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Banned
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Originally Posted by magictoy
.....It's deeply troubling that so many people accept at face value such distorted and falsified items as these from Lebanon/Hezbollah, outrageous lies and tortured out-of-context quotes provided by Michael Moore, and total misrepresentations such as the polar bear photo from Al Gore.
Let President Bush say that we have made improvements in Iraq, though, and he's labeled the biggest liar in history.
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magictoy......what is the potenital fallout of some people being "taken in" by some propaganda generated by folks who are aligned with hezbollah, lebanon, palestinians, who are involved in an unending war with and a decades long series of occupations carried out by the IDF....the 23rd most powerful military force in the world, compared to the consequences of the policies and pronouncements from the president of the United States....the most powerful man in the world,
over these last six years?
What is it that you are saying? Are you saying that the US president gets a "pass" for the deliberate propoganda, misleading statements, terror scares launched against his own people, and failed pre-emptive war policies, based on contrived and phony rationale.....<b>because some of Israel's enemies faked some photos to make the IDF look more brutal?</b>
Is that the "double standard" that is "deeply troubling" to you? I'm here to assure you that...even if every photo or statement that appears in the media about the extent of the damage that the IDF has ever wrought in the M.E., was discovered to be entirely staged, there is still enough evidence of the assaults unrelated to your concerns (i.e....the M.E. propaganda efforts aimed against Israel,) on the patience and sensibilities of the US electorate by our current president and his appointees, to exclude him from the "pass" that you say he is entitled to.
Forgive me for being so thorough as I "walk you through" the following. I sit here listening to and sympathizing with the rising level of lament that is coming from my wife. Her concern grows as her son prepares to be deployed to the M.E. soon in the U.S. military. In the nearly four years since she suffered a sudden stroke that has left her totally disabled, I have never seen her so sad or so concerned......and IMO, she has every reason to be:
<b>The tour begins with a look at the high standard of accountability that candidate Bush set for his opponent, Mr. Gore....in 2000, over trivial matters, in comparison to what Mr. Bush has strived to avoid "owning", or owning up to, in the years that followed:</b>
Quote:
http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2000a.html
Unofficial Debate Transcript
October 3, 2000
The First Gore-Bush Presidential Debate
....MODERATOR: New question. Are there issues of character that distinguish you from Vice President Gore?
BUSH: The man loves his wife and I appreciate that a lot. And I love mine. The man loves his family a lot, and I appreciate that, because I love my family. I think the thing that discouraged me about the vice president was uttering those famous words, "No controlling legal authority." I felt like there needed to be a better sense of responsibility of what was going on in the White House. I believe that -- <b>I believe they've moved that sign, "The buck stops here" from the Oval Office desk to "The buck stops here" on the Lincoln bedroom. It's not good for the country and it's not right. We need to have a new look about how we conduct ourselves in office. There's a huge trust. I see it all the time when people come up to me and say, I don't want you to let me down again. And we can do better than the past administration has done. It's time for a fresh start. It's time for a new look. It's time for a fresh start after a season of cynicism.</b> And so I don't know the man well, but I've been disappointed about how he and his administration have conducted the fundraising affairs. You know, going to a Buddhist temple and then claiming it wasn't a fundraiser isn't my view of responsibility.
MODERATOR: Vice President Gore?....
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<b>Why should we not believe former US treasury sec'ty Pail O'Neill, and the witnesses that Ron Suskind and ABC news say supported his statements that Mr. Bush set "regime change" in Iraq, as his top priority, 9 months before the 9/11 attacks. O'Neill was ceo of Alcoa, and sold $90 million in stock options when he left that job to join Bush's cabinet...would he make up this account? </b>
Quote:
http://www.mclaughlin.com/library/mo...ript.asp?id=33
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN'S "ONE ON ONE"
GUEST: RON SUSKIND, AUTHOR
RE: "THE PRICE OF LOYALTY"
TAPED: THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2004
BROADCAST: WEEKEND OF JANUARY 24-25, 2004
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The price of loyalty. In an extraordinary literary collaboration, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill shared his memories -- plus 19,000 pages of official documents -- with a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. The resulting book is a first x-ray of the inside of the Bush White House.....
....MR. SUSKIND: And Condoleezza Rice. The president described this is the way it works. He threw it to Condi, said Condi will be managing this process.
And then he set policy right at the start of the administration. He said first off, we're going to pull out of the Arab-Israeli conflict. There's nothing we can do to help those people. He talked about that for a while. Colin Powell expressed immediately reservations, saying if we do this -- this is 30 years of U.S. policy. We have been fully engaged. If we do this, we will unleash Sharon and it will tear the fabric of the Mideast. And the president said at some time, a show of force can be really clarifying. That's not a direct quote, but almost.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: This is the quote. This is the quote. "Sometimes, a show of strength by one side can really clarify things."
MR. SUSKIND: And that's, in a way, a statement of doctrine.
Then they go right to Iraq. The president basically says --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Mm-hmm.
MR. SUSKIND: -- let's move to the priority of this administration, and it's Iraq.
And it was set from the first, and it was not the regime change policy, which is mostly a second- or third-tier policy of the U.S. government that preceded it. There's a change right here.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: He said Clinton overreached and it all fell apart.
MR. SUSKIND: About the Mideast.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: That's correct. That's why we're in trouble. If the two sides don't want peace, there's no way we can force them. Then he said that they were going to pull out.
MR. SUSKIND: Powell's concerned.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The Arab-Israeli conflict was a mess -- this is your description -- and the United States would disengage. The president stressed that a pullback by the United States would -- no, this is what Powell said -- "would unleash Sharon and the Israeli army." The consequences of that could be dire, he said, especially for the Palestinians. Then at that point, as you pointed out, maybe the best way to get things back in balance is what President Bush said.
MR. SUSKIND: Yeah.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Where did you get this -- these direct quotes?
MR. SUSKIND: People in the meeting were quite -- some of them quite stunned at what they heard, and many folks remembered it vividly. And what you have in the book is what they all agree about in terms of what was said.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: At that point, according to the book, the president turned to Rice: "So, Condi, what are we going to talk about today? What's on the agenda?"
MR. SUSKIND: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And she says: "How Iraq is destabilizing the region, Mr. President." And you say that that statement sounded to several observers as "scripted exchange." What does that mean?
MR. SUSKIND: Well, it sounded to people in the meeting as though it was, you know, preordained and scripted, meaning that this meeting was going to be about Iraq. Not everyone knew that prior to the meeting, based on the briefing documents that were available. But what became clear immediately at that point is it would be essentially a presentation on Iraq and what to do.
Not long after that, George Tenet rolled out the first of those big blueprint-size sheets and it was a factory. And already the discussion began as to chemical and biological weapons. And essentially, George Tenet did "show and tell." Everyone crowded around the table. He said: "This is a factory. Here's where the trucks come in. Here's the water tower."
O'Neill, for his part, asked: "George, I've seen a lot of factories. I ran Alcoa. We have factories like this around the world that I've seen. What makes you think this is producing chemical and biological weapons?"
And Tenet said, "I can't definitively say it does."
And it starts a discussion that go on for the next two years, certainly, of O'Neill's tenure. He says emphatically he read every dossier that George Tenet set up and it was not flat-footed analysis, and there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. And O'Neill could not be more emphatic about this. And as you know from O'Neill, he's Mr. Evidence. He reads everything with incredible thoroughness.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Did Tenet support the president?
MR. SUSKIND: Did Tenet support the president how?
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: In saying that there was trouble on these -- did he say declaratively there are any weapons of mass destruction at any point?
MR. SUSKIND: Not at any point O'Neill ever heard him.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Did he always kind of hedge his language?
MR. SUSKIND: He was very judicious. O'Neill's quite forceful on this point, and others have been as well. They said the stuff from George Tenet was hedged from the start. Tenet is a judicious player and he showed it in his reports.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You have General Shelton saying -- appearing concerned and he said: was there already a, quote, "in group and an out group?"
MR. SUSKIND: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What's the "in group"?
MR. SUSKIND: Well, the question that several people had in the room as to the play of the meeting is whether or not some of the "why" questions already had been asked. This is something that many people talk about. The "whys" versus the "hows." Why Iraq? Why Saddam? Why now? Why is this central to U.S. policy? As opposed to the discussions that occur in this meeting and the next two NSC meetings, which is how to get Saddam, how to effect this thing that we want, as well as discussion of preemption.
The words used at the start is "dissuading." How do we dissuade nations from acting in ways we don't like? Later, these ideas would be called "preemption" publicly.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The word "dissuade" stuck in O'Neill's craw because he kept asking Rumsfeld, "What do you mean by dissuade?"
MR. SUSKIND: Exactly. There's a memo from Don Rumsfeld, at the start of the administration, which is really a manifesto from Rumsfeld as to a dangerous world and what need be done in terms of U.S. policy, building our military. And the key word in that memo is "dissuade."
"We are living in a treacherous world. We cannot control the growth of weapons because it's growth born of technology. We need to figure out a way to dissuade nations." It was all clear from the start.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: This series of questions, or similar ones were asked by Katie Couric.
MR. SUSKIND: Right.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And Paul O'Neill had this to say.
FORMER TREASURY SECRETARY PAUL O'NEILL: (From videotape.) I was surprised, as I've said in the book, that Iraq was given such a high priority. But I was not surprised that we were doing a continuation of planning that had been going on and looking at contingency options during the Clinton administration.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is that undercutting your premises?
MR. SUSKIND: No. I mean, if you let O'Neill talk for another 10 minutes on that point, as we've done thousands of times, he comes full circle, saying yes -- this is his "yes, but" -- yes, regime change was policy, but --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Under Clinton.
MR. SUSKIND: I'm (sic) Clinton, but --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: That was the desideratum under Clinton.
MR. SUSKIND: No doubt. But it was way down on the list of --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And no action was taken under Clinton.
MR. SUSKIND: Precisely. It was not actionable.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Okay. Well, what is different at this meeting, this very first meeting of this administration?
MR. SUSKIND: Discussion of the employment of U.S. military ground forces in an actionable way as quickly as possible.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are you saying that on the strength of your authority based on the O'Neill interviews, or has anyone else confirmed that?
MR. SUSKIND: There are several people in this meeting who confirm this account, it's not just O'Neill, as other meetings in this book are not just one man's -- (inaudible word).
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Has it come up by any other journalistic entity?
MR. SUSKIND: ABC News, after the book came out, went about its journalistic work and confirmed all the accounts in these early meetings about Iraq being the number-one priority. It was on ABC.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Including a careful review -- the president called upon Rumsfeld to put together the military plan if there were to be military action. Is that what you're contending?
MR. SUSKIND: At the start, the president made his directive clear and people moved quickly to please the president on this point.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Now, O'Neill has also said -- right? -- what we just heard, that they were carrying forth the planning, the planning of Clinton; but he doesn't say that there was anything about military action involved.
MR. SUSKIND: Well, as I said, if you allow O'Neill to talk a little further, he would get to some of some of those other points, and other people in the room remember vividly that exchange as to use of ground forces in these first three meetings......
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Mr. Bush received a terror threat briefing during his month long vacation at his ranch in Texas on Aug. 6, 2001, one month before 9/11. He had been president for 6-1/2 months, and he decided to take a month long vacation. It does not appear that he responded to the briefing in any meaningful way:
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...¬Found=true
Bush Gave No Sign of Worry In August 2001
By Dana Milbank and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 11, 2004; Page A01
CRAWFORD, Tex., April 10 -- President Bush was in an expansive mood on Aug. 7, 2001, when he ran into reporters while playing golf at the Ridgewood Country Club in Waco, Tex.
The day before, the president had received an intelligence briefing -- the contents of which were declassified by the White House Saturday night -- warning "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." But Bush seemed carefree as he spoke about the books he was reading, the work he was doing on his nearby ranch, his love of hot-weather jogging, his golf game and his 55th birthday.
"No mulligans, except on the first tee," he said to laughter. "That's just to loosen up. You see, most people get to hit practice balls, but as you know, I'm walking out here, I'm fixing to go hit. Tight back, older guy -- I hit the speed limit on July 6th."
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, in her testimony Thursday to the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, spoke of a government on high alert for terrorism in the summer of 2001. "The president of the United States had us at battle stations during this period of time," she testified. Rice's talk of battle stations is part of the Bush administration's effort to counter an impression that it did not do enough about terrorism before Sept. 11; a Newsweek poll released Saturday found that 60 percent think the Bush administration underestimated terrorism before the attacks.
But if top officials were at battle stations, there was no sign of it on the surface. Bush spent most of August 2001 on his ranch here. His staff said at the time that by far the biggest issue on his agenda was his decision on federal funding of stem cell research, followed by education, immigration and the Social Security "lockbox."
Of course, many of the efforts to thwart an attack would not have been visible on the outside. <b>But some officials on the inside -- notably former White House counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke -- say the administration was not acting with sufficient urgency to the spike in intelligence indicating a threat. And there is nothing in Bush's public actions or words from August 2001 to refute Clarke.</b>
During that month, Bush's top aides were concentrating on the president's political standing: His approval rating had slipped, his relations with Congress were tense, and Democrats had regained control of the Senate. The only time Bush mentioned terrorism publicly that month was in the context of violence in Israel.
In public, Bush often engaged in playful banter. Reporters teased him about his golf game and whether he would take an afternoon nap. Bush teased them about their suffering in the Texas heat. "I know a lot of you wish you were in the East Coast, lounging on the beaches, sucking in the salt air, but when you're from Texas -- and love Texas -- this is where you come home," he said.
A former Bush aide who remains close to the White House said the use of the term "battle stations" by Rice was an overstatement as it is understood in what the White House constantly calls "the post-9/11 world." The former aide, who refused to be identified to avoid angering the president and his staff, said that some members of Bush's senior staff did not know the extent of the information he had been given about the al Qaeda threat, and that even those in his inner circle did not imagine "the scale, the precision, the magnitude" of the strikes on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
"In a pre-9/11 world, it was like, 'Check it out and see what you find and get back to us after Labor Day,' " the former aide said. "It wasn't just the president who was on vacation. It was the whole government. It was the Bureau [FBI] and the Agency [CIA], too. The attention to the threats was above and beyond normal, but it obviously wasn't enough."
Officials close to Bush defended his approach during that summer, saying that of course what was done looks inadequate now, <b>but that no one could have imagined such attacks back then, including the president.</b> These officials said their only frames of reference were the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, which killed more than 160 people, and the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, which killed six and injured more than 1,000........
.....On Aug. 23, Bush took a trip to Crawford Elementary School, where he allowed the children to ask him questions. He spoke of golf, fishing, exercise and presidential perks such as the White House, the limousine and the Secret Service. Bush also volunteered his afternoon schedule: a meeting with Rice, a phone call to the Argentine president, lunch with the first lady, a visit with the family pets, a call to his personnel office and a lesson on trees. "We've got a horticulturist coming out from Texas A&M to help us identify the hardwood trees on our beautiful place," he said.
In summary, Bush told the children: "I've got a lot going on today."
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factcheck.org found that both Bush and Cheney made misleading statments about the threat from Iraq WMD. and about congress knowing everything that they knew when congress voted to authorize Bush to use force in Iraq:
Quote:
http://www.factcheck.org/article358.html
Iraq: What Did Congress Know, And When?
Bush says Congress had the same (faulty) intelligence he did. Howard Dean says intelligence was "corrupted." We give facts.
November 19, 2005
........<b>Misleading the Public?</b>
Neither the Senate Intelligence Committee nor the Silberman-Robb commission considered how Bush and his top aides used the intelligence that was given to them, or whether they misled the public. The Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to take that up in "phase two" of its investigation – and there's plenty to investigate.
Vice President Cheney, for example, said this on NBC's Meet the Press barely a month before Congress voted to authorize force:
Cheney, Sept. 8, 2002: But we do know, with absolute certainty, that he (Saddam) is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon.
<b>As we've seen, that was wrong.</b> Department of Energy and State Department intelligence analysts did not agree with the Vice President's claim, which turned out to be false. Cheney may have felt "absolute certainty" in his own mind, but that certainty wasn't true of the entire intelligence community, as his use of the word "we" implied.
<b>Similarly, the President himself said this in a speech to the nation, just three days before the House vote to authorize force:
Bush, Oct. 7, 2002: We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases . And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.
Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.
That statement is open to challenge on two grounds. For one thing, as we've seen, the intelligence community was reporting to Bush and Congress that they thought it unlikely that Saddam would give chemical or biological weapons to terrorists – and only "if sufficiently desperate" and as a "last chance to exact revenge" for the very attack that Bush was then advocating.
Furthermore, the claim that Iraq had trained al Qaeda in the use of poison gas turned out to be false, and some in the intelligence community were expressing doubts about it at the time Bush spoke.</b> It was based on statements by a senior trainer for al Qaeda who had been captured in Afghanistan. The detainee, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, took back his story in 2004 and the CIA withdrew all claims based on it. But even at the time Bush spoke, Pentagon intelligence analysts said it was likely al-Libi was lying.
According to newly declassified documents, the Defense Intelligence Agency said in February 2002 – seven months before Bush's speech – "it is . . . likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers. Ibn al-Shaykh has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may be describing scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest. . . . Saddam’s regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control." The DIA's doubts were revealed Nov. 6 in newly declassified documents made public by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, a member of the Intelligence Committee.
Whether or not Bush was aware of the Pentagon's doubts is not yet clear....
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Bush gave a series of speeches to US troops on November 11, 2005. Reporters for the Washington Post reported similar conclusions about Bush making misleading statements, as the conclusions of factcheck.org
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...111101832.html
Asterisks Dot White House's Iraq Argument
By Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 12, 2005; Page A01
President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.
Neither assertion is wholly accurate.
The administration's overarching point is true: Intelligence agencies overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and very few members of Congress from either party were skeptical about this belief before the war began in 2003. Indeed, top lawmakers in both parties were emphatic and certain in their public statements.
But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.
National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, briefing reporters Thursday, countered "the notion that somehow this administration manipulated the intelligence." He said that "those people who have looked at that issue, some committees on the Hill in Congress, and also the Silberman-Robb Commission, have concluded it did not happen."
But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions. And Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005: "Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry."
Bush, in Pennsylvania yesterday, was more precise, but he still implied that it had been proved that the administration did not manipulate intelligence, saying that those who suggest the administration "manipulated the intelligence" are "fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments."
In the same speech, Bush asserted that "more than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power." Giving a preview of Bush's speech, Hadley had said that "we all looked at the same intelligence."
But Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country.
In addition, there were doubts within the intelligence community not included in the NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used publicly by members of Congress because the classified information had not been cleared for release. For example, the NIE view that Hussein would not use weapons of mass destruction against the United States or turn them over to terrorists unless backed into a corner was cleared for public use only a day before the Senate vote.
The lawmakers are partly to blame for their ignorance. Congress was entitled to view the 92-page National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq before the October 2002 vote. But, as The Washington Post reported last year, no more than six senators and a handful of House members read beyond the five-page executive summary.
Even within the Bush administration, not everybody consistently viewed Iraq as what Hadley called "an enormous threat." In a news conference in February 2001 in Egypt, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said of the economic sanctions against Hussein's Iraq: "Frankly, they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction."
Bush, in his speech Friday, said that "it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." But in trying to set the record straight, he asserted: "When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support."
The October 2002 joint resolution authorized the use of force in Iraq, but it did not directly mention the removal of Hussein from power.....
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22 months ago, Bush described much progress in training Iraqi troops to assume the duties performed in Iraq by American troops.
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040923-8.html
September 23, 2004
President Bush and Prime Minister Allawi Press Conference
The Rose Garden
...... PRESIDENT BUSH: We're making steady progress in implementing our five-step plan toward the goal we all want, completing the mission so that Iraq is stable and self-governing, and American troops can come home with the honor they have earned. .........
....... The second step is to help Iraq's new government establish stability and security. Iraq must be able to defend itself. And Iraqi security forces are taking increasing responsibility for their country's security. Nearly 100,000 fully trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers, police officers, and other security personnel are working today. And that total will rise to 125,000 by the end of this year. The Iraqi government is on track to build a force of over 200,000 security personnel by the end of next year. With the help of the American military, the training of the Iraqi army is almost halfway complete...........
...... The Prime Minister said something very interesting a while ago, and it's important for the American people to understand. Our strategy is to help the Iraqis help themselves. It's important that we train Iraqi troops. There are nearly 100,000 troops trained. The Afghan (sic) national army is a part of the army. By the way -- it's the Afghan [sic] national army that went into Najaf and did the work there. There's a regular army being trained. There are border guards being trained. There are police being trained. That's a key part of our mission...........
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53 weeks later, there was only one Iraqi military brigade trained and equipped well enough to fight "on it's own".........
Quote:
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcrip...ecdef4002.html
Presenter: Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld Friday, September 30, 2005 1:05 p.m. EDT
News Briefing with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
....... SEC. RUMSFELD: Charlie?
Q: General, you and General Abizaid and the secretary, and others, have said that in large measure, our ability to pull American troops out of Iraq will depend on progress in training the Iraqi forces. You've just given a large number of figures there. <b>But you said yesterday that only one Iraqi battalion, army battalion now, instead of the three previously stated, are able now to operate alone without U.S. military help.</b> And yet you say that's not a setback to U.S. hopes to leave Iraq.
Would you explain that? How is that not a setback, sir?
GEN. CASEY: Charlie, think about what you're saying; two battalions out of a hundred. One thing. Second, let me explain here the different levels and why we set them up like we did.
First of all, we purposely set a very high standard for the first level, because as we looked at our strategy, we said that whatever happens with the Iraqi security forces, when we leave them, we have to leave them at a level where they can sustain the counterinsurgency effort with progressively less support from us. So that first one is a very, very high standard. We set that standard knowing full well that it was going to be a long time before all Iraqi units got in that category. And so the fact that there's only one or three units, that is not necessarily important to me right now. Next year at this time, I'll be much more concerned about it. Right now I'm not.
Second thing, level two. And this is -- this, for us right now is the most important level, because we purposely adopted a level that would allow us to measure their capability to take the lead in conducting counterinsurgency operations, with our support, with our transition teams and enablers. And again, while these numbers are classified, the numbers of units in level two have doubled since May. So that's where we should be focusing our attention at this point.
Level three are those units that are not quite at level two, but they are also in the fight with us. And I think you've heard that said; over 75 percent of these Iraqi units are out there with us in the fight every day. They're just -- some are leading; some are operating with us. Okay?
So, you asked me, is it a setback, and I say no, it's not a setback. I mean, unit readiness is going to fluctuate. And it is such a small number, and at this stage I'm not concerned about small numbers in level one.
Q: General, can you --
Q: How quickly -- do you expect other units to quickly move from stage two to stage one? Or do you think that will be a long time?
GEN. CASEY: I think it will be a while. I think before we see much movement from two to one, it's going to be a couple of months. But I think you're going to see, and we are seeing, monthly movement from three to two. ........
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Ten months after that.....last week.....instead of reducing US forces, it was necessary to increase the US force in Iraq by 3500 combat troops, and the two top US generals and the outgoing British ambassador to Iraq, all assessed Iraq as potentially descending into civil war........two weeks ago, a US general, Chiarelli said:
Quote:
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"For the military the plant is uncharted ground. Quite frankly, in 33 years in the United States Army I never trained to stop a sectarian fight," he said. "This is something," end quote.
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...080300802.html
Transcript
Opening Statements: U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on Iraq and Afghanistan
CQ Transcripts Wire
Thursday, August 3, 2006; 1:26 PM
.......WARNER: Good morning, everyone.
The committee meets this morning to receive testimony from the distinguished secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General John Abizaid, commander, the United States Central Command, on progress in Iraq, Afghanistan, the war on terrorism and such other aspects as relative to your area of operations........
......In meetings with Prime Minister Maliki, President Bush reaffirmed America's commitment to support Iraq's constitutional democracy, to help Prime Minister Maliki's government succeed.
July 25th, President Bush said, "The Iraqi people want to succeed, they want to end this violence." The president also said that "America will not abandon the Iraqi people."
I am, however, gravely concerned by the recent spike in violence and sectarian attacks, the instability in Baghdad and recent decisions to extend the deployment of 3,500 American troops in Iraq, relocated additional American forces to reinforce Baghdad. Those were important decisions made by you, Mr. Secretary, General Abizaid, of course, you, Chairman. I hope that you will share with us this morning the reasons for doing so........
.....LEVIN: The British ambassador made the following assessment, according to USA Today: that the British ambassador to Iraq -- it's Mr. Patey, I believe, P-A-T-E-Y -- has warned that Iraq is descending toward civil war. And he said it's likely to split along ethnic lines. And he's reported as predicting that Iraq's security situation could remain volatile for the next 10 years.
Do you agree, General, with the ambassador from Britain to Iraq that Iraq is sliding toward civil war?
ABIZAID: I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war.
LEVIN: Mr. Chairman, thank you. My time's up. And thank you again for allowing me to go ahead of you.
WARNER: I want to go back to, Mr. Secretary Rumsfeld, the observations I made in the opening statement.
On July 17th, at about 8 o'clock, I went to the floor of the Senate.
WARNER: The Senate was about to consider a resolution -- an important resolution, reaffirming our support for Israel. But I said the following: I said I was concerned that we should take into account America's broader interests in the region as we approach this resolution.
I said specifically America's operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken the lives of more than 2,500 American service men, over 20 some odd thousand still severely wounded, and over $436 billion of our taxpayers' money over these three years.
That's an enormous investment of this country. And the credibility of our country in many respects rests on the conclusion of that conflict in such a way that the Iraqi government can exercise sovereignty and bring about a measure of freedom and democracy.
We're committed to that. And I stand strongly with our president to achieve that goal.....
......WARNER: Mr. Secretary, that situation in Iraq is fragile. We need only look at the Baghdad situation. Baghdad could literally tilt this thing if it fails to be brought -- about a measure of security for those people -- tilt it in a way that we could slide toward a civil war that General Abizaid recalled.
General Pace, I go back to the resolution of October the 16th, 2002, which I participated in, my good friend to the left, in drawing up that resolution for the Senate.
It authorized the president of the United States to use the armed forces of the United States to: one, defend the national security of our country against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; two, enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
Many of those missions set out and envisioned by the Congress when it gave this authority, namely the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime, have been achieved.
WARNER: But now, in the words of General Abizaid, we're on the brink of a civil war.
And I don't have the exact words before me, but I was struck by General Chiarelli's statement the other day that in his 35 years of military training, he really never had spent a day preparing for what faces him as our commander of forces in Iraq: sectarian violence, civil war.
What is the mission of the United States today under this resolution if that situation erupts into a civil war? What are the missions of our forces?
PACE: Sir, I believe that we do have the possibility of that devolving to a civil war, but that does not have to be a fact.
I believe that U.S. armed forces today can continue to do what we're doing, which is to help provide enough security inside of Iraq for the Iraqi government to provide governance and economic opportunity for their citizens.
The weight of that opportunity rests with the Iraqi people. We can provide support. We can help provide security. But they must now decide about their sectarian violence.
Shia and Sunni are going to have to love their children more than they hate each other. If they do that and seize the opportunity that the international community has provided to them, then this will be what we want it to be, which is a success for ourselves and the Iraqi people.
PACE: But the weight of that shift must be on the Iraqi people and Iraqi government.
WARNER: I think we have to examine very carefully what Congress authorized the president to do in the context of a situation if we're faced with an all-out civil war and whether we have to come back to the Congress to get further indication of support.
General Abizaid, I've had the privilege of knowing you for a long time, and I really think you speak with remarkable candor and draw on an extraordinary career professionalism. You spent one year of your career in Lebanon. Lebanon is a part of your area of responsibility as CENTCOM commander.
Do you agree with the premise that in this current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, recognizing that Hezbollah attacked Israel, recognizing that Israel has got a perfect right to defend itself, but in so executing their military campaign, it is essential, in my judgment, the Lebanese government not be toppled as a consequence of the infrastructure that's being destroyed during the course of this war.......
WARNER: Thank you.
For the record, this is the General Chiarelli's full statement. It is July 27, 2006. He said, quote, "For the military the plant is uncharted ground. Quite frankly, in 33 years in the United States Army I never trained to stop a sectarian fight," he said. "This is something," end quote. That's the quote to which I referred to and Senator Kennedy referred to.....
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Quote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14320452/
Source: U.S., U.K. at odds over timing of arrests
British wanted to continue surveillance on terror suspects, official says
By Aram Roston, Lisa Myers, and the NBC News Investigative Unit
NBC News
Updated: 7:13 p.m. ET Aug 12, 2006
LONDON - NBC News has learned that U.S. and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.
A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while <b>American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.</b>
In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying <h3>the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports.</h3>
The source did say, however, that police believe one U.K.-based suspect was ready to conduct a "dry run." British authorities had wanted to let him go forward with part of the plan, but the Americans balked.
At the White House, a top aide to President Bush denied the account. .....
....Another U.S. official, however, acknowledges there was disagreement over timing. </b`>Analysts say that in recent years, American security officials have become edgier than the British in such cases because of missed opportunities leading up to 9/11.</b>
Aside from the timing issue, there was excellent cooperation between the British and the Americans, officials told NBC.
The British official said the <b>Americans also argued over the timing of the arrest of suspected ringleader Rashid Rauf in Pakistan, warning that if he was not taken into custody immediately, the U.S. would "render" him or pressure the Pakistani government to arrest him.</b>
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As we can see in the final quote box, a report today indicates that we should be asking. not only how "fighting them in Iraq", did anything to lessen the threat that this week turned into the first code red "terror alert" in the US, but also whether the disclosure of the foiled "terror threat", had more to do with hyping the seriousness of the threat for political advantage in the campaign for US mid-term elections to be held less than ten weeks from now, than it had to do with a real threat to airline passenger safety. Mr. Bush's administration has known about the threat of smuggled liquid explosives onto
airliners, since 1996. They have spent more than $400 billion on wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan. How much spending have they earmarked for research on the development of liquid and gel chemical detection/screening equipment to neutralize a known threat to the most well known 9/11 vulnerability....airline security? I can't trust Mr, Bush to command our son in the military, or to lead our country....and it has nothing to do with photoshopped photos in Palestine
Last edited by host; 08-12-2006 at 09:55 PM..
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08-08-2006, 09:35 PM
Though I view the lefts refusal to even discuss the concept proof to me that they don't care about the truth in this matter, only their oddly selected support for a 8th century agenda.
