Posted on 10/03/2006 4:36:23 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Bush Administration In State Of Denial
According to Bob Woodward's new book on the Bush Administration's bungling of the war on terror and their failed Iraq policies, "State of Denial," the Bush Administration ignored warnings of Al Qaeda attacks prior to 9/11. Woodward chronicled how the White House continues to hide the true number of attacks on American soldiers in Iraq and also the attempts to have Defense Secretary Rumsfeld fired for his inept policies and disregard for post-war planning in Iraq.
The Bush Administration is in a "State of Denial" on 9/11
Rice Ignored Warnings From the CIA that a Terrorist Attack Was Imminent. "Woodward claims the intelligence Tenet and Black shared with Rice included communication intercepts indicating the likelihood of an Al Qaeda attack on U.S. soil. Tenet said he had hoped the meeting would shock Rice into encouraging the President to take immediate action against Al Qaeda. Black, looking back at the July 10, 2001, meeting with Rice, concludes, 'The only thing we didn't do was pull the trigger to the gun we were holding to her [Rice's] head.'" [New York Daily News, 9/29/06]
9/11 Commissioners Didn't Know About July 2001 Meeting Between Rice and Tenet About An Imminent Al Qaeda Attack, Causing One Commissioner To Say He Was "Furious." "Members of the Sept. 11 commission said Sunday they were alarmed that they were told nothing about a July 2001 White House meeting at which George J. Tenet, then director of central intelligence, is reported to have warned Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, about an imminent attack by Al Qaeda and failed to persuade her to take action. Details of the meeting on July 10, 2001, two months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.The book says Mr. Tenet hurriedly organized the meeting, calling ahead from his car as it traveled to the White House, because he wanted to 'shake Rice' into persuading the president to respond to dire intelligence warnings about a possible terrorist strike. Mr. Woodward writes that Mr. Tenet left the meeting frustrated because 'they were not getting through to Rice.' None of this was shared with us in hours of private interviews, including interviews under oath, nor do we have any paper on this,' said Timothy J. Roemer, a Democratic member of the commission and a former congressman from Indiana. 'I'm deeply disturbed by this. I'm furious.'" [New York Times, 10/2/06]
The Bush Administration is in a "State of Denial" on Iraq
Bush Is Hiding the Number of Attacks on U.S. Troops from the American Public. "The Bush administration is concealing the level of violence against US troops in Iraq and the situation there is growing worse despite White House and Pentagon claims of progress, journalist Bob Woodward said in advance of a new book." [Reuters, 9/29/06]
Bush Administration Says U.S. Forces Are Attacked 34 Times a Day - Intelligence Says There Are 900 Attacks Per Week. "In an interview about the book to be broadcast Sunday on CBS' '60 Minutes,' Woodward charged that the White House and Pentagon were hiding the truth by classifying attack statistics as secret. The U.S. military reported 34 daily attacks in July, but Woodward charged that 'it's getting to the point now where there are eight, 900 attacks a week. That's more than a hundred a day. That is four an hour attacking our forces.'" [New York Daily News, 9/29/06]
Bush Received Secret Intelligence Report Saying That Insurgency Would Get Worse, While Saying Publicly It Would Get Better. Woodward has said, "there are eight, 900 attacks a week. That's more than 100 a day. Four attacks an hour, attacking our forces." Chris Wallace reported, "Woodward says the government had kept this trend secret for years before finally declassifying the graph just three weeks ago. And Woodward accuses President Bush and the Pentagon of making false claims of progress in Iraq, claims contradicted by facts that are being kept secret. For example, Woodward says an intelligence report classified secret from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concluded that 'The Sunni Arab insurgency is gaining strength and increasing capacity despite political progress.' And 'Insurgents retain the capabilities to increase the level of violence through next year.' But just two days later, a public Defense Department report said just the opposite: 'violent action will begin to wane in early 2007.' What are we supposed to make of that?" Woodward added, "The truth is that the assessment by the intelligence experts is that next year--now, next year's 2007--is going to get worse, and in public you have the president and you have the Pentagon saying, 'Oh, no, things are going to get better.' Now, there's public and then there's private. But what did they do with the private? They stamp it secret. No one's supposed to know. Why is that secret? The insurgents know what they're doing. They know the level of violence and how effective they are. Who doesn't know? The American public." [CBS News, 60 Minutes, 10/1/06]
US Officials in Baghdad Said More Troops Were Needed to Quell Insurgency in 2003, But Washington Did Not Respond. "Before 2003 was out, rising violence prompted senior U.S. officials in Baghdad to press Washington for more troops, requests that went unanswered. Woodward reports that in the early summer of 2003, James Dobbins, a senior U.S. diplomat with long experience in the postwar Balkans and elsewhere, drew up a plan calling for 500,000 troops, a staggering increase over the 148,900 troops then deployed in Iraq. His plan was forwarded to Washington. There was no response, Woodward wrote. Abizaid told reporters last month that an increased U.S. military presence can set back the goal of having Iraqi security forces take over, because when American combat units show up, the Iraqis tend to step back. Despite such arguments, a review of the record shows that the Bush administration made decisions to keep troop levels low in Iraq and that in the uncontrolled chaos that followed, the insurgency took hold." [Baltimore Sun, 10/1/06]
Kissinger Advising Bush to Stay the Course in Iraq, Saying Removing Some Troops Would Only Make the American Public Want More. According to Woodward, Henry A. Kissinger "had a powerful, largely invisible influence on the foreign policy of the Bush administration," urging President Bush and Vice President Cheney to stick it out. According to Mr. Woodward, Mr. Kissinger gave the former Bush adviser and speechwriter Michael Gerson his so-called 1969 salted peanut memo, which warned President Richard M. Nixon that "withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public; the more U.S. troops come home, the more will be demanded." On CBS, Woodward said, "Now, what's Kissinger's advice? In Iraq, he declared very simply: Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy. This is so fascinating. Kissinger's fighting the Vietnam war again because in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will, that we didn't stick to it." Asked, "So Henry Kissinger is telling George W. Bush, `Stick to it. Stay the course'?," Woodward replied, "That's right. It's right out of the Kissinger playbook." [New York Times, 9/30/06; CBS News, 10/1/06]
The Bush Administration is in a "State of Denial" about Donald Rumsfeld
Bush's Former Chief of Staff Says Rumsfeld Is Responsible for Postwar Problems in Iraq. "The book says Card was bitter that he had to leave when 'the man most responsible for the postwar trouble, the one who should have gone, was staying." [New York Daily News, 9/29/06]
Card Tried to Get Bush to Replace Rumsfeld, But the President Refused After Being Told It Would Look Bad. "Woodward wrote that White House chief of staff Andrew Card urged Bush to replace Rumsfeld with former Secretary of State James Baker following the 2004 election.Bush decided not to do so after Vice President Dick Cheney and political adviser Karl Rove convinced him it would be seen as an expression of doubt about the direction of the war and expose him to criticism, according to the book. Card, with the backing of first lady Laura Bush, tried a second time to persuade Bush to fire Rumsfeld around Thanksgiving 2005, the book says. But the president again refused to act." [Reuters, 9/29/06]
Rumsfeld Kept Rice in the Dark on Iraq - Told Her She Was Not in the Chain of Command. "Rumsfeld also clashed with then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, whose calls he sometimes wouldn't return when she wanted to know about war planning or troop deployments. Rumsfeld told her she was not in the chain of command." [New York Daily News, 9/29/06]
General Abizaid Says Rumsfeld Has No Credibility on Iraq. "The American commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, is reported to have told visitors to his headquarters in Qatar in the fall of 2005 that 'Rumsfeld doesn't have any credibility anymore' to make a public case for the American strategy for victory in Iraq." [New York Times, 9/29/06]
Rumsfeld Failed to Manage the Reconstruction of Iraq. "Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is described as disengaged from the nuts-and-bolts of occupying and reconstructing Iraq - a task that was initially supposed to be under the direction of the Pentagon - and so hostile toward Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, that President Bush had to tell him to return her phone calls." [New York Ti
It all boils down to nothing more then that.
This is old news. Time to move on. (Using a well-worn Clinton tactic.)
Well....Woodward himself admited that he and his publisher and his newspaper intentionally released this book now in order to affect the election. So woodward, Simon and Schuster and the WAPO are all working hand in glove with the DNC. It should not surprise anyone; the only surprise was that Woodward actually admitted this on air.
Why don't the Republicans just float the same line? You hear the Rats over and over again saying that they're patritotic and looking out for national security as a first priority...total rubbbish...or delusion.
It got buried under two gay and pedophile stories.
Such an ignominious end to such a fine book /sarcasm.
Oh my. Stories like this just might prevent Bush from being elected to a third term /sarcasm
Do they offer solutions, other than "cut-and-run"? Do they offer a strategy other than "let's-give-terrorists-rights"?
Similar to the standard "according to high level anonymous sources".....
http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Security_Forces
Listening to all the Media hysteria over Bob Woodward's latest attempt to be the new Kitty Kelly, one is struck by just how wrong the Drive By Media is on every aspect of the Iraq War.
Here is the raw data on Iraq. Seems Bob Woodward latest work is simply a regurgitation of every falsehood, half truth and exaggeration present by the Junk Media on Iraq since 2003.
In a vain attempt to falsely validate preconceived notions, Mr Woodward demonstrated how the Left has managed to be wrong on every aspect of the Iraq War. Mr Woodward's central thesis is that attacks are "as high as they have ever been". Perhaps that is true. Even if true those attacks are getting less and less effective. If conditions are worsening why were the Iraqis taking higher monthly casualties in 2004 and 2005 with a smaller force?
Simply put BW, like the rest of the American Political Left is full of it. They have had their minds made up about Iraq from even before the war started. In his latest work it is clear Mr Woodward simply went to find people who would say what he wanted to hear. It is also becoming apparent that when he did not hear what he wanted, Mr Woodward simply misquoting the source to put his Democrat Party Masters spin on the data. Apparently this current book is his act of atonement to the DC Establishment for writing a fairly balanced book on President Bush last time.
If you chart the data at the sources above, you see a base line of violence. While the violence ebbs and flows the base line is steady at 65 Coalition casualties a month. The Iraqis are averaging a steady 200 casualties a month. No sustained rise in baseline casualties to validate the "Iraq is heading for Civil War" Democrat Media Machine spin.
What is particularly significant about the Iraqi Security Forces casualties is they are averaging the same casualty levels with a much larger force. As of Aug 2006 there is a 300,000 Iraqi security force in the field with about 5,000 being added a month. By the end of the year the Iraqi Security Forces will be complete fielded. Right now out of 18 provinces in Iraq only 2 are considered "not ready" for transition to Iraqi control. Of course the two provinces are Anbar, the province along the Syrian border and Basrah the Shi'a stronghold along the border with Iran. Yet even in both those areas significant progress has been made just in September 2006 alone.
In Anbar the Iraqi tribes have entered into an agreement to work with the Iraqi Government to root out the foreign terrorist groups. In Basrah, the British and Iraqi forces just started operations to crack down on the Shi'a militias.
Iraq: British, Iraq troops begin Basra mission
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1709154/posts
Most Tribes in Anbar Agree to Unite Against Insurgents (The NY Times is deeply saddened)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1703582/posts
This data totally undercuts the spin presented by Bob Woodward, and other Democrat Party propagandists, that Iraq is "heading for Civil War" or is "spinning out of control".
What Woodward et all seem to fixate on is Iraqi Civilian casualties. What they forget is a terrorist or a militia member killed in intra tribal gang warfare is considered "an Iraqi civilian casualty". So when you hear a news story that says "40 bodies discovered around Baghdad" MOST of them are probably casualties from gang on gang violence. While that violence is an on growing crises we and the Iraqis will have to deal with, it is not a fundamental threat to the long term survival of the Iraqi Government.
Obviously the immediate counter the Leftist propagandists will claim is that ;We are not making fast enough progress" That is nonsense.
look at the data on Iraqi security forces. More and more of the job is being taken up by Iraqi forces. 2 of 18 Providence have been turned over to complete Iraqi control. Out of 18 Iraqi provinces all but 2 are at least partially under Iraqi control All the progress in the war is on our side. The enemy is making no progress. Time is on our side, not theirs.
Another factor on Iraq the Leftists fails to grasp is how the war in Iraq has fundamentally changed in the last 6 months. Because the external Terrorist threat has been significantly reduced, we are able to focus on other lesser threats. Witness what the British down south, and the US in the Baghdad region, are doing. They are working with the Iraqis to weed out the gangs and militia that sprung up in the wake of Saddam's fall.
Counter Insurgency is slow, painful work. But the progress is all on our side. The "Insurgents" has demonstrated no ability to politically or militarily evolve. Guerrilla war strategy consists of 3 phases.
1. Stage one: very small unit harassment actions.
2. Stage two: continuation of state one with an evolution to large units actions. Development of larger and large geographic areas fully under Guerrilla control.
3. Stage three: conventional warfare between large units.
The Terrorists are still stuck in stage one of Guerrilla Warfare. They can wreck stuff and kill people they cannot grow. They cannot take and hold ground or engage in anything beyond small scale hit and run attacks.
Their failure to develop a shadow political structure to act as a polar opposite to the Iraqi Government is their fatal flaw. They simply lack the structure or local support network needed to move beyond state one
The claims and assumptions stated as "fact" by Mr Woodward on Iraq are fraudulent. Considering he has got just about everything on Iraq completely wrong in his recent public statements, one has to wonder just what else he make up for this book?
Have you heard about his death-bed interview with Casey? Of course Casey's wife, the CIA and the CIA people guarding his room knew nothing about it...Woodward is damned good!
"This is old news. Time to move on. (Using a well-worn Clinton tactic.)"
And, don't forget "Its the economy, stupid." What'd the Dow do today?
Bob woodward is making all this stuff up just to sell his book.
Bob Woodward is full of chit. And what to the Democrats propose to make Iraq better besides cut and run? From NRO re: Woodward's campaign season lying:
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Woodward Misleads [Mario Loyola]
Tonight on 60 Minutes Woodward is going to argue that the administration has been misleading the American people by claiming things are getting better in Iraq, while in fact they are getting worse.
He cites a "Secret" chart showing that attacks have reached almost 900 per week in Iraq, which Woodward says are attacks "against our troops." This is misleading on several counts. First, this blockbuster "secret" information is in fact continually updated and systematically released by the Defense Department in the high-profile quarterly Report on Stability and Progress in Iraq. ( See p. 31).
Even worse, Woodward implies that the attacks he's talking about are attacks are "against our trooops." But they are not. As the Report explains (again, P.31):
For this report, the term "attacks" refers to specific incidents reported in the Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) Significant Activities database. It includes known attacks on Coalition forces, the ISF, the civilian population, and infrastructure.
And in fact, as the following page shows, attacks against Coalition forces have dropped since the summer of 2004, while casualties of Iraqi Security Forces have increased dramatically as ISF have moved to take main responsibility for providing security in the country ( p.32). Also the attacks remain confined mostly to one out of 18 provinces (Anbar) and Baghdad, while the vast majority of the country — 14 out of 18 provinces — has remained peaceful and largely secure. In light of these factors, ongoing progress in the political realm is bad news for the insurgency. Why? Because insurgencies fighting a domestic government eventually lose if they cannot win.
Meanwhile, the very statistic Woodward cites in support for his proposition shows that his proposition is fallacious, which I'm sure will prove to be the case with much of his latest Potpourri-of-Beltway-Gossip-Posing-as-a-Book.
Posted at 2:02 PM
Then again, Farenheit 911 was touted as a "Documentary", and the wingnuts lapped it up.
Like P.T. Barnum said, "there's a sucker born every minute".....
I want someone to write a book on the life of Bob Woodward. This I would buy ;-)
It get's better...now pat buchanan has written a hit piece based on woodwards book. buchanan quoting woodward...Barnum's dream.
Fortunately, most common sense voters tune out the rhetoric as the election draws nearer....(Democrats NEVER let common sense interfere with their straight-ticket ignorant button-pushing)
Who knows? Did the MSM even report on the Dow?
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