minority view" that the administration should set a general timeline for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, declaring success in the most important goals - the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the institution of a Middle East-style democracy and the removal of any near-term threat that Iraq will threaten its neighbors. Any such timeline should be made conditional on the general security situation in Iraq, he said.


We'll inevitably publish a timeline for a U.S. withdrawal, anyway, Newbold said, but doing so now would weaken one of the prime motivating forces of the insurgency - the continued presence of American troops as an occupying force.


"Our national strategy must include policies that assist our cause, not those of the insurgents and terrorists by reinforcing their exaggerated views of American behavior and intentions," Newbold said.


A retired Army senior general said it's time for the national debate to focus on how we get out of Iraq and how we do so in such a way that we return to a more normal role and secure our vital interests in the region.


He said that an exit strategy is the venue we need to work - "not cut and run but focusing the national debate on what next and our role in the region for the long term ... an exit from what we are doing currently to get us to a more normal role securing our vital interests in the region."


-Bolster the effort to train and equip Iraqi military and security forces that can take over from U.S. troops.


Newbold said that the time for adding more U.S. forces on the ground has passed, if only for political reasons, and that the best military option now is to reinforce the efforts of Gen. George Casey, the U.S. commander in Iraq, to stand up a capable Iraqi army to take over security.


If we're serious about standing up a capable and effective Iraqi army to take responsibility for security, said a serving senior general, "then we need to get serious about it now" and make certain that only the best American Army and Marine officers and NCOs are assigned to the Military Transition Teams. Without that, he said, "we will be there forever."


A senior Army officer who's served multiple tours in Iraq and studied the situation more closely than most said the U.S. should undertake reforms of the security sectors in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior, train and install stronger leaders at every level in the Iraqi Army and police, establish a reconciliation program that permits more participation by former Saddam regime officials and disarm the private militias that are responsible for much of the sectarian violence.


-Devote greater energy to rebuilding Iraq's economy and political system.


"You have to pour on the resources, not cut back," Wilkerson said. "A billion a month for reconstruction ... and these dollars do not go to American contractors. They go to Iraqi contractors who are overseen by Americans and British and others."


Newbold agreed that the United States must focus its primary effort in the economic and political realms in Iraq, and he said that so far the other agencies of the U.S. government haven't come close to the intensity and commitment of the military engagement. "To borrow a phrase: It's the economy, Stupid!" he said.


The State Department and other agencies need to stop staffing the U.S. Embassy and U.S. advisory teams to the Iraqi government ministries with inexperienced, short-term Generation X staffers, agreed a senior general. Stop making duty in Baghdad strictly a volunteer affair, he said: Assign your best and most experienced staffers to this vital work.


The senior officer who's served multiple tours in Iraq said one goal should be to establish an Iraqi rule of law (police, judges/courts, prisons) with a degree of due process appropriate to the security situation. He said the United States also should empower local governments, giving them the capability to provide basic services and address local grievances.


-Revive American diplomacy in the Middle East.


"Everything we are doing brings Iran and Syria closer together when we ought to be doing everything we can to split them apart," said the senior general. "We need a U.S. ambassador in Syria. (The Bush administration recalled the U.S. ambassador, who hasn't returned.) It would help in Iraq and have spin-off benefits in Lebanon. You can't exert influence if you are not there. We need to be talking to the Syrians. Hell, we need to be talking to the Iranians. This whole axis of evil thing is bull! All it did was drive our enemies closer together."


Wilkerson said the administration should "bring in the surrounding states, not just Iran, though it is the most important one, and get them to share the load money-wise and diplomatically. The Bedouins have got to stop putting their money on all sides, hoping that one will win. They must put their money exclusively on the government in Baghdad. They have to understand that the U.S. is not leaving until the situation is stable."


Wilkerson said the United States also has to start a "rational dialogue" with Iran that encompasses everything from the MEK guerrillas to al Qaida to nuclear weapons to Hezbollah, Iraq and the Persian Gulf.


He said the administration also should start negotiations to settle, once and for all, the Israel-Palestinian situation, including talks with Syria on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, with Lebanon and with the Palestinians themselves.


"The U.S. must be an honest broker in all of these talks - not Israel's lawyer," Wilkerson said. "The U.S. must be willing to bang heads, all of them if necessary."


Finally, Wilkerson argued that the United States must ask international institutions such as the United Nations to help. "You have to cajole and wheedle and coerce your allies to do likewise. If this means eating a little crow, you just ask for the pepper and the cayenne," he said.


Van Riper said the United States lacks a global strategy for fighting a global war against a global Islamist insurgency. He contrasted what we've witnessed from today's war president with the way America and its leaders prepared and planned the campaigns in World War II, and how President Franklin D. Roosevelt explained the strategy and the campaigns to educate the public and ensure support for the war.


"Our current leadership has failed us in these most basic of obligations," he said.


One general who's led troops in combat since 9/11 said the administration's civilian leaders must explain why we're still militarily engaged in Iraq. "Or as most Americans would ask: What does it mean to win in Iraq? Or ... how much U.S. blood and treasure should Americans be asked to sacrifice for Iraq and why?"


"Iraqis, as well as Muslims, know that someday - a year, two years, 10 years - the U.S. military will be gone from their country," he added. "Then what? Will civil war erupt? Will Iraq's regional neighbors stand on the sidelines, or is there too much at stake for them? Should the U.S. find a way to get them involved now in the process? Is that even feasible? What level of potential internal chaos can the U.S. allow? Perhaps unanswerable questions, but our national leaders need to have this conversation both privately and with the American public, because without it the U.S. will continue to react to events instead of establishing a pro-active foreign policy for the region. And support from the American people will continue to evaporate."


None of these officers, however, was optimistic that the administration will alter a course that they all fear will lead America to defeat and disaster.


"All of this will take concentration on the part of the leadership of this country, as well as extraordinary diplomatic skills, thus it won't likely happen," Wilkerson. "The Bushites are too terribly inept."


"Unfortunately, I do not believe that the current Pentagon military and civilian leadership is capable of designing an effective plan," Van Riper said.


If these distinguished military officers are correct that it's not too late to change course in Iraq, then we should all hope that they're wrong in fearing that the Bush administration is too ignorant, too inept, too proud or too political to do so.


As we mark the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it's time for both parties to check their politics at the door and begin a vigorous public debate on how to chart a course that's worthy of the sacrifices that our troops, our firefighters, our police and others have already made.


---


ABOUT THE WRITER


Joseph L. Galloway is former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young." Readers may write to him at: P.O. Box 399, Bayside, Texas 78340; e-mail: jlgalloway2@cs.com.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0906-32.htm

Published on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
A Father's Story: Donald Rumsfeld and the Families of the 172nd Stryker Brigade
by Rich Moniak

During a sunny Saturday afternoon, about 800 people gathered in the gymnasium at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska on August 26, 2006 for a one hour meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Almost all were family members of soldiers in the 172nd Stryker Brigade. Our obvious concern was the drawn out deployment of our loved ones, still in Iraq after their one year tour was extended at the last minute.

Rumsfeld was in Fairbanks for the weekend. On Sunday he participated in the dedication of a memorial for the World War II lend lease program, the primary reason for his visit. The families, given a mere hour, came second behind trying to project an image of a respected leader.

The wounds of disappointment were still evident as soon as we arrived on base. Along a quarter mile on the road just beyond the main entrance, dozens of colorful welcome home signs clung sadly to a chain link fence. Many were personal greetings, a soldier's name spelled out as if seeing it on the banner could somehow bring him closer to the heart of the woman who missed him. Others expressed the obvious pride the collective family felt for the soldiers who were not only gone for so long, but stood tall among the daily dangers in faraway land. Like the spouses who hung them, the signs themselves didn't know why they were denied their day of celebration.

There was no ID screening of the audience as we entered the gym. The crowd filled the folding chairs spread out across the gym floor, then overflowed to the wooden bench grandstands on both sides.

The vast majority of the audience appeared to be wives. More than a few had children with them. Scattered among them were some older faces like mine, obviously parents or grandparents. Our needs were less personal than the wives, many with daily lives like a single mom but the added anxiety from the need to explain to a child that Dad was going to come home someday. A vague someday.

I was with Jennifer Davis, whose husband serves in the 172nd Stryker Brigade. We had driven 300 plus miles from Anchorage the night before, after my 1-1/2 hour flight from Juneau got in. We sat with Diane Benson, whose son lost his legs a year ago after a similar type of stop/loss holdover. We all met through the organization Military Families Speaks Out.

Reporters were expressly denied access by those hosting the meeting. Either the local military command, or Rumsfeld himself, made the decision and informed the news media before-hand that they would be barred from the building. So there were no reporters near the stage waiting with microphones to record for the nation how our Secretary of Defense would respond to the families whose lives he insensitively turned inside out. And no cameras for TV News stories. The photo op was Sunday.

A civilian administrator spoke first, explaining the house-keeping rules for the meeting. He introduced Colonel Dennis Dingle who set the underlying tone that seemed to subtly echo prior direction, telling the audience not to embarrass their soldiers. Only those who he had spoken with before might have understood what he implied after that, telling them they could ask difficult questions. How difficult? And what consequences were explicitly or otherwise implied in more private meetings between the brass and family members.

Photographs and video recordings were permitted. Many were brought out, and a few women moved to find better filming opportunities in the grandstand. I stayed out on the floor, nervously ready with my question, but hoping for a chance to speak. Diane had prepared one too, hoping to ask him if the draft was next.

Rumsfeld received generous applause when he was introduced. He told the audience he would explain the best he could the events that unfolded in the days leading up to the redeployment decision, then he would take the questions.

With smiles and a light hearted tone, he began with trivial observations, very much in command of the public persona that won the cheap affection of reporters around the country during the campaign in Afghanistan and the early stages of the war in Iraq. Then he shifted to his impressions of the highlights born from the administration's decision to invade Iraq.

He touted the efforts of the fledging Iraqi democracy as working diligently with our government. He touched upon the plans Iraqis have developed for a national reconciliation among the three primary religious sects.

Missing from this segment of his speech was the fact that during President Bush's visit to Iraq in June, President Jalal Talabani and Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi requested a timeline for the withdrawal of foreign forces. Missing were claims of the "free" Iraqi government expressed by their national security advisor that "the removal of foreign troops will legitimize Iraq's government in the eyes of its people". Missing was the fact that the 28 point plan presented by "free" Iraqi government was reduced to 24 points as they bowed to the will of the occupying nation.

Rumsfeld moved from the bigger picture of the mission to the personal issue on the minds of his audience. He gave a highly complimentary account of past successes that placed the Strykers on a tall pedestal of dedication to duty and success in their mission in Mosul. He offered positive news that the Strykers and Iraqi troops mobilized to Baghdad have significantly reduced the violence there in the brief time they've been on the ground.

Then his voice settled into a less charismatic level as he explained why the 172nd Stryker Brigade was denied the trip home that they were due. He portrayed that decision as being made only after careful consideration of a late developing need to address the rising sectarian violence in Baghdad. He admitted the difficulty of this mission given that our military is trained to fight armies of another nation, not terrorists or "insurgents" loosely formed around fanatical Islamic fundamentalists.

Then, in the classical manner that defines the weak heart of this administration that is afraid of losing control, he turned the fear card the other way, toward the families. The anniversary of September 11 was approaching. "I know that the people in this room all feel a sense of urgency. The thought of another September 11th, or a September 11th times 2 or 4 is not something anyone wants to contemplate...The fight has to be taken to the terrorists." He promised that when we look back in five, ten, fifteen years from now, the nation will recognize the worthiness of this cause.

Possibly hoping the fear he spoke to would tame the braver people in the audience ready to challenge him, he asked for questions. The first woman who spoke wanted her husband to get a vacation because this deployment extended his stay in Iraq from nine months to ove