US News
Dec 8, 2007, 2:46 GMT
Bush under fire for destroyed CIA interrogation tapes (Roundup)
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Older Talkback
'What a damned liar you are!'
WHAT HAVE I LIED ABOUT? LIAR?
'I'M addressing LEGISLATION passed by Congress and watered down based on what Clinton proposed.'
Pretty useless when the Clinton's are vetoing attempts to kill Bin Laden.
'YOU'RE talking about attacks for which terrorists were apprehended and punished.'
No, Idiot, had you even bothered to read what I wrote you would have seen that I am talking about the Clinton's steadfast refusal to recognize that we were at war even in the face of dozens of attacks. (World trade center #1, the Cole, the embassy bombings, ect) The equivalent would have been like Roosevelt swearing out a warrant for the Japanese pilots arrest after Pearl Harbor was bombed and leaving it at that.
'
Here's an entire Snopes link on 'urban legends' covering the facts on what Clinton's admin.
I have just documented 2 of the several occasions that the Clinton administration had to kill bin laden yet they decided not to. Yet tou toss back something from 'snopes.com/rumors'...
I will take the 9/11 commissions word over yet another leftist website that in this case doesn't even dispute what I have said, IDIOT.
'Then, you can read all of the fresh newslinks about violence in Iraq right here on M&C where you make your nest.'
Yeah... They never do get to the retractions here...
gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2007/12/mnf-i-responds-another-bogus-report- no.html
MNF-I Responds--- ANOTHER BOGUS REPORT!... No Evidence of Dwelah Massacre!
(This post was updated and bumped.)
'The story you are reading in the news is NOT true... CF assessment: Wildly inflated, irresponsibly exaggerated claims-no 600 families displaced, no 200 terrorists, no evidence of civilian KIA.'
MAJ Peggy Kageleiry
Task Force Iron PAO
On the 'Dwelah Massacre' reports
The 'Dwelah Massacre' made international headlines on December 2, 2007.
I am happy to tell you that violence in Iraq is down about 70%. So your precious terrorists that you have been rooting for have been DEFEATED, Your arguments have been proven WRONG, you have been shown to be a LIAR, If you weren't such an IDIOT, you would have the sense to be ASHAMED.
mediamatters.org/items/200508160002
(The above was a 2005 link which refers to Berger 'taking copies' as opposed to 'removing documents' permanently. The later findings where nothing was permanently removed or destroyed can be researched here)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Berger#Convicted_of_mishandling_classified_ terror_documents
(There's a long discussion in there as to what Berger copied, or took, and the WSJ even retracted its original article. None of it has anything to do with 'covering up for Clinton')
(Now, back to the original garbage peddled by Kelley et al - this is the opening paragraph of a long link showing errors made by Kelley and others in their coverage of Mohammed Atta's part in 9/11, as well)
'Nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh, Fox News host John Gibson, and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette national security writer Jack Kelly speculated -- citing no evidence -- that former national security adviser Samuel 'Sandy' Berger sought to remove or replace documents from the National Archives that would have exposed the Clinton administration's purported failure in 1999 to act on intelligence regarding lead September 11, 2001, hijacker Mohammed Atta. Their baseless speculation came amid allegations, which have been called into serious question, that the 9-11 Commission omitted from its report intelligence documents from 1999 that identified Atta as a potential threat.'
(Berger used exceedingly bad judgment, likely under some kind of personal pressure, but there's not a lick of evidence that it want beyond that. He was heavily fined and surrendered his law license, after being convictered of 'mishandling classified terror documents', a sentence deserved.)
RE: Yet tou toss back something from 'snopes.com/rumors'...
======================
Snopes is the well recognized authority on rumormongering and publishing the facts, and to you it's probably like a vampire coming upon garlic, so you're as oblivious as ever, and rock-hard in your by-design ignorance of what goes on in the real world.
As we once again come out of the caverns of past administrations, including when Bush Sr. left Saddam in power, and come to daylight, we find in CURRENT NEWS:
www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/washington/09zubaydah.html?hp
Destruction of C.I.A. Tapes Could Alter Prosecutions
'WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 — The destruction of hundreds of hours of videotapes showing interrogations of top operatives of Al Qaeda, including Abu Zubaydah, could complicate the prosecution of Mr. Zubaydah and others, and it underscores the deep uncertainties that have plagued government officials about the interrogation program.
Officials acknowledged on Friday that the destruction of evidence like videotaped interrogations could raise questions about whether the Central Intelligence Agency was seeking to hide evidence of coercion. A review of records in military tribunals indicates that five lower-level detainees at Guantánamo were initially charged with offenses based on information that was provided by or related to Mr. Zubaydah. Lawyers for these detainees could argue that they needed the tapes to determine what, if anything, Mr. Zubaydah had said about them.'
ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hyL3au-RZxEcch2P9ymXaJ9mroogD8TD0A9G0
White House press secretary Dana Perino said Friday that President Bush did not recall being told about the tapes or their destruction. But she could not rule out White House involvement in the decision to destroy the tapes, saying she had only asked the president about it, not others.
(Very cute)
Perino refused to say whether the destruction could have been an obstruction of justice or a threat to cases against terrorism suspects. If the attorney general decides to investigate, 'of course the White House would support that,' she said.
(Yeah; THERE'S an impartial arbiter! How about a Special Prosecutor?)
In a daily press briefing dedicated almost solely to the topic of the CIA tapes, Perino responded 19 times that she didn't know or couldn't comment.
(Another personal best for 2007, I believe)
At least one White House official, then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers, knew about the CIA's planned destruction of videotapes in 2005 that documented the interrogation of two al-Qaida operatives, ABC news reported Friday. Three officials told ABC News that Miers urged the CIA not to destroy the tapes. White House officials declined to comment on the report.
(Whoops!)
The spy agency destroyed the tapes in November 2005, at a time when human rights groups and lawyers for detainees were clamoring for information about the agency's secret detention and interrogation program, and Congress and U.S. courts were debating where 'enhanced interrogation' crossed the line into torture. Also at that time, the Senate Intelligence Committee was asking whether the videotapes showed CIA interrogators were complying with interrogation guidelines. The CIA refused twice in 2005 to provide the committee with its general counsel's report on the tapes, according to Committee Chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.
(Contempt of Congress, anyone? This is LOTS better than Monicagate ever was! The entire COUNTRY got screwed this time.)
(Aside from Bush visiting the Mideast in January, not much to deflect press coverage. The attacks in Iraq are getting coverage again, and Afghanistan is a complete mess. Not a lot to fall back on. Rehashing the past won't cut it.
The question is WHO in THIS White House knew that evidence was being destroyed, and approved of it!)
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/12/08/MNHMTQKL8.DTL
Probe sought in destruction of CIA tapes
Lawmakers charge agency eliminated evidence of torture
(12-08) 04:00 PST Washington -- Key members of Congress called Friday for multiple investigations into the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes, charging that the agency may have eliminated evidence of torture, obstructed justice or engaged in an illegal coverup.
The CIA's disclosure that it had destroyed tapes showing harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects rekindled the emotional controversy surrounding U.S. practices and threatened to reopen the tense confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration first begun more than three years ago.
Democratic leaders demanded that Attorney General Michael Mukasey order a full Justice Department investigation into whether the CIA had acted illegally in destroying the tapes, which recorded interrogations of two terrorism suspects.
'We haven't seen anything like this since the 18 1/2-minute gap in the tapes of President Richard Nixon,' Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said in a blistering speech on the Senate floor.
A Justice Department spokesman said the congressional requests for an investigation were under review. At the same time, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said the panel already has opened its own inquiry into the matter, and he challenged a CIA assertion that key lawmakers had been briefed on the decision to dispose of the recordings.
'Now, the rest of the trash'
Well, quite right, what you posted IS trash.... You seem to think that people will be impressed by your heavily redacted, cherry picked cut and paste joobs from sources like 'dailykos', 'commondreams', 'huffingtonpost' and 'MediaMatters'... They are not concerned with 'truth' in the slightest, they are propagandists. Just like you: Liars.
'Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.'
In other words they spin.
'The above was a 2005 link which refers to Berger 'taking copies' as opposed to 'removing documents' permanently. The later findings where nothing was permanently removed or destroyed can be researched here'
HE PLEAD GUILTY! HE took documents, cut them up with scissors, buried others.. None of that is in dispute any more. Your article from media matters was written before he actually ADMITTED to breaking the law. You are posting old spin to cover up old lies. Idiot!
'There's a long discussion in there as to what Berger copied, or took, and the WSJ even retracted its original article. None of it has anything to do with 'covering up for Clinton'
HE WAS CAUGHT
'Berger used exceedingly bad judgment, likely under some kind of personal pressure, but there's not a lick of evidence that it want beyond that.'
He took all the copies of specific documents that showed the handling of the terrorist threat by the Clinton administration to be the incompetent mess that it was. According to the link that YOUU just posted:
'He later, in a guilty plea, admitted to deliberately removing the copies and cutting three up with scissors. Archive staff stated they witnessed Berger, on more than one occasion, stuffing into his pants and into his jacket papers he was illegally removing.[14] Two of the copies were recovered by DOJ investigators and returned to the archives.'
'Critics suggest Berger destroyed primary evidence revealing anti-terrorism policies and actions, and that his motive was to permanently erase Clinton administration pre-9/11 mistakes from the public record.'
'Mr. Berger said he placed the documents under a trailer in an accessible construction area outside Archives 1 (the main Archives building).' Berger acknowledged that he later retrieved the documents from the construction area and returned with them to his office.'
ONCE AGAIN, HE HAS ADMITTED THAT HE HAS DONE THIS, he has PAID A FINE, he has SURRENDERED HIS SECURITY CLEARANCE, he has SURRENDERED HIS LAW LICENSE, He has APOLOGIZED: 'I am very sorry for what I did, and I deeply apologize.'
The fact that you are so divorced from reality that you are STILL trying to contend that there is nothing to see here is pathetic.
'Let's get back on the damned topic-BUSH'
Fine, idiot, according to the New York times, the same outlet that broke the story to begin with the Bush administration told CIA Not to destroy the tapes. The New York Times is now reporting that CIA officials were advised not to destroy videotapes of terrorist interrogations:
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.
The chief of the agency’s clandestine service [Jose A. Rodriguez Jr.] nevertheless ordered their destruction in November 2005, taking the step without notifying even the C.I.A.’s own top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, who was angry at the decision, the officials said.
www.nytimes.com/2007/12/08/washington/08intel.html?ex=1354770000&en=100 7e96ca6553660&ei=5090
That of course WAS the DAMNED TOPIC? Right Ali?
So tell me, why is it that you whine like the stuck pig that you are when Valerie Plame gets outed but REAL CIA agents protect their identities by destroying tapes that THEY are on? Why is it you whine that it is Bush's fault when it was done against his orders?
Could it be that you are just a spinning liar?
'Snopes is the well recognized authority on rumormongering and publishing the facts, and to you it's probably like a vampire coming upon garlic, so you're as oblivious as ever, and rock-hard in your by-design ignorance of what goes on in the real world.'
No they are not, regardless, in this case they haven't contradicted a thing I have said, idiot.
'White House press secretary Dana Perino said Friday that President Bush did not recall being told about the tapes or their destruction. But she could not rule out White House involvement in the decision to destroy the tapes, saying she had only asked the president about it, not others.'
Well they can and have today:
'WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.
The chief of the agency’s clandestine service [Jose A. Rodriguez Jr.] nevertheless ordered their destruction in November 2005, taking the step without notifying even the C.I.A.’s own top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, who was angry at the decision, the officials said.'
Read it again......Idiot.
'Perino refused to say whether the destruction could have been an obstruction of justice or a threat to cases against terrorism suspects.'
LOL! Like it matters:
WE ARE IN A WAR, these things that we have caught are not entitled to the same constitutional protection as American Citizens. In WW2 when we caught unlawful combatants we got whatever information we could out of them by any means necessary and then cooked the bastards in the electric chair. Look up 'Operation Pastorius'... Idiot.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pastorius
'The spy agency destroyed the tapes in November 2005, at a time when human rights groups and lawyers for detainees were clamoring for information about the agency's secret detention and interrogation program, '
Good. Well done.
'Contempt of Congress, anyone?'
Since the approval ratings of this congress are in the teens it seems that a lot of people have contempt for it.
'The attacks in Iraq are getting coverage again, and Afghanistan is a complete mess.'
Again, liar, that is just complete nonsense. The terrorists that you have been rooting for have been getting eradicated like roaches in front of a raid can.
' Not a lot to fall back on. Rehashing the past won't cut it.
LOL! the democrats have abandoned Iraq as a campaign issue it is going so well.
'Probe sought in destruction of CIA tapes
That will further establish the democrats as the party of appeasement. I can't wait.
'Lawmakers charge agency eliminated evidence of torture'
Booo hooo.
Learn how to spell with out cutting and pasting from word into html. You just turn the bold on with your formatting differences.
A smart fellow like you should be able to write the language of the country that adopted you out off your iranian hellhole well enough by now in order to attempt to weaken our resolve in the face of the enemy that you are without turning on the BOLD PRINT.
''The attacks in Iraq are getting coverage again, and Afghanistan is a complete mess.''
Here Liar:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Violence in Iraq has dropped significantly in recent months, but it's still too soon to declare the home stretch in U.S. operations here, the commander of Multinational Force Iraq said today.
Army Gen David H. Petraeus cited significant security progress during a roundtable with reporters at the Multinational Task Force headquarters at Camp Victory. Following the roundtable discussion, the general spent an hour with visiting Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
Weekly attacks in recent weeks are roughly 60 percent of the levels they were in June, Petraeus said. High-profile attacks are down 60 percent from their high in March, and attacks overall have dropped during the last seven weeks to levels not seen here consistently since spring 2005.
As a result, fatalities are down, too. Civilian deaths have fallen dramatically to rates not seen since late 2005. And during a year Petraeus acknowledged has witnessed the most U.S. combat losses since operations first began in Iraq, the figure for November was its lowest in 20 months.
Dems to Back Down on War Money
By ANNE FLAHERTY – 4 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — After weeks of tough talk, Democrats appear resigned to back down again on providing money for the Iraq war.
What happened?
'Republicans, Republicans, Republicans,' said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. 'The real problem here is the president and his Republican backers' who have 'staked out an increasingly hard-lined position.'
Indeed, with Democrats holding a razor-thin majority in the Senate and with 60 votes needed to overcome procedural hurdles, Senate Republicans were in a plum negotiating spot this month.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., insisted that if Democrats want legislation paying for government operations this year, they will have to include money for the Iraq war.
'Do Republicans have a tough stance on funding the troops in the field? Yes,' said McConnell's spokesman, Don Stewart. 'Because we made a commitment to the troops overseas to give them the training and equipment and support that they need.'
Democrats now are expected to allow Senate Republicans to attach tens of billions of dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a $500 billion-plus government-wide spending bill. That move would be in exchange for GOP support on the huge spending measure.
The war money would not be tied to troop withdrawals, as Democrats want. But it would let Democrats wrap up their long-unfinished budget work and go on vacation before Christmas. It also would spare them from criticism during the holiday recess by President Bush for leaving work without providing money for the troops.
Iraq doubters, concede with dignity
Go ahead and natter about the mistakes. But don't stand in the way of progress.
By Clifford D. May
Pity poor Harry Reid. Back in April, the Senate Democratic leader proclaimed the war in Iraq 'lost.' Two months before Gen. David Petraeus had in place the reinforcements he needed to implement his bold, new strategy, which included a 'surge' of operations against Al-Qaida forces in Iraq, Reid also said: 'The surge is not accomplishing anything.'
Since then, it has become increasingly obvious that Reid was wrong, that the 'surge' has been accomplishing nothing less than the defeat of Al-Qaida in the very heart of the Arab world. Petraeus' troops appear to be making progress against Iranian-backed militias as well. As a result, the threat of an Iraqi civil war has diminished and there is no 'resistance' movement to speak of -- not of Saddam Hussein loyalists and certainly not of patriotic Iraqi nationalists.
The elite media are, belatedly, acknowledging this reality: 'By every metric used to measure the war -- total attacks, U.S. casualties, Iraqi casualties, suicide bombings, roadside bombs -- there has been an enormous improvement,' reports the Washington Post. The Los Angeles Times adds that 'war-weary Sunnis and Shiites are joining hands at the local level to protect their communities from militants on both sides.' According to the Pew Research Center: 'For the first time in a long time, nearly half of Americans express positive opinions about the situation in Iraq.'
Maybe Reid thinks this is all baloney. But what if he does recognize that progress is being made? What are he and others like him to do? It is not only occupants of the Oval Office who don't relish saying: 'I was wrong.'
Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., hasn't said that. He believes the war was 'one of the most egregious mistakes in the history of this country.' But he adds that to abandon Iraq too soon would be an equally serious error.
'The facts on the ground are the situation is improving in Iraq,' Baird recently said on the House floor. 'Courageous Americans have given their lives and the time away from their families to make that happen. ... Progress is being made. Do not let anyone today say it is not. Violence is down. Political leaders are reaching out across the aisle. Shias are meeting with Sunnis. Sunnis are meeting with Shias. They need more time to succeed, and an insecure situation will undermine the progress, not further it.'
Why can't Reid -- and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards and others -- follow Baird's example? Because, unlike Baird, they voted in 2003 to authorize the use of military force in Iraq. In other words, they were for the war when that was politically popular, then they turned against the war when the going got rough and the polls headed south, and now, if they shift again, they fear they will look like triple flip-flopping opportunists.
The temptation to be gleeful should be resisted -- most of all by those of us who have been determined to see a successful outcome salvaged in Iraq. Instead, politicians looking for a way back to the provictory coalition should be given assistance.
I'll contribute my 2 cents: Here, Sen. Reid, are a few talking points for you and others who may want to jump off the defeatist bandwagon without breaking your political necks:
Say that President Bush should have foreseen that toppling Saddam would create a vacuum -- and an irresistible temptation for Al-Qaida and Iran. Say that Bush was foolish to proclaim 'Mission Accomplished' when the toughest tasks still lay ahead, and irresponsible to shout 'Bring it On' when he was neither militarily nor politically prepared for what was coming. Say it took Bush too long to recognize that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top generals in Iraq needed to be replaced by commanders with a new and improved strategy.
Say the credit for turning the situation around in Iraq goes to American men and women in uniform. Say America has the most dedicated, courageous and -- perhaps most important -- adaptable military the world has ever seen. Say that as much as you think Bush deserves to take more heat, you understand that when a plane crashes it's not just the pilot who burns.
Finally, say you are not among those who regard bad news in Iraq as good news for yourself and the Democratic Party. Say that while you may have been persuaded that America's defeat in Iraq was inevitable, you were never among those who saw America's defeat as desirable. Such people betray us. You should say that, too.
Murtha Eats Crow On Iraq
By Jack Kelly
While most of us were enjoying turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Johnstown), was eating a little crow.
'I think the surge is working,' Rep. Murtha said last week after a quick holiday visit to Iraq.
The observation isn't remarkable. The signs of progress in Iraq are so obvious that even the New York Times has begun to report them. For, instance, U.S. deaths in Iraq in November (35, 26 in combat) were the lowest since March of 2006. Iraqi civilian deaths were about a third of what they had been in November of last year.
But it was remarkable coming from Rep. Murtha, who declared the troop surge a failure before it had begun. At a news conference on the eve of his trip, he'd accused the Pentagon of lying when it reported good news: 'Because the Pentagon said it, you believe it?' he yelled at a reporter who'd cited statistics showing improvement.
Because the news media have been slow to report the changes in Iraq, the self-deluded can continue to deny that what's happening is really happening. A caller insisted to me that a suicide car bombing in Ramadi Nov. 21st in which six Iraqis died 'proves' that al Qaida really isn't being defeated.
The attack was the first in Ramadi in four or five months, and hasn't been repeated since, said Col. John Charlton, commander of the Army-Marine brigade in Ramadi.
The bomb itself was an indicator of how much the capabilities of the terrorists have fallen, Col. Charlton said in a telephone conversation.
'It was very low yield, about 60 lbs,' he said. 'Back in February, March, we'd see VBIEDs with 1,000, 2,000 lbs of explosives.'
'There's nothing bad happening here,' Col. Charlton said. 'There's a lot of good things happening. We had a parade here in Ramadi that involved all of the Iraqi security forces. They did it in October, because last October al Qaida had a parade, and the Iraqis wanted a bigger and better parade.'
The parade and its significance drew no attention from the news media. 'Coverage has really dropped off,' Col. Charlton said.
But if progress continues, it will be difficult for the news media to play down.
'Baghdad, the most dangerous city in all of Iraq, is only half as violent as it was when I was there in the summer,' wrote Michael Totten in the New York Daily News Sunday. 'And the fact that the capital is now the deadliest city is itself evident of a tectonic shift.
'In the Spring of 2007, Ramadi was the most violent place in Iraq,' Mr. Totten wrote. 'But the insurgency there has been finished. The Taji area north of Baghdad, which was a catastrophe when I paid a visit in July, is now going the way of Ramadi.'
Even without much positive coverage so far, public opinion is changing. A Pew poll concluded Nov. 26 indicated 48 percent of respondents think the military effort in Iraq is going well, up from 30 percent in February.
Rep. Murtha's epiphany comes at an awkward time for his pal, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, because Democrats are refusing to pass a bill funding the war unless it is coupled with a timetable for prompt withdrawal of U.S. troops.
'This could be a real headache for us,' the Politico quoted a House Democratic aide as saying. 'Pelosi is going to be furious.'
Ms. Pelosi was indeed furious, at least in public, and Rep. Murtha backtracked a little. Even though our troops are succeeding in Iraq, he still supports withdrawing them because the Iraqi government 'is close to dysfunctional.'
Rep. Norman Dicks, D-Wash, who accompanied Mr. Murtha on the Thanksgiving trip to Iraq, agreed both that the surge is working, and that U.S. troops should be withdrawn anyway. But he admitted there was hypocrisy in Democratic criticisms of the Iraqi government.
'I felt kind of embarrassed to tell the Iraqis they had to get their act together and pass legislation when we can't do it back here,' Rep. Dicks told the Seattle Times.
Democrats returning from the Thanksgiving recess report few of their constituents asked them about Iraq. Efforts to force retreat are becoming a political loser.
That's why Boston Herald City Editor Jules Crittenden thinks Rep. Murtha may have been acting quietly on behalf of the Democratic leadership when he signaled willingness to back off on the war funding bill.
'I believe that what Murtha is saying is that he is ready to discuss surrender terms, but would like to be allowed to keep his sword,' Mr. Crittenden wrote on his blog.
(I see you're back to regurgitating the usual good-news puffery like some vulture feeding its young, so just get your talons around this)
www.newsweek.com/id/73363
The Sunni Civil War
They're fighting with words, not bullets. But the rift is still dangerous.
Reconciliation in Iraq is most often portrayed as a matter of bringing Shiites and Sunnis together. But there are deep divisions within the Sunni community as well—between the new tribal levies and old politicians, Baathists and anti-Baathists, fundamentalist mosque-goers and secular whisky drinkers. Shiite leaders warn they can't be expected to find common ground with Sunnis who cannot find it among themselves. 'We have been asking them to unify their front and be a full-fledged partner in the process of dialogue and reconciliation, but we cannot get a true partner,' says Saad Yousif al-Muttalibi, an adviser to the Shiite leadership.
Ironically, success is fueling some of the internal squabbles. The militias in America's Concerned Local Citizens program now include more than 65,000 orange-vested fighters, many of them former insurgents. They rightly claim credit for quelling violence across Iraq, and want their voices heard. 'They say, 'Hey, we've stopped fighting. We've come halfway',' says Col. Martin Stanton, a coordinator of the groups for the U.S. military. ' 'We want into the … government'.' But there are already Sunnis on the inside, such as the Iraqi Islamic Party, which is led by exiles who opposed Saddam's regime and joined the U.S.-crafted political system early. They're used to speaking for Iraq's Sunnis, and control the local governments (and more important, their budgets) in Sunni-dominated areas like Anbar province.
The stresses between the old guard and new are sharpest in Anbar, the Sunni heartland.
During the summer the Anbar provincial council was expanded to give the former insurgents about one fifth of the seats. That has only given the two sides a new forum in which to argue. Last month, at a conference to discuss how to spend public-works money in Anbar, the Sunni tribesmen angrily accused their rivals of monopolizing projects and pulled out of the council. 'We are demanding our own share,' says Ahmed Abu Risha, the tribes' most prominent leader. He threatens a wave of street demonstrations to force the creation of a new council.
In Baghdad's Ameriyah neighborhood, another Sunni stronghold, the Islamic Party just repainted and reopened its local office, which had been blown up by Al Qaeda. It's festooned with banners and flags but forlorn inside, where party officials have signed up only 65 members in the neighborhood of 25,000 residents. 'We are part of the political process and we have always been dealing with the Americans,' says party activist Moqdad al-Ani. 'But others see us as traitors.' Ameriyah now belongs to militia leader Abu Abed and his American-backed gunmen. When NEWSWEEK visited Abu Abed last week, he was surrounded by swaggering guards decked out with the black gloves, shades and kneepads worn by foreign security contractors. He mocked the Islamic Party for 'running away' from Al Qaeda, and accuses it of trying to take credit for his men's success on the battlefield. Like many Iraqis, he wants nothing to do with the current crop of political parties. 'It's too early to say' who should represent Sunnis in the government, he says.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/05/AR2007120500763.ht ml?hpid=sec-world
(The entire link is provided for Gates' good-news/bad-news realism, but here are key points right from Gates, who sees the need to move surge troops elsewhere)
BAGHDAD, Dec. 5 -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Wednesday that a stable and democratic Iraq is 'within reach.' But he cautioned that threats remain, pointing to insurgent efforts to create a stronghold in northern Iraq as U.S. commanders seek more than 1,400 additional Iraqi and U.S. troops there.
In a reminder that security remains tenuous, a series of car and roadside bombs exploded across Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 28 people and wounding 69.
(Many more incidents since then)
The Mosul bombing underscored what Gates said was a rise in attacks in the northern section of the country, which stretches from Baghdad north to the Syrian and Turkish borders, and east to Iran. 'As military operations have pushed al-Qaeda out of the south and west, there has been a resulting increase in terrorist activities in Mosul and surrounding areas as al-Qaeda tries to establish a new foothold,' Gates said, referring to the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.
'While we surged in Baghdad, we held in [the] north. Now we think it may be time' to shift forces, Thomas said, adding that Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, in charge of day-to-day military operations in Iraq, would decide on the U.S. reinforcements.
In Baqubah, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad in Diyala province, a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives in a bus station, killing five and wounding 13, provincial police said. The station was crowded with passengers heading to mostly Shiite areas in the province, said police Lt. Col. Suhaiel Abid. In the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk, a car bomb targeting a police convoy exploded near a restaurant, killing two civilians and injuring eight.
Still, Gates added that 'much remains to be done' in Iraq. For example, he said the Shiite-led government needs to integrate local volunteers -- 76 percent of whom are Sunni -- into the Iraqi army or police or given other work. The unexpected upsurge in local volunteers has coincided with decreased violence and the discovery of more weapons caches, but could also be a source of instability if the volunteers are not given permanent work, experts say.
'Iraqis who have chosen the fight against al-Qaeda need to be integrated into Iraq's security forces or provided other job opportunities,' Gates said.
Overall, Gates voiced concern that progress on reconciliation at the local level is moving faster than at the national level, said a senior defense official who briefed reporters on the way to Iraq. National leaders 'may be outpaced' by developments at the grass-roots level, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
(That's not a sign that we've 'won', if we cannot provide a small number of marines to lead in Afghanistan)
www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/world/middleeast/06gates.html?em&ex=11970900 00&en=165214409d6fd676&ei=5087%0A
BAGHDAD, Dec. 5 — Senior Pentagon and military officials said Wednesday that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had decided against a proposal to shift Marine Corps forces from Iraq to take the lead in American operations in Afghanistan.
Mr. Gates told top Marine Corps officials and his senior aides that the situation in western Iraq, where the Marines now operate in Anbar Province, remained too volatile to contemplate such a significant change in how the ground combat mission in Iraq is shared by the Army and the Marine Corps.
(Gates, whom I respect enormously, has to go back and report to Bush and tell him what he wants to hear; while Petraeus is the guy who actually has to make this thing work)
voanews.com/english/2007-12-06-voa9.cfm
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says there is growing pressure from local leaders in Iraq for the top levels of government to replicate the political reconciliation occurring in parts of the country. Gates spoke Thursday in Bahrain after visiting Iraq, where he met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and top Iraqi officials. He said Mr. Maliki and Iraq's Presidential Council know they need to make progress on key legislative issues.
Gates also met with the head of U.S. forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus. General Petraeus said the U.S. military still faces a dangerous enemy in Iraq, despite a recent decline in violence across the country.
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(They cannot replicate the Sunni 'reconciliation', since as per the prior link on that topic, the Sunni tribes are busy battling amongst themselves for power)
www.newsweek.com/id/7336
'At least the tribals and the politicians are arguing over political representation, rather than shooting at each other like the Sunnis of Arab Jabour. But that could change if there's no political progress. Sunni politicians are wary of compromising on matters like the release of Sunni prisoners and amnesty for former Baathists, lest they be painted as sellouts by their Sunni rivals. Shiite leaders aren't above playing one Sunni camp off another; last week Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki tried to appoint an Anbar tribal loyalist to a cabinet seat that had been slated for someone from the mainstream Sunni parties. 'Everybody is betting on violence to sort everything out. That psychology has to be changed,' says Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi. The last thing Iraq needs is another civil war.'
voanews.com/english/2007-12-08-voa7.cfm
Ex-White House Aide Knew of CIA Plans to Destroy Interrogation Tapes
By VOA News
08 December 2007
U.S. news agencies say the CIA was advised by a former senior White House official not to destroy videotaped interrogations of terror suspects.
The reports say former counsel Harriet Miers urged the intelligence agency to preserve the tapes before they were destroyed in 2005. The New York Times says officials in the Justice Department, along with some senior members of Congress, also advised the CIA to keep the tapes.
The videotapes were ordered destroyed by Jose Rodriguez, who was then in charge of the CIA's covert operations division. The Times says he did so without informing the CIA's legal counsel.
(There are now 1,646 separate linked articles on this under Google News' first story, and that's up from an hour ago at 1,538. Bad news for the Bushies. This story has a good insight into the turmoil within the CIA itself with regard to taking risks.)
www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1692571,00.html
CIA Tapes Furor: A Legacy of Mistrust
This week's uproar over the destruction of interrogation tapes by the CIA offers a rare public glimpse into a perennial battle within the agency's clandestine service. Since Watergate, the CIA's case officers have been restrained by the expectation that taking risks in pursuit of actionable intelligence would bring career-ending, or even life-threatening, exposure if things went badly and details came to light. CIA leaders, especially after 9/11, have sought to unshackle their operatives by reassuring case officers they would be protected if they took risks. Current CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden said Thursday that the tapes of the questioning of al-Qaeda suspects were destroyed to protect the identities of the interrogators.
Indeed, the man who ordered the tapes destroyed is certainly familiar with the case that agency employees view as one of the worst political betrayals of an operative. Jose Rodriguez headed the National Clandestine Service when he ordered the interrogation tapes destroyed. But during the 1980s and 1990s he was a case officer in Latin America and in the CIA headquarters office that oversees operations there. He served under Terry Ward, the onetime director of Latin American operations who was fired in 1995 by then-CIA director John Deutch. President Bill Clinton's foreign intelligence advisory board had found Ward 'derelict' in his duties for failing to inform Congress of human rights violations by agents of the CIA in Guatemala, including complicity in the death of an American citizen.
Ward's firing created a legacy of distrust at the agency. 'There's the perception there that the politicians want you to be risk-takers, but as soon as you do and something turns out badly, they moonwalk away from you faster than a speeding bullet,' says a former senior intelligence official who knows Rodriguez. CIA officers erupted in bitter laughter during a speech after the Ward firing in which Deutch urged them to take risks. Deutch's successor, George Tenet, attempted to mollify case officers by awarding Ward the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal in March 2000.
..none of it has to do with Bush, these tapes and the CIA, etc.
RE: SP4: All Very Interesting except...
This topic is the LAST thing that these Bush-loving blowhards want to talk about.
www.depauw.edu/news/index.asp?id=20521
December 8, 2007, Greencastle, Ind. - 'Did they obstruct our inquiry? The answer is clearly yes,' says Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the 9/11 Commission, in the wake of reports the CIA destroyed videotapes of interrogations of two al-Qaida suspects. 'Whether that amounts to a crime, others will have to judge,' adds Hamilton, a 1952 graduate of DePauw University, in today's Detroit Free Press.
The article details demands by congressional Democrats 'that the Justice Department investigate why the CIA destroyed' the tapes. It notes, 'White House press secretary Dana Perino said President George W. Bush didn't recall being told about the tapes or their destruction. But she didn't rule out White House involvement, saying she hadn't asked others about it.'
Meanwhile, the International Herald Tribune reports 'the former chairmen of the Sept. 11 commission, who said the CIA assured them repeatedly during their inquiry that no original material existed from its interrogations of Qaeda figures, said they were furious to learn about the tapes ... Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton said they had made clear in hours of negotiations and discussions with the CIA, as well as in written requests, that they wanted all material connected to the interrogations of Qaeda operatives in the agency's custody in order to get a complete understanding of the events leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks for their 2004 report.'
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