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Bush, Blair Concede Missteps on Iraq...sm

Posted By: Democrat on 2006-05-26
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Bush, Blair Concede Missteps on Iraq

But Leaders Say War Was Justified

By Glenn Kessler and Michael A. Fletcher

Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 26, 2006; Page A01

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair last night acknowledged a series of errors in managing the occupation of Iraq that have made the conflict more difficult and more damaging to the U.S. image abroad, even as they insisted that enough progress has been made that other nations should support the nascent Iraqi government.

In a joint news conference, Bush said he had used inappropriate tough talk -- such as saying bring 'em on in reference to insurgents -- that he said sent the wrong signal to people. He also said the biggest mistake for the United States was the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, in which guards photographed themselves sexually tormenting Iraqi prisoners, spawning revulsion worldwide. We've been paying for that for a long period of time, he said.

Blair, who visited Baghdad this week, said he and Bush should have recognized that the fall of president Saddam Hussein would not be the rise of a democratic Iraq, that it was going to be a more difficult process because you're talking about literally building the institutions of a state from scratch.

While Bush increasingly has begun to acknowledge missteps in handling the war, his comments last night -- together with Blair's -- represent his most explicit acknowledgment that the administration underestimated the difficulty of the central project of his presidency

LINK/URL: Full story

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Bush, Blair Concede Missteps on Iraq...sm - Democrat

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Britain to pull troops from Iraq as Blair says 'don't force me out' sm-long article
Britain to pull troops from Iraq as Blair says 'don't force me out'

� Defence Secretary confident withdrawal will start in May
� Plan follows pressure for exit strategy

Peter Beaumont and Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday September 25, 2005
The Observer

British troops will start a major withdrawal from Iraq next May under detailed plans on military disengagement to be published next month, The Observer can reveal.

The document being drawn up by the British government and the US will be presented to the Iraqi parliament in October and will spark fresh controversy over how long British troops will stay in the country. Tony Blair hopes that, despite continuing and widespread violence in Iraq, the move will show that there is progress following the conflict of 2003.

Britain has already privately informed Japan - which also has troops in Iraq - of its plans to begin withdrawing from southern Iraq in May, a move that officials in Tokyo say would make it impossible for their own 550 soldiers to remain.

The increasingly rapid pace of planning for British military disengagement has been revealed on the eve of the Labour Party conference, which will see renewed demands for a deadline for withdrawal. It is hoped that a clearer strategy on Iraq will quieten critics who say that the government will not be able to 'move on' until Blair quits. Yesterday, about 10,000 people demonstrated against the army's continued presence in the country.

Speaking to The Observer this weekend, the Defence Secretary, John Reid, insisted that the agreement being drawn up with Iraqi officials was contingent on the continuing political process, although he said he was still optimistic British troops would begin returning home by early summer.

'The two things I want to insist about the timetable is that it is not an event but a process, and that it will be a process that takes place at different speeds in different parts of the country. I have said before that I believe that it could begin in some parts of the country as early as next July. It is not a deadline, but it is where we might be and I honestly still believe we could have the conditions to begin handover. I don't see any reason to change my view.

'But if circumstances change I have no shame in revising my estimates.'

The disclosures follow rising demands for the government to establish a clearer strategy for bringing troops home following the kidnapping of two British SAS troopers in Basra and the scenes of violence that surrounded their rescue. Last week Blair's own envoy to Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, warned that Britain could be forced out if Iraq descends so far into chaos that 'we don't have any reasonable prospect of holding it together'.

Continued tension between the Iraqi police force, the Iraqi administration and British troops was revealed again yesterday when an Iraqi magistrate called for the arrest of the two British special forces soldiers. who were on a surveillance mission when they were taken into custody by Iraqi police and allegedly handed on to a militia.

For Blair, the question of withdrawal is one of the most difficult he is facing. The Prime Minister has abandoned plans, announced last February, to publish his own exit strategy setting out the milestones which would have to be met before quitting: instead, the plans are now being negotiated between a commission representing the Shia-dominated Iraqi government, and senior US and UK diplomats and military commanders in Baghdad.

Senior military sources have told The Observer that the document will lay out a point-by-point 'road map' for military disengagement by multinational forces, the first steps of which could be put in place soon after December's nationwide elections.

Each stage of the withdrawal would be locally judged on regional improvements in stability, with units being withdrawn as Iraqi units are deemed capable of taking over. Officials familiar with the negotiations said that conditions for withdrawal would not demand a complete cessation of insurgent violence, or the end of al-Qaeda atrocities.

According to the agreement under negotiation, each phase would be triggered when key security, stability and political targets have been reached. The phased withdrawal strategy - the British side of which is expected to take at least 12 months to complete - would see UK troops hand over command responsibility for security to senior Iraqi officers, while remaining in support as a reserve force.

In the second phase British Warriors and other armoured vehicles would be removed from daily patrols, before a complete withdrawal of British forces to barracks.

The final phase - departure of units - would follow a period of months where Iraqi units had demonstrated their ability to deal with violence in their areas of operation.

Blair will tackle his critics over Iraq in his conference speech, aides said this weekend, but would decline to give a public deadline for withdrawing troops. He is expected to make several major interventions on the war in the coming weeks, before a vote on the new constitution in mid-October, explaining how Iraq could be steered towards a sufficiently stable situation to allow troops to come home.

'What we are not going to set out is a timetable: what we are going to set out is a process of developing that security capability,' said a Downing Street source. 'We don't want to be there any longer than we have to be, the Iraqis don't want us to be there any longer than we have to be, but the Iraqi Prime Minister has made it very clear that our presence there is one that is necessary.'

It was revealed yesterday that an Iraqi judge issued the warrants for the arrest of the two rescued soldiers, accusing them of killing one policeman and wounding another, carrying unlicensed weapons and holding false identification.

The continuing preparations for a military withdrawal come, however, as officials are bracing themselves for a new political crisis in Iraq next month, with what many regard as the inevitable rejection of a new constitution by a two-thirds majority in three provinces, sufficient to kill the document and trigger new elections.

The same officials believe that a failure of the controversial constitution - which Sunnis say favours the Shia majority - would require at least another year of political negotiations, threatening any plans to disengage.

Bush's BFF Blair says he will resign sm
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/britains-blair-says-hell-resign-within-a/2006090609330990008?ncid=NWS0001000000000

Bush didn't destroy Iraq. He helped to liberate Iraq.
m

I concede. nm
kk

Iraq And Bush

I would like to call him "The Hitler of the 21st Century". Any comments?

Bush: It's bad in Iraq....sm (no you think?)
Is democratic house and senate control what Bush needed to wise up about Iraq. I'm glad to see he's considering other options in Iraq, than policing the country indefinitely.
-----------------------------------------
(AP) President Bush, admitting that it's bad in Iraq, acknowledged Thursday that the United States needs a new approach in the unpopular war and promised to unveil details in an upcoming speech.

Bush said he was disappointed in the progress in Iraq, but continued to oppose direct U.S. talks with Iran or Syria and remained steadfastly committed to spreading democracy across the Middle East.

see link for full article

Still think Bush lied about Iraq?

One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line.
- President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.
- President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction.
- Madeline Albright, Feb 1, 1998

He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983.
- Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.
Letter to President Clinton.
- (D) Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, others, Oct. 9, 1998

Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.
- Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies.
- Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and th! e means of delivering them.
- Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002

We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.
- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.
- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.
- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons...
- Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.
- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002

In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.
- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction.
- Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002

Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real...
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

Still think Bush lied?

bush tried to connect 9/11 and iraq
I disagree cause Cheney has many times stated that 9/11 and Iraq were linked up together..And...if we need to get rid of the nutcases, why werent we and why arent we focused on getting the head of the nutcases..bin laden? Why did we lose focus three years ago and let him live and build up his army against America? Listen very carefully and open your eyes..WE INVADED IRAQ FOR OIL, LOGISTICS..I.E., AN AMERICAN BASE IN THE MIDDLE EAST FOR OIL AND PROTECTION OF ISRAEL..WE INVADED FOR CONTROL OF THE MIDDLE EAST..Something we would never have agreed to, to send our children to die for this stupid idiotic asinine idea but, however, this lying murderous administration linked it up with 9/11 and most Americans (not me I state proudly) went along with it cause they were still hurting from 9/11 and wanted revenge..I have three republican friends who were so for the war and wanting to blow away anyone possibly connected..Now all three agree with me and also agree Bush is a monster and America is on the wrong track.

Fox News is pro-Bush, pro-war in Iraq. sm
There may be a few reports on that broadcast that play devil's advocate for the other side, but all in all they lean more to the right on most issues.

Bush: All or nothing with booze and with Iraq = Dysfunctional

MSNBC.com

Murtha�s Moment
The White House is still attacking critics by questioning their patriotism. But Congress�and the public�are becoming more skeptical.

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY

By Eleanor Clift

Newsweek

Updated: 3:12 a.m. ET Nov. 20, 2005

Nov. 18, 1005 - Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha is a burly ex-Marine with a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts who rarely speaks to the press. But he came out of the shadows Thursday to call for a complete pullout from Iraq within six months. �Our military has done everything that�s been asked of them. It is time to bring them home,� he said. Murtha�s hawkish record on military matters made his announcement all the more surprising. �It�s like George W. Bush saying he wants to raise taxes,� says Lawrence Korb, a defense analyst who served in the Reagan administration.

Democrats gave Murtha a standing ovation behind closed doors, but most kept their distance in public. �It�s a trap,� explained a Democratic strategist. �If the party comes out for a unilateral six-month withdrawal, that would become the issue for �06, and they [Republicans] would kill us again.�

Administration officials were less reticent. A White House statement said Murtha was �endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party.� Indeed, the election campaign tactics are back in all but name, with the president and the vice president attacking critics by questioning their patriotism. The strategy may rally some of the Republican base. However, the broader public has made up its mind about this administration�s credibility, and Murtha isn�t the only member of Congress paying attention.

We learned in Vietnam that in a democracy you can�t sustain a war without public support, and time is running out for the Iraq war. Senate Republicans joined with Democrats to demand accountability on the progress of the war, a meaningless gesture in the sense it requires the administration to do nothing other than supply quarterly reports. But it signals the first cracks in the Republican coalition, and it emboldens Democrats to keep up their drumbeat assailing the credibility of the leaders who took us into a war we can�t win and don�t know how to end.

Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, for example, defends the right of critics to question and criticize their government and its policies. Hagel served in Vietnam, which he says was �a lie at the beginning.� He explained in an interview aired last weekend on C-Span how his views about Vietnam were altered when he learned how his government falsified information in order to win congressional approval for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave President Lyndon Johnson the authority to prosecute the war unchecked. �And so we have now pretty much come to the same place,� he said, meaning our government committed us to military action based on bits and pieces of evidence that bolstered its case for war. Hagel did have qualms about the invasion, but he voted for the resolution that gave President Bush a blank check for war with Iraq. Now that we�re there, he says, �We cannot allow this to become a 1975 when we took the last remnants of our influence out on a helicopter on top of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.�

There is a parallel with Vietnam in the falsehoods advanced by government to rally congressional support and public opinion for war. Take the ongoing controversy over exactly what happened in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964. Although analysts on the scene radioed back to Washington that there was no cause for alarm, President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara glossed over doubts about a second attack on American ships and trumpeted the alleged expansion of the war by the North Vietnamese to rally Congress and the American people to escalate a war that had been losing public support. Sen. William Fulbright, one of only two senators to oppose the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, said in a speech on the Senate floor, �We will rue this day.�

Johnson and McNamara perpetrated an untruth for the larger good of increasing American firepower in the war, which they believed would deal a decisive blow to the enemy. Fifty-eight thousand American soldiers lost their lives in that senseless conflict. Does the fact that their political leaders thought they were acting in good faith at the time excuse the deception? President Bush and Vice President Cheney accuse Democrats of �rewriting history� by objecting to a war they voted for and claiming they were misled. But the information presented to lawmakers was selective, and efforts to learn more were stymied. Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkeley recalls being invited to a pre-war briefing at the White House with Bush and Cheney. When she expressed concern about Israel�s security in the event of a war, Cheney told her not to worry, that the administration knew where the missiles were that could reach Israel, and the U.S. military would go in and get them first thing. Using a pointer, he showed her the location on a map. Berkeley voted for the war in part because of false information.

Was this conscious deception? Should Bush and Cheney get a pass because they believed a show of strength in Iraq would serve U.S. interests? If Bush wants to retrieve his credibility, he should call off the attack dogs and make a televised speech to the American people conceding that the certainty he presented about weapons of mass destruction was not there, and that the administration relied on a single source, aptly named �Curveball,� who was later discredited. Bush can then present his case--what he saw, why he acted, and why he still believes he did the right thing.

Bush won�t give that speech because he can�t tolerate ambiguity. It�s part of his personality. He gave up drinking cold turkey, and it�s all or nothing. He demands simplicity, and he equates dissent with disloyalty. The result is a White House that has become dysfunctional.

� 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

� 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10101981/site/newsweek/

Hey, Bush, sign your daughters up for Iraq, such a *noble* cause

Like George did, the new generation of Bushes let other Americans do the dying for them.

Bush has derided the mothers and fathers of our nation's war dead for not wanting any more young American men and women to die in Iraq. We owe them [the already killed and wounded soldiers] something, he told veterans in Salt Lake City (even though his administration tried to shortchange the veterans agency by $1.5 billion, according to Maureen Dowd). We will finish the task that they gave their lives for.

BUSH EXTENDED FAMILY PHOTO taken January 20, 2005

Yet, not one -- not one -- of any of Bush's children or his nieces and nephews have volunteered for service in any branch of the military or volunteered to serve in any capacity in Iraq. Not one of them has felt the cause was noble enough to put his or her life on the line.

Here is the full list of the children of Bush and his siblings who have chosen to let other young men and women -- mostly poor, rural and minorities -- die for them, because they have no desire to die for George W. Bush's alleged noble cause (assuming an eligible age of 17 with parental consent to join the military):

Military Service Eligible Children of George W. Bush
Jenna Bush
Barbara Bush

Military Service Eligible Children of Jeb Bush
George P. Bush
Noelle Bush
John Ellis Bush Jr.

Military Service Eligible Children of Neil Bush
Lauren Bush
Pierce Bush

Military Service Eligible Children of Marvin Bush
Marshall Bush

Military Service Eligible Children of Dorothy Bush Koch
Samuel LeBlond
Ellie LeBlond

Here is the complete chart:

Click image for full size

Furthermore, not one of George's siblings served in the military when they were eligible, and Bush got a cozy stateside position in the Texas Air National Guard to avoid risking his life in another noble war, Vietnam.

Why do George W. Bush, his siblings, and their children think that the war is noble enough for kids like Casey Sheehan to die in, but not them?

Sign this petition, demanding that the Bush sibling children serve in George's noble war or he must bring the troops home now. Because if it's not noble enough for the Bush family to risk their lives fighting for, it's just a disastrous graveyard for poor and middle class Americans, dug deep to advance Bush's partisan agenda.

Bush can be brave with other people's children, because he has nothing personally to risk.

Bush tell your daughters they are needed in Iraq for a *noble* cause
Oh really, going off the deep end, LOL..by asking Bush and his daughters and other young people in his family to sign up for duty in Iraq since the Bush family thinks it is so important and the *Noble* thing to do? And Im going off the deep end, LOL. You are so silly sometimes in your posts. I see nothing wrong in asking the chickenhawk warmongers to urge their children to join up..after all our country is fighting a *war on terrorism*..or..wait a minute..what is the new saying the WH is throwing out there..*a global war on extremists*..or....oh geez..I need to start writing down the reasons for our blood shed in Iraq..I cant remember all the reasons why we pre-emptively invaded Iraq..Cant keep up with the spin cycle of the WH..

Chavez Takes Bush to Task Over Iraq War
See link

Bush Lays Groundwork for Iraq Pullout

We noted last week that even as President Bush rejected a pullout from Iraq, the Pentagon was planning for a major withdrawl of troops. Now, the Los Angeles Times says Bush will give a major speech on Wednesday in which aides say he is expected to herald the improved readiness of Iraqi troops, which he has identified as the key condition for pulling out U.S. forces.

The administration's pivot on the issue comes as the White House is seeking to relieve enormous pressure by war opponents. The camp includes liberals, moderates and old-line conservatives who are uneasy with the costly and uncertain nation-building effort... The developments seemed to lay the groundwork for potentially large withdrawals in 2006 and 2007, consistent with scenarios outlined by Pentagon planners.

I guess that would mean he was against it before he was for it.

Bush only interested in Iraq, ག campaign

http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/delegates.htm (a conservative site, no less!)

President Bush has decided to stay out of the lion's share of decisions made by his administration.

Sources close to the administration said that over the last year, Mr. Bush has chosen to focus on two issues, leaving the rest to be decided by Cabinet members and senior aides. They said the issues are Iraq and the Republican congressional campaign in the 2006 elections.

Lots of important issues that deal with national security are never brought to the president because he doesn't want to deal with them, a source familiar with the White House said. In some cases, this has resulted in chaos.

The White House has acknowledged that Mr. Bush was not informed of the administration�s decision to approve a $6.85 billion takeover by the United Arab Emirates of a British firm that operates at least six major ports in the United States. The decision triggered a public firestorm and strong bipartisan opposition on Capitol Hill. This prompted the Dubai-owned company last week to bail on its bid to operate terminals in U.S. ports.

Vice President Dick Cheney also was not informed of the approval of the port takeover by the state-owned Dubai Ports World. The process was administered by the Treasury Department-aligned Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which sparked opposition from most of the Republican leadership in Congress.

My take on this is that the president relied on his CFIUS board, this Committee on Foreign Investment; that they did a superficial scrub on this, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter said on March 7.

They've been trained to be more of a business, or more of an arm of the administration which is designed to expedite or to shape acquisitions so that they can take place rather than to stop acquisitions, said Mr. Hunter, California Republican.

The sources said Mr. Bush's lack of involvement on most issues has led to numerous errors in judgment. They said the DP World episode was handled by the Treasury and Commerce departments. From there, the proposed sale was meant to have been relayed through the National Security Council for a White House decision.

It should have gone to Karl Rove and then gone up the chain, the source said. For some reason, it didn't. I don't think people understood how important this was in terms of both national security and politics.

Mr. Hunter and other members of the House Armed Services Committee were shocked over how little White House staffers knew of the security record of the UAE, cited in testimony to the 9/11 commission as having withheld cooperation regarding al Qaeda in 1999. Last week, Mr. Hunter and Rep. Jim Saxton, New Jersey Republican, brought evidence of how the UAE port of Dubai allowed shipments of nuclear components as well as heavy water and a precursor to nerve gas to countries such as Iran, Libya and Pakistan.

In 2003, Mr. Hunter said, Dubai allowed the shipment of 66 high-speed electrical switches designed to trigger and detonate nuclear weapons. He said Dubai rejected a U.S. request to stop the shipment.

The point is that if you are an outlaw regime, and you want to develop a nuclear weapons program, you have your components transshipped through Dubai, Mr. Hunter said. Dubai is a master at masking both the recipient of illegitimate weapons systems and the party that is sending, developing, selling those illegitimate weapons systems. I don't think those are the folks you want to have running your ports.

Neither Mr. Bush nor any of his aides ordered a change in CFIUS deliberations that would stress the security aspect of any foreign investments or operations in the United States. Mr. Saxton said the 9/11 attacks by al Qaeda had virtually no affect on the process.

The current system was designed, from what we can understand, to encourage foreign investment in our country, Mr. Saxton said. And 9/11 changed a lot of things, and CFIUS didn't change. And I guess it changed in some respects. We added a representative from the Department of Homeland Security, but it was still under the leadership of the Department of the Treasury. And so the mission of CFIUS remains pre-9/11, while the situation in post-9/11 is much different.

Obama Calls on Bush To Admit Iraq Errors

'Limited' Troop Reduction Urged

By Peter Slevin

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 23, 2005; Page A03

CHICAGO, Nov. 22 -- Sen. Barack Obama said President Bush should admit mistakes in waging the Iraq war and reduce the number of troops stationed there in the next year. But the Illinois Democrat, a longtime opponent of the war, said U.S. forces remain part of a solution in the bitterly divided country and should not be withdrawn immediately.

Without citing specific numbers, Obama called for a limited drawdown of U.S. troops that would push the fragile Iraqi government to take more responsibility while deploying enough American soldiers to prevent the country from exploding into civil war or ethnic cleansing or a haven for terrorism.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) greets well-wishers at the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations after he said the administration has not given straight answers to critical questions on Iraq. (By Jeff Roberson -- Associated Press)

Obama also faulted the administration for tarring its critics as unpatriotic naysayers and said it launched the war to topple Saddam Hussein in March 2003 without giving either Congress or the American people the full story.

Straight answers to critical questions. That's what we don't have right now, the high-profile freshman senator told the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. Members of both parties and the American people have now made clear that it is simply not enough for the president to simply say 'We know best' and 'Stay the course.'

As other Democrats are finding their voice against Iraq policy, Obama took an approach closer to one taken by Senate Foreign Relations Committee colleague Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) than to that of Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.). Murtha, a former Marine, called last week for an immediate pullout of nearly 160,000 U.S. troops.

Four prospective Democratic presidential candidates -- Biden, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and former North Carolina senator John Edwards -- have advocated a more gradual approach, with no sudden steps. Biden called Monday for the withdrawal of 50,000 troops by the end of next year and all but 20,000 to 40,000 out by January 2008.

Obama told the audience of about 500 people that the war has siphoned assets from homeland security and the global anti-terrorism fight. He said the administration's attempt to equate the defeat of the Iraqi insurgency with the defeat of international terrorism is overly narrow and dangerously short-sighted.

In a 35-minute speech scheduled just days ago, Obama argued that public opinion has raced ahead of politicians in seeking a clearly etched policy that helps produce stability in Iraq and the Middle East without exposing the United States to a war without end -- a war where our goals and our strategies drift aimlessly, regardless of the cost in lives or dollars spent.

Those of us in Washington have fallen behind the debate that is taking place across America on Iraq. We are failing to provide leadership on this issue, Obama said.

He maintained that Bush could take politics out of the Iraq discussion once and for all if he would simply go on television and say to the American people: 'Yes, we made mistakes. Yes, there are things I would have done differently. But now that I'm here, I'm willing to work with both Republicans and Democrats to find the most responsible way out.'

Bush Says U.S. Troops Will Stay in Iraq Past ང

GOP Unrest Dismissed As Sign of Election Year

Well it didn't take a rocket scientist to know that this mess was not going to get cleaned up on his watch.

This statement alone lets you know Bush is out of touch and in his own bubble. * There's a certain unease as you head into an election year, he said.* Of course GOP unrest has a lot to do with the election year because they know they will have to answer to the people on election day, not Bush.

See link.

liberal media = hates Palin = would love to skewer her for perceived missteps....

Bush's Iraq Speech: Long On Assertion, Short On Facts

Bush says "progress is uneven" in Iraq, but accentuates positive evidence and mostly ignores the negative.

June 30, 2005

Standing before a crowd of uniformed soldiers, President Bush addressed the nation on June 27 to reaffirm America's commitment to the global war on terrorism. But throughout the speech Bush continually stated his opinions and conclusions as though they were facts, and he offered little specific evidence to support his assertions.

Here we provide some additional context, both facts that support Bush's case that "we have made significant progress" in Iraq, as well as some of the negative evidence he omitted.

Analysis

Bush's prime-time speech at Fort Bragg, NC coincided with the one-year anniversary of the handover of soverignty to Iraqi authorities. It was designed to lay out America's role in Iraq amid sinking public support for the war and calls by some lawmakers to withdraw troops.

The Bloodshed

Bush acknowledged the high level of violence in Iraq as he sought to reassure the public.

Bush: The work in Iraq is difficult and dangerous. Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed. Every picture is horrifying and the suffering is real. Amid all this violence, I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it?

What Bush did not mention is that by most measures the violence is getting worse. Both April and May were record months in Iraq for car bombings, for example, with more than 135 of them being set off each month. And the bombings are getting more deadly. May was a record month for deaths from bombings, with 381 persons killed in "multiple casualty" bombings that took two or more lives, according to figures collected by the Brookings Institution in its "Iraq Index." The Brookings index is compiled from a variety of sources including official government statistics, where those are available, and other public sources such as news accounts and statements of Iraqi government officials.

The number of Iraqi police and military who have been killed is also rising, reaching 296 so far in June, nearly triple the 109 recorded in January and 103 in Febrary, according to a tally of public information by the website Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a private group that documents each fatality from public statements and news reports. Estimates of the total number of Iraqi civilians killed each month as a result of "acts of war" have been rising as well, according to the Brookings index.

The trend is also evident in year-to-year figures. In the past twelve months, there have been 25% more U.S. troop fatalities and nearly double the average number of insurgent attacks per day as there were in the preceeding 12 months.

Reconstruction Progress

In talking about Iraqi reconstruction, Bush highlighted the positive and omitted the negative:

Bush: We continued our efforts to help them rebuild their country. . . . Our progress has been uneven but progress is being made. We are improving roads and schools and health clinics and working to improve basic services like sanitation, electricity and water. And together with our allies, we will help the new Iraqi government deliver a better life for its citizens.

Indeed, the State Department's most recent Iraq Weekly Status Report shows progress is uneven. Education is a positive; official figures show 3,056 schools have been rehabilitated and millions of "student kits" have been distributed to primary and secondary schools. School enrollments are increasing. And there are also 145 new primary healthcare centers currently under construction. The official figures show 78 water treatment projects underway, nearly half of them completed, and water utility operators are regularly trained in two-week courses.

On the negative side, however, State Department figures show overall electricity production is barely above pre-war levels. Iraqis still have power only 12 hours daily on average.

Iraqis are almost universally unhappy about that. Fully 96 percent of urban Iraqis said they were dissatisfied when asked about "the availability of electricity in your neighborhood." That poll was conducted in February for the U.S. military, and results are reported in Brookings' "Iraq Index." The same poll also showed that 20 percent of Iraqi city-dwellers still report being without water to their homes.

Conclusions or Facts?

The President repeatedly stated his upbeat conclusions as though they were facts. For example, he said of "the terrorists:"

Bush: They failed to break our coalition and force a mass withdrawal by our allies. They failed to incite an Iraqi civil war.

In fact, there have been withdrawals by allies. Spain pulled out its 1,300 soldiers in April, and Honduras brought home its 370 troops at the same time. The Philippines withdrew its 51 troops last summer to save the life of a Filipino hostage held captive for eight months in Iraq. Ukraine has already begun a phased pullout of its 1,650-person contingent, which the Defense Ministry intends to complete by the end of the year. Both the Netherlands and Italy have announced plans to withdraw their troops, and the Bulgarian parliament recently granted approval to bring home its 450 soldiers. Poland, supplying the third-largest contingent in the coalition after Italy's departure, has backed off a plan for full withdrawal of troops due to the success of Iraqi elections and talks with Condoleezza Rice, but the Polish Press Agency announced in June that the next troop rotation will have 200 fewer soldiers.

Bush is of course entitled to argue that these withdrawals don't constitute a "mass" withdrawal, but an argument isn't equivalent to a fact.

The same goes for Bush's statement there's no "civil war" going on. In fact, some believe that what's commonly called the "insurgency" already is a "civil war" or something very close to it. For example, in an April 30 piece, the Times of London quotes Colonel Salem Zajay, a police commander in Southern Baghdad, as saying, "The war is not between the Iraqis and the Americans. It is between the Shia and the Sunni." Again, Bush is entitled to state his opinion to the contrary, but stating a thing doesn't make it so.

Terrorism

Similarly, Bush equated Iraqi insurgents with terrorists who would attack the US if they could.

Bush: There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home. . . . Our mission in Iraq is clear. We are hunting down the terrorists .

Despite a few public claims to the contrary, however, no solid evidence has surfaced linking Iraq to attacks on the United States, and Bush offered none in his speech. The 9/11 Commission issued a staff report more than a year ago saying "so far we have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." It said Osama bin Laden made a request in 1994 to establish training camps in Iraq, but "but Iraq apparently never responded." That was before bin Laden was ejected from Sudan and moved his operation to Afghanistan.

Bush laid stress on the "foreign" or non-Iraqi elements in the insurgency as evidence that fighting in Iraq might prevent future attacks on the US:

Bush: I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it? It is worth it, and it is vital to the future security of our country . And tonight I will explain the reasons why.
Some of the violence you see in Iraq is being carried out by ruthless killers who are converging on Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom. Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and other nations.

But Bush didn't mention that the large majority of insurgents are Iraqis, not foreigners. The overall strength of the insurgency has been estimated at about 16,000 persons. The number of foreign fighters in Iraq is only about 1,000, according to estimates reported by the Brookings Institution. The exact number is of course impossible to know. However, over the course of one week during the major battle for Fallujah in November of 2004, a Marine official said that only about 2% of those detained were foreigners. To be sure, Brookings notes that "U.S. military believe foreign fighters are responsible for the majority of suicide bombings in Iraq," with perhaps as many as 70 percent of bombers coming from Saudi Arabia alone. It is anyone's guess how many of those Saudi suicide bombers might have attempted attacks on US soil, but a look at the map shows that a Saudi jihadist can drive across the border to Baghdad much more easily than getting nearly halfway around the world to to the US.

Osama bin Laden

Bush quoted a recent tape-recorded message by bin Laden as evidence that the Iraq conflict is "a central front in the war on terror":

Bush: Hear the words of Osama bin Laden: "This Third World War is raging" in Iraq..."The whole world is watching this war." He says it will end in "victory and glory or misery and humiliation."

However, Bush passed over the fact that the relationship between bin Laden and the Iraqi insurgents � to the extent one existed at all before � grew much closer after the US invaded Iraq. Insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi did not announce his formal allegiance with bin Laden until October, 2004. It was only then that Zarqawi changed the name of his group from "Unification and Holy War Group" to "al Qaeda in Iraq."

In summary, we found nothing false in what Bush said, only that his facts were few and selective.

--by Brooks Jackson & Jennifer L. Ernst

Researched by Matthew Barge, Kevin Collins & Jordan Grossman

First Iraq and now Bush leaves New Orleans rebuilding to future President.

Bush: New Orleans may need a decade

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 28 (UPI) -- As he headed for the Gulf Coast on Monday, U.S. President George Bush told an interviewer he expects the rebuilding of New Orleans to take a decade.

Bush planned to spend the anniversary of the U.S. Gulf Coast landfall of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans after a visit to Biloxi, Miss. It was his 13th visit to the devastated area.

We can rebuild buildings, the question is can we rebuild its soul, he told April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks. We can. I believe, 10 years from now April, you and I will be thinking about our time here, and trying to remember what it was like 10 years ago

Bush came under fire last year for apparently ignoring Katrina immediately after New Orleans flooded and then flying over the city in Air Force One.

Later White House spokeswoman Dana Perrino said she wasn't aware of a specific time period but that the president has said all along that it would take more than a year to rebuild New Orleans.

In terms of like, 10 years, I don't know about exact time frame, but it's certainly going to take several years, Perrino said.

Bush asks Americans for charitable contributions to help Hallib..oops..to rebuild Iraq

It's working, too!! So far, American citizens have donated a whopping $39.00!!

New twist on aid for Iraq: U.S. seeks donations

By Cam Simpson Washington BureauSun Sep 18, 9:40 AM ET

From the Indian Ocean tsunami to the church around the corner, Americans have shown time and again they are willing to open their pocketbooks for charity, for a total of about $250 billion last year alone.

But now, amid pleas for aid after Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration has launched an unusual effort to raise charitable contributions for another cause: the government's attempt to rebuild Iraq.

Although more than $30 billion in taxpayer funds have been appropriated for Iraqi reconstruction, the administration earlier this month launched an Internet-based fundraising effort that it says is aimed at giving Americans a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq.

Contributors have no way of knowing who's getting the money or precisely where it's headed because the government says it must keep the details secret for security reasons.

But taxpayers already finance the projects for which the administration is seeking charitable donations, such as providing water pumps for farmers. And officials say any contributions they receive will increase the scope of those efforts rather than relieve existing taxpayer burdens.

The campaign is raising eyebrows in the international development and not-for-profit communities, where there are questions about its timing--given needs at home--and whether it will set the government in competition with international not-for-profits.

On a more basic level, experts wonder whether Americans will make charitable donations to a government foreign aid program and whether the contentious environment surrounding Iraq will make a tough pitch even tougher.

I'm a little skeptical, and the timing certainly isn't the best, said James Ferris, director of the Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy at the University of Southern California. It's going to be a hard sell.

Cost of rebuilding skyrockets

The U.S. Agency for International Development, the federal government's primary distributor of foreign aid, said Friday, Charitable contributions play an important role in enriching and extending U.S. government efforts.

The effort is just the newest twist in the administration's struggle to rebuild Iraq. Andrew Natsios, head of USAID, first predicted it would cost taxpayers no more than $1.7 billion. The tab has since risen to more than $30 billion, with congressional Republicans and Democrats sharply critical of the high cost and slow pace of progress.

In addition, the new campaign comes amid increasing concerns that some of the administration's major projects in Iraq will be scrapped or only partially completed because of rising costs, especially for security. Some officials fear money may run out before key projects are completed.

Natsios announced the campaign in a speech Sept. 9. In a press release issued the same day, USAID said its new Web site will help American citizens learn more about official U.S. assistance for Iraq and make contributions to high-impact development projects.

Although USAID has received private donations from corporations in the past, this might be the first time it has geared a charity pitch for U.S. foreign aid dollars to citizens.

Initially, the Web site, called Iraqpartnership.org, is offering potential contributors a choice of eight projects, each seeking $10,000 or less. They include purchasing computers for centers designed to assist Iraqi entrepreneurs, buying furniture and supplies for Iraqi elementary and high schools, paying for the production of posters to promote awareness of disabilities and rights issues, and buying water pumps for farmers.

There is also a general Iraq country fund, offering donors another high-impact giving opportunity without making them have to specify a project.

All of the projects are from USAID's existing portfolio of reconstruction programs in Iraq, according to the agency.

Security issues obscure details

Heather Layman, a USAID spokeswoman, said the efforts are being carried out by five private organizations working on Iraq reconstruction with USAID funding. The site does not provide details about the groups involved or the project locations because of security issues in Iraq.

The government says all contributions are tax-deductible.

William Reese, the president and CEO of the International Youth Foundation, said USAID officials did not discuss the campaign with a special advisory committee that he serves on and formerly headed.

That committee, made up primarily of representatives from non-profit groups working overseas, is supposed to help provide the underpinning for cooperation between the public and private sectors in U.S. foreign assistance programs, according to USAID.

Reese said some not-for-profit groups may see the effort as competition, but he predicted few would be concerned because of a more basic issue: While Americans are generous, he said, I don't think your average Joe is going to write a check to the U.S. government.

Carol Lancaster, a foreign aid expert and associate professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, also questioned the premise of the program.

Places that are seen as public agencies or clones of public agencies don't get private donations, said Lancaster, a former deputy administrator at USAID. People generally believe, `It's government, so government should pay for it.'

Nassarie Carew, a spokeswoman for InterAction, an umbrella group of more than 160 non-profits working overseas, said her organization also was not aware of the effort. Its CEO, Mohammad Akhter, serves on the USAID advisory panel. Carew declined to comment until the group had a chance to survey its members.

Layman, the USAID spokeswoman, called the Web site a passive solicitation, saying potential donors would likely find it only if they were looking for a way to support Iraq's redevelopment.

She also said some people who might have donated to projects in Iraq will now choose to put money toward Katrina relief, but that others will still want to help in Iraq.

She said Iraqi-Americans specifically had asked USAID to help them find an avenue for contributions.

Raising charitable contributions for overseas projects can be a challenge even when the U.S. government is not at the center of the pitch. And Iraq is one of the government's more controversial foreign policy ventures in decades.

DevelopmentSpace Foundation Inc., the group that set up the Web site for USAID, operates its own, separate Web site seeking charitable donations for small-scale projects in developing countries.

Since its founding in 2001, that effort has raised a total of about $2 million, said Allison Koch, a foundation spokeswoman.

The organization keeps a 10 percent commission for contributions and has received most of its operating funds through major grants from several other foundations. USAID also gave it a grant of $1.5 million.

So far, $39 donated

Although in its infancy, the Iraqpartnership.org Web site had generated contributions totaling $39 as of Friday night.

According to the Giving USA Foundation, which tracks annual charitable donations by Americans, international giving accounted for 2.1 percent of all charity in the U.S. last year.

Ferris, the director of the USC philanthropy center, said that's because people want to donate to causes closer to home.

Except for the fact that the aim of foreign aid is to bolster U.S. foreign policy objectives overseas, Ferris said the new USAID campaign seems like a natural extension of the growing trend toward public-private partnerships.

There is this blurring of the lines, he said. A lot of things once paid for by the public are now paid through private sources.

----------

csimpson@tribune.com

And that statement is ridiculous, Iran and Iraq enemies, remember the Iran-Iraq war? Iraq would jus
nm

Blair

Do these conservatives realize that Bushs buddy, Blair, whom I have read they admire and like is a socialist? He is a socialist democrat, LOLOLOLOL. His ideology is to unite Europe and help each other. Not a very conservative way of thinking.

socialist blair
He is a socialist, doesnt just tend to sway that way..He is a socialist, LOL. Gee, I thought socialism, you know, help each other, my bread is your bread, sure I will donate or pay taxes to set up programs, run by the government, to help those less fortunate..Socialism..the same thing you fight against in America, Social Security, without private accounts, Medicare, and many more, all programs set up by democrats.

Have you ever wondered where Tony Blair went?
Case in point.

I don't read the NYT. They lost all credibilty with Jayson Blair. NM

Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.

Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.

"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.

"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"

That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.

"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"

Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.

"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."

Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.

Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.

"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.

Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."

"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."

Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."

A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.

This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."

Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."

Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.

"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."

But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."

Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.

"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."

Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."

"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."

But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.

"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."

why are we in iraq?
I think the reasons we are in Iraq were said best at the Downing Street Memo hearing held by Representative Conyers and attended by Joe Wilson, Cindy Sheehan (mother of a son killed in Iraq), Ray McGovern, an ex-CIA analyst and Mr. Bonifaz, attorney. We are there because of *OIL* - Oil, Israel and Location. We need to get out of Iraq NOW. Bush lied to America and the world. There were no WMD, which most of us enlightened people knew, there was no threat from a country broken down by sanctions we placed on it after the Gulf War. Bush needs to be impeached..Just my 2 cents, folks..

why are we in Iraq?
BUSH---Bring our boys back home...they don't need to be there to get killed...and every day there are more and
more....lucky Bush had daughters...or maybe he would ha ve the boys home by now..but he got away doing things so, his daughters if they were sons...would too....
LETS START A WAR WITH BUSH
BRING OUR BOYS BACK HOME!!!!

Iraq
Gee, wasnt one of the many reasons Bush and Blair told America and England for invading a soverign country was that it would make us safer?? Doesnt the warmonger in the White House still say that?? Lying once again..It has made us less safe and has caused a few terrorists to grow to thousands around the world that hate us totally and want to destroy us. Thanks, Bush, you screwed up again.

Why we're really in Iraq.

Exclusive: Bush Wanted To Invade Iraq If Elected in 2000

Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:59:47 -0700

By Russ Baker

Two years before 9/11, candidate Bush was already talking privately about attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer

Houston: Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.

�He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,� said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. �It was on his mind. He said to me: �One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.� And he said, �My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.� He said, �If I have a chance to invade�.if I had that much capital, I�m not going to waste it. I�m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I�m going to have a successful presidency.�

Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father�s shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. �Suddenly, he�s at 91 percent in the polls, and he�d barely crawled out of the bunker.�

That President Bush and his advisers had Iraq on their minds long before weapons inspectors had finished their work � and long before alleged Iraqi ties with terrorists became a central rationale for war � has been raised elsewhere, including in a book based on recollections of former Treasury Secretary Paul O�Neill. However, Herskowitz was in a unique position to hear Bush�s unguarded and unfiltered views on Iraq, war and other matters � well before he became president.

In 1999, Herskowitz struck a deal with the campaign of George W. Bush about a ghost-written autobiography, which was ultimately titled A Charge to Keep : My Journey to the White House, and he and Bush signed a contract in which the two would split the proceeds. The publisher was William Morrow. Herskowitz was given unimpeded access to Bush, and the two met approximately 20 times so Bush could share his thoughts. Herskowitz began working on the book in May, 1999, and says that within two months he had completed and submitted some 10 chapters, with a remaining 4-6 chapters still on his computer. Herskowitz was replaced as Bush�s ghostwriter after Bush�s handlers concluded that the candidate�s views and life experiences were not being cast in a sufficiently positive light.

According to Herskowitz, who has authored more than 30 books, many of them jointly written autobiographies of famous Americans in politics, sports and media (including that of Reagan adviser Michael Deaver), Bush and his advisers were sold on the idea that it was difficult for a president to accomplish an electoral agenda without the record-high approval numbers that accompany successful if modest wars.

The revelations on Bush�s attitude toward Iraq emerged recently during two taped interviews of Herskowitz, which included a discussion of a variety of matters, including his continued closeness with the Bush family, indicated by his subsequent selection to pen an authorized biography of Bush�s grandfather, written and published last year with the assistance and blessing of the Bush family.

Herskowitz also revealed the following:

-In 2003, Bush�s father indicated to him that he disagreed with his son�s invasion of Iraq.

-Bush admitted that he failed to fulfill his Vietnam-era domestic National Guard service obligation, but claimed that he had been �excused.�

-Bush revealed that after he left his Texas National Guard unit in 1972 under murky circumstances, he never piloted a plane again. That casts doubt on the carefully-choreographed moment of Bush emerging in pilot�s garb from a jet on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003 to celebrate �Mission Accomplished� in Iraq. The image, instantly telegraphed around the globe, and subsequent hazy White House statements about his capacity in the cockpit, created the impression that a heroic Bush had played a role in landing the craft.

-Bush described his own business ventures as �floundering� before campaign officials insisted on recasting them in a positive light.

Throughout the interviews for this article and in subsequent conversations, Herskowitz indicated he was conflicted over revealing information provided by a family with which he has longtime connections, and by how his candor could comport with the undefined operating principles of the as-told-to genre. Well after the interviews�in which he expressed consternation that Bush�s true views, experience and basic essence had eluded the American people �Herskowitz communicated growing concern about the consequences for himself of the publication of his remarks, and said that he had been under the impression he would not be quoted by name. However, when conversations began, it was made clear to him that the material was intended for publication and attribution. A tape recorder was present and visible at all times.

Several people who know Herskowitz well addressed his character and the veracity of his recollections. �I don�t know anybody that�s ever said a bad word about Mickey,� said Barry Silverman, a well-known Houston executive and civic figure who worked with him on another book project. An informal survey of Texas journalists turned up uniform confidence that Herskowitz�s account as contained in this article could be considered accurate.

One noted Texas journalist who spoke with Herskowitz about the book in 1999 recalls how the author mentioned to him at the time that Bush had revealed things the campaign found embarrassing and did not want in print. He requested anonymity because of the political climate in the state. �I can�t go near this,� he said.

According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush�s beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House � ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. �Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade.�

Bush�s circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: �They were just absolutely blown away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the boats, people throwing flowers at [Thatcher] and her getting these standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent speeches.�

Republicans, Herskowitz said, felt that Jimmy Carter�s political downfall could be attributed largely to his failure to wage a war. He noted that President Reagan and President Bush�s father himself had (besides the narrowly-focused Gulf War I) successfully waged limited wars against tiny opponents � Grenada and Panama � and gained politically. But there were successful small wars, and then there were quagmires, and apparently George H.W. Bush and his son did not see eye to eye.

�I know [Bush senior] would not admit this now, but he was opposed to it. I asked him if he had talked to W about invading Iraq. �He said, �No I haven�t, and I won�t, but Brent [Scowcroft] has.� Brent would not have talked to him without the old man�s okaying it.� Scowcroft, national security adviser in the elder Bush�s administration, penned a highly publicized warning to George W. Bush about the perils of an invasion.

Herskowitz�s revelations are not the sole indicator of Bush�s pre-election thinking on Iraq. In December 1999, some six months after his talks with Herskowitz, Bush surprised veteran political chroniclers, including the Boston Globe�s David Nyhan, with his blunt pronouncements about Saddam at a six-way New Hampshire primary event that got little notice: �It was a gaffe-free evening for the rookie front-runner, till he was asked about Saddam�s weapons stash,� wrote Nyhan. �I�d take �em out,� [Bush] grinned cavalierly, �take out the weapons of mass destruction�I�m surprised he�s still there,� said Bush of the despot who remains in power after losing the Gulf War to Bush Jr.�s father�It remains to be seen if that offhand declaration of war was just Texas talk, a sort of locker room braggadocio, or whether it was Bush�s first big clinker. �

The notion that President Bush held unrealistic or na�ve views about the consequences of war was further advanced recently by a Bush supporter, the evangelist Pat Robertson, who revealed that Bush had told him the Iraq invasion would yield no casualties. In addition, in recent days, high-ranking US military officials have complained that the White House did not provide them with adequate resources for the task at hand.

Herskowitz considers himself a friend of the Bush family, and has been a guest at the family vacation home in Kennebunkport. In the late 1960s, Herskowitz, a longtime Houston Chronicle sports columnist designated President Bush�s father, then-Congressman George HW Bush, to replace him as a guest columnist, and the two have remained close since then. (Herskowitz was suspended briefly in April without pay for reusing material from one of his own columns, about legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.)

In 1999, when Herskowitz turned in his chapters for Charge to Keep, Bush�s staff expressed displeasure �often over Herskowitz�s use of language provided by Bush himself. In a chapter on the oil business, Herskowitz included Bush�s own words to describe the Texan�s unprofitable business ventures, writing: �the companies were floundering�. �I got a call from one of the campaign lawyers, he was kind of angry, and he said, �You�ve got some wrong information.� I didn�t bother to say, �Well you know where it came from.� [The lawyer] said, �We do not consider that the governor struggled or floundered in the oil business. We consider him a successful oilman who started up at least two new businesses.� �

In the end, campaign officials decided not to go with Herskowitz�s account, and, moreover, demanded everything back. �The lawyer called me and said, �Delete it. Shred it. Just do it.� �

�They took it and [communications director] Karen [Hughes] rewrote it,� he said. A campaign official arrived at his home at seven a.m. on a Monday morning and took his notes and computer files. However, Herskowitz, who is known for his memory of anecdotes from his long history in journalism and book publishing, says he is confident about his recollections.

According to Herskowitz, Bush was reluctant to discuss his time in the Texas Air National Guard � and inconsistent when he did so. Bush, he said, provided conflicting explanations of how he came to bypass a waiting list and obtain a coveted Guard slot as a domestic alternative to being sent to Vietnam. Herskowitz also said that Bush told him that after transferring from his Texas Guard unit two-thirds through his six-year military obligation to work on an Alabama political campaign, he did not attend any Alabama National Guard drills at all, because he was �excused.� This directly contradicts his public statements that he participated in obligatory training with the Alabama National Guard. Bush�s claim to have fulfilled his military duty has been subject to intense scrutiny; he has insisted in the past that he did show up for monthly drills in Alabama � though commanding officers say they never saw him, and no Guardsmen have come forward to accept substantial �rewards� for anyone who can claim to have seen Bush on base.

Herskowitz said he asked Bush if he ever flew a plane again after leaving the Texas Air National Guard in 1972 � which was two years prior to his contractual obligation to fly jets was due to expire. He said Bush told him he never flew any plane � military or civilian � again. That would contradict published accounts in which Bush talks about his days in 1973 working with inner-city children, when he claimed to have taken some of the children up in a plane.

In 2002, three years after he had been pulled off the George W. Bush biography, Herskowitz was asked by Bush�s father to write a book about the current president�s grandfather, Prescott Bush, after getting a message that the senior Bush wanted to see him. �Former President Bush just handed it to me. We were sitting there one day, and I was visiting him there in his office�He said, �I wish somebody would do a book about my dad.� �

�He said to me, �I know this has been a disappointing time for you, but it�s amazing how many times something good will come out of it.� I passed it on to my agent, he jumped all over it. I asked [Bush senior], �Would you support it and would you give me access to the rest of family?� He said yes.�

That book, Duty, Honor, Country: The Life and Legacy of Prescott Bush, was published in 2003 by Routledge. If anything, the book has been criticized for its over-reliance on the Bush family�s perspective and rosy interpretation of events. Herskowitz himself is considered the ultimate �as-told-to� author, lending credibility to his account of what George W. Bush told him. Herskowitz�s other books run the gamut of public figures, and include the memoirs of Reagan aide Deaver, former Texas Governor and Nixon Treasury Secretary John Connally, newsman Dan Rather, astronaut Walter Cunningham, and baseball greats Mickey Mantle and Nolan Ryan.

After Herskowitz was pulled from the Bush book project, the biographer learned that a scenario was being prepared to explain his departure. �I got a phone call from someone in the Bush campaign, confidentially, saying �Watch your back.� �

Reporters covering Bush say that when they inquired as to why Herskowitz was no longer on the project, Hughes intimated that Herskowitz had personal habits that interfered with his writing � a claim Herskowitz said is unfounded. Later, the campaign put out the word that Herskowitz had been removed for missing a deadline. Hughes subsequently finished the book herself � it received largely critical reviews for its self-serving qualities and lack of spontaneity or introspection.

So, said Herskowitz, the best material was left on the cutting room floor, including Bush�s true feelings.

�He told me that as a leader, you can never admit to a mistake,� Herskowitz said. �That was one of the keys to being a leader.�

URL: http://www.gnn.tv/articles/article.php?id=761

Iraq.
I wonder if any conservatives have noticed that this adminstration is not allowing "live combat" on TV, like they did when President Bush, Sr. was president and we were whipping butt. I received horrible, horrible pictures this week, how they have to dig big holes in the sand, to protect their eyes from sand damage, not to mention being shot upon at the same time. How could anyone come on here and flame J. Carter, a man, not the smartest, but who has built thousands of homes for needy people AT HOME and not worried about foreign policy, which his failed, but my goodness, the current president is doing no better. I have actual war pictures from my nephew, infantry in Iraq, this adminstration does not want the American people to know how brutal this war is - if they did CNN would be permitted to be in there with their cameras, and yet right wingers wave the flag and don't have a clue of the bloodshed - until it is their own and it WILL come to that. I guarantee you, there will be a drastic change of heart when one of their's dies over there.

Iraq war
I agree, no war. But, look, has anyone really done research on the Muslims and their plan for all of us infidels? Even if we hadn't gone to war, they would still be doing their terrorist thing. Yes, there are some Muslims who are peaceful, but Muhammad was a piece of crap and so are most of the men who belong to that, ah, religion? Whatever, don't think that by not reacting they won't terrorize. That's the mistake some European countries are making. I've lived in Europe and I know what the Muslims are like firsthand. Having said that, we have plenty of our own sh*t right here in the U.S. I still kiss the ground when I return home from other countries! Believe this, there will be no more peace, only government take-over in the name of peace, and we, the people, will lose our freedom.

Iraq better off, LOL
and..we are any better in Iraq now? We are allowing them to vote for a constitution which is controlled by religious fanatics, aligned with Iran, which takes away rights women had under Saddam..We have allowed the Taliban to come back into Afghanistan and they are now running for office..the opium trade in Afghanistan is thriving, Osama, our **real** enemy is still on the loose..sooo....what did we accomplish? Nothing. At least under Saddam, they had security, electricity, jobs, clean bacteria free water, knowing what the future held..the Iraqis have nothing now because of the USA..We are gonna invade and bring democracy to a foreign country..How naive..How stupid..You do not bring democracy into a country by invading it and forcing your beliefs upon it..OMG, idiotic and we are paying a severe price for it now..Frankly, I think the only ones who should be paying a price for this debacle are Bush and his administration..they ought to be tried as war criminals and tarred and feathered..then given to the relatives who lost loved ones in this immoral war and let them do what they want..

Iraq....
was stable? I guess as long as you're not the one having your tongue ripped out, or you're not a 9-year-old boy languishing in a filthy prison, I guess it was stable. Okay. Saddam was a known keg of dynamite. If you don't think he wouldn't have liked to see us dead as much as any other terrorist would, you're delusional. He did pay money to every family who sent forth a suicide bomber in Israel. Sounds like a terrorist to me. Again, without using those wonderful 20/20 hindsight glasses, would you be willing to take a chance in a post 9/11 world, given the intelligence available AT THE TIME? I wouldn't. And, the administration never ever said that he was linked to 9/11. That's something a huge chunk of the ingnorant in this country think, but never heard.

Iraq

Germany didn't attack us in World War II, either; Japan did. Who did we go after first, though? The evil was the same and had to be dealt with, regardless of which country attacked us. It really boggles my mind as to why you think the people in Iraq are less deserving of being freed from the grips of a brutal tyrant than the people in Bosnia and Yugoslavia? If you think Saddam and his epitomy-of-evil sons didn't commit atrocities, what news outlets have you been getting your information from? You would have to be living in la-la land not to know these facts. Our troops have uncovered thousands of dead bodies buried in mass graves since going to Iraq, victims of Saddam's cruel and outright savage regime. As far as President Clinton and Bosnia, I supported his going to free those oppressed people from that brutal dictator they were under. I'm a humanitarian and a patriot and don't believe in playing politics during war like you democrats do. By the way, Clinton promised when he sent our troops to Bosnia that they would all be home by Christmas of that year, but guess what? We still have troops there and he had several years to bring them back but didn't. As far as our troops being deployed all over the world under Clinton, he had our troops spread so thin, and he did this himself and did not inherit the problem, that we didn't even have enough troops here at home to support us if we were attacked. This is per the military themselves, not my report.

The problem with you democrats is that you are being fed talking points from a group of news media outlets so biased they are about to fall over the cliff from leaning left. You are being lied to by them, and I admonish you to get the facts, not their talking points. Don't let them do your thinking for you. Research and get the truth for yourself. The media outlets you listen to have an agenda - to make this country lose this war against terror, but mainly to make this country into a socialist nation. This has been their agenda for years and years and you are being dumbed-down by them because of your gullibility. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, wake up!!

By the way, there were over 100,000 terrorists prior to our going to war against them, so 17,000 is quite an achievement I would say. Do you want them living in your neighborhood, having access to the schools, shopping malls, and supermarkets in your neighborhood, because that's what you'll have if we don't win this war.

Iraq. sm
Now that the islamofascists see Iraq as their cause celebre' we can ill afford to lose there. This is one fight we absolutely must win. Our denizens of hatred have been here since the 60s. Their agenda has only gotten stronger and they keep it close to their hearts. Visit the campus of nearly every institution of higher learning and you will find them. They are the ones who after 9/11 made statements, such as Ward Churchill, that the WTC was full of little Eichmanns' who deserved their death. Or as Chomsky has said, with glee, that we are finally getting what we had coming. They will settle for no less than hopefully dozens of mushroom clouds in American cities. They have their dancing shoes on.

Bad in Iraq...
The President has never said it was not bad in Iraq. He says it constantly. What he did say was that we had to stay the course, and by that he meant not abandon Iraq until they could handle their own security. He did not mean that nothing should change. He admits that things could have been done better....of course he does. Things could have been done better in every conflict this country has been involved in. Hindsight is always 20/20. Military advisors of both political bent had input into going into Iraq and the result of such is as much their responsibility as anyone's. And need I remind you that the President alone can't send soldiers to war...Congress has to do that, and Congress did, with the same information the President had, no matter how much the left wants to deny that. I still believe and will always believe that us being in Iraq is what has kept Al Qaeda from making worse and bigger attacks on our own soil. They are afraid that this country under this President's leadership might come into other Arab countries searching for them if they did, and what they DO NOT want is American boots on more of their soil. I believe strongly that we did the right thing. What I think that is happening now is that perhaps the President is losing some of his resolve because of political pressure. I hope that is not the case. We would be much better served if we tried to come up with a consensus as an answer....if the Democrats really cared about fixing the situation they would have put forth ideas in the years before the election other than cut and run. But that would not be politically expedient...it was to their political benefit for the situation to remain bad. And THAT, my friends, is SAD. And yes, I recognize that it has happened on both sides, and the fact that it has become more important to elect a party than to take care of this country as a whole is also SAD. That is what happens when moral decline permeates a society, when it becomes about me, me, me, or little groups of us, us, us, and power; and MUCH LESS to do with the wellbeing of the country as a whole. And that is exactly what has happened. ALL groups hold some responsibility. It used to be God, Family, Country. Now God is out, Family is out, and Country is on the way out. Heartbreaking.

We went to war with Iraq because the...
stated policy of this country was that if attacked we would go after the terrorists and the states who supported them. And Saddam was linked to 9-11, though the liberal media did manage to pretty much squash that by not reporting extensively on it. See below.

Saddam supported terrorists monetarily, he gave them refuge. He paid bounties to suicide bombers' families. Saddam provided diplomatic help to Islamic extremists, one being Abu Abbas, former secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Front. He masterminded the October 7-9, 1985 hijacking of an Italian cruise ship whose name, sadly, is now synonymous with terrorism. The Achille Lauro was on a voyage across the Mediterranean when four Palestinian terrorists seized it on the high seas. They held some 400 passengers hostage for 44 hours. At one point, they segregated the Jewish passengers on board. One of them was a 69-year-old New York retiree named Leon Klinghoffer. He happened to be confined to a wheelchair. Without mercy, Abu Abbas� men shot Klinghoffer, then rolled him, wheelchair and all, into the Mediterranean. The hijackers surrendered to Egyptian authorities in exchange for safe passage to Tunisia. Abu Abbas then joined them on a flight to freedom aboard an Egypt Air jet. However, four U.S. fighter planes forced the airliner to land at a NATO base in Sicily. Italian officials took the hijackers into custody. But Abbas possessed the ultimate get-out-of-jail card: An Iraqi diplomatic passport.

How do we know this?

The source for this information is not Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh. It is none other than Bettino Craxi. At that time, he was Italy�s prime minister. As Craxi explained in an October 14, 1985 UPI story: �Abu Abbas was the holder of an Iraqi diplomatic passport�The plane was on an official mission, considered covered by diplomatic immunity and extra-territorial status in the air and on the ground.� Seeing that this terrorist traveled as a credentialed Iraqi diplomat, the Italian authorities let Abbas flee to Yugoslavia. After political parties furiously withdrew from Craxi�s coalition, the Italian government collapsed. After escaping Italian police in October 1985 following the Achille Lauro hijacking (thanks to his Iraqi diplomatic passport), Abu Abbas finally ended up in Baghdad in 1994, where he lived comfortably as one of Saddam Hussein�s guests. U.S. soldiers caught Abbas in Iraq in April 2003.

Another is Hisham al Hussein, the former second secretary at Iraq�s embassy in Manila. The Philippine government expelled him on February 13, 2003, just five weeks before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Cell phone records indicate he had spoken with Abu Madja and Hamsiraji Sali, two leaders of Abu Sayyaf, al-Qaeda�s de facto franchise for the Philippines. The timing was particularly suspicious, as he had been in contact with the Abu Sayyaf terrorists just before and after they conducted an attack in Zamboanga City.
Abu Sayyaf�s nail-filled bomb exploded on October 2, 2002, injuring 23 individuals and killing two Filipinos and one American. That American was U.S. Special Forces Sergeant First Class Mark Wayne Jackson, age 40. As Dan Murphy wrote in the February 26, 2003 Christian Science Monitor, those tell-tale cell phone records bolster the televised claim by Hamsiraji Sali, a top Abu Sayyaf terrorist, that the Iraqi diplomat had offered this group of Islamo-fascists Baghdad�s help with joint missions.

Beyond cash and diplomatic help, Saddam Hussein was the Conrad Hilton of the terrorist world. He provided a place for terrorists to kick back, relax, and reflect after killing people for a living.

Abu Nidal lived comfortably in Iraq between 1999 and August 2002. As the Associated Press reported on August 21, 2002, Nidal�s Beirut office said he entered Iraq �with the full knowledge and preparations of the Iraqi authorities.� Prior to his relocation, he ran the eponymous Abu Nidal Organization � a Palestinian terror network behind attacks in 20 countries, at least 407 confirmed murders, and some 788 other terror-related injuries. Among other savage acts, Nidal�s group used guns and grenades to attack a ticket counter at Rome�s Leonardo da Vinci airport on December 27, 1985. Another cell in Austria simultaneously assaulted Vienna�s airport, killing 19 people. Among the five Americans that Abu Nidal murdered that day was John Buonocore III, a 20-year-old Fairleigh Dickinson College student who had studied in Rome that fall semester. Buonocore was shot in the back while checking in for his flight home. He had hoped to return to Wilmington, Delaware to help his father celebrate his 50th birthday.
The New York Times reports that Abu Nidal's Fatah Revolutionary Council murdered the following 17 Americans, at a minimum:

Americans killed in the Abu Nidal Organization's December 27, 1985 attack on Rome's airport:

*John Buonocore III, 20, of Wilmington, Delaware

*Frederick Gage of Madison, Wisconsin

*Natasha Simpson, 11, of New York

*Don Maland of New Port Richey, Florida

*Elena Tomarello, 67, of Naples, Florida

The New York Times, December 29, 1985

American executed during ANO's 1986 hijacking of a Pan Am jet at Karachi, Pakistan's airport:

*Rajesh Kumar of Huntington Beach, California

The New York Times, September 7, 1986

Americans slaughtered in ANO's September 8, 1974 bombing of a TWA jet over the Ionian Sea en route from Israel to Greece, killing all 88 aboard:

*Eitan Bard of Tuckahoe, New York

*Seldon Bard of Tuckahoe, New York

*Ralph H. Bosh of Madison, Connecticut

*Jon L. Cheshire of Old Lyme, Connecticut

*Jeremiah Hadley of Poughkeepsie, New York

*Katherine Hadley Michel of Poughkeepsie, New York

*Frederick Hare of Bernardsville, New Jersey

*Margaret Hare of Bernardsville, New Jersey

*Don H. Holliday of Mahwah, New Jersey

*Dr. Frederick Stohlman of Newton, Massachusetts

*Mrs. Frederick Stohlman of Newton, Massachusetts

The New York Times, September 10, 1974

If there is any justice here, perhaps it is the fact that Abu Nidal died in August 2002. Saddam Hussein�s government claimed that he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head � four times.

So far, we have documented that Saddam Hussein harbored terrorists (many with al-Qaeda links) responsible for international mayhem and even the incidental deaths of Americans. But is there any evidence that Iraq sheltered those responsible for attacks on America?

Enter Abdul Rahman Yasin. This Indiana-born, Iraqi-reared terrorist remains wanted by the FBI for his role in the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center attack. President Bill Clinton's Justice Department indicted Yasin for mixing the chemicals in the bomb that exploded in the parking garage beneath the Twin Towers, killing six and injuring 1,042 people in New York. Soon after the smoke cleared, Yasin returned to Iraq. Coalition forces have discovered documents that show he enjoyed housing and a monthly government salary.
Former ABC News correspondent Sheila MacVicar looked for Yasin, and here is what she reported on July 27, 1994: �Last week, [television program] Day One confirmed [Yasin] is in Baghdad�Just a few days ago, he was seen at [his father�s] house by ABC News. Neighbors told us Yasin comes and goes freely.� Since Iraq was liberated, Yasin remains at large.

Medical Treatment for Terrorists

Saddam Hussein�s general store for terrorists included medical care, too.

Abu Musab al Zarqawi. After running an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, he found his way to Baathist Baghdad, where he reportedly checked into Olympic Hospital, an elite facility run by the late Uday Hussein, son of the captured tyrant. Zarqawi is believed to have received medical treatment for a leg injury sustained while dodging American GIs who toppled the Taliban. He convalesced in Baghdad for some two months. Once he was back on his foot, Zarqawi then opened an Ansar al-Islam terrorist training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi is thought to be behind the October 28, 2002 assassination of Lawrence Foley. Foley was a U.S. diplomat in Amman, Jordan who worked on international development projects. For that transgression, he was gunned down and killed in his driveway at home.

According to dissidents, journalists who have visited, and even United Nations weapons inspectors, Saddam Hussein appears to have offered training to terrorists, in addition to funding, diplomatic help, safe haven and medical care.

The Associated Press reports that Coalition forces shut down at least three terrorist training camps in Iraq. The most notorious of these was the base at Salman Pak, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad. Before the war, numerous Iraqi defectors said the camp featured a passenger jet on which terrorists sharpened their air piracy skills. This satellite photo shows an urban assault training site, a three-car train for railway-attack instruction, and a commercial airliner sitting all by itself in the middle of the desert.

Sabah Khodada, a former Iraqi army captain who once worked at Salman Pak. On October 14, 2001, Khodada granted an interview to PBS television program �Frontline,� stating, �This camp is specialized in exporting terrorism to the whole world.�

He added: �Training includes hijacking and kidnapping of airplanes, trains, public buses, and planting explosives in cities ... how to prepare for suicidal operations.�

He continued: �We saw people getting trained to hijack airplanes...They are even trained how to use utensils for food, like forks and knives provided in the plane.�

Does that sound familiar?

A map of the camp that Khodada drew from memory for �Frontline� closely matches satellite photos of Salman Pak, further bolstering his credibility.

General Vincent Brooks, who briefed reporters throughout the initial phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom, had his own observations about Saddam Hussein's terrorist pedagogy. Speaking at an April 6, 2003 press conference, General Brooks said: �The nature of the work being done by some of those people that we captured, their inferences to the type of training that they received, all of these things give us the impression that there was terrorist training that was conducted at Salman Pak.�

An al-Qaeda Link?

So does all of this, or anything else, suggest a tie between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda? Some evidence is interesting but far from solid, such as this image that appeared on the front page of the March 27, 2003 New York Post showing U.S. troops at an Iraqi military base in Nasariyah. They encountered a mural that seems to celebrate the destruction of the Twin Towers.

Al-Qaeda link? Recall that Abdul Rahman Yasin, one of the al-Qaeda bombers who hit the World Trade Center in 1993, fled to Iraq after that attack and lived there freely, reportedly with a government salary. That�s one clear link to al-Qaeda.

Then there is the interesting case of Ahmad Hikmat Shakir � an Iraqi VIP facilitator who worked at the international airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Citing a foreign government service, page 340 of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on pre-Iraq-War intelligence indicates that, Shakir claimed he got this job through Ra'ad al-Mudaris, an Iraqi Embassy employee in Malaysia. On January 5, 2000, Shakir greeted Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi at Kuala Lampur�s airport. He then escorted them to a local hotel where these September 11 hijackers met with 9/11 conspirators Ramzi bin al Shibh and Tawfiz al Atash. Five days later, according to The Weekly Standard�s Stephen Hayes, Shakir disappeared.
Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi subsequently spent the morning of September 11, 2001 flying American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, killing 184 people.

Shakir, the Iraqi airport greeter, was arrested in Qatar on September 17, 2001. On his person and in his apartment, authorities discovered documents connecting him to the 1993 WTC bomb plot and �Operation Bojinka,� al-Qaeda�s 1995 plan to blow up 12 jets simultaneously over the Pacific. Interestingly enough, as a May 27, 2004 Wall Street Journal editorial reported, Ahmed Hikmat Shakir's name appears on three different rosters of the late Uday Hussein's prestigious paramilitary group, the Saddam Fedayeen. A government source told the Journal that the papers identify Shakir as a lieutenant colonel in the Saddam Fedayeen.

Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani was Consul and Second Secretary at Iraq's Czech embassy between March 1999 and April 22, 2001. He long has been suspected of meeting with September 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta, most likely on April 8, 2001. Perhaps at other times, too. While skeptics dismiss this encounter, Czech intelligence found Al-Ani's appointment calendar in Iraq's Prague embassy, presumably after Saddam Hussein's defeat. Al-Ani's diary lists an April 8, 2001, meeting with Hamburg student. Maybe, in a massive coincidence, Al-Ani dined with a young scholar and chatted about Hegel and Nietzsche. Or perhaps Al-Ani saw a former student from Hamburg named Mohamed Atta to discuss more practical matters. The Czech government sticks to their contention that they did observe this Iraqi diplomat meeting with Mohamed Atta just five months before 9-11. As Czech U.N. Ambassador Hynek Kmonicek explained in a letter to Philadelphia attorney James Beasley, Jr.: �In this moment we can confirm, that during the next stay of Mr. Muhammad Atta in the Czech Republic, there was the contact with the official of the Iraqi intelligence, Mr. Al Ani, Ahmed Khalin Ibrahim Samir, who was on 22nd April 2001 expelled from the Czech Republic on the basis of activities which were not compatible with the diplomatic status.� Al-Ani was kicked out of Prague for casing the headquarters of Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Iraq, presumably because he wanted to blow them up. Of course, we know what happened next. Mohamed Atta and his henchmen went to airports on the East Coast. Within just three hours, he and the other pilots were in the air, about to reshape history. He and his evil colleagues turned this lovely vista of America's premier city into a towering inferno. They stole 2,749 innocent souls from the American family and decapitated the most powerful skyline man ever built.

Would This Hold Up in Court?

So would any or all of these ties between Iraq and terrorism or Iraq and al-Qaeda, in particular, withstand judicial scrutiny? That�s the question the families of two of those murdered at the World Trade Center wondered. The survivors of George Eric Smith, a 38-year-old senior business analyst with SunGard Asset Management Systems and the family of Timothy Soulas, age 35, a foreign currency specialist with Cantor Fitzgerald, sued Baathist Iraq and the Taliban for damages connected to the murders of their loved ones.

The federal trial judge was Harold Baer, Jr. a Clinton appointee. He took testimony from Clinton-designated CIA director James Woolsey and American Enterprise Institute scholar Laurie Mylroie, an adviser to the 1992 Clinton campaign. Baer learned about the Salman Pak camp, and considered other evidence of Saddam Hussein�s ties to al-Qaeda. To be fair, Baer did not hear Hussein�s side, as the Iraqi dictator did not respond to the suit. Nevertheless, Baer issued his decision.

As the May 8, 2003 New York Post and other news outlets reported, Baer ruled that Saddam Hussein�s government was complicit in the September 11 attacks and that the Baathist government owed the plaintiffs a judgment of $104 million.

As Baer stated on May 7, 2003:

�I conclude that plaintiffs have shown, albeit barely, �by evidence satisfactory to the court� that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al Qaeda.� This lead to the following headline from the CBS: �Court Rules: Al Qaida, Iraq Linked.� Thus, there is abundant and undeniable evidence that Saddam Hussein provided money, diplomatic services, shelter, medical care, and training to terrorists of every stripe, including those complicit in the 1993 WTC bombing and � according to a Clinton-appointed federal judge � the September 11 attacks. The Iraqi dictator aided al-Qaeda and other global terrorists who murdered Americans, both at home and abroad.

Saddam Hussein was a living threat to American national security and the safety of the civilized world.

well then I should say pro war in Iraq...sm
Excuse me for pointing out that some folks are pro - war, and let me rephrase that to pro - military action in Iraq (which happened to lead to war).

This is an old pic I have seen floating around, and I don't agree with it. Just become some liberals writers have come out on record hating the troops, doesn't mean a hill of beans to me. Matter of fact, conservative media, writers, etc who repost it ad nauseum are just as guilty of bringing down the morale of the troops IMHO.

9-11 and Iraq---
are related. When I see video footage of Mohamed Atta meeting with one of Hussein's generals in the weeks before the attack, I don't write that off as a coincidence. WHen they found that 747 in the desert in Iraq, fully equipped, I don't think it was there a a tourist attraction. I rather think it was there to train hijackers. But if some want to ignore that, let them. It is definitely their right. I just don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that Hussein definitely had ties, and most likely money, in the 9-11 attack. And I also believe that Bush believed that, his advisors believed that, and that Congress believed that (liberals and conservatives alike) because they voted to go to war. Bush did not do it by himself. Of course, now that elections are upon us, the liberals are backpedaling 100 mph just like they did before...I voted for it before I voted against it...oh I just authorized use of force, didn't mean he had to USE it, yada yada. Please. I am so tired of the buck passing.

My head is not in the sand...my posts have demonstrated that. I believe the reason to go in was a good one. I believe the response of the Iraqi people was overestimated. If they had held onto the feeling they had when they were dancing in the streets and pulling down Hussein's likenesses all over Baghdad, it would have been a different story. If Iran had not bankrolled terrorists and intervened...if, if, if. No one knows how a war is going to go. However, one thing I do know...we have not been attacked on our own soil since we went into Iraq. I do NOT think that would have been the case had we not gone in. I still stand by the idea that it set Al Qaeda back on its heels. They did not expect that. They expected a Bill Clinton-like response in Somalia. We would just whimper and lick our wounds and wait for the next hit. Perhaps you do not worry about buses, trains, malls being bombed. Perhaps you think we are isolated and that will never happen here. Perhaps you still think Iraq has nothing to do with all that.

And no, love won't cure terrorism. Fighting will not cure it, but it will certainly deter it. Would you rather terrorists kill our soldiers in the streets of New York? Los Angeles? Dubuque Iowa? Tulsa Oklahoma? Would it be easier for you to take if they were dying here at the hands of terrorists? Would you be willing to fight then? Just wondering.

Maybe he should go to Iraq and

get hit with shoes, too. That might wake him up. LOL

I agree that he is arrogant and I've never seen this in my lifetime. It sets a new precedence [sic] (I'm tired) for this to happen every election. What I really like about him is the way he "wiggles" when he takes questions and you can see him just trying to find the correct words to fit the question without answering it.

Only time will tell...and for you bashers, this is my opinion. I am going to "sort of" give him a try but the first itsy bitsy mistake he makes, I'll be all over it with glee.

The war in Iraq has nothing to do with
The Bush administration's disastrous foreign policy and national security decisions post-9/11 lost us more allies and more consitutional rights than we gained in retribution.

Iraq...(sm)
Over the last 5 days over 160 people in Iraq have been killed in bombings. However, in 5 days (by the 30th) US troops are supposed to pull back and stay on US bases unless asked for help by the Iraqi forces. This is in accordance with the legislation/agreement that Bush signed before he left office. I just hope the Iraqis can handle it and we can go forward with the plan to get out of there.

Of interest, Iraq and oil

"The invasion of Iraq plays a crucial role in the agenda of the neoconservatives. Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world. It could replace, in case of need, other producers such as Saudi Arabia, a fragile ally of the United States. The control of oil production and prices gives the United States potential power to pressure consumer states such as Russia, China, and many in Western Europe."

This is by the former French ambassador to Tunisia, now a journalist. I guess I hadn't realized that Iraq was that oil-rich.

Iraq war..what did it accomplish
Im no Saddam lover, neither do I love Bush, however, seems to me under Saddam, the people had jobs, electricity to help with fans under the 125+ heat, food, a stable way of life, fresh water, security in the streets. It has been said under this new regimen women have less freedom and rights and under the regimen that will be voted in, they will have even less rights. Who has killed more Saddam or Bush? We should have NEVER invaded Iraq, I cannot believe the destruction and death we have caused over NOTHING. Bush, Cheney, et al..need to be brought up on war criminal charges..As of today, only 38% of American people think the war in Iraq was justified..

Iraq Veterans Against The War

t r u t h o u t | Iraq Veterans Against the War
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Some of them are in Iraq. And some of them have died. sm

The issue of illegal immigration has been around way long than Bush's term in office. While I do agree it is an even bigger problem with terrorism looming, this was something that should have been addressed long long ago.