The effectiveness of the War on Terror - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Willravel · 09-25-2006, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Any chance we could change the 'post the article rule' to 'post the link if the article is over a certain length' rule?

If you're having trouble reading it all, I can call you while you're doing what you normally do and read it to you aloud.

Anything to help.

Ustwo · 09-25-2006, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

If you're having trouble reading it all, I can call you while you're doing what you normally do and read it to you aloud.

Anything to help.

Oh I have no trouble reading it, but my mouses scroll button is wearing out due to one poster. He used to get time outs for it, but things have kinda gotten lax lately and its back in full force again.

Elphaba · 09-25-2006, 02:23 PM

Thank you, host. I had not known of Ms. Bell until now and I appreciate the time you took to find and post this information. Very informative.

dc_dux · 09-25-2006, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

You know there are many angles to look at this from but one I have to guess no one else has thought of yet (though I haven't read the thread that closesly).

Are these the same intelligence agencies who had definate proof of WMD's in Iraq?

Mind you of course it was a classified report, isn't quoted, and this was published by the NYT's (of course) so we are obviously getting only one side of the story.

Are you suggesting that there have been no improvements in our intelligence gathering and analysis capabilities in the last three years of the Bush/Republican Congress administration?

At least Tony Snow, admitted some culpability today...if you read his half-assed response ...after an initial denial.

Quote:

MR. SNOW: I think it's important -- one thing that the reports do not say is that war in Iraq has made terrorism worse. ......

The report is not limited to Iraq. I'll just read these out. First, the false impression has been created that the NIE focuses solely on Iraq and terrorism. This NIE examines global terrorism in its totality, the morphing of al Qaeda and its affiliates and other jihadist movements. It assesses that a variety of factors, in addition to Iraq, fuel the spread of jihadism, including longstanding social grievances, slowness of the pace of reform, and the use of the Internet. And it also notes that should jihadists be perceived to have failed in Iraq, fewer will be inspired to carry on the fight.

Agreed...it is not solely the result of our Iraq folly...its in addition to.

host · 09-26-2006, 10:53 AM

It's been reported today that the white house is sitting on a second intel report, specifically about the situation in Iraq, and it is not being called an NIE, probably because that would tend to make it more prominent:

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001603.php

BREAKING: Harman Calls for Release of Second Secret Iraq Report
By Justin Rood - September 26, 2006, 12:15 PM

There's a second damning Iraq report floating around the intelligence community.

At least, that's according to Rep. Jane Harman (CA), the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee. At an event this morning, Harman disclosed the existence of a classified intelligence community report that gives a grim assessment of the situation in Iraq, and called for it to be shared with the American public -- before the November elections.

The report has not been shared with Congress, although sources say a draft version may have circulated earlier this summer. It is a separate report from the one revealed by major news outlets Sunday, which is said to conclude that the war in Iraq has made the U.S. less secure from terrorist threats.

"This morning at the National Press Club, Jane Harman did say that there is an [National Intelligence Estimate] on Iraq," her spokesman, Ari Goldberg, confirmed. Golberg said he had not read the report, but believes it may be grim. Sources at the event say the document is not officially an NIE, although it was prepared by the National Intelligence Council, an community-wide intelligence body whose primary function is to prepare NIEs.

Dr. Lawrence Korb, a former senior Defense Department official now with the liberal-progressive Center for American Progress, hasn't seen the report but has discussed it with those who have. "It's a very bleak picture of what's going on in Iraq," he said.......

The mission is to keep a lid on the "bad" news until after the mid-term elections. The irony, IMO, is that there is nothing that could be reported. that will influence those who still intend to vote for republican candidates, and democrats who advocated "staying the course", in Iraq, from changing who they vote for. To do so, in the minds of these voters, would be to send a signal to the "enemy", that the US is growing "soft" on it's commitment to continuing the GWOT.

update:

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001606.php
Transcript: Harman Reveals 2nd Iraq Report
By Justin Rood - September 26, 2006, 2:35 PM

As reported here earlier, here are Rep. Jane Harman's (D-CA) comments this morning about this second secret Iraq report, from CQ Transcriptions:

Quote:

"I have also learned that there is a [National Intelligence Estimate] on Iraq -- specifically on Iraq -- that has been left in draft form at the National Intelligence Council. That is because some of our leaders don't want us to see it until after the election. It should be clear five years after 9/11 that we need accurate and actionable intelligence -- actionable in real time -- and we need our leaders to read that intelligence and cite it accurately. Sadly, we're doing better on the first piece; we're not doing better on the second piece."

dc_dux · 09-26-2006, 03:14 PM

The "key judgements" section of the NIE was declassified today.

Among those judgements:

The Iraq conflict has become the ’cause celebre’ for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement. Shoud jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.

Four underlying factors are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement:
(1) Entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation and a sense of powerlessness;
(2) the Iraq "jihad";
(3) the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations, and;
(4) pervaisve anti-American sentiment among the Muslims.

http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/De..._Judgments.pdf

So Bush, Cheney, RIce knew in April when this NIE was submitted to the White House that the Iraq "jihad" was one of the factors spreading the jihadist movement, yet continue to say otherwise.

Bush:

"To suggest that if we weren't in Iraq we would see a rosier scenario (maybe not), with fewer extremists joining the radical movement (more likely than not), requires us to ignore 20 years of experience,"

Cheney, when asked by Tim Russert if the U.S. involvement in Iraq is creating more terrorists:

"I, I, I can’t buy that".

Rice:

"Now that we're fighting back, of course they are fighting back, too." (if we didnt start the war, would so many jihadist be in Iraq?)

"I find it just extraordinary that the argument is, all right, so they're using the fact they're being challenged in the Middle East and challenged in Iraq to recruit, therefore you've made the war on terrorism worse.

More on the declassified NIE:

Quote:

The war in Iraq has become a "cause celebre" for Islamic extremists, breeding deep resentment of the U.S. that probably will get worse before it gets better, federal intelligence analysts conclude in a report at odds with President Bush's portrayal of a world growing safer.

In the bleak report, declassified and released Tuesday on Bush's orders, the nation's most veteran analysts conclude that despite serious damage to the leadership of al-Qaida, the threat from Islamic extremists has spread both in numbers and in geographic reach.

Bush and his top advisers have said the formerly classified assessment of global terrorism supported their arguments that the world is safer because of the war. But more than three pages of stark judgments warning about the spread of terrorism contrasted with the administration's glass-half-full declarations.

"If this trend continues, threats to U.S. interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide," the document says. "The confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups."
...
Virtually all assessments of the current situation were bad news. The report's few positive notes were couched in conditional terms, depending on successful completion of difficult tasks ahead for the U.S. and its allies.....

full article: http://apnews.myway.com//article/200...D8KCREQ00.html

Is it wrong to want our leaders to be honest with the American people on such an important issue, rather than lie, spin or obfuscate when the facts reflect poorly on their performance and policy?

host · 09-29-2006, 02:47 AM

Much of the "liberal" press seems to be ignoring the "real" white house Iraq NIE intentional postponement/concealment story. On Wed., Sept. 27, it seems likely that white house spokesman Tony Snow, lied about how long it will take to complete and release to congressional intel committees, the actual NIE, pertaining exclusively to the situation in Iraq, an NIE that Jane Harman, (D-CA) reminded the press of, the other day (see my last post.)
IMO, the "controversy" over the "release" of the current, more general NIE, was to confuse and to deflect attention from the white house effort to conceal the actual NIE on Iraq, until after the mid term elections, five weeks from now. Read what Tony Snow told the press, then read the documentation about NIE preparation "timelines" from a CFR.org web page. (When Bush wanted an NIE on Iraq, to manipulate the Oct., 2002, Senate vote to authorize him to use force in Iraq, that NIE was ready in 3 fucking weeks):

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060927-2.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 27, 2006

Press Briefing by Tony Snow
White House Conference Center Briefing Room

.....So with that as my prelude, let's go to questions. Brett.
Q Tony, can you address the comments of the House Minority Leader and Representative Harmon, saying that there is a second Iraq estimate out there that is in draft form that is being held until after the November elections?

MR. SNOW: They're just flat wrong. What happened is, about a month ago Director Negroponte informed the committees that he was, in fact, going to do an exhaustive review on Iraq. That's a month ago. These reviews take about a year to do, so the idea that it is in "draft" form -- they're just beginning to do their work on it. And Intelligence Committee members if they don't know it, should. But there is not a waiting Iraq document that reflects a national intelligence estimate that's sitting around gathering dust, waiting until after the election.

Q And the fact that they're talking about it being extremely grim, how do you characterize it? Has the President been briefed on this yet?

MR. SNOW: You don't brief somebody on a document that's just in the very early stages of composition. That's what it is.

It must be important to delay the actual NIE on Iraq....Tony Snow lied about it again to the press, on Thurs., Sept. 28. We know from the Aug. 5th Wapo reporting, displayed below, that Negroponte committed to doing the new NIE....the first since 2004.....on Aug. 4th. We know that Tony Snow has stated repeatedly, on Sept. 27 and Sept. 28, that "it was only a month ago...." (he's said it 4 fucking times), but it has been 55 days, as of Sept. 28.....and we know that the Oct., 2002 NIE was completed and distributed in just 3 weeks, and on Nov. 4th, it will be 92 days since Aug. 4th.....so it looks to me like "they" are lying, hiding/delaying important intelligence info, that "they promised to provide.....for political purposes, while more of our troops are being killed in Iraq:

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060928-2.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 28, 2006

Press Gaggle by Tony Snow
Aboard Air Force One
En Route Birmingham, Alabama

.......Q Is there any pressure on Negroponte to get the separate NIE specifically on Iraq out before January '07?

MR. SNOW: No, because he just started it a month ago. The idea that the Director of National Intelligence for political reasons is going to rush into completion something that requires significant deliberation is -- let me say, it would be highly unusual. And I think members of the intelligence committees understand that you want good intelligence done the proper way, with proper vetting and proper collaboration, rather than trying to do a rush job.

And the Director made it known to intelligence committees a month ago that they were beginning the report. They know what the time line is, they also know how long it takes to assemble these things. This is -- you don't pull an all-nighter. It's not like a college term paper that you slap together.

Q But did they already get --

MR. SNOW: And, no, they don't have one on the shelf.

Q Did they already get a head start when they were preparing this overall analysis of the war on terror? Isn't there already material that they can start working from?

MR. SNOW: Yes. Look, these guys do intelligence every day. They have plenty of material to work from, but what you also try to do is you look at disparate analyses and data from a wide variety of intelligence sources. And it takes time for people to work through and look at what they're doing. So whether you have a head start, it doesn't mean that you have a -- the material at hand for doing a comprehensive report. And once again, the idea of trying to do intelligence assessments for political deadlines is not what intelligence analysts signed up to do. Their job is to try to put together objective reports for consumers, which would include members of Congress, and to do so in such a way as to reflect the best judgment and information available. ......

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001615.php
Is WH Slow-Walking New Iraq NIE?
By Justin Rood - September 27, 2006, 2:13 PM

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) kicked up some dust yesterday morning whe she <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001606.php">announced</a> she'd "learned" that there was a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq "that has been left in draft form" because "some of our leaders don't want us to see it until after the election."

The NIE, it seems, was never a big secret; after Democrats bellowed for one in late July, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte announced Aug. 4 he'd whip one up.

And there's scant evidence the report exists "in draft form" -- Harman may have an inside track on the matter, but sources tell me the process remains in a nascent stage.

But is the report being slow-walked? That appears to be somewhere between possible and very likely.

According to White House adviser Fran Townsend, the report is expected to take six months to produce. "Most NIEs are substantial research and writing projects that can take as much as a year," she said yesterday. The six-month timeframe for the Iraq NIE is "still quicker than most NIEs get done.

Quote:

http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=7758#6

How long does it take to write an NIE?

NIE drafting guidelines included in the July 9 Senate report describe three rough timeframes: a "fast track" of two to three weeks, a "normal track" of four to eight weeks, and a "long track" of two months or more. The vice chairman of the NIC told Senate investigators that an NIE prepared in 60 days would be considered a very fast schedule and that NIEs typically take three to six months to complete.
How long did it take for the NIE on Iraq's weapons to be completed?

Less than three weeks......

..........Why the rush?

President George W. Bush asked Congress in mid-September 2002 to pass a resolution granting the U.S. broad authority to use military action against Iraq. But no NIE existed on the status of Iraq's WMD program and much uncertainty surrounded the claims being made by Bush administration officials regarding the threat posed by Iraq's WMD. In requesting the NIE on "an immediate basis," Sen. Feinstein wrote to the director of central intelligence, "I deeply believe that such an estimate is vital to congressional decision-making, and most specifically, [to] any resolution which may come before the Senate." The Iraq resolution was introduced in the Senate on October 2 and approved by Congress on October 11.[2002]

"The timing has got nothing to do with the election," she added.

Townsend appears to have stretched the truth to the point of snapping. <a href="http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=7758">According</a> to a 2004 Senate intelligence committee report, the intelligence community's internal guidelines call for NIEs to be produced on timeframes of between two weeks and around two months. That means that with an Aug. 4 start date, President Bush should have expected a report on his desk around Oct. 4.

What's more, most U.S. intelligence agencies have been grappling with Iraq almost full-time since the invasion, many providing direct warfighter support. This is hardly an obscure intellectual issue for them, nor one that is particularly fuzzy. This may be one of the few reports whose conclusions are widely known before a word is put to paper.

In prognosticating what the upcoming Iraq NIE would say, Newsweek's Mark Hosenball <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14638232/site/newsweek/">reported</a> two weeks ago that Defense officials briefing lawmakers were "paint[ing] a scenario in which Iraq could dissolve into civil war if Iraqi security forces don't soon get their act together."

Seeing those conclusions leaked to the media -- that's an October surprise the White House would likely hope to avoid.

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001613.php
<img src="/images/harman.jpg" hspace=5 vspace=5 align=left>Harman Blasts NIE Release Timeline as "Unacceptable" 
By Justin Rood - September 27, 2006, 12:19 PM
It's starting to look like Rep. Jane Harman's (D-CA) second "secret" Iraq report is one that has been long promised by the Bush administration's top security official.

A quick recap: Amid the ruckus stirred up by reports of a secret report on Iraq and its impact on U.S. counterterrorism efforts, Harman <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001606.php">announced</a> yesterday morning that the Bush administration was withholding a second classified report, this one about the state of Iraq.

An ongoing effort to produce a National Intelligence Estimate -- a conclusive report from the entire intelligence community -- on Iraq has been extensively reported. Following <a href="http://harpers.org/sb-sources-negroponte-nei-cia-1153433546.html">an article</a> by Ken Silverstein at Harpers.org in late July about the lack of an up-to-date intel assessment of the country, Democratic lawmakers slipped a provision into a bill that required Negroponte to produce an NIE on Iraq.

On Aug. 4, Negroponte <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/04/AR2006080401700.html">announced</a> he was ordering the report to be produced.

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...080401700.html
Negroponte Orders an Update On Terrorism's Influence in Iraq

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 5, 2006; Page A07

The office of Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte announced yesterday that it will soon begin drafting an updated National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, a declaration that came amid indications this week that the threat to that country from foreign terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda is receding.

Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command, said Thursday at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Iraq that al-Qaeda in Iraq's ranks had been "significantly depleted" since the June 7 death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Its members, he said, now total "less than 1,000."

That is far below earlier estimates, though several officials said yesterday that not all within the intelligence community agree with Abizaid's number. Over the past year, intelligence and military officials have said foreign fighters made up less than 10 percent of the roughly 20,000 insurgents in Iraq......

......The announcement from Negroponte's office came in a statement released yesterday afternoon. No date beyond "shortly" was offered for the expected completion of the intelligence estimate, the first by U.S. intelligence agencies since mid-2004.......

It appears this is the report Harman was talking about. Yesterday evening, White House adviser Fran Townsend <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001612.php">acknowledged</a> Harman's request by saying Negroponte had ordered the report in August, implying the two were the same. The report would take several months, she said, and would likely not be ready until January. In a letter today, Harman responded to Townsend's comments to say the timeline was unacceptable.

The entirety of Harman's letter after the jump:
<a name="more"></a>
September 27, 2006

The Honorable John Negroponte 
Director of National Intelligence 
New Executive Office Building 
725 Seventeenth Street, N.W. 
Washington, DC 20511

Dear Director Negroponte:

I received your letter of September 26, in which you confirmed that the National Intelligence Council (NIC) is writing a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq. Though you promised that the NIE would be completed "in a timely manner," senior White House officials have indicated publicly that the report may not be completed until January 2007.

This timetable is unacceptable. Sectarian violence, which has reached record levels and continues to grow, is putting our troops - not to mention millions of Iraqis - at grave risk. Furthermore, the proven ineffectiveness of U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces, an absence of effective infrastructure reconstruction, and political crises that threaten the fragile new polity have made it clear that we need a new strategy in Iraq.

NIEs have been produced in as little as several weeks, as in the case of the 2002 report on Iraqi WMD. While I understand the desire to be thorough, events in Iraq make it urgent that the Intelligence Community produce this NIE immediately. If your intention is to delay this report until after the November elections, I do not think that is appropriate given that U.S. troops are at risk at this moment.

U.S. policymakers need the Intelligence Community's insights to determine how to defend our troops and our interests in Iraq. I urge you to expedite completion of the NIE and to release it in both classified and publicly releasable unclassified forms.

Sincerely,

Jane Harman 
Ranking Member
<a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001613.php">Permalink</a> | TOPICS

<h3>To summarize the above info....the reluctant, white house "release" of the "NIE", was meant to confuse people and "hide" the white house's intentional delay of the release of the promised, relevant, 2nd NIE, about the situation in Iraq.</h3>
The information above, combined with the reports that follow, are the closest thing that I hope I will ever experience, that approximates what I suspect "anal rape", must feel like. How can a reasonably thoughtful American, not read and then contemplate all of this, and not end up with similar thoughts? I'm thinking that Cindy Sheehan hasn't reacted to the loss of her son, Casey, in Iraq, at the hands of our criminal leaders, angrily enough, yet!

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...091600193.html
Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq
Early U.S. Missteps in the Green Zone

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 17, 2006; A01

Adapted from "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, copyright Knopf 2006

After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.

To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.

O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade .

Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.

The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration's gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation, which sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort.

The CPA had the power to enact laws, print currency, collect taxes, deploy police and spend Iraq's oil revenue. It had more than 1,500 employees in Baghdad at its height, working under America's viceroy in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, but never released a public roster of its entire staff.

Interviews with scores of former CPA personnel over the past two years depict an organization that was dominated -- and ultimately hobbled -- by administration ideologues.

"We didn't tap -- and it should have started from the White House on down -- just didn't tap the right people to do this job," said Frederick Smith, who served as the deputy director of the CPA's Washington office. "It was a tough, tough job. Instead we got people who went out there because of their political leanings."

Endowed with $18 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds and a comparatively quiescent environment in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. invasion, the CPA was the U.S. government's first and best hope to resuscitate Iraq -- to establish order, promote rebuilding and assemble a viable government, all of which, experts believe, would have constricted the insurgency and mitigated the chances of civil war. Many of the basic tasks Americans struggle to accomplish today in Iraq -- training the army, vetting the police, increasing electricity generation -- could have been performed far more effectively in 2003 by the CPA.

But many CPA staff members were more interested in other things: in instituting a flat tax, in selling off government assets, in ending food rations and otherwise fashioning a new nation that looked a lot like the United States. Many of them spent their days cloistered in the Green Zone, a walled-off enclave in central Baghdad with towering palms, posh villas, well-stocked bars and resort-size swimming pools.

By the time Bremer departed in June 2004, Iraq was in a precarious state. The Iraqi army, which had been dissolved and refashioned by the CPA, was one-third the size he had pledged it would be. Seventy percent of police officers had not been screened or trained. Electricity generation was far below what Bremer had promised to achieve. And Iraq's interim government had been selected not by elections but by Americans. Divisive issues were to be resolved later on, increasing the chances that tension over those matters would fuel civil strife.

To recruit the people he wanted, O'Beirne sought résumés from the offices of Republican congressmen, conservative think tanks and GOP activists. He discarded applications from those his staff deemed ideologically suspect, even if the applicants possessed Arabic language skills or postwar rebuilding experience.

Smith said O'Beirne once pointed to a young man's résumé and pronounced him "an ideal candidate." His chief qualification was that he had worked for the Republican Party in Florida during the presidential election recount in 2000.

<h3>O'Beirne, a former Army officer who is married to prominent conservative commentator Kate O'Beirne, did not respond to requests for comment.</h3>

He and his staff used an obscure provision in federal law to hire many CPA staffers as temporary political appointees, which exempted the interviewers from employment regulations that prohibit questions about personal political beliefs.

There were a few Democrats who wound up getting jobs with the CPA, but almost all of them were active-duty soldiers or State Department Foreign Service officers. Because they were career government employees, not temporary hires, O'Beirne's office could not query them directly about their political leanings.

One former CPA employee who had an office near O'Beirne's wrote an e-mail to a friend describing the recruitment process: "I watched résumés of immensely talented individuals who had sought out CPA to help the country thrown in the trash because their adherence to 'the President's vision for Iraq' (a frequently heard phrase at CPA) was 'uncertain.' I saw senior civil servants from agencies like Treasury, Energy . . . and Commerce denied advisory positions in Baghdad that were instead handed to prominent RNC (Republican National Committee) contributors."

As more and more of O'Beirne's hires arrived in the Green Zone, the CPA's headquarters in Hussein's marble-walled former Republican Palace felt like a campaign war room. Bumper stickers and mouse pads praising President Bush were standard desk decorations. In addition to military uniforms and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" garb, "Bush-Cheney 2004" T-shirts were among the most common pieces of clothing.

<h3>"I'm not here for the Iraqis," one staffer noted to a reporter over lunch. "I'm here for George Bush.".......</h3>

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...040201209.html
Correction to This Article
An April 3 article quoted Stuart Bowen, the top U.S. auditor for reconstruction in Iraq, as saying, "I've been consumed for a year with the fear we would run out of money to finish projects." Bowen actually said, "I've been concerned about cost-to-complete for a year, and the reason I've been concerned about cost-to-complete is the fear that we would run out of money to finish projects, and so I can't say that this isn't going to happen again because we never really did get a good grasp on cost-to-complete data."
U.S. Plan to Build Iraq Clinics Falters
Contractor Will Try to Finish 20 of 142 Sites

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 3, 2006; A01

BAGHDAD -- A reconstruction contract for the building of 142 primary health centers across Iraq is running out of money, after two years and roughly $200 million, with no more than 20 clinics now expected to be completed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says.

The contract, awarded to U.S. construction giant Parsons Inc. in the flush, early days of reconstruction in Iraq, was expected to lay the foundation of a modern health care system for the country, putting quality medical care within reach of all Iraqis.

Parsons, according to the Corps, will walk away from more than 120 clinics that on average are two-thirds finished. Auditors say the project serves as a warning for other U.S. reconstruction efforts due to be completed this year.

Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps commander overseeing reconstruction in Iraq, said he still hoped to complete all 142 clinics as promised and was seeking emergency funds from the U.S. military and foreign donors. "I'm fairly confident," McCoy said.

Coming with little public warning, the 86 percent shortfall of completions dismayed the World Health Organization's representative for Iraq. "That's not good. That's shocking," Naeema al-Gasseer said by telephone from Cairo. "We're not sending the right message here. That's affecting people's expectations and people's trust, I must say."

By the end of 2006, the $18.4 billion that Washington has allocated for Iraq's reconstruction runs out. All remaining projects in the U.S. reconstruction program, including electricity, water, sewer, health care and the justice system, are due for completion. As a result, the next nine months are crunchtime for the easy-term contracts that were awarded to American contractors early on, before surging violence drove up security costs and idled workers.

Stuart Bowen, the top U.S. auditor for reconstruction, warned in a telephone interview from Washington that other reconstruction efforts may fall short like that of Parsons. "I've been consumed for a year with the fear we would run out of money to finish projects," said Bowen, the inspector general for reconstruction in Iraq.

The reconstruction campaign in Iraq is the largest such American undertaking since World War II. The rebuilding efforts have remained a point of pride for American troops and leaders as they struggle with an insurgency and now Shiite Muslim militias and escalating sectarian conflict.

The Corps of Engineers says the campaign so far has renovated or built 3,000 schools, upgraded 13 hospitals and created hundreds of border forts and police stations. Major projects this summer, the Corps says, should noticeably improve electricity and other basic services, which have fallen below prewar levels despite the billions of dollars that the United States already has expended toward reconstruction here.

Violence for which the United States failed to plan has consumed up to half the $18.4 billion through higher costs to guard project sites and workers and through direct shifts of billions of dollars to build Iraq's police and military.

In January, Bowen's office calculated the American reconstruction effort would be able to finish only 300 of 425 promised electricity projects and 49 of 136 water and sanitation projects.

U.S. authorities say they made a special effort to preserve the more than $700 million of work for Iraq's health care system, which had fallen into decay after two decades of war and international sanctions.

Doctors in Baghdad's hospitals still cite dirty water as one of the major killers of infants. The city's hospitals place medically troubled newborns two to an incubator, when incubators work at all.

Early in the occupation, U.S. officials mapped out the construction of 300 primary-care clinics, said Gasseer, the WHO official. In addition to spreading basic health care beyond the major cities into small towns, the clinics were meant to provide training for Iraq's medical professionals. "Overall, they were considered vital," she said.

In April 2004, the project was awarded to Parsons Inc. of Pasadena, Calif., a leading construction firm in domestic and international markets. McCoy, the Corps of Engineers commander, said Parsons has been awarded about $1 billion in reconstruction projects in Iraq.

Like much U.S. government work in 2003 and 2004, the contract was awarded on terms known as "cost-plus," Parsons said, meaning that the company could bill the government for its actual cost, rather than a cost agreed to at the start, and add a profit margin. The deal was also classified as "design-build," in which the contractor oversees the project from design to completion.

These terms, among the most generous possible for contractors, were meant to encourage companies to undertake projects in a dangerous environment and complete them quickly.

McCoy said Parsons subcontracted the clinics to four main Iraqi companies, which often hired local firms to do the actual construction, creating several tiers of overhead costs.

Starting in 2004, the need for security sent costs soaring. Insurgent attacks forced companies to organize mini-militias to guard employees and sites; work often was idled when sites were judged to be too dangerous. Western contractors often were reduced to monitoring work sites by photographs, Parsons officials said.

"Security degenerated from the beginning. The expectations on the part of Parsons and the U.S. government was we would have a very benign construction environment, like building a clinic in Falls Church," said Earnest Robbins, senior vice president for the international division of Parsons in Fairfax, Va. Difficulty choosing sites for the clinics also delayed work, Robbins said.

Faced with a growing insurgency, U.S. authorities in 2004 took funding away from many projects to put it into building up Iraqi security forces.

"During that period, very little actual project work, dirt-turning, was being done," Bowen said. At the same time, "we were paying large overhead for contractors to remain in-country." Overhead has consumed 40 percent to 50 percent of the clinic project's budget, McCoy said.

In 2005, plans were scaled back to build 142 primary clinics by December of that year, an extended deadline. By December, however, only four had been completed, reconstruction officials said. Two more were finished weeks later. With the money almost all gone, the Corps of Engineers and Parsons reached what both sides described as a negotiated settlement under which Parsons would try to finish 14 more clinics by early April and then leave the project.

The agreement stipulated that the contract was terminated by consensus, not for cause, the Corps and Parsons said.

Both said the Corps had wanted to cancel the contract outright, and McCoy rejected the reasons that Parsons put forward for the slow progress.

"In the time they completed 45 projects, I completed 500 projects," he said. Parsons has a number of other contracts in Baghdad, from oil-facility upgrades to border forts to prisons. "The fact is it is hard, but there are companies over here that are doing it."

Bowen called the outcome "a worst-case scenario. I think it's an anomaly." He said, however, that U.S. reconstruction overseers overwhelmingly have neglected to keep running track of the remaining costs of each project, leaving it unclear until the end whether the costs are equal to the budget.

"I can't say this isn't going to happen again, because we really haven't gotten a grasp" of the cost of finishing the many pending projects, Bowen said.

Quote:

http://enr.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0271-28856_ITM
IG To Review Parsons' Jobs Amid a Pattern of Problems - McGraw-Hill Construction | ENR

Publication Date: 26-JUN-06
Author: Mary Buckner Powers

Description
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has terminated a $99-million contract held by Parsons Corp. to build a prison in Iraq for failure to achieve critical completion dates, resulting in increased cost. The project was more than two years behind schedule and about $25 million over budget, the Corps says.

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn..._world/mideast
Heralded Iraq Police Academy a 'Disaster'

By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 28, 2006; A01

BAGHDAD, Sept. 27 -- A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially demolished, U.S. investigators have found.

The Baghdad Police College, hailed as crucial to U.S. efforts to prepare Iraqis to take control of the country's security, was so poorly constructed that feces and urine rained from the ceilings in student barracks. Floors heaved inches off the ground and cracked apart. Water dripped so profusely in one room that it was dubbed "the rain forest."

<h3>"This is the most essential civil security project in the country -- and it's a failure," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an independent office created by Congress. "The Baghdad police academy is a disaster."</h3>

Bowen's office plans to release a 21-page report Thursday detailing the most alarming problems with the facility.

Even in a $21 billion reconstruction effort that has been marred by cases of corruption and fraud, failures in training and housing Iraq's security forces are particularly significant because of their effect on what the U.S. military has called its primary mission here: to prepare Iraqi police and soldiers so that Americans can depart.

Federal investigators said the inspector general's findings raise serious questions about whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has failed to exercise effective oversight over the Baghdad Police College or reconstruction programs across Iraq, despite charging taxpayers management fees of at least 4.5 percent of total project costs. The Corps of Engineers said Wednesday that it has initiated a wide-ranging investigation of the police academy project.

The report serves as the latest indictment of Parsons Corp., the U.S. construction giant that was awarded about $1 billion for a variety of reconstruction projects across Iraq. After chronicling previous Parsons failures to properly build health clinics, prisons and hospitals, Bowen said he now plans to conduct an audit of every Parsons project.

<h3>"The truth needs to be told about what we didn't get for our dollar from Parsons," Bowen said.</h3>

A spokeswoman for Parsons said the company had not seen the inspector general's report.

The Coalition Provisional Authority hired Parsons in 2004 to transform the Baghdad Police College, a ramshackle collection of 1930s buildings, into a modern facility whose training capacity would expand from 1,500 recruits to at least 4,000. The contract called for the firm to remake the campus by building, among other things, eight three-story student barracks, classroom buildings and a central laundry facility.

As top U.S. military commanders declared 2006 "the year of the police," in an acknowledgment of their critical role in allowing for any withdrawal of American troops, officials highlighted the Baghdad Police College as one of their success stories.

"This facility has definitely been a top priority," Lt. Col. Joel Holtrop of the Corps of Engineers' Gulf Region Division Project and Contracting Office said in a July news release. "It's a very exciting time as the cadets move into the new structures."

Complaints about the new facilities, however, began pouring in two weeks after the recruits arrived at the end of May, a Corps of Engineers official said.

The most serious problem was substandard plumbing that caused waste from toilets on the second and third floors to cascade throughout the building. A light fixture in one room stopped working because it was filled with urine and fecal matter. The waste threatened the integrity of load-bearing slabs, federal investigators concluded.

"When we walked down the halls, the Iraqis came running up and said, 'Please help us. Please do something about this,' " Bowen recalled.

Phillip A. Galeoto, director of the Baghdad Police College, wrote an Aug. 16 memo that catalogued at least 20 problems: shower and bathroom fixtures that leaked from the first day of occupancy, concrete and tile floors that heaved more than two inches off the ground, water rushing down hallways and stairwells because of improper slopes or drains in bathrooms, classroom buildings with foundation problems that caused structures to sink.

Galeoto noted that one entire building and five floors in others had to be shuttered for repairs, limiting the capacity of the college by up to 800 recruits. His memo, too, pointed out that the urine and feces flowed throughout the building and, sometimes, onto occupants of the barracks.

"This is not a complete list," he wrote, but rather a snapshot of "issues we are confronted with on a daily basis (as recent as the last hour) by the incomplete and/or poor work left behind by these builders."

The Parsons contract, which eventually totaled at least $75 million, was terminated May 31 "due to cost overruns, schedule slippage, and sub-standard quality," according to a Sept. 4 internal military memo. But rather than fire the Pasadena, Calif.-based company for cause, the contract was halted for "the government's convenience."

Col. Michael Herman -- deputy commander of the Gulf Region Division of the Corps of Engineers, which was supposed to oversee the project -- said the Iraqi subcontractors hired by Parsons were being forced to fix the building problems as part of their warranty work, at no cost to taxpayers. He said four of the eight barracks have been repaired.

The U.S. military initially agreed to take a Washington Post reporter on a tour of the facility Wednesday to examine the construction issues, but the trip was postponed Tuesday night. Federal investigators who visited the academy last week, though, expressed concerns about the structural integrity of the buildings and worries that fecal residue could cause a typhoid outbreak or other health crisis.

"They may have to demolish everything they built," said Robert DeShurley, a senior engineer with the inspector general's office. "The buildings are falling down as they sit."

Herman said that he doubted that was the case but that he plans to hire an architecture and engineering firm to examine the facility. He also plans to investigate concerns raised by the inspector general's office that the Army Corps of Engineers did not properly respond to construction problems highlighted in quality-control reports.

Inside the inspector general's office in Baghdad on a recent blistering afternoon, several federal investigators expressed amazement that such construction blunders could be concentrated in one project. Even in Iraq, they said, failure on this magnitude is unusual. When asked how the problems at the police college compared with other projects they had inspected, the answers came swiftly.

"This is significant," said Jon E. Novak, a senior adviser in the office.

"It's catastrophic," DeShurley added.

Bowen said: "It's the worst."

A question for those who "buy into" L. Brent Bozell III's "liberal bias" of the news media, bullshit, why did clarification of the intentional delay of the actual NIE on Iraq....the 2nd NIE"....have to be assembled and posted on an comparatively insignifigant politcs forum, such as this....instead of being "catapulted", via the "biased media", to embarass the earnest, patriotic, "terrur fightin", pretzeldent?

Ustwo · 09-29-2006, 05:59 AM

host my good man, compared to you the press is down right fascist I'm sure, but you come from a very different perspective.

09-29-2006, 05:59 AM	#48 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	host my good man, compared to you the press is down right fascist I'm sure, but you come from a very different perspective. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

09-25-2006, 02:23 PM	#43 (permalink)
Elphaba Deja Moo Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA	Thank you, host. I had not known of Ms. Bell until now and I appreciate the time you took to find and post this information. Very informative.