Former U.S. envoy to Iraq Paul Bremer doesn’t appreciate being hung out to dry over the ill-fated decision to disband the Iraqi army after the invasion. Several administration officials have claimed they had no knowledge and no input in the decision, and President Bush is quoted in the new book “Dead Certain” as saying that it was U.S. policy to keep the army intact and indicating surprise that policy wasn’t followed. But Bremer provided to the New York Times a letter he sent to Bush mentioning the planned disbandment and a response letter in which Bush expressed his “full support and confidence” in Bremer (though Bush’s letter doesn’t mention the plan). Bremer also said he had multiple discussions about the plan with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. “This didn’t just pop out of my head,” he said.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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20 Comments
Poor Bremer still can’t connect the dots. When your usefulness is up you are discarded like a piece of trash and your name is dragged through the mud. That IS the modus operandi of the Bush machine.You get no sympathy Bremer live with it. Surely you made millions from the Bush administration like everyone else has with insider knowledge of new Homeland Security industry upstarts in which to invest in. Surely you own som Halliburton stock. If not you are dumb.
I love it when the Bush people start eating their own. Hey, Bush, you want fries with your Bermer?
I hope Bremer fights back hard against Bush and the rest of the idiots who helped bungle this.
Petraus is the next ‘willing/useful idiot’.
Petraeus assessment on Iraq questioned By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer
19 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – Hours before he was to tell Congress the U.S. military needs more time in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus found himself in a political hornet’s nest. Anti-war protestors decried him as a traitor, Democrats called him a yes-man for President Bush and rank-and-file Republicans waited quietly to be convinced.
ADVERTISEMENT”General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” the grassroots anti-war group MoveOn.org wrote in a full-page advertisement in The New York Times that accused the four-star general of “cooking the books” on the war for the White House.
Republican stalwarts swiftly came to his defense. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said the ad amounted to insulting “childish tactics” and should be condemned. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., called the ad a “slap in the face of every member of the armed forces” and branded MoveOn.org a “left wing anti-military organization.”
The fierce political wrangling before Petraeus even walked into the hearing room foretold a fight to come on Capitol Hill.
Democrats are hoping that Petraeus’s pleas for patience will fall flat; Republican leaders say the recent security gains in Baghdad show promise. This was happening against the backdrop of the onrushing 2008 elections and polls that continue to show voters want to see troops start come home.
Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, were scheduled to testify Monday in the first of three hearings this week on the future course of the unpopular 4-year-old war. Officials familiar with their thinking told The Associated Press that the advisers will acknowledge disappointing progress in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bid to achieve national reconciliation but would urge Congress to maintain the U.S. troop buildup to preserve local security gains.
On Sunday, Democrats sharply questioned Bush administration assertions that seven months of troop increases might be working, citing continuing violence and al-Maliki’s political woes. They said they would not back off efforts to set target dates for bringing troops home.
“The reality is that, although there has been some mild progress on the security front, there is, in fact, no real security in Baghdad or Anbar province,” said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., a 2008 presidential candidate who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, a moderate Republican, said he respected Petraeus’ judgment but would not blindly follow it.
“We’re going to look behind the generalizations that General Petraeus or anybody gives us and probe the very hard facts to see exactly what the situation is,” Specter said. “As I’ve said in the past, unless we see some light at the end of the tunnel here, very closely examining what General Petraeus and others have to say, I think there’s a general sense that there needs to be a new policy.”
In their long-awaited report to Congress, Petraeus and Crocker will say the buildup of 30,000 troops, which brings the U.S. total to nearly 170,000, is working better than any previous effort to quell the insurgency and restore stability, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing internal deliberations.
The officials also disputed suggestions that Petraeus and Crocker would recommend anything more than a symbolic reduction in troop levels and then only in the spring.
The testimony sets the stage for an announcement by Bush later in the week about how he will proceed in the face of growing congressional discomfort with the war.
Biden said Petraeus’ assessment missed the point. Biden said focusing on a political solution, such as by creating more local control, was the only way to foster national reconciliation among warring factions.
“I really respect him, and I think he’s dead flat wrong,” Biden said.
Biden contended that Bush’s main strategy was to buy time and extend the troop presence in Iraq long enough to push the burden onto the next president, who takes office in January 2009, to fix the sectarian strife.
“This president has no plan — how to win and how to leave,” Biden said.
But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he trusts the military judgment of Petraeus and that it was foolish for Congress to try and second-guess commanders on the ground.
In the end, Graham said, the U.S. cannot afford to withdraw prematurely if it is military unwise and risks plunging the region into more chaos.
“If politicians in Washington pick an arbitrary date, an arbitrary number to withdraw, it’s not going to push Baghdad politicians. It’s going to re-energize an enemy that’s on the mat,” he said.
Biden spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Kerry appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” Graham was on “Fox News Sunday,” and Specter spoke on CNN’s “Late Edition.”
Meanwhile, a New York Times/CBS News Poll found that Americans trust military commanders far more than the Bush administration or Congress to bring the war in Iraq to a successful end. Five percent of Americans said they most trust the Bush administration to resolve the war, the poll found; 21 percent said they would most trust Congress; and 68 percent expressed the most trust in military commanders
And a separate poll released Monday shows that an overwhelming numbers of Iraqis say the U.S. troop buildup has worsened security and the prospects for economic and political progress in their country.
Forty-seven percent of those surveyed in a poll conducted by ABC News, Britain’s BBC, and Japan’s public broadcaster NHK said they want American forces and their coalition allies to leave the country immediately. This was 12 percent more people than harbored those views in a March poll, just as the troop increase was beginning. And 57 percent — including nearly all Sunnis and half of Shiites — said they consider attacks on coalition forces acceptable, a slight increase over the past half year
I smell fear amongst the libs.
Yes Kansas, fear that the BushBots will do further harm to our country.
The money line in the above article is in the last paragraph. We’re losing because we do not have the support of the people we’re trying to democratize.
There is NOTHING more scary than bushco! Be very afraid.
That is not just the modus operandi of the Bush machine, that is corporate culture.Corporate culture is to claim credit of someone else’s hard work.
Corporate culture also dictates that blame must be re-cast, or spread among many for personal failures, much like Bush MO.
“I smell fear amongst the libs.”
I love that smell. It smells like victory.
How is finger-pointing, eat-your-own politics among Administration officials and has-beens anything that would cause fear among anyone other than Bush dead-enders?
“I smell fear amongst the libs.”
I love that smell. It smells like victory.
Posted by: fleettwood
If this makes you feel good, then how can you call yourself a patriot? Funny, when those nasty liberal Democrats decry anything the Republicans say or do, they are accused of being unpatriotic.
So how can a Republican call himself patriotic when he is delighted with the smell of fear?
Small-minded man gets a kick out of cutting his nose off to spite his face.
“So how can a Republican call himself patriotic when he is delighted with the smell of fear?”
Easy. It’s lib fear. I’m used to it by now. It’s everywhere.
Fear of what? you losers? Between the war and what’s happening in the economy, repukes will be the minority party for the next 20 years.
Jeez, you people have made a mess of things!
I don’t fear the Republicans.
Without their lies and hypocrisy they have nothing.
As usual it will be up to the Democrats to fix the Republican mess.
I smell fear amongst the libs.
Posted by: Kansas
it’s the smell of your ass, oops… i mean your brain frying from all the anti-american deals your boy george is cookin up and you spend time trying to defend.
“I smell fear amongst the libs.”
I love that smell. It smells like victory.
Posted by: fleettwood
actually the smell is you trying to profit from 3800 DEAD american kids lost while you and boy george invaded the wrong freaking country.
hey… what’s a few thousand dead kids when you and your boy are on a death to those towel heads roll.
and, the what… $3,000,000,000.00 a week? month? it’s hard to keep up with the breath taking speed idiot george is running us into the neo-con ground.
to keep the few of you left the love suckin up to him, it’s apparently as easy as waving a bright shiney object (no, not some dead kids dogtags) with his left hand and giving you a little quick reach around with his right hand.
to be able to boast about winning at anything after listening to bush’s dog and pony show today is the height of being in a coma to life and all that is happening around your tiny little existence.
“So how can a Republican call himself patriotic when he is delighted with the smell of fear?”
it goes like this.for years rove and bushco have turned the country against itself.
and someone like you feels the i’m a neo-con badass boys rush of greatness like a teenage girl who’s importance in life in elevated by 10 at the thought of getting an autograph from britney spears.
wow…you rock.(dude)