Iraq occupation costs $12 billion a week

The cost of the ill-conceived occupation of Iraq is now $12 billion a week. This works out to about half a million bucks every minute.

Bush says that Iraq is "critical" to the U.S.
That's funny, because it wasn't critical before Bush took office. In fact, during Bush Sr's term, Iraq was a nominal ally of the U.S. by engaging in a bloody WWI-style war with our enemy, Iran.

But, oh yes, I forget Al-Qaeda. Yes, the very same Al-Qaeda that Saddam's secular government kept out of Iraq. The Al-Qaeda that wasn't in Iraq before we invaded. The Al-Qaeda that the Pentagon estimates is only responsible for about 10% of the violence in Iraq. The aforementioned Al-Qaeda that the surge merely shuffled from one province to another, and into previously stable areas. The Al-Qaeda that has successfully used the continuing occupation as a great recruiting tool.

So it costs us $12 billion a week to keep a problem (that our occupation exacerbates) merely "off-balance".
And this is "critical" to our future somehow. Because if we do succeed in driving Al-Qaeda from Iraq, they will never, ever return for some reason. And they certainly won't go someplace else and create trouble there. I'm not really really sure why they won't, but surely the Decider has some secret intelligence that proves they won't. Otherwise, he would be an idiot, wouldn't he? I mean, only an idiot would spend $600 billion in order to move a problem from Iraq to Somalia, for instance. Especially when nothing but crossing our fingers keeps them from returning to Iraq again.

Apparently Al-Qaeda has learned that by investing a thousand or so of their numbers in a country, they can induce the U.S. to engage is a costly and protracted invasion and occupation for years. 1000 terrorists produces a $600 billion response. This is quite a different kind of "return on success". We will run out money (and allies) long before Al-Qaeda runs out of terrorists.

Maybe, just maybe, terrorism is not efficiently dealt with by military force, but rather by law enforcement measures. Europe has had striking success against "jihadists" by employing hard detective work rather than expensive electronic surveillance, and certainly without sending the military in to destroy their country.

Of course, saying things like this will only get you accused of "treason" by Republicans.

full story from the L.A. Times

The Bush administration said earlier this year that it probably would need $147.5 billion for 2008, but Pentagon officials now say that and $47 billion more will be required. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and other officials are to formally present the full request at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Wednesday.

The funding request means that war costs are projected to grow even as the number of deployed combat troops begins a gradual decline starting in December. Spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is to rise from $173 billion this year to about $195 billion in fiscal 2008, which begins Oct. 1.

When costs of CIA operations and embassy expenses are added, the war in Iraq currently costs taxpayers about $12 billion a month, said Winslow T. Wheeler, a former Republican congressional budget aide who is a senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information in Washington.

"Everybody predicts declines, but they haven't occurred, and 2008 will be higher than 2007," Wheeler said. "It all depends on what happens in Iraq, but thus far it has continued to get bloodier and more expensive. Everyone says we are going to turn the corner here, but the corner has not been turned."

In 2004, the two conflicts together cost $94 billion; in 2005, they cost $108 billion; in 2006, $122 billion.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are financed through a single administration request to Congress, and their costs are combined in the legislation.

The new spending request is likely to push the cumulative cost of the war in Iraq alone through 2008 past the $600-billion mark -- more than the Korean War and nearly as much as the Vietnam War, based on estimates by government budget officials.

Iraqi civilian casualties are up

Iraqi civilian deaths are up. The Bush Administration likes to compare the summer months against the winter months to show a false progress. In the summer, civilan deaths generally go down because it's too hot to go out and slaughter people, so if you compare the summer deaths to the winter deaths you then see a decline.

Any way you slice it, 1800 dead in one month is not stability. It does not inspire confidence in the security situation. And the recent high-profile assasinations are big step backward from last year. Capturing a dozen or so "insurgents" means nothing in the big picture. They will be replaced by others desperate for money or revenge.

I find it ironic that the truce proclaimed by Al-Sadr, the guy that the Bush Administration has portrayed as the most evil villain imaginable, is the current bright spot in the sham parade of good news. Of course, Bush is determined to destroy this bright spot by taking this as an opportunity to arrest those associated with Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, so this will fade into one of those false turning points pretty soon.

More than 1,800 killed in ongoing attacks

Sep 01, 2007 12:07 PM

Associated Press

BAGHDAD – A huge suicide attack in northern Iraq caused civilian deaths to rise slightly in August despite security gains elsewhere, making it the second deadliest month for Iraqis since the U.S. troop buildup began, figures compiled by The Associated Press showed Saturday.

At least 1,809 civilians were killed, compared to 1,760 in July, based on figures compiled from official Iraqi reports.

The August total included 520 people killed in quadruple suicide bombings near the Syrian border on Aug. 14, the deadliest day since the war began in March 2003. The attacks targeted Yazidis, a small Kurdish-speaking sect whose members are considered to be blasphemers by Muslim extremists.

U.S. deaths last month remained well below figures from last winter, when the U.S began dispatching 30,000 additional troops to Iraq.

American officials have maintained that violence is declining in Iraq in the run-up to a series of reports to Congress this month that will decide the course of the U.S. military presence here.

The top U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus, told The Australian newspaper in an interview published Friday that the troop increase has sharply reduced sectarian killings in Baghdad, in particular. Petraeus is expected to make the same point when he reports to Congress in about two weeks.

The U.S. said Saturday that it welcomed an order by the most powerful Shiite militia leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, for his Mahdi Army to halt attacks for up to six months so he could reorganize and purge the force of unruly factions that the U.S. maintains are armed and trained by Iran.

"If implemented, Sadr's order holds the prospect of allowing coalition and Iraqi security forces to intensify their focus on al-Qaida-Iraq and on protecting the Iraqi population," the U.S. military said.

Its statement said an end to Mahdi Army violence "would also be an important step in helping Iraqi authorities focus greater attention on achieving the political and economic solutions necessary for progress and less on dealing with criminal activity, sectarian violence, kidnappings, assassinations, and attacks on Iraqi and coalition forces.''

Meanwhile, U.S. and Iraqi forces carried out raids in Shiite areas, at least some targeting breakaway Mahdi Army factions.

Before daybreak, Iraqi and American forces raided Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of the Mahdi Army. The U.S. military said American troops and Iraqi police were involved in the raid and searched two houses, detaining three suspects. On the way back to base the group was attacked with a roadside bomb but suffered no injuries, Spc. Emily Greene said in an e-mailed statement.

Leaflets scattered around Sadr City urged people to report on Shiite militants who are cooperating with the Iranians, providing a cell phone number and a yahoo.com e-mail address.

"The criminal Iraqis who work with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are toys under Persian control," read one of the leaflets, which pictured a puppet dancing on strings. "Iranian Revolutionary Guards are interfering in Iraq's affairs while Iraqis are dying.''

Iran denies the U.S. claim that it has been arming Shiite extremists, including breakaway Mahdi Army factions which the U.S. refers to as the "special groups.''

In two other Baghdad operations that targeted special groups, eight other suspects were captured, the U.S. military said.

The targets of the operations were leaders believed responsible for helping bring Iranian weapons and other munitions into Iraq, said military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver. Troops confiscated three AK-47s, a large sum of Iraqi currency, suspicious documents and photographs during searches of several buildings.

Armed Shiite groups are locked in a struggle for power in Shiite areas of the capital and in the Shiite heartland of the south, which includes major religious shrines and vast oil wealth. Control of the shrines offers not only prestige but access to huge sums of money donated by Shiites from around the world.

As part of that power struggle, gunmen on a motorcycle assassinated Muslim al-Batat, an aide to the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, police said. The attack occurred in Basra, where numerous militias are competing for power. Al-Sistani has called for unity in the majority Shiite community.

In other violence, five Iraqi soldiers were killed and their vehicle destroyed in an afternoon roadside bombing in the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi army Brig. Gen. Noor Eddin Husein

In several American operations Friday and Saturday, the U.S. military said it had killed seven terrorist suspects and captured 15 others.

The raids included one in the Baghdad neighborhood of Rusafa on Saturday in which the military said it had captured a suspect believed to be a member of al-Qaida in Iraq responsible for security in the area, who is responsible for kidnapping and car-bombing operations.

Famous "turning points" in Iraq

Below is part of a chronology of Iraq "turning points" that turned out to be illusions. It appeared in Foreign Policy, and I encourage you to check out the entire article.

The purpose of these "turning points" was primarily to buy Bush time, in the hope that somehow something would go right. At each of these "turning points", the "liberal" media cheered, politicians sagely nodded, and war supporters darkly predicted doom for the 'defeatists' at home.

As always, unwarranted optimism is patriotic and sober scepticism is treasonous.

As the Bush administration readies a “pivotal” progress report on Iraq, it’s worth asking if this time will be any different than the past. We’ve seen countless politicians and pundits on both sides herald the arrival of a “turning point” in Iraq, only to watch the war roll on. Herewith, a quick rundown of the “turning points” that turned out to be anything but.

Lt. Gen. Jay Garner arrives in Baghdad

Date: April 21, 2003

U.S. military fatalities to date: 131

Unwarranted optimism: “We will be here as long as it takes. We will leave fairly rapidly.” —Lt. Gen. Jay Garner

President Bush appears beneath “Mission Accomplished” banner

Date: May 1, 2003

U.S. military fatalities to date: 140

Unwarranted optimism: “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.” —U.S. President George W. Bush

L. Paul Bremer III takes over from Jay Garner

Date: May 11, 2003

U.S. military fatalities to date: 148

Unwarranted optimism: “The coalition provisional authority, led by Ambassador Bremer, has a comprehensive strategy to move Iraq toward a future that is secure and prosperous.” —George W. Bush

Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) announces Iraqi Governing Council

Date: July 13, 2003

U.S. military fatalities to date: 225

Unwarranted optimism: “The establishment of the Iraqi Governing Council is an important step forward in the ongoing transition from ruthless dictatorship to a free and democratic Iraq with Iraqis determining their own future. We look forward to working with the Council as it moves toward a democratic and prosperous Iraq, at peace with its neighbors.” —George W. Bush

U.S. forces kill Uday and Qusay Hussein

Date: July 22, 2003

U.S. military fatalities to date: 238

Unwarranted optimism: “While there is still much work to do in Iraq, the Iraqi people can see progress each day toward a better and more prosperous future for their country.” —White House statement

U.S. forces capture Saddam Hussein

Date: December 13, 2003

U.S. military fatalities to date: 463

Unwarranted optimism: “Iraq’s future, your future, has never been more full of hope. The tyrant is a prisoner. The economy is moving forward. You have before you the prospect of a sovereign government in a few months.” —L. Paul Bremer III, head of the CPA

Iraqi Governing Council completes Transitional Administrative Law

Date: March 8, 2004

U.S. military fatalities to date: 557

Unwarranted optimism: “The adoption of this law marks a historic milestone in the Iraqi people’s long journey from tyranny and violence to liberty and peace. While difficult work remains to establish democracy in Iraq, today’s signing is a critical step in that direction.” —George W. Bush

U.S. transfers sovereignty to Iraqi interim government

Date: June 28, 2004

U.S. military fatalities to date: 858

Unwarranted optimism: “Let freedom reign!” —George W. Bush, writing on a napkin

Iraq holds elections for Transitional National Assembly

Date: January 30, 2005

U.S. military fatalities to date: 1,438

Unwarranted optimism: “Across Iraq today, men and women have taken rightful control of their country’s destiny, and they have chosen a future of freedom and peace.” —George W. Bush

Ibrahim al-Jaafari forms new Iraqi government

Date: April 28, 2005

U.S. military fatalities to date: 1,580

Unwarranted optimism: “The United States is confident that the new government will meet these challenges in the months ahead, and America will stand by Iraq, its leaders, and the Iraqi people as they continue their work to establish a stable, peaceful, and democratic Iraq.” —George W. Bush

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney declares insurgency in “last throes”

Date: May 30, 2005

U.S. military fatalities to date: 1,665

Unwarranted optimism: “The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.” —Dick Cheney

White House releases “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq”

Date: November 30, 2005

U.S. military fatalities to date: 2,113

Unwarranted optimism: “As we make progress toward victory, Iraqis will take more responsibility for their security, and fewer U.S. forces will be needed to complete the mission.” —George W. Bush

UN: Iraqi children worse off than a year ago

Now we all know that Republicans are excruciatingly concerned with the poor Iraqi civilians. That's why we can't leave Iraq; a "bloodbath" will surely follow. But now the UN has said that lack of nutritionally sound food and access to health care is making life miserable for women and children in Iraq. Well, not the privileged few that are in Bush's pocket, but, you know, the others. A cholera epidemic may break out.
The right-wing has done a great job of bragging about how life has improved for the "average Iraqi" under the occupation.

Still, Bush is not above using apparently outdated data to push his case. Or forgetting to pay the agency the money he promised.
full story

Situation of Iraqi children is worse: UN

The situation for Iraqi children is getting worse and, in some respects, it was better before the war began, a senior UN official said yesterday.

"Children today are much worse off than they were a year ago, and they certainly are worse off than they were three years ago," said Dan Toole, director of emergency programs for the United Nations Children's Fund. He said Iraqis no longer have safe access to a government-funded food basket, established under Saddam Hussein to deal with international sanctions.

Toole said conditions for women and children in Iraq had worsened significantly since the February 2006 bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad, which triggered a wave of sectarian violence and displacement that continues today.

He added that gains made shortly after the US toppled Saddam's government in 2003, when people were able to move around the country freely and had access to food markets and health centers, had been lost.

"Nutritional indicators, health access indicators are all changing for the worse," Toole said. He said recently published data showing improvement referred to the situation a couple of years ago and is outdated.

The system of government-sponsored handouts - set up by Saddam's government to meet the basic needs of Iraqi citizens from 1991 to 2003, when the country was under UN sanctions - started to fall apart last year, Toole said.

Apart from shortages of items such as milk and baby milk formula, "the basic Iraqi food basket was fairly secure under the regime because there was food coming in and the government provided the food basket to its citizens," he said.

Toole could not say whether malnutrition has worsened significantly but he said UNICEF was concerned by reports it has received from refugees fleeing the country.

Toole said that, because of the violence, mothers were too afraid to send their children to school or take them to health centers to get checkups and nutritional supplements.

While efforts are being made to maintain levels of immunization, particularly against measles and polio, UNICEF is worried about the possibility of a cholera epidemic because two-thirds of Iraqis lack clean water. A couple of cases of cholera have been reported in the south of Iraq but so far there has been no major outbreak, Toole said.

He said the agency has so far received no government donations toward a $41.5 million appeal for its Iraq work through the second half of 2007.

Source: China Daily/agencies

Fox says Iraqi troops not loyal to al-Maliki

Note the quote from (Rear Adm.) Fox (in bold) about how the Iraqi police and military are not loyal to the al-Maliki government.
Note that almost half of the "foreign insurgents" in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia. The Decider wants us to think the Iranians are the bad guys.
Note another car bomb in Baghdad, where the surge is strongest and where people are supposedly in love with U.S. troops.
Note once-peaceful Kurdistan is now becoming a target of Al-Qaeda. The right-wing who adore Petraeus should remember his "balloon analogy" and realise that putting pressure in one area only moves the problem to another area.
Note the "US commanders" say the Iraqi police are "often" infilitrated by Shiite militias.

These are all facts from Iraqi officials or US commanders, not the "liberal media".

From the Daily Star

Iraq announces it is holding more than 2,000 foreign suspects

Compiled by Daily Star staff
Monday, July 16, 2007

A top Iraqi official said Sunday Baghdad supports Saudi efforts to prevent cross-border infiltrations while the Interior Ministry announced having detained over 2,000 foreign suspects. In another day of violence, at least 25 Iraqis were killed in separate attacks.

In an interview with the Saudi Okaz newspaper, Iraqi National Security Adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie said that security in the region is inseparable from that of Iraq's.

"Whatever threatens neighboring countries, namely Saudi Arabia, constitutes a direct threat against Iraq," he said in comments carried out by the Kuwaiti official news agency. He said Iraq and Saudi Arabia face the same goal of fighting terrorism, adding that both governments have agreed to establish a "security fence" to prevent cross-border smuggling of arms and drugs and the infiltration of militants, he said.

Rubaie was part of a delegation of senior Iraqi security, defense and diplomatic officials who visited Saudi Arabia last week to seek increased cooperation in dealing with terrorism.

The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that 45 percent of all foreign militants targeting US troops and Iraqi security forces were from Saudi Arabia, 15 percent from Syria and Lebanon, and 10 percent from North Africa, according to an unidentified senior US military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.

Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, the paper said.

Rubaie said about 160 Saudi militants have been tried in Iraq for taking part in its insurgency while hundreds of others are in detention.

"There are hundreds of Saudis in Iraq. Many were killed in suicide attacks," he said, claiming that foreign militants infiltrate Iraq "from a neighboring country," in an apparent reference to Syria.

"Many returned home after undergoing training on violence in Iraq, posing a threat to the kingdom's security," he said.

Meanwhile, the head of the National Command Center at the Interior Ministry, Major General Abdel-Karim Khalaf, said Iraqi authorities have recently arrested 2,489 suspected terrorists, mostly from Iran, Egypt and Afghanistan, KUNA reported. He did not specify the period the arrests were made.

He reporters that among those still being questioned, "11 were Jordanians; 64 Syrians; nine Saudis; two Algerians; six Moroccans; six Yemenis; two Libyans; 57 Palestinians; 284 Egyptians; 113 Sudanese, two Emiratis; three Lebanese and one Somali."

He added that the suspects included 461 from Iran and others came from Kenya, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan, India, Britain, France, Holland, Tanzania, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

Meanwhile, 10 people were killed by a car bomb in central Baghdad, Iraqi police said.

Twenty-five people were wounded by the blast which ripped through shops and restaurants near Hussein Square in Baghdad's mainly Shiite Jadriyya district. Two women were among the dead.

In other violence, seven Kurdish guards were killed near the Iranian border in normally calm northern Iraq, in an attack police and a local official blamed on Al-Qaeda-linked militants.

US commanders warn that Iraqi forces are not ready to handle security alone, in part due to tensions between ordinary Iraqis and police, who the United States says have often been infiltrated by Shiite militia.

"There is a certain element of the Iraqi security forces and in particular the Iraqi police ... that have had shortfalls in terms of loyalty ... to the central government," Rear Admiral Mark Fox, the top military spokesman in Iraq, told a news conference.

A wide-ranging British report by the Iraq Commission, released Saturday evening, recommended the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq once Iraqi forces have been trained, regardless of the security situation.

Its central recommendation was for Britain to "preserve and underpin" the territorial integrity of Iraq, promote regional engagement in its reconstruction and prevent Al-Qaeda using it as a base to launch attacks.

It also urged British Premier Gordon Brown to work more with the UN and Iraq's neighbors to support and promote the country's reconstruction and build up its state infrastructure.

Maliki said Saturday that Iraqi security forces were ready to take over from the Americans at "any time," but also stressed they needed more training.

Iraq's top military spokesman, Brigadier General Qassem Atta, said at the news conference with Fox that Maliki's remark was supposed to be a "general" observation. - Agencies

Marine corporal says: "We beat people, sir"

Passed along without comment, other than it's disgusting.

Full story here

Marine: Beating of Iraqis Became Routine

15/07/2007

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., (AP) - A Marine corporal testifying in a court-martial said Marines in his unit began routinely beating Iraqis after officers ordered them to "crank up the violence level."

Cpl. Saul H. Lopezromo testified Saturday at the murder trial of Cpl. Trent D. Thomas.

"We were told to crank up the violence level," said Lopezromo, testifying for the defense.

When a juror asked for further explanation, Lopezromo said: "We beat people, sir."

Within weeks of allegedly being scolded, seven Marines and a Navy corpsman went out late one night to find and kill a suspected insurgent in the village of Hamandiya near the Abu Ghraib prison. The Marines and corpsman were from 2nd Platoon, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment.

Lopezromo said the suspected insurgent was known to his neighbors as the "prince of jihad," and had been arrested several times and later released by the Iraqi legal system.

Unable to find him, the Marines and corpsman dragged another man from his house, fatally shot him, and then planted an AK-47 assault rifle near the body to make it appear he had been killed in a shootout, according to court testimony.

Four Marines and the corpsman, initially charged with murder in the April 2006 killing, have pleaded guilty to reduced charges and been given jail sentences ranging from 10 months to eight years. Thomas, 25, from St. Louis, pleaded guilty but withdrew his plea and is the first defendant to go to court-martial.

Lopezromo, who was not part of the squad on its late-night mission, said he saw nothing wrong with what Thomas did.

"I don't see it as an execution, sir," he told the judge. "I see it as killing the enemy."

He said Marines consider all Iraqi men part of the insurgency.

Lopezromo and two other Marines were charged in August with assaulting an Iraqi two weeks before the killing that led to charges against Thomas and the others. Charges against all three were later dropped.

Thomas' attorneys have said he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury from his combat duty in Fallouja in 2004. They have argued that Thomas believed he was following a lawful order to get tougher with suspected insurgents.

Prosecution witnesses testified that Thomas shot the 52-year-old man at point-blank range after he had already been shot by other Marines and was lying on the ground.

Lopezromo said a procedure called "dead-checking" was routine. If Marines entered a house where a man was wounded, instead of checking to see whether he needed medical aid, they shot him to make sure he was dead, he testified.

"If somebody is worth shooting once, they're worth shooting twice," he said.

The jury is composed of three officers and six enlisted personnel, all of whom have served in Iraq. The trial was set to resume Monday.

Warnings of "Iraq challenges" somehow prove Bush is brilliant

Came across this post and was shocked by war supporters' spin.

That American Can’t Do Spirit [Dan Collins]

Celebrated by the LA Times this Memorial Day Weekend: Bush was twice warned of Iraq challenges

Holy shit! You mean he was warned twice that it mightn’t be easy to bring security, democracy and prosperity to Iraq?

Wow! There you have it. The Republican 'take' on the report that laid out how Bush was warned about virtually all of the dangers of a long occupation in Iraq....is that this proves how brave Bush really was.

Okay, first let me just point out that we've only seen "Grim Bush" since November. Up to that point we had "Smiley Bush" who believed that everything in Iraq was getting better every day and that the "insurgents" were merely "dead-enders" who were in their "final throes". It was "Smiley Bush" and his team of wishful thinkers that completely bungled things, not "Grim Bush". The Republican spin is apparently that Bush knew it would be hard, that civil war (that's not really civil war) could be an option, that a long occupation could mean that we'd take heavy casualties, but goshdarnit, he went ahead and took the risk. Well, that's a Republican fairy tale. Every single thing about the occupation was planned for only the best possible outcome. A Bush staffer who predicted that the war could cost as much as $100 billion was ridiculed by the White House and fired. Yet the Republicans honestly present this as a President who proceeded knowing full well that he would face terrible setbacks.

From the outset, Bremer made decision after decision that could only create the situation of a long occupation, despite the report's warning of the dangers:
- Put 20,000 Baath Party members out of work overnight. These are the 20,000 who actually know how to administer Iraq and who know how to get things done. Watch as things cease to get done.
- Eliminate the Iraqi Army and put 100,000 armed and trained men out a job. Watch as security evaporates.
- Send in less than half the troops you need to maintain order in a country without an army and a police force in shambles. Watch as sectarian militias infiltrate the police and military.
- Wipe out every Iraqi institution that makes a civil society work, and replace them with foreign institutions and administer them in a foreign language.
- Make Iraq the 51st state rather than giving Iraqis control in how their country would be shaped.
- Pretend that elections automatically produce pro-U.S. governments. Watch as they don't.

Yep, Bush knew all about these risks, but he and his stooges went ahead with a brave plan that guaranteed we would be running the show In Iraq for a long time.
The real truth is that Bush and his cronies had a plan that went like this:
- Install Ahmed Challabi as a puppet leader.
- Bask in the adulation of grateful Iraqi masses who eagerly give us their oil.
- Claim success and gloat over Democrats who thought this might get tricky.

You see, this is a plan that differs from a Bush Administration who was fully aware that "it mightn’t be easy to bring security, democracy and prosperity to Iraq". In fact, Bush replaced Shinseki when he told Bush that the going would get tough. Remember, the White House continues to deny that Iraq is involved in a civil war. Does this sound like an Administration that's been aware of the risks from the outset, or a delusional one that only wants to hear good news? Of course, now we have "Grim Bush", who tells us ahead of time that things are going to look like they are getting worse in the future. And this is supposed to reassure us somehow. Hey, he's admitting that it's going to be tough, so when the 'surge' looks like it's a complete failure, that's how you'll know that everything is going according to plan. That's just Al-Qaeda trying to get us to 'surrender', so if anyone (besides Grim Bush) says that things are going badly, then they obviously are traitors who support Al-Qaeda and you shouldn't listen to anything they say.
Bush is now only speaking to the one-fourth of the electorate who still think he has some credibility left, and obviously judging from the neocon bloggers, they are lapping it up. The other three-fourths merely see him as a deluded, obsessive pawn dominated by others with an agenda they are afraid to openly admit to.

Bush Administration's irrelevance now painfully obvious

The Bush Administration has become so disconnected with reality, so profoundly arrogant and so isolated that it has become nothing more than an annoying obstacle that the world must sidestep around as it tries to fix the messes Bush makes.
Recently, the Decider Dude made another scary speech (see cartoon above) in which he once again made his pitch that Iraq is the" central front on the war on Terror", but this time he dug up old intelligence reports. Polls show that the majority of Americans aren't buying the Iraqi "central front" thesis, largely because the logic it's founded on is weak. Basically, it goes like this: "Terrorists are bad people. The people who are attacking us in Iraq are bad people. Therefore by killing the bad people in Iraq, we will get rid of bad people around the world. It's true because we say so." Now, it is true that the occupation of Iraq has been a big boost to Al-Qaeda, both in terms of fundraising and recruitment. It also allows Al-Qaeda to spruce up its image in the Islamic world by portraying themselves as defending Iraqis against foreign infidel troops, rather than as crazy murderers of innocents. This is hardly an endorsement of our policy of continuing the occupation, however. It's not as if there is some specific number of "terrorists" in Iraq that never changes, and if we can only kill off that number, then no more will take their place. It's also not like these "terrorists" all wear black hats and stand around twirling their handlebar moustaches in a sinister way to make picking them out in a crowd easier. And if we do drive them out of Iraq, they will simply go someplace else and do essentially the same thing there, so that's not any improvement. And lastly, having troops in Iraq does nothing to prevent terrorists from coming here.
If your local police chief placed every one of his officers on a single street corner and claimed that criminals would now flock to that corner to commit their crimes and thus be apprehended by the large police presence, you would probably label the chief as a simpleton. Yet this is the logical basis for Bush's "Iraqi central front" argument.
Up to now, however, Bush has countered this by implying that he is privy to intelligence reports that prove him right, but he can't share this secret information with us. So he made a special Decider decision and declassified some old intelligence reports to prove to sceptics that Iraq really is, in fact, the "Central Front in the War on Terror". And he made this daring public revelation to an audience of employees (Coast Guard) who are required to keep a straight face.
Here is that super-secret "proof", in a nutshell:
People who were tortured told their captors about two plots to attack targets in the U.S. In both cases, these 'plots' were merely in the concept stage and neither 'plot' had anything to do with Iraq. And there were also reports from Britain that have since been proven to be exaggerations, but which Bush presented as gospel truth. These 'plots' also had nothing to do with Iraq.
It is silly to have to say this, but simply because we have troops in Iraq does not mean that every terrorist plot that is disrupted is due to the presence of our troops in Iraq. In my police chief analogy, if two car thieves decide to go out for beers rather than steal cars parked miles away from the chief's selected corner, then this would be proof that his policy of placing all his forces on that corner was working.

Bush, however, seems to think that his point has been proven and we can all expect him to continue to make the case that the occupation of Iraq is about fighting terrorism, not refereeing a civil war. This, of course, is because a referee cannot "win", and Bush has, strangely, cast an occupation as something that can be 'won' or 'lost'. Doncha wanna win? Instead, he has miscast Al-Qaeda as equivalent to a regular army, which we can militarily defeat and thus win. Sadly, this characterisation has no basis in reality. There is no Al-Qaeda territory that we can take, there is no headquarters that can be overrun, there are no 'front lines', and there are no Al-Qaeda uniforms. The situation has far more in common with a law enforcement scenario, rather than a military battlefield. We would not call out the Army to 'defeat' the forces of tax fraud, for example. We would not portray criminals as having a central leadership, uniforms declaring themselves to be criminals, or a headquarters that must be stormed in order to 'defeat' all crime once and for all.
Yet this is what Bush's "central front" thesis is based upon - distortions of the truth. "The occupation is a war. Al-Qaeda is an army. Troops in Iraq keep plots in California from being carried out."
Meanwhile Al-Sadr is planning an end run by making Al-Maliki as irrelevant as Bush and getting an Iraqi demand for withdrawal passed in Parliament.
Meanwhile the Republicans are making a "Plan B" that consists of a 50% troop reduction if the 'surge' is officially determined to have failed.
Meanwhile the U.S. generals in Iraq are coming up with novel definitions of the word 'success' to use in their reports on the occupation.
All this while the Decider Dude rants on about stuff nobody believes in or cares about anymore.