Condi’s Taking a Little Trip
Our Secretary of State is heading to Syria, to talk to Syrian leaders.
From the Associated Press:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet Syria’s foreign minister Thursday in the first high-level talks between the two countries in years, a U.S. official said.
But a substantive meeting between the United States and Iran — another staunch U.S. Mideast foe — appeared less certain.
“We expect that there will be a discussion between Secretary of State Rice and the Syrian foreign minister about Iraqi security issues,” said a senior State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was still being arranged.
Of course, the Republicans are up in arms over the idea of a government official talking to “an known state-sponsor” of terrorism. On the airwaves and in the blogs, their indignation knows no bounds:
From the New York Times:
The Bush administration has resisted significant contact with the Syrian government, accusing it of meddling in Lebanon, supporting terrorism and being unhelpful on Iraq.
“We don’t think it’s a good idea,” said the White House deputy press secretary, Dana Perino, of the Congressional visit. “We think that someone should take a step back and think about the message that it sends.”
From Scared Monkeys:
But […] to go Syria in the midst of this battle over troop funding has to teeter on the edge of treason. We know that Syria is one of our enemy’s in the Middle East supplying aid and supplies to the enemy. They are not an ally in the region but a hostile combatant. For someone of her political stature to go and have meetings with them will empower an entity actively working against our military.
From Sister Toldjah:
My question is: Why not send Senator Jay Rockefeller? He’s already admitted to visiting Syria at least once since Bush has been president, back in January 2002, in order to alert the Syrian ‘head of state’ of his belief about the President’s war plans as they related to Iraq. Hell, he can’t do any more damage this time around than he already has, and he certainly can’t do any worse than the current bunch who will be heading over there next week.
From the NY Times, again:
At the White House, President Bush criticized Ms. Pelosi’s visit, saying it sent mixed signals to the Middle East and to President Bashar’s government.
“Sending delegations hasn’t worked,” Mr. Bush told reporters. “It’s just simply been counterproductive.”
From F-xN-ws:
An apparently botched message during a widely discouraged visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Syria this week has U.S. officials criticizing rogue efforts at diplomacy among U.S. politicians.
State Department officials said Thursday they made it quite clear they did not want Pelosi to visit Syria, a nation that is listed as a state sponsor of terror and is home to terror group Hezbollah, which started a low-grade war with Israel last summer.
Hey…wait a minute! Ummm, hang on while I rummage through Google….checking, checking….
Uhhhh, yeah. Disregard this post as it seems none of El Pollo Loco’s hardcore 25% is complaining about Secretary Rice going to Damascus.
Guess this is just another one of those “Do as we say, not as we do” moments in a presidency proudly sponsored by Halliburton, Big Pharma, and Big Oil.
Jenn’s Sunday Sermon
No one’s shocked to discover even more proof of incompetence from the Bush misAdministration, are they?
From the Washington Post:
As the winds and water of Hurricane Katrina were receding, presidential confidante Karen Hughes sent a cable from her State Department office to U.S. ambassadors worldwide.
Titled “Echo-Chamber Message” — a public relations term for talking points designed to be repeated again and again — the Sept. 7, 2005, directive was unmistakable: Assure the scores of countries that had pledged or donated aid at the height of the disaster that their largesse had provided Americans “practical help and moral support” and “highlight the concrete benefits hurricane victims are receiving.”
Many of the U.S. diplomats who received the message, however, were beginning to witness a more embarrassing reality. They knew the U.S. government was turning down many allies’ offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars. Eventually the United States also would fail to collect most of the unprecedented outpouring of international cash assistance for Katrina’s victims.
[snip]
More than 10,000 pages of cables, telegraphs and e-mails from U.S. diplomats around the globe — released piecemeal since last fall under the Freedom of Information Act — provide a fuller account of problems that, at times, mystified generous allies and left U.S. representatives at a loss for an explanation. […]
In one exchange, State Department officials anguished over whether to tell Italy that its shipments of medicine, gauze and other medical supplies spoiled in the elements for weeks after Katrina’s landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, and were destroyed. “Tell them we blew it,” one disgusted official wrote. But she hedged: “The flip side is just to dispose of it and not come clean. I could be persuaded.”
[snip]
And while television sets worldwide showed images of New Orleans residents begging to be rescued from rooftops as floodwaters rose, U.S. officials turned down countless offers of allied troops and search-and-rescue teams. The most common responses: “sent letter of thanks” and “will keep offer on hand,” the new documents show.
Overall, the United States declined 54 of 77 recorded aid offers from three of its staunchest allies: Canada, Britain and Israel, according to a 40-page State Department table of the offers that had been received as of January 2006. [all emphasis mine]
What’s new (or news) here – other than the fact that this is embarrassing on a scale I can’t even begin to describe?
The Bush regime – with its emphasis on “loyalty” and habit of rewarding the big fundraisers, with its continual placement of incompetent, inexperienced personnel in key agencies (and driving out the career staffs of those agencies) – was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the damage and death and incapable of responding in a timely and appropriate manner to the disaster in New Orleans and around the Gulf Coast. And when other countries offered aid, in every manner possible, they were turned down or – even worse – had their aid packages left to rot.
What’s newsworthy is that this is a warning to every other major city in America: if something happens, you’re on your own. Not that the feds don’t want to help, but that they are hog-tied with politically-wired appointees who’ve turned everything they’ve touched to dust.
This is a Civil War
From 60 Minutes‘ little gabfest with El Pollo Loco:
Reporter: Do you think you owe the Iraqi people an apology for not doing a better job?
Bush: That we didn’t do a better job or they didn’t do a better job?
Reporter: Well, that the United States did not do a better job in providing security after the invasion.
Bush: Not at all. I am proud of the efforts we did. We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that. I mean, the people understand that we’ve endured great sacrifice to help them. That’s the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that’s significant enough in Iraq.
Damn those arrogant brown bast*rds in Iraq! How can they not be grateful for all we’ve done to for them?
From the Associated Press:
The United Nations said Tuesday that more than 34,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in sectarian violence last year, nearly three times the number reported dead by the Iraqi government.
[snip]
Gianni Magazzeni, the chief of the U.N. Assistance Mission for
Iraq in Baghdad, said 34,452 civilians were killed and 36,685 were wounded last year.[snip]
The U.N. report also said that 30,842 people were detained in the country as of Dec. 31, including 14,534 in detention facilities run by U.S.-led multinational forces.
[snip]
At least 470,094 people throughout Iraq have been forced to leave their homes since the bombing in Samarra, according to the report.
End This War!
I found this graphic over at Tennessee Guerilla Women:
And it’s wrong. One hundred and forty-four Pennsylvanians have been killed in Iraq.
Pennsylvania is ranks third in number of deaths, behind California and Texas respectively.
And (just ask El Chimperor) the war really, honestly, and truly had nothing to do with oil.
Really. Honestly. Truly. Because, y’know, Chimpy&Friends said this wasn’t about oil, and we know that when Mr. McFlightSuit says something that means….oh, wait.
From the UK’s Independent:
Iraq’s massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.
The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.
[snip]
Supporters say the provision allowing oil companies to take up to 75 per cent of the profits will last until they have recouped initial drilling costs. After that, they would collect about 20 per cent of all profits, according to industry sources in Iraq. But that is twice the industry average for such deals.
[snip]
James Paul, executive director at the Global Policy Forum, the international government watchdog, said: “It is not an exaggeration to say that the overwhelming majority of the population would be opposed to this. To do it anyway, with minimal discussion within the [Iraqi] parliament is really just pouring more oil on the fire.”
British Gov’t Lied About WMDs
At a time when nearly everyone is wondering just how the hell we’re going to get out of Iraq, new evidence comes to light that proves, once again, that we never should have gone there.
While American administration officials were using British intelligence claims to back up their war drums, the British knew – and had told the Americans – Saddam had no WMDs.
What a surprise.
From the Independent: [all emphasis mine]
The Government’s case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
A devastating attack on Mr Blair’s justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain’s key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.
In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, “at no time did HMG [Her Majesty’s Government] assess that Iraq’s WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests.”
Mr Ross revealed it was a commonly held view among British officials dealing with Iraq that any threat by Saddam Hussein had been “effectively contained”.
He also reveals that British officials warned US diplomats that bringing down the Iraqi dictator would lead to the chaos the world has since witnessed. “I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed),” he said.
“At the same time, we would frequently argue when the US raised the subject, that ‘regime change’ was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos.”
[…]
Mr Ross says he questioned colleagues at the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence working on Iraq and none said that any new evidence had emerged to change their assessment.
“What had changed was the Government’s determination to present available evidence in a different light,” he added.
Read the full article here.
Read more at the Independent:
Full transcript of the evidence given by Carne Ross to the Butler inquiry.
I read the available UK and US intelligence on Iraq every working day for the four and a half years of my posting. This daily briefing would often comprise a thick folder of material, both humint and sigint. I also talked often and at length about Iraq’s WMD to the international experts who comprised the inspectors of UNSCOM/UNMOVIC, whose views I would report to London. In addition, I was on many occasions asked to offer views in contribution to Cabinet Office assessments, including the famous WMD dossier (whose preparation began some time before my departure in June 2002).
During my posting, at no time did HMG assess that Iraq’s WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests. On the contrary, it was the commonly-held view among the officials dealing with Iraq that any threat had been effectively contained. I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed). (At the same time, we would frequently argue, when the US raised the subject, that “r¿gime change” was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos.) […]
More on the UK whistleblower, Carne Ross.
Carne Ross wrestled with his conscience for three more months after he secretly submitted evidence to the Butler committee into the use of pre-war intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
Beset by long-standing private doubts about the Government’s Iraq policy which he had implemented for four years in New York, he had previously drafted “about six” resignation letters in the past which he never sent.
But after emailing his testimony to the Butler committee from Kosovo where he was on secondment, Mr Ross realised that he had probably jeopardised his 15-year career. After agonising for another three months, he sent another email in September 2004, this time terminating his employment with the Foreign Office. He was 38. […]
Commentary in the Independent by Anne Penketh: Saddam seen as no threat – then politicians got to work.
We have had the gossipy version on the run-up to the Iraq war from Tony Blair’s ambassador to Washington, Christopher Meyer, aka the “red-socked fop”. We have not, sadly, been able to read the account of Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the former UN ambassador whose memoirs have been blocked by the Foreign Office.
But with the publication of Carne Ross’s statement to the Butler committee we have an insider’s view as to the state of Britain’s Iraq policy before the politicians seized it by the scruff of the neck in 2002.
Mr Ross suggests that the Bush administration was not the only government which changed the intelligence and the facts to fit the policy before the Iraq invasion. Even though he left Britain’s UN mission in mid-2002 he confirms that the prevailing wisdom throughout his four years as first secretary in New York was that Iraq’s WMD did not represent a direct threat, and had been contained by sanctions.
But as we now know, thanks to a secret Downing Street memo dated 23 July 2002, military action was already seen as “inevitable” by Washington which wanted to overthrow Saddam Hussein. “The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy,” the memo said. […]
You Did What With Google?!
Just when you think you’ve heard it all, comes this report from the Washington Post:
When the State Department recently asked the CIA for names of Iranians who could be sanctioned for their involvement in a clandestine nuclear weapons program, the agency refused, citing a large workload and a desire to protect its sources and tradecraft.
Frustrated, the State Department assigned a junior Foreign Service officer to find the names another way — by using Google. Those with the most hits under search terms such as “Iran and nuclear,” three officials said, became targets for international rebuke Friday when a sanctions resolution circulated at the United Nations. [emphasis mine]
Gee whiz….why would the CIA be worried about State learning of its ‘sources and tradecraft’? Oh, right. Valerie Plame was on a team that was publicly named, despite her covert status. And their focus was….? Yep, Iran.
Policymakers and intelligence officials have always struggled when it comes to deciding how and when to disclose secret information, such as names of Iranians with suspected ties to nuclear weapons. In some internal debates, policymakers win out and intelligence is made public to further political or diplomatic goals. In other cases, such as this one, the intelligence community successfully argues that protecting information outweighs the desires of some to share it with the world. [emphasis mine]
Probably by arguing that it lost a valuable asset when Brewster-Jennings was outed with Valerie Plame?
But that argument can also put the U.S. government in the awkward position of relying, in part, on an Internet search to select targets for international sanctions.
None of the 12 Iranians that the State Department eventually singled out for potential bans on international travel and business dealings is believed by the CIA to be directly connected to Iran’s most suspicious nuclear activities.
And here’s the meat:
That may be why the junior State Department officer, who has been with the nonproliferation bureau for only a few months, was put in front of a computer.
An initial Internet search yielded over 100 names, including dozens of Iranian diplomats who have publicly defended their country’s efforts as intended to produce energy, not bombs, the sources said. The list also included names of Iranians who have spoken with U.N. inspectors or have traveled to Vienna to attend International Atomic Energy Agency meetings about Iran.
It was submitted to the CIA for approval but the agency refused to look up such a large number of people, according to three government sources. Too time-consuming, the intelligence community said, for the CIA’s Iran desk staff of 140 people. The list would need to be pared down. So the State Department cut the list in half and resubmitted the names.
[snip]
U.S., French and British officials came to agree that it was better to stay away from names that would have to be justified with sensitive information from intelligence programs, and instead put forward names of Iranians whose jobs were publicly connected to the country’s nuclear energy and missile programs. European officials said their governments did not rely on Google searches but came up with nearly identical lists to the one U.S. officials offered.
Read the whole thing here.
You Have Spoken
-
Commenting Notice: Because spammers are getting faster in finding workarounds to my spam filter, I'm now moderating all comments containing links.
If your comment doesn't show up right away, it's caught in the filter and will be released at some point - usually within 24 hours.
-
“I don’t have an agenda, I don’t have a program. I’m not a communist or a socialist. I guess I’m a left-libertarian and a populist, and I believe in the Bill of Rights the way some folks believe in the Bible.”
– Molly Ivins, 1944-2007
Stats
The Lady Speaks 