Guess whose feet they lay this blunder at? - Colin Powell for advising the president not to do this.
Of course, with Al Gore - or John Kerry in charge, we could have ignored the whole uncomfortable mess, left the mass graves in silence, and continued to ignore the growing threat to our nation and the free world - as well as the cries from the daily victims.
Life's so much simpler for us in our comfy homes that way.
Clarification, from an AP recap this morn:
Latif participated in meetings with Marines last week on the creation of the Fallujah Brigade, the top Marine commander, Lt. Gen. James Conway, said over the weekend. Conway said he believed that Latif had been exiled by Saddam's regime for several years.
"He is very well thought of, very well respected by the Iraqi general officers. You can just see the body language between them. And if I had to guess at this point, when we have this brigade fully formed, he demonstrates a level of leadership that tells me that he could become that brigade commander," Conway said.
The U.S. official, speaking Monday, said the decision to make Latif in charge emerged as it became clearer that he was more influential. "Gen. Saleh as I understand it will be working at the battalion level, not the brigade level," he said.
U.S. officials have shown confusion over the identities of the generals in the Fallujah force. One U.S. officer said Saleh had been involved in an assassination plot against Saddam and that three of his children had been executed - apparently mistaking him for Mohammed al-Shehwani, a former Air Force officer who in April was named as head of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service and whose three sons were killed by Saddam. ~ More