Rusty Democrats Unable to Pin Anything on Bremer

The Washington Post ^ | Wednesday, February 7, 2007 | Dana Milbank

[MinorityRepublican]

Jerry Bremer wore black dress shoes instead of his trademark combat boots yesterday as he testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. But except for that concession, the former American viceroy of Iraq had lost none of his swagger.

His widely condemned move to disband the Iraqi military? "I stand by the decision."

Billions of dollars potentially wasted on dubious contracts? "I did not have authority over the awarding of contracts."

Incompetent personnel at the Coalition Provisional Authority? "My role in hiring was very limited."

"On the whole," Bremer told the lawmakers, "I think that we made great progress."

It was to have been the grudge match Democrats waited years for: The ferocious Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), newly installed as chairman of the committee, was to flex his new oversight muscles by summoning Bremer to account for his actions while running Iraq in 2003 and 2004.

But Bremer proved unexpectedly agile at shifting blame: to administration planners ("The planning before the war was inadequate"), his superiors in the Bush administration ("We never had sufficient support"), and the Iraqi people ("The country was in chaos -- socially, politically and economically").

And Democrats, after 12 years in the minority, were out of practice. Instead of going after Bremer's greatest vulnerabilities -- his autocratic management style and his "de-Baathification" of Iraq -- Democrats instead chose a strange focus for the hearing: the failure to account for $8 billion of cash payments three years ago. After nearly five hours of questioning, the lawmakers failed to find a smoking gun: It wasn't U.S. taxpayer money, it was a pittance compared with U.S. spending in Iraq, there was no hard evidence of fraud, and the episode had been investigated two years ago.

[goldstategop]

The Democrats wanted to discredit the war and the Coalition Provisional Authority. They missed big time.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[hsalaw]

As might have been expected, the dems are going to waste their time and and fritter away their slim majority by looking up a dead horse's ass for the next two years, trying to lay blame on Pres. Bush for everything which has ever gone wrong, instead of trying to come up with a plan for ANYTHING which would actually help our country. Bad cess to them.

[goldstategop]

The Democrats have no vision, no plan and no dream for America. All they can fall back on is doom and gloom.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[kvanbrunt2]

i thank god. i would hate to see them actually try to govern. think about the enactment of laws related to gay marriage, tax increases, more business regulation(global cooling),etc . i love government wasting time. time is on my side.

[iopscusa]

Maybe the Democrat majority is a good thing for the country. They are proving that they have no real ability to do more than posture and complain, no ideas and a lot of corruption. They may even start to stay out of the MSM limelight, as if they could...lol.

[Rumplemeyer]

I saw a clip on Fox News last night, Henry Waxman is one creepy little dude, reptilian, smarmy and so full of it he whistles.