Joe Scott 3: The Body Politic

Fatal Exit Flaw: No Iraq Army

01 December 2005 |permalink | email article

President Bush still doesn’t get it. After Baghdad fell, he was flown onto an aircraft carrier and prematurely declared victory with a giant ìMission Accomplishedî banner strung from the Flag Bridge.

At the U.S. Naval Academy yesterday the stage of a huge hall of the campus was adorned with a giant background emblazoned with the words, ìPlan for Victoryî where he again used a military venue in an attempt to regain public confidence about his management of the war in Iraq.

It was a sobering speech he should have made two and a half years ago after the invasion. He laid out what he called a strategy for victory ñ a copycat version of the Afghanistan mission, rejecting artificial timetables for withdrawing U.S. troops and offering a first vague hint of extricating American forces. What it lacked was a specific vision to avert a quagmire - a clear “they stand up, we stand down” policy which now appears inoperable in the short run.

His remarks coincided with a 35-page document outling a new strategy he candidly said, ìwill take time.î The report says increasing numbers of Iraqi troops have been equipped and trained ñ an assertion disputed by military commanders in the field ñ and a point Bush conceded in noting U.S. forces cannot withdraw until sufficient Iraqi forces are able to ensure stability and public order.

Here is the underreported, and central, flaw in Bushís strategy - and the subject of a must-read essay, ìWhy Iraq Has No Army,î by James Fallows in the December issue of The Atlantic Monthly.

An orderly exit depends on a viable security force. But Fallows contends the Iraqis arenít even close, and the White House has never taken the problem urgently. He blames much of the problem on the inability of the military to solve its major language problems, citing the author T.X. Hammes, who was then in Iraq and a Marine colonel, saying U.S. forces and trainers should have about 22,000 interpreters instead of just one or two per company.

Fallows believes the U.S. must choose one of two difficult alternatives:

ìIt can make the serious changes ñ including certain commitments to remain in Iraq for many years ñ that would be necessary to bring the Iraqi army to maturity. Or it can face the stark fact that is has no orderly way out of Iraq, and prepare accordingly.î

The Coverup Continues

29 November 2005 |permalink | email article

An increasingly defensive President and Vice President continue to hammer on a central theme: there was either an explicit or implied link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda in terms of the 9/11 attacks - sufficient justification to rush to war in Iraq when the real enemy was operating out of Afghanistan.

But in another piece of serious investigative reporting about the Bush administrationís prewar propaganda last week, Murray Waas wrote this in the nonpartisan National Journal that 10 days after the attacks:

ìPresident Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and there was scant evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda.î

This information was contained in the Presidentís Daily Brief, a CIA assessment also shared with the vice president and other high government officials.

Waas also finds ìfew credible reportsî of Iraq-Al Qaeda contacts involved Husseinís efforts to infiltrate Islamic terrorist groups, which he regarded as anathema to his secular regime. Apparently the Iraqi dictatorís antipathy to Islamic radicals in 2001 was the same as in 1983.

That year, Donald Rumsfeld, a Reagan emissary, embraced Saddam as a secular ally in the U.S. struggle against Iranís theocratic fascist rulers. Contemplate this cynical flip-flop about making nice then with a bloody tyrant and wonder how Rumsfeld can today keep a straight face in his Pentagon briefings.

The New York Timesí Frank Rich has it right: Bush and Cheney should release the rest of the Presidentís Daily Briefs and other prewar documents that are trickling out instead of fighting the release of such information. That should include unclassified documents found in post-invasion Iraq requested from the Pentagon by the pro-war, neoconservative Weekly Standard.

Instead, the undynamic duo continues to dissemble. Rumsfeld, 22 years after embracing Saddam, now says ìitís timeî for the Iraqis to take charge of their country. No wonder a growing majority of Americans will question today’s rosy new White House strategy for victory which so differs from the facts. Update to follow.

Selling the Iraq War

26 November 2005 |permalink | email article

While it has yet to attract any serious mainstream media interest, a Rolling Stone story published online Nov. 17, ìThe Man Who Sold the War,î by journalist James Bamford, is an absolute holiday must-read given the raging national debate over the accuracy of pre-war intelligence.

Anyone trying to understand how the White House secretly engineered consent for the propaganda campaign to invade Iraq may be well ahead of the snail-like pace of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by following the trail uncovered by Bamfordís expose. It suggests deceit and deception at the highest levels of government despite angry daily denials by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

A key player in all this, and the centerpiece of the article, is John Rendon, a leader in the strategic field known as ìperception management.î The translation: manipulating information ñ and, by extension, the news media - to achieve the desired result.  Rendon has parlayed being a one-time Democratic Party organizer into being perceived behind the scene as Kuwait liberator and secretive Pentagon propagandist for hire.

His firm, The Rendon Group, has made millions off government contracts since 1991, when TRG was hired by the CIA to help ìcreate conditions for the removal of Hussein from power.î

In a rare interview, Rendon ìboasted openlyî to Bamford of ìthe sweep and importance of his firmís efforts as a ìfor-profit spy.î Is this the “smoking gun” article that exposes this administration? It depends on whether the Capitol’s inbred “Gang of 500” decides to take it seriously.