Your Onion reality continues - Bush now says he regrets speaking in front of "Mission Impossible" banner. http://bit.ly/2YT0LF

If only his future self could have listened.

By way of Tiny Revolution.

I was just reading a post from Josh Marshall where he points to this remarkable interview with Barack Obama from November 2002. Listen especially for his analysis of the possible fallout of a (then) projected invasion of Iraq; his statement on how he would have voted regarding the Congressional resolution to authorize the President to use military force; and his reason for how he would have voted.

He knew his stuff long before many in DC. Arguably, he knew better then what was at stake than anyone (on the record) does in the Bush Administration today.

UPDATED TO ADD: I just noticed something. The interview is dated 11/25/2002. At that time, Obama wasn't yet a US Senator. He was an Illinois State Senator. In other words, he had a better grip on foreign policy issues as a state legislator -- issues he could not vote upon -- than many US Senators up to the present day.

So much for, "not enough experience," "on the job training is too risky when it comes to foreign policy," etc.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that, earlier this week, Keith Olbermann did an outstanding job of reminding us how -- again -- Condi Rice either is mendacious beyond belief, or suffers from a severe memory problem.

Just to set this up, here was Ms. Rice's foot-in-mouth moment in front of the 9/11 Commission:

RICE: I remember very well that the president was aware that there were issues inside the United States. He talked to people about this. But I don't remember the al-Qaida cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something about.

BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6th PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?

RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."

Ouch.

But this week, as a response to Bill Clinton's assertion the Bush Administration sat on its hands regarding al Qaeda between Inauguration Day and 11 Sept 2001, Ms. Rice made the claim that, "We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda."

If you watch the video, you'll see Olbermann present the following:

"On January 25, 2001, five days after Mr. Bush took office, counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke sent Rice a memo, attaching to it a document entitled "Strategy for Eliminating the Threat of al Qaeda." It was, Clarke, wrote, "developed by the last administration to give to you, incorporating diplomatic, economic, military, public diplomacy, and intelligence tools."

(emphasis added)

Oy.

Or, take this exchange from a White House pwess bwiefing, with Ari-the-Liar at the podium:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, February 27, 2001)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Taliban in Afghanistan, they have offered that they are ready to hand over Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia if the United States drops its sanctions, and the—they have a kind of deal that they want to make with the United States. Do you have any comments (INAUDIBLE)?

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS Secretary: Let me take that and get back to you on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: There is no record of any subsequent discussion on that matter.

Really. If you have neither read nor seen Olbermann's report, you should.

In a comment thread at David Sucher's City Comforts, we've been talking about the administration's domestic spying program. One person said this:

"I was always dissatisfied with prior liberal complaints that we civilians had no sacrifice that we had to bear. I always thought that it was a crock, that the inevitable erosion of liberty in wartime was real sacrifice and that victory demanded such sacrifices as we temporarily acquiesce to the state powers that should be stripped of it in peacetime."

Leave aside the premise as to whether we are "in wartime" (Here's H.J.Res.114, which is the act authorizing force in Iraq. Look at Section 3, and tell me if we've achieved those things. If we have, any other use of force is unauthorized, folks. Which was Rep. Murtha's point. But I digress.)... As I say, leave that aside. The other premise bothers me even more. That is, that in wartime, an erosion of liberty is "inevitable."

I don't believe it is, at all. I'm squarely with William Pitt on this one: "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."

Now, if you want to say it's more difficult to fight a war while upholding liberty, I'd agree with that. But you know what? We're Americans. I think we're tough enough, and we can rise to the challenge. If you want to say this president is too weak to do the job correctly, I'd agree with you that far.

John Kerry had a great line in the first presidential debate, back on Sept. 30, 2004. It was this:

"Just because the president says it can't be done... doesn't mean it can't be done."

I thought Kerry should have hammered home on that in the close of the campaign. Just because Bush has said he has to break the law to fight terrorism, doesn't mean that someone better couldn't do the job legally. It only means this president couldn't manage to find the gumption to do it.

Here's what I really think: I think it's easy to stick to your principles when times are easy. I think it's hard to stick to your principles when times are hard.

I think that's why they call some times "easy," and some times "hard."

I think that as soon as times became hard, Bush lacked the character to stick to American constitutional principles.

But that doesn't mean it was, "inevitable." It just means this particular president failed.

It doesn't mean it can't be done.

It'll go into a paid archive soon, but Maureen Dowd gets off the best one-liner I've seen in ages in today's New York Times:

"(T)he Rummy Doctrine — using underwhelming force to achieve overwhelming goals."

Kinda puts the whole Iraq offensive -- which was neither shocking nor awesome, a plebe at West Point could've come up with that overall assault plan -- in perspective, don't it?

David Brooks has another dismal column in the New York Times today. But it ends on a hook that gives me a chance to go out on a limb.

Brooks does a poor-man's variant on a Bill Safire device, that of re-writing someone's speech, or trying to get inside their thoughts. I kind of understand why Safire likes this device, as he's a former speechwriter. If Brooks was a former novelist it might make a bit more sense. But as it is...

So the re-write in question is of Jorge's tongue-tied to the point of stream-of-consciousness interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press. Here's Brooks' last paragraph, speaking as Bush:

"I could lose this election. I don't know whether the American people are with me or not. But I know our hair-trigger reputation has jolted dictators in Libya, North Korea and elsewhere. I know that if in 20 years Iraq is free and the Arab world is progressing toward normalcy, no one will doubt that I did the right thing."

Oh, yeah. God knows Bush's behavior has caused a jolt in behavior North Korea. So much so that history may well write, "George W. Bush -- Father of the North Korean Bomb".

But, as readers of this LJ know, I had a success rate of 63% when I made 8 predictions regarding the war in Iraq. The big score there: I predicted we would never find any WMD, because the Administration's behavior makes it clear that not even they believe the weapons existed.

So, here's that limb, complete with saw: Iraq will not be free in 20 months, let alone 20 years. 20 months would be... October 2005. Yeah, that sounds safe.

By October 2005, there will be one of four outcomes in Iraq:

* A weak but basically authoritarian regime is still in power, propped up by US troops. (The current status quo.)

* US troops are out, and there's an Islamic theocracy. (This is the "democratic" option, and why, rhetoric to the contrary, we're butt-scared about democracy breaking out in Iraq.)

* US troops are out, and there's another Hussein/Mubarak/Somoza/arap Moi/Marcos/Diem/Musharraf mostly-"friendly" dictator installed.

* US troops are out, and Iraq has broken up into three countries -- Kurdistan, "Iraq" (the Sunni enclave), and... Let's call it Basrastan (the Shi'ite enclave). Basrastan would be an Islamic theocracy (again). Kurdistan may or may not be at war with Turkey. "Iraq" would have no oil, probably be secular, and possibly authoritarian again.

I'll tell you the truth -- I'm not sure which one is the "best" scenario here. But it's where we're going, as of this writing.

Now, all things are provisional, pending better data. It's possible that somehow the Administration will start treating the situation with finesse and competence, and actually figure out a way to rebuild Iraq so that the Iraqis like and cooperate with us. To put John Kerry's spin on it, they might stop fucking up.

What I see as more likely, though, is another Vietnam... But not the way that's usually meant. I think what will happen is that regardless of the final outcome, we have so alienated the Iraqi people that some few will immigrate to the US and become incredibly prosperous, while the remainder stay at home and refuse to have anything to do with us for at least 20 years. Just like Vietnam. Or Iran. In fact, I think the US withdrawal from Iraq, if it happens before the election like so many seem to think it will, will look spookily like the withdrawal from Vietnam, people clinging to helicopters and all.

David Kay, the former chief of the US' search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, had an interview in the New York Times. The crux of it is a new theory:

"(I)n general, Dr. Kay said, the C.I.A. and other agencies failed to recognize that Iraq had all but abandoned its efforts to produce large quantities of chemical or biological weapons after the first Persian Gulf war, in 1991.

From interviews with Iraqi scientists and other sources, he said, his team learned that sometime around 1997 and 1998, Iraq plunged into what he called a "vortex of corruption," when government activities began to spin out of control because an increasingly isolated and fantasy-riven Saddam Hussein had insisted on personally authorizing major projects without input from others.

After the onset of this "dark ages," Dr. Kay said, Iraqi scientists realized they could go directly to Mr. Hussein and present fanciful plans for weapons programs, and receive approval and large amounts of money. Whatever was left of an effective weapons capability, he said, was largely subsumed into corrupt money-raising schemes by scientists skilled in the arts of lying and surviving in a fevered police state.

"The whole thing shifted from directed programs to a corrupted process," Dr. Kay said. "The regime was no longer in control; it was like a death spiral. Saddam was self-directing projects that were not vetted by anyone else. The scientists were able to fake programs."

In interviews after he was captured, Tariq Aziz, the former deputy prime minister, told Dr. Kay that Mr. Hussein had become increasingly divorced from reality during the last two years of his rule. Mr. Hussein would send Mr. Aziz manuscripts of novels he was writing, even as the American-led coalition was gearing up for war, Dr. Kay said."

Aw, why not. If Jim Baen is willing to publish Newt Gingrich's novels, surely novels by Saddam Hussein would have some legs. They could always use the Rowena paintings from his Austin Powers-like pad in Baghdad for cover art...

From the AP wire via Yahoo:

Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean on Friday cited the higher terror alert and the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq in arguing that he was right to say Saddam Hussein's capture didn't make America safer.

"They got all excited, but here we are," Dean told a town-hall meeting. "We've lost 10 more troops and F-16s are escorting foreign passenger jets into our air space because we're now more worried than we were before."

Last month, Dean's rivals assailed the front-runner when he said within a day of the Iraqi leader's capture that his apprehension had not made the United States safer, a direct contradiction of President Bush.

Since then, the national terrorism alert has been raised to orange and U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq.

"I can assure you it's not Saddam who's threatening to bomb airplanes," Dean said. "It's al-Qaida. We've not paid attention to al-Qaida. We've spent $160 billion, lost over 400 servicemen, and wounded and permanently maimed over 2,000 people because we picked the wrong target." (Emphasis added.)

(Link courtesy of The Daily Kos. Kos also suggests the true number of soldiers killed since Hussein was captured is 34.)

...this time from the private crony sector of society.

A subsidiary of Halliburton has the contract to supply our soldiers in Iraq with bunches and bunches of services. Housing, food, even gasoline. And the company has been accused of overcharging the government for this gasoline -- in the Persian Gulf and Iraq, of all places -- to the tune of $60+ million. Even Jorge, in his infinite wisdom, thinks Halliburton should repay any overages.

Of course, the reason Halliburton ended up with this contract, most likely, is because VP-in-an-undisclosed-location Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton before he took on the job of running the country.

OK. So, today NPR began a three day series of reports on this sweetheart deal.

Chuck Domini, a Halliburton spokesperson, had this to say in response to the subject of overcharges:

"You know you've done the best possible job. And for somebody to say that somehow we are price gouging, or for somebody to say that somehow we are trying to benefit from the, uh, vagaries of this war... Those are very, very pejorative terms, and they bother people that know they're being highly professional about what they're doing."

So... does he deny the overcharging?

No.

Does he deny Halliburton's opportunism?

No.

He just thinks those are, "very, very pejorative terms."

Presumably, he thinks "price gouging" is something un-professionals do. Professionals call it, "Cost-plus contracts drawn up by our buddy Dick, where we make the costs as high as we possibly can, knowing we'll get a profit anyway. So there. Nyah."

Or something.

But then, dig this other quote from the story, this time from Jim Moorman, president of Taxpayers Against Fraud:

"You might think of Columbia/HCA or you might think of Lockheed-Martin, but you're not going to think of Brown & Root, and certainly not Halliburton," Moorman says. "I mean, they don't have to commit fraud. If you've got a sweetheart contract, why do you have to cheat?"

And he's right. They don't have to. And Halliburton, pre-Cheney becoming Veep, was certainly an obscure company, so one wouldn't necessarily think of them.

But you'll note he doesn't say they aren't cheating. Just that they don't have to.

And these are Halliburton's friends.

Some impressions.

* Bush appears to have alluded to this, but he almost certainly doesn't mean it, given the Official Position: We're about to find out just how much of the Iraqi insurgency is due to "Saddam Loyalists". My own feeling is that the number of Saddam Loyalists in the country was about a dozen, and Saddam's own meek response to his capture only reinforces that. It's pretty tough to believe Saddam himself was providing much direction from a 2 meter hole in the ground. Which means the insurgency is mostly Iraqis who are nationalists and/or Islamists, who just want the Coalition the hell out. Capturing Saddam does nothing to change that and the floggings will continue until morale improves so the campaign against Coalition forces will change by not one iota.

* We also got a large hint about why Saddam was so tough to capture. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, in the very first briefing from Baghdad (which I saw live last night over the web, at 0405 PST or so -- bad Hal!) said they first received intel on Saddam's whereabouts at 1050 local on Saturday. Saddam wasn't actually captured until 2000-2015 or so. Taking 9 hours to spin up the troops is pretty sad, even if they had to get 600 troops together, as has been reported. If previous attempts to capture Saddam took about as long to execute, that would go a long way to explaining his ability to elude us. (This, of course, takes the optimistic view we wanted to catch him. I suspect Saddam was more useful to us as a bogeyman on whom all sorts of things could be blamed without fear of contradiction. Now we can't pin things on him anymore, on a day-to-day basis.)

* Separated at birth: Saddam Hussein and Karl Marx?

(Thanks to Jon Snow of UK Channel 4 news and his e-mail newsletter for the similarity... Saddam mit giant beard kept reminding me of someone, and I couldn't place it.)

So, I was doing my just-havin'-gotten-up scan of the Reuters feed, and I stumbled on an article about Shazia Mirza, Muslim comedienne. Headline: "Muslim Comedienne Triumphs with Veiled Humor"

Sample line: "My name is Shazia Mirza. At least that is what it says on my pilot's license."

Poking about a bit, I found her website. She has a fair number of audio files posted, and one video file.

Check it out.

US News and World Report has a new piece today. Some choice quotes:

On the evening of February 1, two dozen American officials gathered in a spacious conference room at the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va. The time had come to make the public case for war against Iraq. For six hours that Saturday, the men and women of the Bush administration argued about what Secretary of State Colin Powell should--and should not--say at the United Nations Security Council four days later. Not all the secret intelligence about Saddam Hussein's misdeeds, they found, stood up to close scrutiny. At one point during the rehearsal, Powell tossed several pages in the air. "I'm not reading this," he declared. "This is bullshit."

Right up there with, "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out," don't you think?

OTOH, Colin, you did do your reading, didn't you?

In September 2002, U.S. News has learned, the Defense Intelligence Agency issued a classified assessment of Iraq's chemical weapons. It concluded: "There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons . . . ." At about the same time, Rumsfeld told Congress that Saddam's "regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas."

Mr. Arnaz, he say, "Rummmmmy?! You got some 'splainin' to do!"

I hope the Judiciary Committee has that chamber properly air conditioned for the summer... Looks like we may be getting some hearings...

rubylou has a great article that she's linked to. You should go read it.

Remember how I told you, back on 27 Feb, that Blair was in trouble, and might not make it through any Iraqi vote in the UN or campaign? And how this wasn't well covered by the US press at the time? And how Blair kept slipping domestically, right up to the precipice?

Well, dig this commentary from the Guardian:

"...before Blair departed for the March 18 Iraq debate, Downing Street had drawn up contingency plans for the withdrawal of British troops from the build-up in the Gulf and also for Blair's resignation, should the votes have gone against him. That is how serious (the Labour revolt) was."

And, further down:

"The reality, of course, was that the key decision rested with Gordon Brown."

Sound familiar?

Thanks to Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo for the link.

From USAToday:

On March 17, before he delivered a 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam, Bush summoned congressional leaders to the White House. They expected a detailed briefing, but the president told them he was notifying them only because he was legally required to do so and then left the room. They were taken aback, and some were annoyed.

Note that "congressional leaders" would include House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist -- both fellow Republicans.

But then, as John McCain knows, Jorge isn't really big on the party loyalty thing.

Sy Hersh's New Yorker article, previously quoted here via a Reuters report, is now online.

Remember how we were being told... Oh, as recently as two weeks ago, that UN inspectors were neither willing nor able to hunt down Iraq's reputed weapons of mass destruction?

Well, as I was driving home from class tonight, I heard the radio version of this report from the BBC:

It is crucial for the Bush administration to find the weapons it argued were the key justification for going to war in Iraq.

There were administration officials who were contemptuous of the United Nations' efforts to track them down.

But the head of the UN team responsible for chemical and biological weapons and missiles, Hans Blix, says the United States has approached several of his inspectors and asked them to end their contracts and join its own operation.

Well-informed sources have told me the same recruitment effort is being made with nuclear experts employed by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

So, see, as soon as we hire them, they're lovely fellows who can do a splendid job.

I suppose this rules out my cynical belief that perhaps Los Amigos Arbusto had information about where the alleged WMD are, and were just withholding it to get a war on.

The New York Times has an article where Rumsfeld tries the Reagan Defense -- he can't recall making any statements he has made -- and tries strenuously to hand off the war planning process to Gen. Tommy Franks. So, when the going gets tough, the tough blame their subordinates. (I hope he's just as calm about this when Jorge does the same thing to him.)

But, down at the end of the article, we find this:

Mr. Rumsfeld said that he was not concerned that the United States had yet to find any weapons of mass destruction. He said most of such weapons are believed to be at sites closer to Baghdad, and troops had not yet reached them.

Mind you, this is the same Administration that, until two weeks ago, was saying the weapons were so widely dispersed across the whole territory of Iraq that the UN inspectors could never find them. Now, ever so conveniently, the weapons are concentrated in Baghdad... Where they couldn't have been used for the last 12 years against either the Kurds or the Iranians, or our own troops, no, nowhere as operationally useful as that...

Snark hunt. Soon to be a boojum.

A few weeks ago, Tom Friedman of the New York Times came up with a striking image. Imagine a table, with a box, Monty Hall Let's Make a Deal-style.

Inside the box is one of two notes: "Congratulations! You just won the Arab Germany. All it will take is the removal of an atrocious regime, and this country will become peaceful, productive, and happy." -- Or -- "Congratulations! You just won the Arab Yugoslavia. This country is so fractious and divided, no amount of gentle perusasion will rule it successfully, so it has to be led by an iron hand, no matter what ideology they may have." Friedman then pointed out that the only way we'd ever know what was in the box was to open it.

Trouble is... I'm beginning to think there's a third note: "Congratulations! You just won Palestine. Only there's 80 times more land mass, and 9 times more people."

This is all by way of pointing to an article in the Asia Times that Tacitus links to. He mentions it largely because it describes how, "an estimated 5,200 Iraqis have crossed the Jordanian-Iraqi border, going back "to defend their homeland" as they invariably put it." Tacitus thinks this is bad because of these ex-pats forming the core of a future guerilla movement against us if or when we topple Saddam.

My point, as we in the US kick back and forth the question of just how difficult this venture will be, is that the Israelis have put forth a lot of military effort in subduing the Palestinians.

For 50 years.

And, while Israel may be said to have achieved some of its objectives because it does, after all, still exist... Can anyone truly say they have won against the Palestinians?

Further... Just how likely is it, do you think, that the US is willing to exert the same proportional effort against the Iraqis as the Israelis have against the Palestinians? More than that, just how effective would such a move be?

For 50 years.

"Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia."