NB: "This is an outstanding analysis of what has gone wrong--and will continue to go wrong--in Iraq, unless it is addressed."
Oh yes, we need men like Chalabi in power. Lord knows he's steered the administration so right in the past with 'intelligence'. Who knows what he could do once in the Iraqi government?
More 'advice' from the NRO bump. The WOST continues
Bremer is an interesting man. Did you see this thread from the other night? ~ Bremer speech accused Bush of ignoring terrorism (Feb. '01 speech)
WHY????
Looks like Bush decided to go a different route. Probably smart not to take this writer's bloodthirsty advice.
This was Bush I's Bay of Pigs: a craven act through and through. He, once he passes from this earth, along w/JFK, Johnson and Carter should be exhumed yearly, and beaten w/their own bones sometime close to the Fourth of July.
Kurds are not a small minority — and they remember. The hero's welcome they gave General Garner when he returned to Iraq last April made that crystal clear.
The Kurds love of this man was written all over their faces and plain for all the world to see, upon Garner's arrival in Iraq.
Finally, Secretary Rumsfeld wanted to cut way down on the infiltration of Syrian and Iranian agents and their foreign terrorist recruits, not just by trying to catch them at the border — a losing game, given the length of those borders — but by pursuing them across the border into Syria to strike hard at both the terrorists and their Syrian sponsors, a move that would have forced Iran as well as Syria to reconsider the price of trying to sabotage the reconstruction of Iraq.
Rumsfeld has about 50 IQ points on Colin Powell. Along w/that contrast Powell's procliivity to play the Media Whore, and Rumsfeld's procilivity to tell it like it is, and leave the
ass-sniffing to generals like the General.
How is it possible that GW, after exhibiting enormous foresight (sp?) finds himself in this unenviable position?
Seems to me some Conservatives are using Powell as a scapegoat because they don't like him and quite frankly would do away with the State Department if they had a chance. Again, I'm not suggesting Powell and his management at State isn't without fault, but to blame all the problems in Iraq right now on him is totally unfair.
First french fries, now Le Monde ? Officially, it's because money's tight, but some Bush administration officials aren't hiding the fact that there is a little payback for anti-American coverage in the State Department's decision not to fund foreign press centers at the Democratic and Republican presidential nominating conventions. "They can come and pay like everyone else!"barked an angry administration official. "It's ridiculous; this is foreign press welfare." Said a British scribe: "I can't believe this is for a little ribbing in the press." What's happening is this: For the first time since Ronald Reagan ran for re-election in 1984, the State Department isn't pampering the foreign press by outfitting high-tech briefing rooms at the political conventions. "This year, money was tight," explained State's Adam Ereli. "You can't do everything you want to." The savings: a whopping $500,000. Instead, they'll have to cover the Boston and New York events like the rest of the press. Payback? Gosh no, says Ereli. "That's crazy," said the diplomat."We're not shutting them out." Link
Bremer ordered debathification, Bremer reports to the Defense Department although Col. Hunt stated on Fox News the other night that it was Sec. Powell's idea for debathification.
Bush's man to pick up pieces after war
Matthew Engel in Washington
Wednesday April 2, 2003
The Guardian
It is probably most accurate to call him Iraq's president-elect. The moment Saddam Hussein falls, Jay Garner will take over, with the kind of sweeping power over the whole of Iraq that even President Saddam has been unable to exercise for the past few years.
When the name Garner was announced as the US's intended interim ruler six weeks ago, it seemed relatively uncontroversial. After all, it was clear someone would have to do the job. Here was a retired general, highly regarded in the services and with a track record of involvement in humanitarian work in the region, being dragged reluctantly from rebuilding the boat deck at his Florida home the moment his country called.
But as the weeks have gone by, the choice looks to be yet another misjudgment from a Pentagon leadership that has misjudged rather a lot.
At present, General Garner is sitting in Kuwait, saying nothing in public, waiting for the US military to declare at least some areas sufficiently pacific for his team to start work. For the past fortnight the Iraqi interim authority has had the formal sanction of the Bush administration. But its plans remain mysterious: the New York Times called Gen Garner's operation "obsessively secret".
Meanwhile, arguments swirl around him - between those ancient Washington adversaries, the state and defence departments, and between the US and the UN. There is no argument among Arab opinion formers, who with rare unanimity have been condemning his appointment as another sign of American contempt for Iraqi feelings.
Among those who actually know him, no one seems to have a bad word for Jay Gar ner. Now 64, he retired six years ago as a three-star general, having made his reputation most spectacularly after the 1991 Gulf war when he was in charge of the Kurdish areas in the north, and won the confidence of the thousands of Kurds who had fled into the mountains to escape President Saddam's forces.
Former colleagues recall him as a brave decision-maker ("He wouldn't dodge bullets, he'd bite them," in the words of General Thomas McInerney) and a humane, informal ("Call me Jay") and humorous man. His Florida neighbours like him too. "Real casual, very humble," said one of them, Renee Keene.
But three facts have come to haunt his mission before it even starts. One is the general's work since retiring from the army as president of defence contractor SY Coleman, now part of a communications-led outfit called L3. An L3 spokesman insisted that Gen Garner's firm does not make military hardware but specialises in the guidance systems. In other words, he is the man who has been trying to make sure the weapons hit the targets rather than the surrounding civilians. This may be true, but this might require an over-subtle explanation in the Baghdad souks if Iraqis start to believe they are being ruled by a man who was just trying to kill them.
The second problem concerns his links with Israel. In October 2000 Gen Garner went on what seems to have been a routine 10-day freebie to Israel, organised by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, an organisation striving "to inform the American defence and foreign affairs community about the important role Israel can and does play in bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and the Middle East". Afterwards, the general signed a declaration of support for Israeli policy, at a time when the latest outbreak of Palestinian unrest was just under way.
Commentators across the Arab world, always on the lookout for slights, are aghast at the insensitivity involved in his appointment. "It sends completely the wrong signal," said Ibrahim Hooper of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"From the perspective of the Muslim and Arab world, it is inappropriate to have someone who has exhibited strong pro-Israel sentiments as the veritable ruler of Iraq. It will be seen as confirming the sense that it is not a war of lib eration but a war to promote the state of Israel."
In Washington a diplomatic battle has broken out about whether relief for Iraq should be controlled by Colin Powell's state department or the Pentagon. Mr Powell's allies regard Gen Garner, appointed by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and reporting to the wartime commander Tommy Franks, as someone whose motives will inevitably be regarded as tainted in postwar Iraq.
"This is an outstanding analysis of what has gone wrong--and will continue to go wrong--in Iraq, unless it is addressed."
Well, those of us who tried to address this before we went into Iraq were called anti-American terrorist sympathizers.