these very group is the stumbling point as "While the statement from al-Maliki's
office said all groups would return, analysts say it is unlikely al-Sadr's
movement would agree to rejoin.
Al-Sadr pulled his six ministers from the government a year ago after al-Maliki refused to set a timetable for the withdrawal of
US troops from Iraq."
Maliki said political groups with militias wouldn't be allowed to be part of the
government. Maliki's Shiite Dawa party and SIIC have militias, but through some
Rovian like rationalization those Shiite militias don't preclude those groups
from being in the party, but Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army disqualifies them from the
government. That just plainly is nonsensical. It would be similar to either
Obama or Hillary winning the popular vote and the delegate count and being
tossed from consideration by insiders in a back room deal. So, al-Sadr's group,
as it is banned from political reconciliation, is going to be lobbing mortar
shells at the Green Zone and at other Iraqis for the foreseeable future.
And Sadr's group has every reason to be pissed off at the Iraqi government.
The article "In Sadr City, Basic Services Are Faltering" at
click here
states "Even as American and Iraqi troops are fighting to establish control of
the Sadr City section of this capital, the Iraqi government's program to restore
basic services like electricity, sewage and trash collection is lagging,
jeopardizing the effort to win over the area's wary residents.
For weeks, there have been reports that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is
preparing to move ahead with a multimillion-dollar program to rebuild the
southern swath of Sadr City, which is currently occupied by Iraqi and American
troops.
But almost a month after American and Iraqi forces pushed into the area, there
are no signs of reconstruction. Instead, the streets are filled with mounds of
trash and bubbling pools of sewage. Many neighborhoods are still without
electricity, and many residents are too afraid to brave the cross-fire to seek
medical care. Iraqi public works officials, apparently fearful of the fighting,
rarely seem to show up at work, and the Iraqi government insists the area is not
safe enough for repairs to begin."
All of this time we have pissed away over Iraq and the evil one that W vowed to get "dead or alive" is happily having his minions distorting history and threatening us.
have no plan" at
click here
states "Here is the title of a report from the Government Accountability Office
on combating terrorism released today:
The United States Lacks a Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and
Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
That is not some line buried in the report. That is the title. Wow.
This GAO report may be the most damning condemnation of the Bush
administration's counter-terrorism efforts. The report goes on to say that the
Bush administration has failed to develop any plan to address the Al Qaeda
threat. Worse, the report finds that Al Qaeda is now able to attack the United
States and represents the "most serious" threat to this country....
Not only have we not met our goals but we have no plan to meet our goals:
No comprehensive plan for meeting U.S. national security goals in the FATA has
been developed, as stipulated by the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism
2003), called for by an independent commission (2004), and mandated by
congressional legislation (2007). Furthermore, Congress created the National
Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) in 2004 specifically to develop comprehensive
plans to combat terrorism. However, neither the National Security Council
NSC), NCTC, nor other executive branch departments have developed a
comprehensive plan that includes all elements of national power--diplomatic,
military, intelligence, development assistance, economic, and law enforcement
support--called for by the various national security strategies and Congress."
We have W's stooge, Petraeus, betraying us as "Al Qaeda is using the Pakistan
tribal areas to put the finishing touches on its plans to attack the United
States. A DNI assessment from earlier in 2008 reports troubling findings:
al Qaeda is now using the Pakistani safe haven to put the last element
necessary to launch another attack against America into place, including the
identification, training, and positioning of Western operatives for an attack.
It stated that al Qaeda is most likely using the FATA to plot terrorist
attacks against political, economic, and infrastructure targets in America
"designed to produce mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction,
significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the population."
It is really not a good thing to have incompetent people running this country."
Big bro 43's non-accountability failure continues as W will nominate Petraeus to
replace Navy Adm. William J. Fallon as chief of U.S. Central Command. Fallon
resigned last month primarily because he couldn't abide his subordinate,
Petraeus, ruining our military. Fallon spoke out against the insane ideas W and
his military shill Petraeus have of massing all of our troops in Iraq, for periods much longer than recommended, which gives us no
ability to handle other threats.
The article "Petraeus Hid Maliki Resistance to US Troops in Basra" at
http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=12709
describes just how completely Petraeus has sold his soul for promotions.
It states "In testimony before Congressional committees last week, Gen. David
Petraeus portrayed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's late March offensive
in Basra as a poorly planned effort that departed from what US officials had
expected.
What Petraeus did not reveal is that al-Maliki was deliberately upsetting a
Petraeus plan to put US and British forces into Basra for a months-long
operation to eliminate the Mahdi Army from the city.
Petraeus referred to a plan for an operation to be carried out in Basra that he
and his staff had developed with the head of the Basra Operational Command, Gen.
Mohan al-Furayji. But Petraeus carefully dodged a question from Sen. Hillary
Clinton about what resources he was planning to deploy to Basra and over what length of time.
Clinton evidently suspected that the plan envisioned the deployment of US troops
on a large scale in the Shiite south, despite the fact that the Iraqi government
is supposed to be responsible for security there. Petraeus responded vaguely
that it was "a phased plan over the course of a number of months during which
different actions were going to be pursued."
Reports in the British press indicated, however, that the campaign plan was
based on the assumption that British and US troops would play the central role
in an effort to roll up the Mahdi Army in Basra. The Independent reported Mar.
21 that Gen. Furayji had publicly declared there would be a "final battle" in
Basra, probably during the summer, and that Britain had already promised to
provide military forces for the campaign. It quoted "senior government sources"
as saying that Prime Minister Gordon Brown's earlier pledge to cut the number of
British troops in the south from 4,100 to 2,500 would "almost certainly be postponed until at least the end of the year".
Two days later, the Sunday Mirror quoted a "senior US military source" as saying
that the "coalition" would turn its attention to Basra once the "huge operation"
in Mosul against al-Qaeda and nationalist Sunni insurgents was completed, and
that the US was prepared to redeploy "thousands" of US marines to Basra, if
necessary.
This plan for a major foreign troop deployment to the south for the first time
since the US battles against the Mahdi Army in April 2004 did not sit well with
al-Maliki. In 2006 and 2007, he had repeatedly blocked US proposals that US and
Iraqi forces target Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Baghdad as well as in the
south.
When Vice President Dick Cheney, who had previously played the "bad cop" in the
George W. Bush administration's relations with al-Maliki, visited Baghdad in
mid-March, one of his objectives was to get al-Maliki to go along with the
Petraeus plan to eliminate the commanding position of Sadr's forces in Basra. Al-Maliki has told Iraqi officials that Cheney put pressure on
him to go along with the Basra operation, according one Iraqi source.
After Cheney met briefly with al-Maliki Mar. 17, he discussed the "security
situation" with Sadr's Shiite rival, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme
Islamic Iraqi Council, which has been pushing for the destruction of the Mahdi
Army. Cheney lavished praise on Hakim, whom he ostentatiously called "my
friend", for "working so hard with the United States and with Iraq's other
leaders to advance the cause of Iraq's freedom and democracy." The signal of the
Bush administration's intentions toward Sadr could hardly have been clearer.
The Cheney visit apparently mobilized al-Maliki, but not in the way Cheney had
intended."...
When the Basra operation became an obvious disaster, however, Washington
officials began to question al-Maliki's motives. On the third day of the
operation, as Bush administration officials were reassessing what they described
as "a rapidly deteriorating situation in southern Iraq", one official told the Washington
Post's Peter Baker they were comparing conspiracy theories about why al-Maliki
had acted so precipitously.
Although that comment was not explained, it clearly implied that al-Maliki was
deliberately undermining the US objective of eliminating the Mahdi Army by using
US and British troops.Bush administration suspicions of al-Maliki's intentions
could not have been eased by the fact that a delegation of pro-government
parties traveled to Iran to ask the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Corps (IRGC) to negotiate a ceasefire with the Mahdi Army. That ploy move, which
did result in a tenuous ceasefire, raised the possibility that al-Maliki
intended from the beginning that the outcome of the Basra operation would be a
new agreement that would prevent the deployment of US and British troops to
fight the Mahdi Army during the summer.
Bush administration officials have been asserting that the most important thing
about the Basra operation is that al-Maliki is now convinced that Iran is really an enemy rather than a friend. But al-Maliki's Apr. 7 interview with CNN's Robertson made
it clear that he has not budged from his position that his government's
interests lie in an accord between Iran and the United States -- not in taking
sides against Iran.
"We will always reject the idea of any side using Iraq as a launching pad for
its attack on others," said al-Maliki. "We reject Iran using Iraq to attack the
US, and at the same time we reject the idea of the US using Iraq to attack
Iran..."
W's policy towards the Middle East assumes we are all fools. These Middle East
operatives have hidden agendas and ulterior motives. We send in current "Tricky
Dick" the feckless, reckless impotent, dickless One, Cheney, as we know he's the
one willing to work on the dark side, but he is getting played by the Iraqis and
the Iranians.
Nothing about Iraq makes sense! It was allegedly the Iraqi theatre of GWOT, but
terrorists-however big bro 43 wants to define that, weren't in Iraq prior to "Operation Iraqi Freedom"
and it has served as a recruiting and training bonanza for al-queda. In addition
to this all pervasive incompetence regarding Iraq, none of the main actors have
been honest.
It is hard to even make a judgment on anything involved with GWOT as we are
getting fed lies by those who we assume are on our side.
The article "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand" at
click here
shows how multiple actors throughout big bro 43's regime lied to us stating
"Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information
apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news
coverage of the administration's wartime performance, an examination by The New
York Times has found.
The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this
day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a
powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military
contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.
Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and
sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the
plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military
contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or
consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of
smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for
hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration's war
on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy
access to senior officials are highly prized.
Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control
over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind
of media Trojan horse - an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from
inside the major TV and radio networks....
Five years into the Iraq war, most details of the architecture and execution of
the Pentagon's campaign have never been disclosed. But The Times successfully
sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages,
transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and
Guantánamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation.
These records reveal a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines
between government and journalism have been obliterated.
Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as
"message force multipliers" or "surrogates" who could be counted on to deliver
administration "themes and messages" to millions of Americans "in the form of
their own opinions....
On Tuesday, April 18, some 17 analysts assembled at the Pentagon with Mr.
Rumsfeld and General Pace, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
A transcript of that session, never before disclosed, shows a shared
determination to marginalize war critics and revive public support for the war.
"I'm an old intel guy," said one analyst. (The transcript omits speakers'
names.) "And I can sum all of this up, unfortunately, with one word. That is
Psyops. Now most people may hear that and they think, 'Oh my God, they're trying
to brainwash.' "
"What are you, some kind of a nut?" Mr. Rumsfeld cut in, drawing laughter. "You
don't believe in the Constitution?"
There was little discussion about the actual criticism pouring forth from Mr.
Rumsfeld's former generals. Analysts argued that opposition to the war was
rooted in perceptions fed by the news media, not reality. The administration's
overall war strategy, they counseled, was "brilliant" and "very successful."
"Frankly," one participant said, "from a military point of view, the penalty,
2,400 brave Americans whom we lost, 3,000 in an hour and 15 minutes, is
relative."
An analyst said at another point: "This is a wider war. And whether we have
democracy in Iraq or not, it doesn't mean a tinker's damn if we end up with the
result we want, which is a regime over there that's not a threat to us."
"Yeah," Mr. Rumsfeld said, taking notes.
But winning or not, they bluntly warned, the administration was in grave
political danger so long as most Americans viewed Iraq as a lost cause. "America
hates a loser," one analyst said.
Much of the session was devoted to ways that Mr. Rumsfeld could reverse the
"political tide." One analyst urged Mr. Rumsfeld to "just crush these people,"
and assured him that "most of the gentlemen at the table" would enthusiastically
support him if he did.
"You are the leader," the analyst told Mr. Rumsfeld. "You are our guy."
At another point, an analyst made a suggestion: "In one of your speeches you
ought to say, 'Everybody stop for a minute and imagine an Iraq ruled by
Zarqawi.' And then you just go down the list and say, 'All right, we've got oil,
money, sovereignty, access to the geographic center of gravity of the Middle
East, blah, blah, blah.' If you can just paint a mental picture for Joe America
to say, 'Oh my God, I can't imagine a world like that.' "
Even as they assured Mr. Rumsfeld that they stood ready to help in this public
relations offensive, the analysts sought guidance on what they should cite as
the next "milestone" that would, as one analyst put it, "keep the American
people focused on the idea that we're moving forward to a positive end." They
placed particular emphasis on the growing confrontation with Iran.
"When you said 'long war,' you changed the psyche of the American people to
expect this to be a generational event," an analyst said. "And again, I'm not
trying to tell you how to do your job..."
"Get in line," Mr. Rumsfeld interjected."
Remember Rumsfeld's "slog memo" in which he challenged the meaning of the word
slog? Rumsfeld knew the war was going to be long and this memo pointed out that the US didn't have the metrics to judge if GWOT was
progressing. He realized we were killing individual insurgents whose place in
the jihad was being taken by scores of friends and relatives, but W's
administration wanted to lie to us about how the world was happy to have a
democracy in Iraq. Psyops are typically perpetrated against the enemy, but W did
it to us--his own citizens, who unfortunately W always has viewed as his enemy.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
