"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
-- President Dwight D. Eisenhower April 16, 1953

Body armor might have made the difference. Click here to see why it was not available to US troops in Iraq.

Ahrnold or, for fewer scary pictures	Michael J. Fox		The Kiss Float Again
AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl	AZ-01: Rick Renzi	AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth	CA-04: John Doolittle
CA-11: Richard Pombo	CA-50: Brian Bilbray	CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave	CO-05: Doug Lamborn
CO-07: Rick O'Donnell	CT-04: Christopher Shays	FL-13: Vernon Buchanan	FL-16: Joe Negron
FL-22: Clay Shaw	ID-01: Bill Sali	IL-06: Peter Roskam	IL-10: Mark Kirk
IL-14: Dennis Hastert	IN-02: Chris Chocola	IN-08: John Hostettler	IA-01: Mike Whalen
KS-02: Jim Ryun	KY-03: Anne Northup	KY-04: Geoff Davis	MD-Sen: Michael Steele
MN-01: Gil Gutknecht	MN-06: Michele Bachmann	MO-Sen: Jim Talent	MT-Sen: Conrad Burns
NV-03: Jon Porter	NH-02: Charlie Bass	NJ-07: Mike Ferguson	NM-01: Heather Wilson
NY-03: Peter King	NY-20: John Sweeney	NY-26: Tom Reynolds	NY-29: Randy Kuhl
NC-08: Robin Hayes	NC-11: Charles Taylor	OH-01: Steve Chabot	OH-02: Jean Schmidt
OH-15: Deborah Pryce	OH-18: Joy Padgett	PA-04: Melissa Hart	PA-07: Curt Weldon
PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick	PA-10: Don Sherwood	RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee	TN-Sen: Bob Corker
VA-Sen: George Allen	VA-10: Frank Wolf	WA-Sen: Mike McGavick	WA-08: Dave Reichert

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about an area where we've all been involved, you especially, in talking about Iraq and how we can win this war or deal with it. You've called, just in the last couple of days, for 100,000 more troops on top of the 140,000 we have as a compliment there.

MCCAIN: I said we need 100,000 more ...

MATTHEWS: Right.

MCCAIN: ...members of the Marines and the Army. We need additional troops there, but I think we need to expand the Army and the Marine Corps by 100,000 people.

MATTHEWS: More recruitment.

MCCAIN: I didn't say we need 100,000 -- more recruitment. And by the way, I'm sure that people in this audience know the members—many members of the Iowa National Guard. They have served with courage, with bravery, with sacrifice and enormously wonderful performance. But it's a heavy strain on the Guard.

MATTHEWS: Would they please stand up? I know we have some here. Would the people of the National Guard of Iowa please just stand up nonofficially here? Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

MATTHEWS: Thank you. Thank you for your service.

(APPLAUSE)

MCCAIN: Some of these young people have been to Afghanistan or Iraq two or three times already. We have put an enormous strain on them. They have performed magnificently, but we can't keep it up. We've got to expand the Marines. . . .

MATTHEWS: But why isn't it working? I mean, so few people here— we've got a couple of thousand of young people here, and a very, very small percentage have expressed a commitment, even by standing here. Doesn't that mean we might have to think of the draft again?

MCCAIN: I don't think we need to think of the draft again because I don't think it makes sense in a whole variety of ways. But I guarantee you, if these young people felt that this nation was in a crisis and we asked them to serve, virtually every one of them would stand up because I have the greatest confidence in the young people of America.

So, to recap McCain's position: (1) in order to win in Iraq, we need to expand our military by 100,000 more troops; (2) we don't have anywhere near 100,000 troops to send to Iraq, and nobody suggests that we do; (3) a draft is absolutely unnecessary.

So we'll just wait until that happens. But the first test of McCain's Grand Plan wasn't very auspicious. Matthews and McCain were appearing before an audience of college students at Iowa State University, and after McCain unveiled his grand serious Plan for Victory -- relying on spontaneous bursts of volunteers for combat in Iraq -- Matthews asked those in the audience who supported the war in Iraq to stand up. Large numbers of them bravely stood in support of the War. Matthews then asked those who plan to join the military to fight in Iraq to stand up. A tiny fraction of them did. Matthews then observed:

MATTHEWS: All you people standing up are planning to participate in the war in some way? Really? Everybody here.

MCCAIN: Thank you very much, my friends.

MATTHEWS: Because I asked a minute ago how many were going to join the military. I wonder what your participation would involve.

MCCAIN: Chris, your bias is starting to show. . . .

MATTHEWS: I want the people that are standing up. Somebody yell out why are you standing if you're not joining the military. OK, you were one of those. Keep going, anybody else? Of course, look at all the people in the back. I asked before if anybody was joining the military. And now you're standing up in support of the war but not in terms of a plan to actually participate in a war. I don't get the connection. Would somebody explain it?

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/john-mccain-unveils-his-grand-plan-for.html

U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq

By Robin Wright and Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 14, 2005; A01

"The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

... the realities of daily life are a constant reminder of how the initial U.S. ambitions have not been fulfilled in ways that Americans and Iraqis once anticipated. Many of Baghdad's 6 million people go without electricity for days in 120-degree heat. Parents fearful of kidnapping are keeping children indoors.

Barbers post signs saying they do not shave men, after months of barbers being killed by religious extremists. Ethnic or religious-based militias police the northern and southern portions of Iraq. Analysts estimate that in the whole of Iraq, unemployment is 50 percent to 65 percent.

... "We set out to establish a democracy, but we're slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic," said another U.S. official familiar with policymaking from the beginning, who like some others interviewed would speak candidly only on the condition of anonymity. "That process is being repeated all over."

... "We are definitely cutting corners and lowering our ambitions in democracy building," said Larry Diamond, a Stanford University democracy expert who worked with the U.S. occupation government and wrote the book "Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq."

... On security, the administration originally expected the U.S.-led coalition to be welcomed with rice and rosewater, traditional Arab greetings, with only a limited reaction from loyalists of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. The surprising scope of the insurgency and influx of foreign fighters has forced Washington to repeatedly lower expectations -- about the time-frame for quelling the insurgency and creating an effective and cohesive Iraqi force capable of stepping in, U.S. officials said.

Killings of members of the Iraqi security force have tripled since January. Iraq's ministry of health estimates that bombings and other attacks have killed 4,000 civilians in Baghdad since Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari's interim government took office April 28.

... "We've said we won't leave a day before it's necessary. But necessary is the key word -- necessary for them or for us? When we finally depart, it will probably be for us," a U.S. official said.

... Pressed by the cost of fighting an escalating insurgency, U.S. expectations for rebuilding Iraq -- and its $20 billion investment -- have fallen the farthest, current and former officials say.

... Water is also a "tough, tough" situation in a desert country, said a U.S. official in Baghdad familiar with reconstruction issues. Pumping stations depend on electricity, and engineers now say the system has hundreds of thousands of leaks.

"The most thoroughly dashed expectation was the ability to build a robust self-sustaining economy. We're nowhere near that. State industries, electricity are all below what they were before we got there," said Wayne White, former head of the State Department's Iraq intelligence team who is now at the Middle East Institute. "The administration says Saddam ran down the country. But most damage was from looting [after the invasion], which took down state industries, large private manufacturing, the national electric" system.

Ironically, White said, the initial ambitions may have complicated the U.S. mission: "In order to get out earlier, expectations are going to have to be lower, even much lower. The higher your expectation, the longer you have to stay. Getting out is going to be a more important consideration than the original goals were. They were unrealistic."

Toilet-gate: The Difference Between Newsweek and George W. Bush

The Note: The New Abnormal, 12 May 2005

"We say with all the genuine apolitical and non-partisan human concern that we can muster that

the death and carnage in Iraq is truly staggering.

And/but we are sort of resigned to the Notion that it simply isn't going to break through to American news organizations, or, for the most part, Americans.

Democrats are so thoroughly spooked by John Kerry's loss —- and Republicans so inspired by their stay-the-course Commander in Chief —- that what is hands down the biggest story every day in the world will get almost no coverage. No conflict at home = no coverage.

Instead, think of the Bolton confirmation hearing, the Ways and Means Social Security kickoff hearing, and the evening tribute dinner for Tom DeLay (and the conservative movement) as classic Beltway set pieces, complete with (semi-)compelling casts of characters, dramatic arcs, conflicts galore, and pure unadulterated entertainment.
..."

Forces: U.S. & Coalition/Casualties POW/MIA

At least 12,350 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon.

Once again, the truth (lack of appropriate armor) is no longer the issue

The question from Wilson appeared to surprise Rumsfeld on Wednesday and prompted cheers among the soldiers listening to him in a hangar. ``Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?'' Wilson had said.

Military affairs reporter Edward Lee Pitts, who is embedded with the 278th Regimental Combat Team, said he worked with guardsmen after being told reporters would not be allowed to ask Rumsfeld any questions. Griscom said Pitts ``used the tools available to him as a journalist to report on a story that has been and remains important to members of the 278th and those back at home.''

But the story by Pitts published Thursday about the question to Rumsfeld made no mention of Pitts' own role.

Kelly McBride, a member of the ethics faculty at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, said she did not fault the reporter for getting help with asking the question, but described the failure to include that information with his story as ``dishonest with his readers.''

... Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said Rumsfeld gives reporters ample time to ask questions and that his appearance in Kuwait was for the soldiers.

``Town Hall meetings are intended for soldiers to have dialogue with the secretary of defense,'' Di Rita said. ``It would be unfortunate to discover that anyone might have interfered with that opportunity, whatever the intention.''

And yet,

"This was a war of choice, not necessity, to be waged on our timetable, not Saddam's," as Senator Joe Biden said in a statement. "And why is it that, 20 months after Saddam's statue fell, our troops still don't have the protection they need? Congress has given this administration virtually every dollar it has asked for in Iraq."

If you are a male US citizen, you must register with the Selective Service when you turn 18.

Basically, when there is a draft, there will BE a very limited deferral even for currently enrolled students.

If you would like to discuss this issue, click here to join the Teen Boots On the Ground email list.

About those 'imperfect' elections in Iraq

HOLDING ELECTIONS in Iraq in January is not as simple as the Bush administration would have us believe. Last week, President Bush and Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi insisted that progress is being made in Iraq, despite all the evidence to the contrary, and that elections will be held at the beginning of next year.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld cautions that those elections might be "imperfect." Voters in some parts of Iraq might not be able to participate because insurgents control the areas where they live. Are imperfect elections better than none, Rumsfeld asked at a recent Senate hearing. "You bet," he said.

OK, then how about holding our presidential election on Nov. 2, but not allowing voters in Texas, Alabama, and Louisiana, three solidly Republican states, to vote? Would Mr. Bush contest that election if John Kerry won? You bet.

And that's the central problem in Iraq: legitimacy. Assume for a moment that all the other major problems related to holding elections can be solved in the next three months.

On top of all this sits the problem of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis not being able to vote. The areas now controlled by insurgents include a half dozen cities in the Sunni Triangle, such as Fallujah and Ramadi, as well as Sadr City, which is controlled by those loyal to the dissident cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr City is only a section of Baghdad, but 10 percent of all Iraqis live there.

Allawi told Congress last week that 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces are so safe elections could be held tomorrow. He didn't mention that up to 25 percent of the electorate lives in the places that are not safe. And Bush administration officials admit they expect the level of violence to increase in coming weeks and months, as insurgents do everything they can to disrupt the vote.

The same day that Rumsfeld said imperfect elections were acceptable, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage contradicted him and told senators that partial elections are not a consideration. Armitage said a legitimate election "has to be open to all citizens." Otherwise, the promise of democracy that has cost thousands of Iraqi lives - as well as more than 1,000 American lives - is an empty one.

President Bush has called elections in Iraq "the most important step in our plan." No doubt tonight in the first presidential debate he will continue to insist that Iraq is on the path to freedom and that the January schedule will be met.

But the Bush administration has been wrong on just about everything else related to Iraq, and once again it is downplaying and oversimplifying the complexities of the problem. Bush's breezy assessment might win him votes in November, but it threatens to play a cruel hoax on the people of Iraq in January.

"From the very beginning of the effort to sell the [Iraq] war, this has been Cheney's role.
He's also "at odds with the facts". That doesn't stop him. I don't think it's an accident. I don't think it's a slip of the tongue."

To back up Cheney's claim of an Al Qaeda-Hussein "relationship," his aides point to the presence in pre-invasion Iraq of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born militant believed to be behind much of the insurgency in postwar Iraq.

But while Zarqawi is widely thought to have had ties to Bin Laden's group — the vice president calls him "a senior Al Qaeda associate" — the extent of his links to Hussein, if any, has never been established.

The vice president's staff notes that former CIA Director George J. Tenet testified in Congress about a relationship between Hussein and Al Qaeda. And, his aides say, Cheney has been careful to not state that Hussein was behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

Still, Cheney's references to an Al Qaeda-Hussein connection may obscure that distinction for many voters.

Surveys of Americans consistently have found large numbers who say Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, despite repeated declarations by a variety of investigators to the contrary. As recently as June, a Gallup Poll found that 44% said Hussein was personally tied to the terrorist strikes; 51% said he was not.

A senior Republican who served in top White House positions during the Ford and Reagan administrations cited the Gallup findings in discussing Cheney's campaign comments on Al Qaeda and Hussein. The vice president, the senior Republican said, is "talking about something that is credible with the American people, despite the intelligence. And the intelligence community is so under attack that he can say whatever he wants.

"What he gets out of it is making the case even stronger for why we went into Iraq, and it fits a pattern of what the American people want to believe," said the Republican, who requested anonymity.

Many Democrats are infuriated by what they view as an effort by Cheney to exaggerate the link between Al Qaeda and Hussein.

"This is one of his major issues. He tries to blur the lines between Al Qaeda and 9/11, and Saddam Hussein and Iraq," said Michael B. Feldman, a senior aide four years ago to Al Gore who is not active in this year's presidential race.

"From the very beginning of the effort to sell the [Iraq] war, this has been Cheney's role. He's also … at odds with the facts…. That doesn't stop him. I don't think it's an accident. I don't think it's a slip of the tongue."

Iraq security picture

Click on the map to read about the military and security picture around the country.

Sunni Triangle

BAGHDAD

Anti-government and anti-American fighters use a number of methods. Suicide bombings continue, taking a heavy civilian Iraqi toll.

NORTHERN IRAQ

NAJAF

The most recent was resolved, not by the Iraqi government or by US forces, but by the intervention of Ayatollah Sistani, the most senior Iraqi Shia cleric.

Most analysts agree that the latest ceasefire leaves Mr Sadr strengthened politically and barely dented militarily. Many of his fighters are believed to have relocated back to Sadr City.

SOUTHERN IRAQ

UK military officials have said that in August 2004, UK forces took more casualties and fired more rounds than during any other month since the invasion of Iraq.

How are we going to get out of here?

The safest exit strategy is to catch a flight out of Baghdad's international airport and trust that the pilot can dodge the rockets that rebels sometimes fire at planes after takeoff. But last week just getting there was an ordeal: roadside bombs and insurgent attacks prompted U.S. forces to twice seal off the main highway to the airport. The closures were temporary, but across Baghdad, they added to the ineluctable sense that the city is under siege.

If all [the military goals of subduing the rebellion] can be achieved -- and there's no guarantee that they can -- what will Iraq look like?

In the short run, it could wind up resembling the Administration's other exercise in nation building, Afghanistan: lawless and plagued by jihadist insurgents, with a weak central government dependent on U.S. protection for survival.

Optimistic U.S. and Iraqi officials hope that over the course of years the country will evolve into an Arab version of Pakistan, a fractious quasi-democracy held together by a strongman but reasonably able to defend itself.

Can This War Be Won?: The five goals that should be met before the U.S. leaves

Twisting Dr. Nuke's Arm?

... President Bush has been searching vainly for Osama bin Laden for three years now, so I've decided to help him out. I'm traveling through Pakistan and Afghanistan to see whether I can find Osama, bring him back in my luggage and claim that $25 million reward.

So for the last few days, I've been peering into mosques and down village wells, even under mullahs' couches. No luck so far, but I did find something almost as interesting.

I'm talking about the arrangement under which the U.S. cuts Pakistan some slack on nuclear proliferation, in exchange for President Pervez Musharraf's joining aggressively in the hunt for Osama - in the hope of catching him by Nov. 2.

If a nuclear weapon destroys the U.S. Capitol in coming years, it will probably be based in part on Pakistani technology.

Dr. Khan definitely sold nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya, and, officials believe, to several more nations as well.

But, amazingly, eight months after Dr. Khan publicly confessed, we still don't know who the rest of his customers were. Mr. Musharraf acknowledged as much in an interview.

"I can't say surely that we have unearthed everything that he's done, but I think we have unearthed most of what he's done," Mr. Musharraf said. ...

American intelligence experts haven't been able to interrogate Dr. Khan, and Mr. Musharraf claims that the U.S. has not even asked to do so. "Let me put the record straight: nobody asked us to be allowed to question him," Mr. Musharraf said.

President Bush apparently did not ask for that direct access at his meeting on Wednesday with Mr. Musharraf, and it's clear that the administration is not pressing the issue. Why? Because Mr. Bush in this election season has another priority: getting Mr. Musharraf to help catch Osama.

So which other countries would Dr. Khan implicate if we could interrogate him?

Mr. Musharraf also denied that Syria was one of Dr. Khan's clients. ...

Demise of Iraqi Units Symbolic of U.S. Errors

SAQLAWIYA, Iraq -- The police outpost here is supposed to house 90 armed members of Iraq's National Guard. Their job is to keep watch over a stretch of six-lane highway, deterring insurgents from laying roadside bombs and trying to blow up a bridge over the nearby Tharthar Canal.

But when the U.S. Marine commander responsible for the area visited the outpost this month, he found six bedraggled guardsmen on duty. None of them was patrolling. The Iraqi officer in charge was missing. And their weapons had been locked up by the Marines after a guardsman detonated a grenade inside the compound.

The unit's demise underscores the degree to which errors committed by civilian and military leaders during the 15 months of rule by the U.S.-led occupation authority continue to impede the U.S. effort to combat a vexing insurgency and rebuild Iraq's shattered government and economy. Recovering from those mistakes has become the principal challenge facing the United States in Iraq, three months after the transfer of political authority to an interim government.

"We're trying to climb out of a hole," said an official with the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity. American missteps during the occupation, the official said, "continue to haunt us."

The errors have had a major impact on almost every aspect of the U.S. agenda here, from pacifying rebel-held cities to holding elections in January to accelerating reconstruction projects. In each area, past mistakes have made it far tougher to accomplish U.S. objectives and those of Iraq's interim government.

The guardsmen in Saqlawiya, who come from the nearby city of Fallujah, were not always this pathetic. Early this year, their battalion was lauded by the U.S. military for repelling insurgent attacks on the mayor's office and police headquarters in Fallujah. They were, as one Army officer put it in March, "a glimmer of hope in an otherwise dark place."

The battalion disintegrated in April because of an order by the White House and the Pentagon to have the Marines lay siege to Fallujah -- a decision top Marine officials now acknowledge was a profound mistake. As Marines advanced into the city, the guardsmen were put in an untenable position: Either flee, or join the Marines in fighting Iraqi neighbors -- and risk violent retribution. The guardsmen fled.

Not Enough Forces

When the soldiers, who had just finished basic training, were told where they were being sent, they staged a mutiny and refused to board transport helicopters. The Iraqis told U.S. officers that they did not enlist in order to fight fellow Iraqis.

Stunned U.S. military officials tried to determine what had gone wrong. According to several commanders, they eventually concluded that it was a mistake to have a private contractor conduct basic training, a concern that had already been raised by some veteran military officers, who maintained that the military would have done a better job. Their objection was ignored by the Pentagon's civilian leadership. Once the soldiers finished boot camp, they were put under the command of U.S. officers whom they had never met.

The officials concluded later that U.S. Special Forces soldiers should have conducted the training and remained with the units during their first few missions, an approach that would have increased the likelihood of trust and confidence between the Iraqis and the Americans.

Don't we get an apology?

Speaking to the UN General Assembly Tuesday, President Bush offered a paean to human dignity and the advance of freedom that was directed less to the heads of government and diplomats in the audience than to American voters. It was a speech truffled with his campaign themes. He came out firmly for freedom and democracy and against tyranny, corruption, and the murder of children by ruthless terrorists.

The president made no meaningful effort to stitch together again the international consensus his father had fostered in the aftermath of communism's collapse -- a consensus he has scorned from the moment he came to office. On Iraq, Bush merely reiterated the same justifications he had given in the past for toppling Saddam Hussein without authorization from the UN Security Council.

In the heat of a presidential campaign, Bush could hardly be expected to acknowledge that he failed to create international unity behind the demand that Saddam comply with 17 UN resolutions the Iraqi despot had defied. A day after being attacked by John Kerry for "colossal failures of judgment," Bush would have done himself grave political harm if he had apologized to his UN audience for going to war without forging the international coalition former secretary of state James Baker had recommended in a sage New York Times op-ed article in August 2002.

The telling truth of the address Kerry gave Monday at New York University is that Bush does owe Americans, if not an apology, then at least an honest accounting of the blunders his administration has made in Iraq. Kerry expressed a consensus shared by prominent Republicans as well as independent specialists when he told his NYU audience: "In Iraq, this administration has consistently overpromised and underperformed. This policy has been plagued by a lack of planning, an absence of candor, arrogance, and outright incompetence."

If Bush had wanted to tell the truth at the U.N., he would have acknowledged that his blinkered statecraft, as Kerry put it, has "divided our friends and united our enemies." Kerry has correctly criticized the "stubborn incompetence" that has weakened the United States and led it to the verge of calamity in Iraq.

Release the Gloomy CIA Analysis of Iraq's Future

The CIA, in a classified report produced in July, says just the opposite, according to press reports. The American people must know the truth about Iraq.

Click here to urge your senator to join Senators McCain and Graham in demanding that the President release the new Iraq National Intelligence Estimate immediately.

REPORT SHOWS BUSH NEGLECTING HUNT FOR AL QAEDA

because he's diverted attention to Iraq (which had NO connection to 9/11)!

In the months after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush promised America he would make the hunt for al Qaeda the number one objective of his administration. "[We] do everything we can to chase [al Qaeda] down and bring them to justice," Bush said. "That's a key priority, obviously, for me and my administration."[1] But according to a new report, the President has dangerously underfunded and understaffed the intelligence unit charged with tracking down al Qaeda's leader.

The New York Times reports "Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency has fewer experienced case officers assigned to its headquarters unit dealing with Osama bin Laden than it did at the time of the attacks." The bin Laden unit is "stretched so thin that it relies on inexperienced officers rotated in and out every 60 to 90 days, and they leave before they know enough to be able to perform any meaningful work."

The revelation comes months after the Associated Press reported the Bush Treasury Department "has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden's" financial infrastructure. It also comes after USA Today reported that the President shifted "resources from the bin Laden hunt to the war in Iraq" in 2002. Specifically, Bush moved special forces tracking al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and into Iraq war preparations. He also left the CIA "stretched badly in its capacity to collect, translate and analyze information coming from Afghanistan."

US intelligence shows pessimism on Iraq’s future

”I think it is very difficult to see today how you’re going to distribute ballots in places like Falluja, and Ramadi and Najaf and other parts of the country, without having established the security,’’ Mr. Kerry said in a call-in phone call to Don Imus, the radio talk show host. “I know that the people who are supposed to run that election believe that they need a longer period of time and greater security before they can even begin to do it, and they just can’t do it at this point in time. So I’m not sure the president is being honest with the American people about that situation either at this point.’’

The situation in Iraq prompted harsh comments from Republicans and Democrats at a hearing into the shift of spending from reconstruction to security. Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, called it “exasperating for anybody look at this from any vantage point,” and Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, said of the overall lack of spending: “It’s beyond pitiful, it’s beyond embarrassing. It is now in the zone of dangerous.”

Separate from the new estimate, Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee issued other warnings on Wednesday about the American campaign in Iraq, saying the administration’s request to divert more than $3 billion to security from the $18.4 billion aid package of last November was a sign of trouble.

”Although we recognize these funds must not be spent unwisely,” the committee chairman, Mr. Lugar said, “the slow pace of reconstruction spending means that we are failing to fully take advantage of one of our most potent tools to influence the direction of Iraq.”

Less than $1 billion has been spent so far.

The committee’s ranking Democrat, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, one of the harshest critics of the Iraq policies, was far more outspoken. “The president has frequently described Iraq as, quote, 'the central front of the war on terror,’ “ Mr. Biden went on. “Well by that definition, success in Iraq is a key standard by which to measure the war on terror. And by that measure, I think the war on terror is in trouble.”

Green Zone is 'no longer totally secure

US military officers in Baghdad have warned they cannot guarantee the security of the perimeter around the Green Zone, the headquarters of the Iraqi government and home to the US and British embassies, according to security company employees.

At a briefing earlier this month, a high-ranking US officer in charge of the zone's perimeter said he had insufficient soldiers to prevent intruders penetrating the compound's defences.

The US major said it was possible weapons or explosives had already been stashed in the zone, and warned people to move in pairs for their own safety. The Green Zone, in Baghdad's centre, is one of the most fortified US installations in Iraq. Until now, militants have not been able to penetrate it.

But insurgency has escalated this week, spreading to the centre of Baghdad. The zone is home to several thousand Iraqis, and on Sunday it came under the heaviest attack since it was established. Up to 60 unexploded rockets were found inside its perimeters after a five-hour barrage.

Financial Times

The Case Against George W. Bush

... As Bush's former Treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, and his onetime "terror czar," Richard A. Clarke, have made clear, the president, with the enthusiastic encouragement of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, was contemplating action against Iraq from day one. "From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out," O'Neill said. All they needed was an excuse. Clarke got the same impression from within the White House. Afghanistan had to be dealt with first; that's where the actual perpetrators were, after all. But the Taliban was a mere appetizer; Saddam was the entrée. (Or who knows? The soup course?) It was simply a matter of convincing the American public (and our representatives) that war was justified.

The real - but elusive - prime mover behind the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, was quickly relegated to a back burner (a staff member at Fox News - the cable-TV outlet of the Bush White House - told me a year ago that mere mention of bin Laden's name was forbidden within the company, lest we be reminded that the actual bad guy remained at large) while Saddam's Iraq became International Enemy Number One. Just like that, a country whose economy had been reduced to shambles by international sanctions, whose military was less than half the size it had been when the U. S. Army rolled over it during the first Gulf war, that had extensive no-flight zones imposed on it in the north and south as well as constant aerial and satellite surveillance, and whose lethal weapons and capacity to produce such weapons had been destroyed or seriously degraded by UN inspection teams became, in Mr. Bush's words, "a threat of unique urgency" to the most powerful nation on earth.

Fanciful but terrifying scenarios were introduced: Unmanned aircraft, drones, had been built for missions targeting the U. S., Bush told the nation. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice deadpanned to CNN. And, Bush maintained, "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists." We "know" Iraq possesses such weapons, Rumsfeld and Vice-President Cheney assured us. We even "know" where they are hidden. After several months of this mumbo jumbo, 70 percent of Americans had embraced the fantasy that Saddam destroyed the World Trade Center.

All these assertions have proved to be baseless and, we've since discovered, were regarded with skepticism by experts at the time they were made. But contrary opinions were derided, ignored, or covered up in the rush to war. Even as of this writing, Dick Cheney clings to his mad assertion that Saddam was somehow at the nexus of a worldwide terror network.

And then there was Abu Ghraib. Our "war president" may have been justified in his assumption that Americans are a warrior people. He pushed the envelope in thinking we'd be content as an occupying power, but he was sadly mistaken if he thought that ordinary Americans would tolerate an image of themselves as torturers. To be fair, the torture was meant to be secret. So were the memos justifying such treatment that had floated around the White House, Pentagon, and Justice Department for more than a year before the first photos came to light. The neocons no doubt appreciate that few of us have the stones to practice the New Warfare. Could you slip a pair of women's panties over the head of a naked, cowering stranger while forcing him to masturbate? What would you say while sodomizing him with a toilet plunger? Is keeping someone awake till he hallucinates inhumane treatment or merely "sleep management"?

Most of us know the answers to these questions, so it was incumbent upon the administration to pretend that Abu Ghraib was an aberration, not policy. Investigations, we were assured, were already under way; relevant bureaucracies would offer unstinting cooperation; the handful of miscreants would be sternly disciplined. After all, they didn't "represent the best of what America's all about." As anyone who'd watched the proceedings of the 9/11 Commission could have predicted, what followed was the usual administration strategy of stonewalling, obstruction, and obfuscation. The appointment of investigators was stalled; documents were withheld, including the full report by Major General Antonio Taguba, who headed the Army's primary investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib. A favorite moment for many featured John McCain growing apoplectic as Donald Rumsfeld and an entire table full of army brass proved unable to answer the simple question Who was in charge at Abu Ghraib?

The Bush administration no doubt had its real reasons for invading and occupying Iraq. They've simply chosen not to share them with the American public. They sought justification for ignoring the Geneva Convention and other statutes prohibiting torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners but were loath to acknowledge as much. They may have ideas worth discussing, but they don't welcome the rest of us in the conversation. They don't trust us because they don't dare expose their true agendas to the light of day. There is a surreal quality to all this: Occupation is liberation; Iraq is sovereign, but we're in control; Saddam is in Iraqi custody, but we've got him; we'll get out as soon as an elected Iraqi government asks us, but we'll be there for years to come. Which is what we counted on in the first place, only with rose petals and easy coochie.

Understandably, some supporters of Mr. Bush's will believe I harbor a personal vendetta against the man, some seething resentment. One conservative commentator, based on earlier remarks I've made, has already discerned "jealousy" on my part; after all, Bush, the son of a former president, now occupies that office himself, while I, most assuredly, will not. Truth be told, I have no personal feelings for Bush at all. I hardly know him, having met him only twice, briefly and uneventfully - once during my father's presidency and once during my father's funeral. I'll acknowledge occasional annoyance at the pretense that he's somehow a clone of my father, but far from threatening, I see this more as silly and pathetic. My father, acting roles excepted, never pretended to be anyone but himself. His Republican party, furthermore, seems a far cry from the current model, with its cringing obeisance to the religious Right and its kill-anything-that-moves attack instincts. Believe it or not, I don't look in the mirror every morning and see my father looming over my shoulder. I write and speak as nothing more or less than an American citizen, one who is plenty angry about the direction our country is being dragged by the current administration. We have reached a critical juncture in our nation's history, one ripe with both danger and possibility. We need leadership with the wisdom to prudently confront those dangers and the imagination to boldly grasp the possibilities. Beyond issues of fiscal irresponsibility and ill-advised militarism, there is a question of trust. George W. Bush and his allies don't trust you and me. Why on earth, then, should we trust them?

Fortunately, we still live in a democratic republic. The Bush team cannot expect a cabal of right-wing justices to once again deliver the White House. Come November 2, we will have a choice: We can embrace a lie, or we can restore a measure of integrity to our government. We can choose, as a bumper sticker I spotted in Seattle put it, SOMEONE ELSE FOR PRESIDENT.

U.S. casualties

Fahrenheit/911

"'But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? And watch him suffer.'
-- Barbara Bush on Good Morning America, March 18, 2003

...In particular, the movie's second hour is carried by the wrenching story of Lila Lipscomb, a flag-waving, self-described "conservative Democrat" from Mr. Moore's hometown of Flint, Mich., whose son, Sgt. Michael Pedersen, was killed in Iraq. We watch Mrs. Lipscomb, who by her own account "always hated" antiwar protesters, come undone with grief and rage.

As her extended family gathers around her in the living room, she clutches her son's last letter home and reads it aloud, her shaking voice and hand contrasting with his precise handwriting on lined notebook paper.

A good son, Sergeant Pedersen thanks his mother for sending "the bible and books and candy," but not before writing of the president: 'He got us out here for nothing whatsoever. I am so furious right now, Mama.'"

Time to say all of us who supported this war were wrong

We should have been marching with the peaceniks, no matter how much we secretly despise them, and all their pacifist tendencies - and until the day I die I will believe that many in the peace camp would have rolled over in 1939.

But it doesn't matter why we supported the war - because we truly believed the lies our Prime Minister told us about weapons of mass destruction, because we thought that Saddam deserved to be buried by history, or because we have a sentimental attachment to the armed forces of this country and could not contemplate criticising our soldiers when they were fighting and dying - we were wrong.

... And one day, possibly one day soon, there will be a bomb in a major British city, and innocent men, women and children will be maimed and killed, and then we will have injustices of our own to nurse, and then we will have our own burning hatreds to cultivate, and our own vengeance to claim. ... To this former supporter of the war in Iraq, it looks like the whole damn farm is rotten to the core."

Those images of abuse have hit us hard

"When there is no penalty for failure, failures proliferate. Leave aside the question of who or what failed before Sept. 11, 2001. But who lost his or her job because the president's 2003 State of the Union address gave currency to a fraud -- the story of Iraq's attempting to buy uranium in Niger? Or because the primary and only sufficient reason for waging preemptive war -- weapons of mass destruction -- was largely spurious? Or because postwar planning, from failure to anticipate the initial looting to today's insufficient force levels, has been botched? Failures are multiplying because of choices for which no one seems accountable.
The principle is: The response by the nation's government must express horror, shame and contrition proportional to the evil done to others, and the harm done to the nation, by agents of the government."
--George Will, Washington Post, Tuesday, May 11, 2004

How could I have been such a mug?

Just remind me, I said, turning to a colleague and friend, what is the case for this war in Iraq? You voted for it. I voted for it. We both spoke in favour of it. We both saw the merits of sticking with the Americans. We both believed that it was a good idea to get rid of Saddam.

But is there not a time when we have to admit, in all intellectual honesty, that our positions have been overwhelmed by countervailing data? How on Earth can we now defend what seems - admittedly at some distance - to be a total bloody shambles?

"Oh come off it, mate," he said, because he is not only a hawk, but has a keen and impatient mind, "don't be so wet. You want a single big argument for the war? The key point is that people are no longer being tortured in jails in Baghdad. That's what we have achieved."

It was as if the clouds had rolled back. I felt a sudden burst of optimism. "You're right!" I said, and thought how silly I had been to ignore that gigantic fact, that we had introduced new values to Iraq, of civilisation and decency.

The following day I saw the pictures from the Abu Ghraib jail.

But I have felt the extra rage of one who has been a mug. Up and down the country, I have given the same defence of the operation. "Of course Saddam never had anything to do with September 11, and of course he never had any weapons of mass destruction. But there is one powerful reason for supporting the liberation of Iraq," I say, "and that is that we rid the world of an odious tyrant, and we have made life better for the Iraqi people."

Some feel the coalition's reputation has suffered irreparable damage...

Why did we go into Iraq when we did?

Bush and Blair made secret pact for Iraq war

"President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001.

According to Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, who was at the dinner when Blair became the first foreign leader to visit America after 11 September, Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror's initial goal - dealing with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Bush, claims Meyer, replied by saying: 'I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.' Regime change was already US policy.

It was clear, Meyer says, 'that when we did come back to Iraq it wouldn't be to discuss smarter sanctions'. Elsewhere in his interview, Meyer says Blair always believed it was unlikely that Saddam would be removed from power or give up his weapons of mass destruction without a war.

Faced with this prospect of a further war, he adds, Blair 'said nothing to demur'.

Details of this extraordinary conversation will be published this week in a 25,000-word article on the path to war with Iraq in the May issue of the American magazine Vanity Fair. It provides new corroboration of the claims made last month in a book by Bush's former counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke, that Bush was 'obsessed' with Iraq as his principal target after 9/11.

Bush laid plans for Iraq war two months after Sept. 11, 2001

The Woodward book describes how on November 21 2001, halfway through the Afghan war, the president pulled his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, aside near the White House situation room to ask about his war strategy for Iraq. When Mr Rumsfeld indicated it was outdated, Mr Bush urged him to draft a new plan, but to keep it secret, keeping the CIA director, George Tenet, out of the loop. The national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was also not fully informed.

'I knew what would happen if people thought we were developing a potential war plan for Iraq,' the book quotes Mr Bush as saying in an interview two years later. 'It was such a high-stakes moment and ... it would look like that I was anxious to go to war.'

In one revelation, the book says Mr Bush told his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to draw up a war plan for Iraq as early as November 2001. Meetings with Gen Franks and his war cabinet were held throughout the next month. Yet months later the White House was still insisting that war was not inevitable.

The president, fearful of how the decision might play in public, kept details of the meetings secret from members of his own cabinet, including the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. The CIA was also initially kept out of the loop.

In one of his interviews for the book, Mr Bush said it would have caused 'enormous international angst and domestic speculation' if the plans had leaked.

Gen Franks was said to have uttered 'a string of obscenities' when asked to come up with a war plan [for Iraq] while fighting the Afghanistan conflict.

A stretched Pentagon is sending unfit soldiers back to Iraq long before they are ready to serve again

The note, which acknowledged Gunn suffered post-traumatic stress, said: "After discussion of his case it was determined ... this may be in his best interest mentally to overcome his fear by facing it. Therefore, he has been cleared for redeployment."

Gunn is not the only broken soldier being sent to battle. The Guardian has uncovered more than a dozen instances in which ill or injured soldiers were sent to war by a US military whose resources have been stretched near to breaking point by the simultaneous fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq. In its investigation, the Guardian learned of soldiers who were deployed with almost wilful disregard to their medical histories, and with the most cursory physical examinations. Soldiers went to war with chronic illnesses such as coronary disease, mental illness, arthritis, diabetes and the nervous condition, Tourette's syndrome, or after undergoing recent surgery. ..."

The Price of Freedom in Iraq

War: Just whose business is it anyway?

... when former White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey suggested to the Wall Street Journal in September of 2002 that a US intervention in Iraq could cost about 2 percent of the US's gross domestic product - roughly $200 billion - the White House quickly dismissed his estimate. A few months later, they also dismissed Lindsey from his post as White House economic adviser.

Roughly a year and a half after Lindsey made his prediction, and less than a year into the war in Iraq, his rough guess is beginning to look like a gross underestimate of the cost of intervening in Iraq. To date, US taxpayers have committed roughly $180 billion to the buildup to war, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime, and the ongoing occupation and rebuilding effort in Iraq.

That doesn't count the costs of "buying allies" through special aid and trade deals, or any projections forward of how long the US may have "boots on the ground" in Iraq. And it is unlikely in an election year that this administration will be forthcoming about future costs. It will pretend they don't exist - as with the failure to budget for war costs in the FY 2005 budget documents - or let them out in dribs and drabs, as with the recently floated $50 billion supplemental request. ...

What has been achieved over the past year?

• Saddam Hussein's brutal, self-serving, and surprisingly incompetent regime has been removed from power. ...
• Oil production has finally been restored close to the pre-war levels, but it remains below pre-1990 levels.
• Electric power, rationed before the war and completely lost during the U.S.-UK bombardment, is back on more than it is off.
• Schools have been rebuilt and re-opened, and hospitals are receiving medical supplies.
• At the provincial and local (town and village) levels, the Iraqi people are choosing councils to discuss and resolve local issues. Baghdad alone has 88 such councils. Civil society is beginning to emerge in many areas, but its development remains susceptible to the security situation.
• A “Law of Administration for the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period” has been adopted by the U.S.-appointed, 25-member Iraqi Governing Council. Due to go into effect July 1, 2004, it is to serve as the guide for elections of a National Assembly, the appointment of an interim government, the writing of and referendum on a new Iraqi Constitution, and the election of a full-fledged federal-style government. On the other hand, it may only lead to divisive wrangling and the disintegration of Iraq.

What remains to be done? How long will it take?

• Find the weapons of mass destruction that the Bush administration said made Saddam Hussein an imminent threat to the U.S., the original justification for starting this war. ...
• Obtain as soon as possible a full and public explanation of the use or abuse of information by the intelligence agencies in forming their judgments, and the use or abuse of intelligence by policymakers in their communications with the U.S. public and with other governments.
• Provide reliable, consistent physical security for the Iraqi population. The old regime had, at most, passing interactions with al Qaeda “adherents.” Now Iraq has become a battleground ...
• Rebuild Iraq. ...Other nations have pledged about $14 billion for this effort; the U.S. contribution so far is more than $20 billion. Estimates of the final cost vary, but most are in the $75 to $100 billion range ...
• Ensure to the extent possible a real and complete transition to democratic governance ...
• Assist nongovernmental organizations in their attempts to count Iraqi civilian fatalities, provide restitution to survivors, and compensate those Iraqis wounded by coalition forces for their injuries.

What has been fundamentally changed by this war?

• Iraqi society, but exactly how remains undetermined other than a change in leadership. ...
• Enmity toward the U.S. has increased in the Islamic world as a whole, even in Turkey, a NATO ally.
• The U.S. administration has enshrined--and, in invading Iraq, attempted to justify--as policy the concept of preventive war...
• Control of the Spanish government shifted. The Conservative government, one of three pro-war ruling parties in Europe, disregarded the Spanish public's overwhelming opposition to the war, and lost the March 14 elections when it seemed to be trying to suppress evidence about the perpetrators of the multiple train bombings on March 11, 2004.
• U.S. military spending increases have accelerated, deficits have mushroomed, and the national debt and the annual cost to finance it have ballooned. ...
• Interest payments on the burgeoning debt, driven largely by the two “policies of choice”--the war in Iraq and tax cuts--will increase dramatically under the Bush administration's forecast. ...
• Increased wariness among other states of U.S. unilateral motives for action, with a predictably less hospitable reception for U.S. suggestions and less support for positions favored by Washington.

What has been lost or placed in jeopardy?

• Lives: more than 565 U.S. military and civilians, including 15 military and 6 U.S. civilians in March alone.
• Lives: 59 UK military and more than 40 others from coalition nations.
• Lives: 21 UN workers.
• Lives: an estimated 10,100 Iraqi civilians and an unknown number of Iraqi military.
• Lives: 201 civilians in Madrid on March 11, 2004.
• Lives: all the physically and psychologically wounded, including the seven Iraq war veterans who committed suicide after their return to the U.S.
• The positive image of the U.S. in the world and the credibility of U.S. intelligence among U.S. allies.
• U.S. relations with NATO allies and other friends.
• The economic well-being of future U.S. generations saddled with the increased debt. ...
• International law and the foundations of international law. So long as the U.S. elects to act unilaterally or with coalitions of “the willing” or of “the intimidated,” the development of viable international security structures will continue to be undermined.

What was (or should have been) learned?

• Preventive (the administration's “preemptive”) war cannot be “justified.”
• ...Building coalitions and obtaining the backing of the UN spreads the responsibilities, burdens, and costs of diplomatic and--where necessary--military actions. Strong coalitions, endorsed by the UN, by presenting a solid world front, can induce a retreat from confrontation by a state whose policies and actions are offensive to the majority of nations.
• ... Diplomacy is less expensive in human and financial terms than war and war's aftermath.
• Democracy cannot be imposed by force or by an outside power.
• In war as in all life, the law of unintended consequences governs. Reality has an iron law of its own: one never knows what one doesn't know until those unknowns reveal themselves.
• Above all, war is not the answer.

And you heard that we've reinstated the overpayments to Halliburton, haven't you?

Has our government explained that in here somewhere?

"In Iraq, for 12 years, through 17 United Nations Security Council resolutions, the world gave Saddam Hussein every opportunity to avoid war. He was being held to a simple standard: live up to your agreement at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war; disarm and prove you have done so. Instead of disarming — as Kazakhstan, South Africa and Ukraine did, and as Libya is doing today — Saddam Hussein chose deception and defiance.

Repeatedly, he rejected those resolutions and he systematically deceived United Nations inspectors about his weapons and his intent. The world knew his record: he used chemical weapons against Iran and his own citizens; he invaded Iran and Kuwait; he launched ballistic missiles at Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain; and his troops repeatedly fired on American and British aircraft patrolling the no-flight zones.

Recognizing the threat, in September 2002 President Bush went to the United Nations, which gave Iraq still another "final opportunity" to disarm and to prove it had done so. The next month the president went to Congress, which voted to support the use of force if Iraq did not.

And, when Saddam Hussein passed up that final opportunity, he was given a last chance to avoid war: 48 hours to leave the country. Only then, after every peaceful option had been exhausted, did the president and our coalition partners order the liberation of Iraq.

Americans do not come easily to war, but neither do Americans take freedom lightly. But when freedom and self-government have taken root in Iraq, and that country becomes a force for good in the Middle East, the rightness of those efforts will be just as clear as it is today in Korea, Germany, Japan and Italy.

Why did the Bush administration sent 150,000 troops to invade Iraq thereby pre-empting inspections by UN-authorized inspectors??

"This is what I don't understand: All of a sudden nothing seems to matter.
First, they said they wanted Bin Laden 'dead or alive.' But they didn't get him. So now they tell us that it doesn't matter. Our mission is greater than one man.
Then they said they wanted Saddam Hussein, 'dead or alive.' He's apparently alive but we haven't got him yet, either. However, President Bush has told reporters, 'It doesn't matter. Our mission is greater than one man.'
Finally, they told us that we were invading Iraq to destroy their weapons of mass destruction. Now they say those weapons probably don't exist. Apparently that doesn't matter either.

Except that it does matter. ..."

Why go to war on Iraq just NOW?

I was amazed by the courage of Mark Shield's discussion about the Congressional hearing in re: the war on Iraq on the PBS NewsHour of September 20. Here's just an excerpt of the discussion.

Shields is clearly outraged, as I am, that we are being railroaded into war, without any intellectual or geopolitical justification.

It sounds to me as if the Republicans' plan is for us to colonize Iraq and sell its oil for their own benefit.

This discussion seems to have been carefully timed to drown out talk of:

• The economy (which is absolutely devastated here in the Bay Area of California),
• Of Haliburton,
• Of the fact that the crimes which Martha Stewart is being accused of committing were also committed by GW Bush - insider trading,
• Of terrible errors in preventing 9/11/01,
• Of voter fraud in Florida,
• Of the awful negative consequences of the tax cut,
• Enron's culpability in the California energy disaster, etc.

Some questions:

• Why would we go to war with Iraq before we understand how the terrorists got away with Sept. 11? (Yes, I hear there will be an "independent" commission. Why did we wait a whole year for this to happen? What were we waiting for? After listening to the hearings on Iraq, I don't believe in "independent" anymore. Richard Feynmann has been dead for a long time.)
  
  
  
• According to Leonard Spector, head of the Washington office of the Monterey Institute's Center for Nonproliferation Studies, "It is also widely believed that during the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam pre-authorized commanders of his missile forces to launch chemical and biological weapons toward Israel and Saudi Arabia if it appeared that U.S.-led coalition forces were marching on Baghdad in an attempt to depose the Iraqi regime. Presumably, if the U.S. were to invade Iraq to achieve 'regime change,' Saddam would give such doomsday instructions again."

  So, why would we go even contemplate going to war with Iraq before we've all been immunized against smallpox? Before we've found out who was responsible for the anthrax attacks?

  Shining Light on "Dark Winter": Dark Winter ends when it is announced that the New York Times, the Washington Post, and USA Today have each received an anonymous letter demanding the removal of all US forces from Saudi Arabia and all warships from the Persian Gulf within 1 week. The letters threaten that failure to comply with the demands will result in new smallpox attacks on the US homeland as well as other attacks with anthrax and plague. To prove the veracity of these claims and the seriousness of their threats, each letter contains a genetic fingerprint that matches the fingerprint of the smallpox strain causing the current epidemic, demonstrating that the author of these letters has access to the smallpox strain.

  ... With no vaccine remaining and new vaccine not expected for at least 4 weeks, how can the rapidly expanding epidemic be contained? What measures should the federal and state governments take to stop the epidemic, given the scope of the crisis, the lack of remaining vaccine, and rising stakes? Should the United States pull its forces out of the Gulf in response to the anonymous letters? With no conclusive evidence as to who orchestrated the attack, how and should the United States respond? ...

• Why would we go to war with Iraq AFTER we've gone to the UN and said we want weapons inspectors but BEFORE they have a chance to even implement an inspection program? "Many around the world breathed a sigh of relief when President Bush went to the UN recently, unaware that the approach was merely a tactic."
  
  
  
• Why did Bush announce that he would work with the international community and then, within 3 days, determine that we absolutely needed to go it alone and go it alone immediately?
  
  
  
• Is Bush going to let the Russians do to Chechnya and the Chinese do to Tibet what Saddam did to the Kurds so that the Republicans can sweep these midterm elections?
  
  
  
• The war we will wage will set a precedent for preemptive wars throughout the world. What would have happened just this past summer if India had preemptively struck Pakistan? What will happen if, soon after Bush invades Iraq, Russian invades Georgia?

Why would we go to war with Iraq NOW? I'm not saying we never should, but why NOW?

Why do Democrats think that if they go along with this, they'll be able to get back to the "real" issues? Don't they know that this war with Iraq is being used to keep us from focusing on the real issues? And will continue to be used in this way?

The response by the opposing columnist David Brooks on the PBS NewsHour was telling. He said that Bush has made the case for going in now. But I'm unclear on what this case is. The fact that Bush has 67% in the polls is not a case for going in to Iraq now, but I think that Brooks said that it was.

Scott Ritter, former weapons inspector in Iraq, quotes Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld as stating that `the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.' From this I understand that there is no evidence. But, wow. Wouldn't it be peachy KEEN and COOL if only we could use this kind of argument in courts of law? We'd probably get a 100% conviction rate.

Please tell me: What case HAS Bush made for going in NOW? What facts justify going in now? What FACTS justify war NOW?

Why NOW?

Why right NOW?

Sincerely,

Emily Berk

Why is Iraq suddenly the worst?

My question is not "Why Iraq?" but "Why Iraq NOW?" (As opposed to two months ago or three months from now.) Did it take Bush all these months to read the CIA briefings or could it just be that his poll ratings were descending and there's an election imminent and people like me were asking "Why Martha and not George?"

Why not North Korea?

Incredibly, the victims of these snatch and grab operations were of no military, scientific or political value. Instead, they included a beautician, a schoolgirl and couples on romantic seaside dates who were suddenly whisked off to the most secretive country on earth. ..."

"Following World War II, Korea was split into a northern, communist half and a southern, Western-oriented half. KIM Chong-il has ruled North Korea since his father and the country's founder, president KIM Il-song, died in 1994. After decades of mismanagement, the North relies heavily on international food aid to feed its population, while continuing to expend resources to maintain an army of about 1 million. North Korea's long-range missile development and research into nuclear and chemical weapons are of major concern to the international community."

Read this whole discussion

Americans are going to be in charge of the inspection team and we are going to go through this entire country. And if you don't do it under the UN agreement, then you know, you are in violation. What is wrong with that, Jim, instead of sending people in to be killed?"