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Surge Mentality: White House in Denial
Reading the White House's report, released Thursday, on whether President Bush's January 2007 "surge" of 30,000 troops is working, you'd never know that a real-life, flesh-and-blood war is being waged in Iraq, with hundreds of people maimed and killed every day. You'd never know that May 2007 was the most violent month in that violent war in nearly three years, with 6,039 attacks on US and Iraqi government forces, 1,348 IEDs exploded under their vehicles, 286 "complex ambushes" involving roadside bombs and coordinated teams of attackers, 102 car bombs, 126 American soldiers killed and 652 wounded.
The report doesn't mention that Gen. David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, warned this week that the resistance in Iraq is preparing a Tet-style offensive, like the one launched in January 1968 by the Viet Cong in South Vietnam. The insurgents, Petraeus said, intend to "pull off a variety of sensational attacks and grab the headlines to create a 'mini-Tet.'"
Instead, in bland, bureaucratic language--its title is Initial Benchmark Assessment Report--the White House has substituted spin for substance: "We have carefully examined all the facts and circumstances with respect to each of the 18 benchmarks and asked the following question: As measured from a January 2007 baseline, do we assess that present trend data demonstrates a positive trajectory, which is tracking toward satisfactory accomplishment in the near term?"
The report says some progress is being made on its stated goals; for others, not so much, or none at all. But in reality, none--zero, zilch, nada--have been met. Last January, when the President announced the escalation by adding at least 30,000 US troops to the occupation force, he justified it by declaring that within six months it would show results, stabilizing the Iraqi capital and creating space for political reconciliation, security and economic progress. But things are demonstrably worse: Violence is up, and the Iraqi government is falling apart.
At his news conference Thursday, Bush simply ignored his promise that the surge would take six months to work. Instead, he argued that the surge is just beginning, now that the troops are finally in place. "It takes a while to move our troops, as the experts know," said Bush. "You just can't load them all in one airplane or one big ship and get them into theater. We had to stage the arrival of our troops. And after they arrived in Iraq, it took a while to get them into their missions."
Now that they are in place, is Iraq making progress on amending its divisive, flagrantly biased constitution? No. Is Iraq reintegrating some of the 2 million former Baathists back into government and society? No. Has Iraq enacted an oil law that guarantees a fair division of the country's chief source of wealth? No. Provincial elections? No. Amnesty for armed resistance members? No. Have the militias been disarmed and demobilized? No. What about a justice system, an army and police not controlled by militias? No. And after spending $19 billion to train and equip 350,000 Iraqi security forces, and then tasking US troops in 2007 with a specific mission to bring Iraqi forces into the effort, are the Iraqi forces getting stronger? "There has been a slight reduction in units assessed as capable of independent operations since January 2007," says the report.
All in all, it's a report that will throw more fuel on the fire already burning in Congress. The utter failure of the US effort chronicled in the "interim" report will embolden the antiwar left in the Democratic Party, strengthen the politically convenient, newfound antiwar sentiments among hawkish, center-right Democrats and--most important--force even more Republicans to break with President Bush. It sets the stage for a titanic showdown this fall, starting in September.
Senator Olympia Snowe, the Maine Republican who signaled that she is ready to start voting with the Democrats against the war, was disgusted by the complete failure to show even a glimmer of progress in Iraq, rejecting the White House's plea for patience and its flaccid assertions that at least a little progress is being made toward some of the eighteen goals. "The benchmarks have to be met. That's it," she told the Washington Post. "Enough is enough." Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired Marine colonel and former top aide to Secretary of State Colin Powell, told me there are nearly seventy Republicans in Congress, including more than two dozen US senators, who have either publicly or privately declared that they've broken ranks with President Bush--and the list is growing with every passing day. Those who've gone on record, either in votes, in speeches or in sponsoring bills demanding a radical change in Iraq policy include John Warner (Virginia), Chuck Hagel (Nebraska), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine), Norm Coleman (Minnesota), Lamar Alexander (Tennessee), John Sununu (New Hampshire), Judd Gregg (New Hampshire), Gordon Smith (Oregon), Pete Domenici (New Mexico), George Voinovich (Ohio), Robert Bennett (Utah) and, most surprising, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, who despite his criticism of the Iraqi government, expects the caucus to stand behind the President.
With every tick of the clock, the war in Iraq becomes less and less President Bush's war and more and more the Republican Party's war--unless the Republicans are prepared to confront the White House directly. By all accounts, including many conversations I've had, there is a feeling close to panic among many Congressional Republicans that the election in 2008 is shaping up as a referendum on Iraq, pitting a Democratic Party increasingly ready to cast itself as antiwar against a Republican Party fatally tethered to Bush's lost cause.
Will the Republican Party in Congress crack? In the Senate, the cracks are already showing, of course, and they're big--but with caveats. So far, only a handful, if that, of GOP senators is prepared to vote with Democrats to set a timetable for withdrawal with an end date. It's entirely possible that by September, enough Republican senators will join their ranks so that the Democrats can break a filibuster--which requires sixty votes, meaning that ten to twelve Republicans would have to sign on. Getting enough Republicans to break in order to override an almost certain presidential veto, which would require sixty-seven votes, would be very, very hard. Getting them to actually vote to do so--that is, getting at least seventeen Republican senators to vote to override a veto by a Republican President of a true antiwar bill--well, that is a tall order.
In the House, where Republicans are more uniformly right-wing and more responsive to talk-radio rabble-rousers, there are fewer signs of a rebellion. (Only four Republicans joined 219 Democrats Thursday on a vote to redeploy US forces out of Iraq, though the bill passed 223 to 201.) But one of Washington's leading conservative activists says, "When the House cracks, it will crack all at once, from [minority leader John] Boehner all the way down." So far, party discipline is holding. But it's not likely to last through the fall.
Still, President Bush--backed by Vice President Dick Cheney, whose contempt for Congress is only equaled by his fanatical belief in the imperial presidency--might decide to defy Congress, and he could win. Only last January, Cheney, appearing on Fox News, was asked about the possibility that Congress might upend the war. "It won't stop us," he said, confidently. If the President and the Vice President decide to defy Congress and risk a veto showdown, and win, then the war will continue apace through 2009, and the GOP will likely suffer an electoral defeat of historic proportions. That seems to be where things are headed.
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13 Comments so far
Show AllAll this insistance that in Iraq "The benchmarks have to be met. That's it," is absolutely absurd and shows what an incredible lack of understanding, or willingness to try to understand, that what we have done is foist our (supposed) values and an abstract version of a philosophy we can't even uphold upon a people that had no desire to have this done to them. They are all innocent of what we claim they have done or taken part in.
We NEVER consider the social norms and cultures of anyone but US. So long as they have something we want, we are willing to take it by any means.
America has and is the greatest propaganda PR machine on the planet and need to be STOPPED by any means. This is what the terrorists want... the US out of their lives. We ruin everything we take interest in and have no consideration for what our desires and meeting them costs everyone else.
Meeting "benchmarks" is simply a smokescreen of never ending proclamations that are specifically designed to confound the public for the benefit of the robber barons that have been building up to this sort of power grab since they were whacked on the weenie about 100 years ago.
As soon as the Congress gets it's head out of it's collective ass, they might see some light and realize that they'd better get cracking or the whole planet is going to come down on their, and our, heads and that will be the end of this fictitious democracy we scream about.
So, if the White House psychos succeed in blocking Congress from stopping the occupation/war, the occupation/war will continue until at least 2009, but the Republicans will suffer a catastrophic defeat at the polls.
Well, to be as hard-assed as the Republicans have been, if all that death and destruction in Iraq and in our military will get rid of the Republicans for a generation or two, then it's damned well worth it.
Let's start planning to impeach some Supreme Court judges in 2009 so we can really reclaim America for Americans instead leaving it to the right-wing nutcases that have taken it over.
"With every tick of the clock, the war in Iraq becomes less and less President Bush's war and more and more the Republican Party's war–unless the Republicans are prepared to confront the White House directly."
Note to us: it's our job to make sure America knows and never forgets exactly whose illegal invasion and occupation this was/is: the Republicans. The GOP. The "Right." The more we hammer home this truth, the less likely the crazy hypocritical war mongering profiteers will be able to win even a spot in the galley in '08.
"Has Iraq enacted an oil law that guarantees a fair division of the country's chief source of wealth? No."
Excuuse me? My understanding of the oil law would give Western energy companies 70 year leases, high percentage of profits compared to the level of difficulty of extraction, as well as seats on the Iraqi energy commission. This is a law that Iraqi oil workers strongly oppose. What Western government would give foreign corporate representatives the power to sit on the commissions charged with their regulation and oversight?
I wonder how fair the other benchmarks really are. It sounds to me that the Iraqi govvernment is perhaps more effective with respect to their own interests than we care to admit.
jp:
As they say downeast in Maine... Aayuh.
Oh and...
"Yeh cahn't get theyuh frum heyuh."
Bush should be the one with the benchmarks and milestones to meet. After more than 4 years, the American people are entitled to some accountability, once and for all.
It has gone on way too long where glib one liners pass for policy statements. We want a president that is responsible and accountable to the American people, whether they truly elected him or not.
"President decide to defy Congress and risk a veto showdown, and win, then the war will continue apace through 2009, and the GOP will likely suffer an electoral defeat of historic proportions. That seems to be where things are headed."
I sure hope so. I sure hope the GOP goes down in flames. How stuupid could we be to elect them again?
lunafish said:
All this insistance that in Iraq "The benchmarks have to be met. That's it," is absolutely absurd and shows what an incredible lack of understanding, or willingness to try to understand, that what we have done is foist our (supposed) values and an abstract version of a philosophy we can't even uphold upon a people that had no desire to have this done to them. They are all innocent of what we claim they have done or taken part in.
Anyone that has lived in the Middle East understands the validity and importance of that statement. Anyone with half a brain would have known that sending in an army of young men who spit on the ground, stare at women, put their feet on the necks of Muslims to hold them down, have NO understanding or sympathy for the culture are going to be met as invaders with no support from any Muslim
As I wrote my alleged representatives on numerous occasions, "you set deadlines in the future for getting out of Iraq. Those deadlines are real deadlines for another thousand or so of our kids and another several thousand maimed," for what? So you can be in the same spot you are now, planning a future exit date from Iraq.
What every hearing room needs, with a large one above the Speaker's seat in each house is a clock. But this clock doesn't tick off the minutes. Every tick of the clock represents the death of another soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan. If that were before them in every deliberation, perhaps it would speed the process.
frank1569, in what possible sense is this not just as much the democrats' war? the policies of this admin are a continuation of clinton era policies, and the dems have enabled EVERYTHING the admin has done, all the way down the line, w/ a couple of exceptions (kucinich, lee, etc.). now that things are going badly, the slightly less fascistic dems, w/their fingers to the political wind more astutely than their rethug dopplegangers, are voicing doubts, but still haven't done anything, and are endorsing policies that will ensure, in the long run, we continue the current admin's policies (ie, keeping troops their to "fight terrorism," ensuring we'll be there forever and get sucked back into the same situatin we are now in.)
HAVE THE DEMS DONE ONE THING TO STOP THE WAR? no.
To JP - right on! I think the Iraq oil law is the ONLY benchmark the Bush administration cares about, the rest is either fluff or related to making sure BIG OIL gets dozens of times its fair share and of course that the 18% or so of oil reserves not divied up by BIG OIL are fairly shared among the Iraqis.
Finally this morning on the BBC program Dateline London, the Pakistani journalist on the panel pointed out the terms of the oil law--who knows, maybe some lightbulb at CNN will get the idea this may have something to do with meeting those benchmarks.
On another BBC Sunday morning talk show, a British politician made a sensible suggestion that there should be just one benchmark to end this disastrous war in which the Iraqis are suffering enormously. Agree with the Iraqis how many trained up and equipped police and soldiers are needed for Iraqis to take over the running of their own country completely, without further foreign interference, period, and when that number is reached, all foreign armies leave Iraq.
bartleby a scrivener -- I agree. And even worse than the Democrats in Congress are the Democrats running for president. So what can be done -- in the real world, not in a world as deluded by visions of "mass movements" and "general strikes" as the Republicans' world is deluded by whatever exactly their visions are.
If you read between the lines, the Iraqis said the benchmarks were like a lab experiment. That could mean that they were waiting to see if the rats would take the cheese and get caught in the trap. Would they pass the other benchmark laws before going on vacation?...nope!
Smart rats.
The oil law was a HUGE give away to the world's oil companies and effectively put Iraq on a meager allowance that they had to divide up for the next 30 years. This IS the smoking gun people. Bush's finger prints are all over it. If you needed any reason to look for a motive leading to all the lies and deceptions, look no further.