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Banned
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It is frustrating to attempt a thorough discussion here. I perceive an interest in "leaving out" key considerations, vital to examining what is really going on in the "controversy" created by retired senior officers recently calling for Rumsfeld to resign.
Probably the most important considerations that are "left out" are:
1.)The secrecy of the Bush administration, as to the actual reasons for invading and occupying Iraq, and the long term plan for the U.S. military role in Iraq. (See supporting articles, below.)
2.)Bush and Cheney appointed Rumsfeld, directed his agenda, approved and co-planned his decisions....he continues in his position on their approval, and they will appoint and supervise his successor, if Rumsfeld is fired. The buck stops at the desks of the co-presidents.
3.)Turning the wave of tardy, public dissent of combat "flag" officers, into something trivial, as in <b>"if every officer is bitching that his own plan wasn't adopted?"</b> seems like an attempt to avoid recognition and discussion of the controversy. Are some of the most respected, experienced, and involved, former senior combat officers, now criticizing Rumsfeld in unison....or not? If the critics are inconsequential in stature there is no controversy. If they were the former key military leaders who Rumsfeld ordered to war, in 2003, at the behest of Bush/Cheney, isn't it important to ask why they call for Rumsfeld's firing, instead of minimizing their stature?
4.)Did the former officers, turned critics, at this late date, harbor their objections to flawed or unworkable Iraq invasion and post invasion plans and orders, 3 years ago? If they did, did any of them have the option to resign in protest, and then publicly voice similar objections to the ones that they voice now about Rumsfeld's flawed leadership? What has changed to prompt them to voice dissent from the safety of measured, post retirement timetables, vs. sudden resignations in protest, in 2003?
5.)Why do the officers' criticism stop at Rumsfeld? If they are letting it all out now, why are none of the officers critisizing the POTUS who appointed and continues to support Rumsfeld? How can they avoid criticism of their former CIC, Bush....who said over and over, that he leaves troop levels and military strategy to "commanders in the field". Doesn't the criticism of these officers, contradict Bush's oft repeated assertiion?
Why, when the following is considered, along wiith the avoided questions above, is there continued willingness (eagerness?) to give Bush and Cheney any benefit of doubt? Why the reluctance to confront them as to what the past plan and the future plan for Iraq really is? They are using our sons and daughters, and our money, to carry out secret plans and goals....
Quote:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12319798/
New U.S. Embassy in Iraq cloaked in mystery
Baghdad locale, slated to be completed in 2007, to be largest of its kind
Updated: 5:45 p.m. ET April 14, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The fortress-like compound rising beside the Tigris River here will be the largest of its kind in the world, the size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq’s turbulent future.
The new U.S. Embassy also seems as cloaked in secrecy as the ministate in Rome.
“We can’t talk about it. Security reasons,” Roberta Rossi, a spokeswoman at the current embassy, said when asked for information about the project.
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A British tabloid even told readers the location was being kept secret — news that would surprise Baghdadis who for months have watched the forest of construction cranes at work across the winding Tigris, at the very center of their city and within easy mortar range of anti-U.S. forces in the capital, though fewer explode there these days.
The embassy complex — 21 buildings on 104 acres, according to a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report — is taking shape on riverside parkland in the fortified “Green Zone,” just east of al-Samoud, a former palace of Saddam Hussein’s, and across the road from the building where the ex-dictator is now on trial.
The Republican Palace, where U.S. Embassy functions are temporarily housed in cubicles among the chandelier-hung rooms, is less than a mile away in the 4-square-mile zone, an enclave of American and Iraqi government offices and lodgings ringed by miles of concrete barriers.
5,500 employees at the embassy
The 5,500 Americans and Iraqis working at the embassy, almost half listed as security, are far more numerous than at any other U.S. mission worldwide. They rarely venture out into the “Red Zone,” that is, violence-torn Iraq.
This huge American contingent at the center of power has drawn criticism.
“The presence of a massive U.S. embassy — by far the largest in the world — co-located in the Green Zone with the Iraqi government is seen by Iraqis as an indication of who actually exercises power in their country,” the International Crisis Group, a European-based research group, said in one of its periodic reports on Iraq.
State Department spokesman Justin Higgins defended the size of the embassy, old and new, saying it’s indicative of the work facing the United States here.
“It’s somewhat self-evident that there’s going to be a fairly sizable commitment to Iraq by the U.S. government in all forms for several years,” he said in Washington.
Higgins noted that large numbers of non-diplomats work at the mission — hundreds of military personnel and dozens of FBI agents, for example, along with representatives of the Agriculture, Commerce and other U.S. federal departments.
They sleep in hundreds of trailers or “containerized” quarters scattered around the Green Zone. But next year embassy staff will move into six apartment buildings in the new complex, which has been under construction since mid-2005 with a target completion date of June 2007.
<b>Iraq’s interim government transferred the land to U.S. ownership in October 2004, under an agreement whose terms were not disclosed.
“Embassy Baghdad” will dwarf new U.S. embassies elsewhere, projects that typically cover 10 acres. The embassy’s 104 acres is six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York, and two-thirds the acreage of Washington’s National Mall.</b>
Estimated cost of over $1 billion....
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Quote:
http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/ap/...ap2610580.html
Expanding Bases Put Focus on U.S. in Iraq
By CHARLES J. HANLEY , 03.21.2006, 11:48 AM
The concrete goes on forever, vanishing into the noonday glare, 2 million cubic feet of it, a mile-long slab that's now the home of up to 120 U.S. helicopters, a "heli-park" as good as any back in the States. At another giant base, al-Asad in Iraq's western desert, the 17,000 troops and workers come and go in a kind of bustling American town, with a Burger King, Pizza Hut and a car dealership, stop signs, traffic regulations and young bikers clogging the roads.
At a third hub down south, Tallil, they're planning a new mess hall, one that will seat 6,000 hungry airmen and soldiers for chow.
Are the Americans here to stay? Air Force mechanic Josh Remy is sure of it as he looks around Balad.
"I think we'll be here forever," the 19-year-old airman from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., told a visitor to his base.
The Iraqi people suspect the same. Strong majorities tell pollsters they'd like to see a timetable for U.S. troops to leave, but believe Washington plans to keep military bases in their country.
The question of America's future in Iraq looms larger as the U.S. military enters the fourth year of its war here, waged first to oust President Saddam Hussein, and now to crush an Iraqi insurgency.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, interim prime minister, has said he opposes permanent foreign bases. A wide range of American opinion is against them as well. Such bases would be a "stupid" provocation, says Gen. Anthony Zinni, former U.S. Mideast commander and a critic of the original U.S. invasion.....
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