President George W. Bush to offer apology on 2 Arab Televison station networks

Pooh -- need some documentation here. I've heard rumors re the sodomy and knocked up female prisoner, haven't seen any proof or even documentation so please be careful about representing that as fact.

The sodomy comes from the CENTCOM report (the 53-page document).

The knocked-up female was a soldier, not a prisoner.

To leave for battle without your principles is hell.

Do you believe everything you hear on the news?

We should understand how the collaborationist media and government works too. It's the same playbook as Trent Lott. Demand an apology then if you get it, refuse to accept it and demand another (more), repeat ad nauseum, then when you really have him dancing to your tune say "the only thing that will make it better is if you resign", and then the dupe does just that.

How is Bush on Al Arabiya any different than Trent Lott going on BET? It's pandering and it sucks. At some point you have to say "It's done, it's over, I'm not answering any more questions about it." And if they don't like it, have them escorted off the premises.

I don't see what Bush is doing is pandering.

I think he is truly embarrassed my what happened.

Lott was in major cya mode.

Apologizing during a war. Simply amazing!

Do you understand that in our best war colleges they just don't teach about bombing people and breaking things.

They also teach diplomacy and politics.

They are taught that winning the war is often times just the beginning of their task.

Yes, Bush has already made the decision to bug out, all we're waiting for are helicopters on the roof of the American embassy, ala Saigon, 1975. He's going to turn over the keys to the asylum to whoever Brahimi deems the least crazy, then we're going to quietly slip away. Right now, the chief mission is to have as few American casualties as possible. Nothing else explains all the patty-cake we've been playing with Fallujah and Najif.

This incident is a face saver for Bush, he gets to bow and scrape his way out of Iraq, and the detainee mistreatment gets the blame for why things went wrong in Iraq. After all, that's the way Vietnam history was revised, too. Incidents like My Lai kept us from winning the "hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese people, which kept us from being able to achieve victory there, in the liberal retelling of the story, which most conservatives in politics have signed on to, by their silence.

I suppose that the real reason we didn't bomb the holy living crap out of Hanoi and other North Vietnamese cities was to avoid a wider war with China and the Soviet Union, I suspect that there is a similar reason to avoid nuking Najif.

We really don't want to take on the entire Arab world all at once, especially during the heat of an election year. Bush gambled that Iraq would be neutered by the summer of 2003, so he could run on it as a victory in 2004, and he lost that bet. Best thing to do now is to take the issue off the table for November, so that he can get reelected, hopefully with a sizable Republican Congress, and we can finish the job in his second term. If there's a terrorist incident just before the election, that provides the reason to start bombing the day after the votes are counted.

Excerpt:

U.S. Department of State - Secretary Colin L. Powell

May 5, 2004

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, as you know, up on Capitol Hill, senators are furious that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld did not tell them about the situation regarding the Iraqi prison abuse. Even as it was about to air on 60 Minutes, they had known about that specific account for weeks.

I'm wondering, first of all, when you heard about this, you have to deal, obviously, with the international reaction to this. And also, where ultimately does responsibility lie? Does it lie with those that supervise the prisoners or much higher up the chain of command?

SECRETARY POWELL: It remains to be seen what the total extent of the problem is, and then you start to follow it up the chain of command and the chain of accountability. And I'm confident they will certainly do that.

Keep in mind that General Sanchez launched an investigation of this matter the day after he heard about it, in the early part of the year. And if you check General Mark Kimmitt's briefings over this past several months, you will see that General Kimmitt noted in his briefings that such investigations were underway and he even made an announcement of when some people had been charged. I think that announcement was made publicly in Baghdad on the 20th of March.

So investigations have been underway; actions has been taken by the chain of command during this period. It was the photos themselves that caused the big stir, rightly so, when we could all see what the investigations were about and what people were being accused of having participated in.

And so we are all terribly distressed and shocked by those photos and by what those photos said about the manner in which the troops there were doing their job. And as you have heard the President, you have heard Secretary Rumsfeld, myself and others say, it's unacceptable. But we are a nation that believes in justice. We are a nation that's governed by the rule of law, and nowhere is that more the case than in the Armed Forces of the United States.

And so Secretary Rumsfeld is hard at work seeing what other investigatory efforts should be put into this matter. He is in touch with members of Congress. I'm sure I'll have a chance to discuss it when I'm up on the Hill this afternoon, as well.

We want to get all the information out so that the American people understand what's happened and also to make sure that our friends in the Arab world, especially, know that we are a nation of laws, we are a nation of justice, and this kind of action and misbehavior will not be tolerated and will be dealt with in the firmest possible manner.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, you've called -- you've said that you're sure this is isolated, this incident. What makes you so sure that it's isolated?

SECRETARY POWELL: Right now, it seems to be isolated in this particular place, with respect to this -- this incident, if I can call it an incident. The photos you have seen that dealt with this particular wing of that prison, I don't know that there are more individuals involved in that beyond what the investigating officer found.

Now, we are also undertaking a broad review of all of our detention facilities in Baghdad, as well as elsewhere, in Afghanistan, and reviewing our procedures in Guantanamo to make sure we haven't overlooked anything. But with respect to that wing of the Abu Gharib prison that has caused all of the attention, I've seen nothing to suggest that the individuals involved in that constitute a larger group than has already been identified by the military.

But, once again, I'll have to yield to Secretary Rumsfeld and his colleagues to give the definitive answer on that.

Okay, one more. Then I've got to run.

QUESTION: The United States is hard at work on trying to get more countries into Iraq to provide security for the UN, this multinational force.

SECRETARY POWELL: Yeah.

QUESTION: Do you think that the reports of the alleged mistreatment of these Iraqi prisoners might have a blow to your efforts in that sense?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't think so. We're hard at work on this. And I think people understand that if they want to see a safe Iraq, an Iraq that is sovereign once again, they need to help with the process. And one of the important areas in which help is needed is to assist the UN in doing its job in Iraq to help get organized for elections.

And so I hope that this would not cause anybody to hold back any support that they might have provided. What we're asking for is people to help the Iraqi people, and you help them through participating in a multinational force, and especially that component of the force that will deal with providing security to the United Nations personnel, who we expect to be returning in some number.

Thank you.

2004/492 [End]

Excerpt:

Centom Briefing March 22, 2004

Q Yeah. Hi. Two quick questions for General Kimmitt. The first question is, just following up on a question raised the other day by a CNN journalist about access to the Abu Gharib prison, and you had mentioned go to -- ask the Red Cross directly about their access. And the Red Cross has the policy of not speaking, specifically because they know that they will be denied access if they do. So I wanted to raise that as an issue, if you're aware of that.

The second is, I'd like to find out if you know anything about heightened security concerns of the last 24 hours, specifically rumors that car bombs have entered Baghdad, targeting Western-owned hotels.

GEN. KIMMITT: On the first question, about the ICRC, if that's their policy, that's their policy. It remains our policy that we will not subject the detainees in Abu Gharib or any of our detention facilities to public humiliation or ridicule. And as a result, we will continue to treat them in am manner consistent with that, as we treat enemy prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.

As to the heightened security concerns, we always take a look at all the intelligence that comes into our organizations from various means, and we take the appropriate force protection measures as a result.

That's life Joe, get back to me when you find your perfect house, car, or world with no imperfections.

I'd settle for conservative leadership.