Giuliani Uses Petraeus in Attack Ad
Images of Gen. David Petraeus appeared in an ad the Giuliani campaign began running yesterday attacking Hillary Clinton. The Pentagon says the use of the Petraeus images was done without Petraeus' consent. Military personnel are barred by Pentagon regulations from appearing in political ads in uniform. Greg has more at Election Central.
--David Kurtz
The Historians Are Coming! Quick, Salvage Your Legacies!
Retiring Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace:
Offering a blunt assessment of the decisions and recommendations he made back in early 2003, an introspective Pace told Pentagon reporters that with the aid of 20-20 hindsight, it's clear he made "errors in assumption.""One of the mistakes I made in my assumptions going in was that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi army would welcome liberation, that the Iraqi army, given the opportunity, would stand together for the Iraqi people and be available to them to help serve the new nation," said Pace, who will leave the chairman's job on Oct. 1. "If I knew that the Iraqi army was not going to be available, then I probably would have made a different recommendation about the total size force going in."
In retrospect, he said, "you say you wish you knew, but you didn't know on the way in."
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan:
In a withering critique of his fellow Republicans, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan says in his memoir that the party to which he has belonged all his life deserved to lose power last year for forsaking its small-government principles. . . .Mr. Greenspan, who calls himself a "lifelong libertarian Republican," writes that he advised the White House to veto some bills to curb "out-of-control" spending while the Republicans controlled Congress. He says President Bush's failure to do so "was a major mistake." Republicans in Congress, he writes, "swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose."
--David Kurtz
Goodbye, Fredo
It was Alberto Gonzales' last day as attorney general. So what better way to end his embarrassing tenure than with a DOJ inspector general audit. From the AP (thanks to TPM Reader HL for the tip):
An internal Justice audit, released Friday, showed the department spent nearly $7 million to plan, host or send employees to 10 conferences over the last two years. This included paying $4 per meatball at one lavish dinner and spreading an average of $25 worth of snacks around to each participant at a movie-themed party. . . .The report, which looked at the 10 priciest Justice Department conferences between October 2004 and September 2006, was ordered by the Senate Appropriations Committee. It also found that three-quarters of the employees who attended the conferences demanded daily reimbursement for the cost of meals while traveling -- effectively double-dipping into government funds. . . .
Six of the 10 conferences were approved by the department's Office of Justice Programs, whose assistant attorney general, Regina Schofield, resigned this week. It could not immediately be determined whether the report had anything to do with that, but Carr said Schofield left to take a job with a nonprofit child welfare services organization.
An audit ordered by Senate Democrats. A suspiciously timed resignation by an assistant attorney general. Gonzo was under siege until the bitter end. Just for old times' sake, here's one last look at the Top 10 Moments of Alberto Gonzales Ridiculousness.
--David Kurtz
Big Blowback for 'Small Price'
The fallout over Minority Leader John Boehner's "small price" comment about the Iraq War continues. Two House Democratic leaders have raised their objections to the comment, and CNN has picked up the story, or more precisely, returned to it. Boehner's remarks were made earlier in the week in a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer but gained attention after being flagged by TPM's Greg Sargent.
--David Kurtz
The President's Math
The White House has provided us with the list of 36 nations the President was referring to last night in his speech when he said, "We thank the 36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq and the many others who are helping that young democracy. "
The key phrase there is "troops on the ground."
If you take a look at the list we were provided, by a National Security Council official, the first heading is "Countries with troops on ground in Iraq." Only 26 countries appear in that category. The remaining 10 countries are assigned to either United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq or to NATO Training NTM-I.
So by the President's own accounting, the math is wrong. As Spencer Ackerman points out, there are other problems with the numbers. Canada is listed, for example, among the 36, but it pulled out its one and only person in Iraq months ago. The numbers, in short, are a sham.
Now, whether it's 36 countries or 106, shouldn't distract from the larger shams, such as the implication that there remains international support for the U.S. mission in Iraq or the suggestion that anyone other than the U.S. is doing virtually all of the heavy lifting there.
But after the famous 16 words on Niger in his State of the Union speech, after 4 1/2 years of duck and cover on Iraq, after all of the lies, deceptions, and falsehoods, it plumbs news depths of dishonesty to include such a bogus number as "36 nations" in a speech that begins with the following lines: "In the life of all free nations, there come moments that decide the direction of a country and reveal the character of its people. We are now at such a moment."
The President once again revealed his character. Were that it was of the same quality as that of the people he leads.
--David Kurtz
VECO Briber Gives Feds Evidence on Stevens
Oh my, not looking good for the Tubester, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK).
Under cross-examination, VECO CEO Bill Allen is now admitting that included in the $400,000 in bribes he's admitted to giving legislators was labor for the home renovation of Stevens' home.
That would seem to put the onus pretty heavily on Stevens. The briber turning evidence on the bribee is usually real bad news for the guy who took the bribes.
--Josh Marshall
The Icelandic 'Contingent'
It just about epitomizes the President's speech last night. One of the purported 36 coalition nations is Iceland, whose "contingent" to Iraq consists of a single soldier in Baghdad whose primary responsibility is as a media representative. To NATO's disappointment, Iceland is pulling that one soldier as of October 1. You can't make this stuff up.
We still haven't managed to figure out how the President's math gets him to 36 nations in the coalition. But whatever the number, it will be minus one when a single Icelander heads home in a couple of weeks.
Late Update: TPM Reader EF points out that Iceland doesn't even have a formally constituted military, which the CIA World Fact Book confirms. The lone Icelander is a member of the Icelandic Crisis Response Unit. Calling him a soldier may be overstating matters.
--David Kurtz
Charlie Savage wraps up his stint this week over at TPMCafe. His last post is on the subversion of American democracy. Our thanks to Charlie for sitting down at the Table for One.
--David Kurtz
Whatever ...
Let's start by stipulating that the arguments for our Iraq policy have been a pretty big crock for a really long time. We want to calm the place down so they can have democracy. As long as we can also get all the terrorists there so we can fight them in one place of our choosing. Or we need to fight in Iraq because the real threat is Iran. Etc. etc. etc.
We know all the rationales. I've even made something of a career of chronicling them. But as we saw in President Bush's speech last night things have gotten to a point where the White House spinmeisters hardly seem even to have their heart in it anymore. And the president just seems to be living in some sort of alternative universe populated by the failed gods of his narcissism and vainglory.
As the president lays out in the second paragraph of his speech, there are first our allies the Iraqis who are battling the extremists who want to take away their freedom and democracy. And we cannot abandon them in this fight. Indeed they are asking us to build an "enduring relationship" (i.e., long-term presence of American troops) with them.
This seems not to take into account that a sizable majority of Iraqis believe it is acceptable to kill our troops in the country. And there is virtual unanimity within the Iraqi population against any permanent American troop presence in the country -- with the exception of the Iraqi Kurds who now enjoy de facto independence under our protection.
The only reasonable argument that I can see for our continued occupation of Iraq (though on balance I find it unpersuasive and disagree with it) is that we have screwed things up so badly and made the place such a powder keg that we need to stay there to try to undo or at least ameliorate what a disaster we've created -- to paraphrase Woody Allen's famous line from Annie Hall to get Iraq safely back from horror to mere misery.
But with respect to the president's cartoonish babble, like I said, whatever. I know this reads like an expression of cynicism or disengagement. But while the president's chatter, with its brainlessness and brazenness, drives many to distraction, I think this is the only appropriate response. Anyone watching what's happening can see that what the president is talking about bears no relation to what's actually happening in Iraq -- a fact well confirmed by the fact that polls show no change in the public's take on what's happening in response to the president's speech. Primitive animals will sometimes keep chattering or twitching their muscles even after their heads have been cut off. And that's probably the best analogy today to the president's continuing enunciation of his policies.
The president's continuing power as commander-in-chief, behind a wall of 1/3+ support in the Congress, is key. His arguments aren't. They have simply predeceased his presidency.
--Josh Marshall
Coalition of the Barely Willing
There was so much crap in the president's speech last night that analyzing requires a fairly aggressive form of crap triage to distinguish the merely bogus from the bogus and hilarious or the bogus and unconscionable. So let me focus in again on the president's reference to the "the 36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq."
One way the president comes up with this number is to rope in something called the NATO Training Mission-Iraq (NTM-1).
As Spencer Ackerman notes here, most of the countries involved in this initiative have agreed to let Iraqis come to their countries for training, not the other way around. So for instance, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report, Spain "plans to train groups of 25 Iraqis in mine clearance at a center outside Madrid."
And who has boots on the ground in country? One example from the president's list of 36 is Iceland which has sent a single public information officer to serve in the NATO mission in Baghdad. More robustly, Italy has 8 officers on the NTM-I mission in Baghdad, Portugal is considering sending "up to 10."
--Josh Marshall
Boehner's Boneheaded Remark
Add Democrat Joe Biden and Republican John McCain to the growing list of people blasting Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) for saying that America has paid a "small price" in Iraq.
--David Kurtz
Gonzo's Last Day
You can almost hear the collective sigh of relief coming out of Main Justice as the reign of Alberto Gonzales officially ends.
--David Kurtz
The President's Happy Talk
From The Politico:
In his testimony, Petraeus used the military science term “battlefield geometry” in describing how he figured out the number of troops he could afford to release. A top GOP Senate adviser complained after the speech: “The president needs better 'communication geometry' to prevent overreaching with happy talk."
--David Kurtz
Not with a Bang But A Whimper
Criminal charges against former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) appear unlikely.
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
The latest benchmark report on Iraq is out from the White House this morning. And it glows.
--David Kurtz
Who is the Real Alexis Debat? Part Deux
Laura Rozen has more on the curious case of Alexis Debat, which we mentioned briefly the other day. In particular, she looks at the sometime conflicting roles Debat played at ABC News. Meanwhile, the network continues to investigate Debat and reported yesterday:
Former President Bill Clinton, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan have added their names to the list of people who say they were the subjects of fake interviews published in a French foreign affairs journal under the name of Alexis Debat, a former ABC News consultant.
Will Bunch also takes a closer look.
All very strange.
--David Kurtz
36 Nations
ThinkProgress caught Chris Matthews' reaction to President Bush's claim that there are 36 nations with troops on the ground today in Iraq. And we're curious too. What the hell is the president talking about? Which countries are these? There are two countries with a real troop presence in Iraq: the US and the UK. And the Brits make up only a tiny fraction of the overall 'coalition' force. Early on there were Spanish, Italians, Poles and a lot of other countries -- not with a lot of troops but with enough to give some token international participation. But pretty much all of those countries have left now.
I know in the past the White House used to inflate these numbers by including token commitments from former US Pacific Islands protectorates. Ten guys from Micronesia. Three mechanics from the Solomon Islands.
In a lot of cases the administration has just opened up the diplomatic cookie jar to bargain for a few soldiers from countries with acute need for American help in order to puff up these numbers.
But again, this is 2007. I doubt the White House just came up with this number out of the blue. I'm sure there's some very strained and feeble argument and data behind. But I'd really like to hear it. Anyone know who these 36 counties are?
Late Update: This is the best the AP could come up with ...
There may well be 36 nations contributing to the cause, but the overwhelming majority of troops come from the United States. For example, Albania has 120 soldiers there and Bulgaria has 150 non-combat troops in Iraq. Bush visited both nations this summer as a thank you.
Okay, that's four. 32 to go.
--Josh Marshall
Doing to History What He Did to Iraq
With the president's speech tonight it appears we are back to the supposed 'Korea analogy' for the occupation of Iraq. We've been in Korea for more than a half century, as we have been in Japan and Germany. And for all the commitment of troops and money, we now have three highly prosperous allied democracies where in two of the cases we had ardent foes.
Forgive me for saying the obvious. Because it is obvious. But sometimes, apparently, the obvious needs saying.
We garrisoned troops in these three countries for half a century, as we did in Saudi Arabia for about a decade. The periods of military government in Japan and Germany were relatively brief. And most importantly we never mounted counter-insurgency operations in any of these countries.
This simple fact tells you that all these Korean, Japan, Germany analogies are bogus.
And fundamentally why was this sustainable? Because the US troop presence was a defense against a perceived greater threat -- either the Soviet Union or the Soviet Union and China. We might add that this is also the premise of our military presence in the Balkans.
On neither count is anything remotely like this in Iraq. The premise is an indefinite period of counter-insurgency and military occupation. And if things calmed down, who would we be defending Iraq against? The question answers itself. No one. If Iraq could get its act together it could certainly defend itself as it did for many decades. We are defending Iraq against itself.
Anyone with a bit of sense can see these comparisons are ridiculous.
--Josh Marshall
Bean-Countin' Boehner
The Politico's John Bresnahan finally got a response from Rep. John "Small Price" Boehner (R-OH) in his comments about the bargain we're getting occupying Iraq. His comeback is pretty feeble. In so many words, Boehner's spokesman says he didn't mean all the Americans who had died. He meant the cost in dollar amount. But a look at his actual words and their context shows pretty clearly that doesn't add up. Bresnahan's got the details. Check it out.
--Josh Marshall
Minds Made Up
One of the more remarkable things about the enormous effort put into this week full of Petraeus hearings, White House spin and assorted PR from all sides is how little movement any of it has generated in public opinion. I am mindful of making that conclusion a bit prematurely, before the week is over and before the President's speech tonight. So we'll just have to wait and see the final results. But I had the sense last week as we were gearing up for this Washington spectacle that for most Americans, who made up their minds on Iraq quite some time ago, the events of this week would be of little consequence.
American public opinion on Iraq and the Bush policies on Iraq has been locked in place for an unusually long period of time, especially considering how strongly negative the polling is. I am not a polling expert and statistics are not my strong suit but my intuitive sense is that after public opinion turns strongly negative you would tend to see a softening of that opinion over time. I believe the term of art in statistics is reversion to the mean. The folksy truism is people don't stay mad for long.
In this case, people are not so much mad as they are very dissatisfied, and consistently so. There have been some small dips and bumps in the polling data over the last many months, but they have for the most part been negligible. Just today, AP polling begun during the Petraeus hearings showed little movement in opinion on Iraq and the president. CNN shows the President today still mired at 36% approval. One poll out did show considerable movement, but I not sure it can be said to undermine the point I'm making here. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows an 8 point jump in the President's approval rating--to a whopping 30%. That poll's respondents went from enraged to merely pissed off.
The day's most remarkable poll may be from Fox News, which asked whether respondents thought the Petraeus report was truthful and objective or slanted toward Bush Administration policies. More people thought it was slanted (40%) than that it was truthful (35%). The distinguished general's reputation notwithstanding, people we're not buying what he had to say.
Given the immovable numbers, it's all the more apparent that the target audience this week has not been voters but congressional Republicans. They are the key to President Bush being able to continue a terribly unpopular war until he leaves office. So long as they stand by him, he can maintain his grip on Iraq policy in the face of longstanding and deep public dissatisfaction.
Late Update: To clarify, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll number above is Bush's job approval on Iraq.
--David Kurtz
Iraqi Economics 101
With the help of Brian Beutler, Spencer Ackerman crunches the economic numbers on Iraq presented this week by Amb. Ryan Crocker. Funny, they don't quite add up.
--David Kurtz
But The Surge Just Got Up to Full Strength!
Tonight at 9 p.m. ET President Bush will address the nation in response to this week's congressional testimony by Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker and triumphantly announce the withdrawal of some 30,000 U.S. troops from Iraq by next summer. Call it a cold hunch, but we have a feeling he will link the drawdown directly to "progress on the ground," or "facts on the ground," possibly "signs of success on the ground." Something to do with the ground. But what's the real story behind the troop withdrawal?
In today's episode of TPMtv we attempt to preemptively inoculate you against the President's spin by showing you the administration getting its story straight in real time, with a little help from Press Secretary Tony Snow, who delivered a magisterial performance in his final televised press briefing ...
--Ben Craw
The Looking Glass?
So Abu Risha, our new ally in al Anbar, was helping us turn the tide on al Qaeda. But now al Qaeda has killed him in an explosion near his home in Ramadi. So they're fighting back. And it's a major setback in the progress we've made in the province.
That at least is the narrative you'll read in most of the US press.
But is any of it true? As Spencer Ackerman reports here, a lot of people who know a lot about the region and the people involved say that AQI ("al Qaida in Iraq") remains a miniscule part of the Sunni insurgency. Perhaps a disproportionately lethal part of it, but so small as to make any equation of the Sunni insurgency and 'al Qaeda' deeply misleading. Indeed, many experts express doubt that al Qaeda is even responsible for Abu Risha's death. At least as likely, says Marc Lynch, it was "one of the nationalist insurgency groups, the ones which current American rhetoric pretends don't exist."
I did an interview yesterday with Juan Cole -- which we're going to try to bring you soon on TPMtv -- and his take was broadly similar to Lynch's. There really is something changing in al Anbar. Attacks are down substantially. But the 'turning against al Qaeda' storyline is at best deeply misleading. More accurate would be to say that we're getting a bit more savvy about using patronage/bribery to recruit a tribal clientage willing to act as our proxies in the region. And in itself that's probably a very shrewd move. Cole makes the point that a lot of these tribes tried to do business with us years ago, only to get sent packing after a quick pat-down and weapons search. And it is worth keeping in mind that some of what we're calling 'tribes' here are more aptly termed gangs.
For me, the fog of war is compounded by my relative ignorance of the players involved and the thousands of miles between me and Iraq. But I know enough to be deeply skeptical when the news of the day conforms so tightly to the expectations of policies and storylines we know to be based on misdirection, lies and questionable ideology.
So maybe this small extremist group, AQI, really did kill Abu Risha.. But there's enough evidence out there to suggest that everything we're hearing really is through the looking glass, a highly distorted version of events designed to keep us locked in our ratcheting vise of policy catastrophe.
--Josh Marshall
Public Opinion Unmoved by Petraeus
The new AP poll shows little movement on the key questions involving Iraq and President Bush.
--David Kurtz
Who Are We Fighting?
With the death in Anbar today of a member of the Sunni leadership who was among the key figures in the recent rapprochement with U.S. troops there, it bears returning to the issue of what constitutes the Sunni insurgency. Gen. Petraeus downplayed the non-al-Qaeda Sunni insurgency in his testimony this week, but al Qaeda in Iraq is a tiny proportion of the overall Sunni insurgency.
--David Kurtz
Former Giuliani Advisor Backs Hillary
Fran Reiter was Giuliani's campaign manager in 1997, but says Rudy has "backed away from" his former "progressive views."
--David Kurtz
McConnell Retracts False Statement
In touting the powers of the new FISA law, the intelligence chief falsely told Congress that it was instrumental in a terrorism investigation in Germany that led to multiple arrests.
--David Kurtz
Boehner Opens Mouth, Inserts Foot
The House minority leader's remark calling the war in Iraq a "small price" to pay is earning him the wrath of Democrat John Kerry. Greg Sargent has more on the blowback.
--David Kurtz
Strange Timing
Or maybe not so strange.
In the midst of surge week and in advance of the President's speech tonight, the Pentagon has released tapes of the combatant status review tribunal of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
And Fox News is running hard with them.
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
Petraeus' command finally explains the method behind their numbers on sectarian violence in Iraq -- the numbers that show plummeting totals due to the surge. Now we just need them to explain their explanation.
--Paul Kiel
Oil Buddies
An article in tomorrow's Times reports that the long-negotiated compromise which seemed to be leading towards an Iraqi oil law -- a key 'progress' benchmark -- has apparently collapsed. All gone down the drain.
The story though connects up with another one we told you about just a couple days ago -- the decision of the Kurdistan regional government to sign an oil exploration deal with Dallas-based Hunt Oil, run by Mr. Ray L. Hunt.
The Shia and Sunni leaders believe the Kurds are opting for a sort of oil secession that puts them outside the whole concept of a law to share the country's oil resources. And the Hunt deal is apparently the straw that broke the camel's back, shall we say.
But remember, Hunt, in addition to being the son of legendary Texas John Birch Society extremist H.L. Hunt, is also a pal of the president's. Indeed, President Bush has twice appointed Hunt to his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. So while the president is striving to get the Iraqis to meet these benchmarks one of his own pals -- and more importantly, political appointees -- is busy helping to tear the whole thing apart.
--Josh Marshall
Encore Presentation
There's been so much news with the Petraeus festival over the last few days and so many posts because of that that some of our stuff just zips right down the page. So in case you missed them, we wanted to bring you parts one and two of our interview with fmr. Sen. John Edwards (D)
--Josh Marshall
President?
From the UK Independent ...
The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, expressed long-term interest in running for the US presidency when he was stationed in Baghdad, according to a senior Iraqi official who knew him at that time.Sabah Khadim, then a senior adviser at Iraq's Interior Ministry, says General Petraeus discussed with him his ambition when the general was head of training and recruitment of the Iraqi army in 2004-05.
"I asked him if he was planning to run in 2008 and he said, 'No, that would be too soon'," Mr Khadim, who now lives in London, said.
General Petraeus has a reputation in the US Army for being a man of great ambition. If he succeeds in reversing America's apparent failure in Iraq, he would be a natural candidate for the White House in the presidential election in 2012.
I pass this on with the caveat that Mr. Khadim may have various axes to grind against Petraeus. I don't know one way or another. It's just an important possibility to keep in mind. Khadim was in the Interior Ministry during Allawi's prime ministership, how that might fit in I do not know.
--Josh Marshall
An Offer He Couldn't Refuse?
Remember that unrehearsed flash of candor where Gen. Petraeus said he didn't know whether being in Iraq was making America safer? And then later he 'set the record straight'?
Joe Klein told Chris Matthews that he thought that during the recess in testimony Petraeus got an angry call from the White House telling him to set the record straight. Take a look ...
It sounds like this was an inference on Klein's part. But it sounds like a sound one.
--Josh Marshall
GOP Senate Woes-2008 Version
Robert Novak reports the GOP could lose at least 5 Senate seats next year. One of the more hotly contested races will be to replace retiring Sen. John Warner (R-VA). The AP reports that former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner (no relation) will enter that race. An official announcement is expected tomorrow.
--David Kurtz
The Cellphone Revolution
Reed Hundt on "the largest, fastest, and most important extension of communications capability ever seen."
--David Kurtz
One Friedman = One McCain
Atrios discovers that the two units of measure are interchangeable, and each is equivalent to about six months, give or take.
--David Kurtz
Romney Denounces "Phoney Fred" Website
Calling the attack website "juvenile and offensive," Mitt Romney tried to further distance himself from the site created by Romney supporters to mock Fred Thompson.
--David Kurtz
Dems Would Block Olson Nomination
A Ted Olson nomination for attorney general will run into stiff resistance from Senate Democrats. "I intend to do everything I can to prevent him from being confirmed as the next attorney general," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today.
--David Kurtz
The Cost of War
House Minority Leader John Boehner: War in Iraq is a "small price" for the U.S. to pay.
--David Kurtz
Insurgency? What Insurgency?
It came late in the final day of hearings yesterday so you may have missed it. Gen. Petraeus was asked by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) to rank the enemies the U.S. is fighting in Iraq. Petraeus ran through the list of threats, then, as an afterthought, said, "There are certainly still some Sunni insurgents out there."
You don't say?
As Spencer Ackerman notes, the non-al-Qaeda Sunni insurgents have accounted for most of the U.S. military casualties in Iraq. There likely has been some reduction in Sunni insurgent violence against U.S. troops in Anbar this year, and in fact the U.S. strategy of joining with the Anbar Sunnis against al Qaeda in Iraq is probably part of the reason Petraeus is downplayng the Sunni insurgency at the moment.
But whatever the short-term exigency, this has been a conflict marked by our inability, unwillingness, or ideological aversion toward accurately identifying our enemies. Even the use of the blanket term "enemy" is misleading in a conflict with multiple competing interests, where alliances come and go, and in which the enemy of thy enemy is not necessarily thy friend.
There's a convincing argument to be made that the U.S. effort in Iraq was doomed from the start, but the strategic and tactical miscalculations arising from the misidentification, to put it charitably, of the competing groups there crippled whatever chance there was of the U.S. effort succeeding.
In today's New York Observer, an interview with the noted counterinsurgency expert Bard E. O’Neill reminded me how this myopic view of the Sunni insurgency has been paralyzing us since shortly after the U.S. invasion, if not even earlier, during pre-invasion planning:
What’s most striking, Bard says, is how his students in his counterinsurgency and terrorism classes at Washington’s National War College, freshly returned from Iraq, testified to the paucity of strategic thinking on the ground.“This was a Special Forces colonel, a really sharp guy, he’s a guy who knew all this stuff on counterinsurgency. He said to me, ‘Let me give you a specific example: I’m on the tarmac at an airbase in Iraq, and up walks [then Deputy Secretary of Defense] Paul Wolfowitz. He says, “How’s everything going, Colonel?” And I say, “This is a pretty tenacious insurgency, Mr. Wolfowitz.” And Wolfowitz looks back and says, “This is not an insurgency.”’”
At which point, Mr. O’Neill relates, his student “rolled his eyes, and said, ‘What can you say to someone like that?’”
--David Kurtz
Savage on the Supreme Court
Over at TPMCafe's Table for One, Charlie Savage has a very interesting post on the strategy behind the Bush Administration's selection of Supreme Court nominees. He argues, pretty persuasively, that nominees were vetted more for their adherence to a philosophy of expansive presidential power than for their positions on the social issues that dominate the Supreme Court confirmation process.
--David Kurtz
Another Bad Day for Ted Stevens
The federal criminal investigation of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) apparently continues, and although Stevens has yet to be charged, his name is popping up in two corruption-related trials this week in Alaska.
--David Kurtz
Sinking Like a Stone
Rudy Guiliani has seen some of his poll numbers drop precipitously over the course of 2007.
--David Kurtz
The Petraeus Methodology
Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker appeared this morning at the National Press Club and gave out a little more information on what methodology is used by the U.S. military to calculate "ethno-sectarian" violence but no illumination on the broader question of how Iraqi civilian casualties are tabulated. We're still trying to run that information to ground.
--David Kurtz
Volz Gets Probation
The former chief of staff to jailed congressman Bob Ney (R-OH) gets rewarded for his cooperation in the Jack Abramoff investigation: no jail time, two years of probation, and a $2,000 fine.
--David Kurtz
A Very Public Appearance
Clarence Thomas will be on 60 Minutes later this month, according to Legal Times. No word on who is conducting the interview.
--David Kurtz
Internecine Blood-letting Ahead?
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), speaking to anti-war activists (via The Hill):
“You folks should go after the Democrats. . . . I’d hate to lose the majority, but I’m telling you, if we don’t stand up to our responsibility, maybe that’s the lesson to be learned.”
--David Kurtz
TPMtv Interviews John Edwards, Pt. II
Yesterday we brought you part I of our interview with 2008 Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. We caught up with the former Senator following a major policy address on counterterrorism that he delivered in New York City last Friday, September 7. In today's episode of TPMtv we bring you Part II of our interview, in which we talk to the former Senator about how soon he would drawn down US troops in Iraq, what he thinks of the Petraeus progress report, and how he has evolved as a presidential candidate ...
--Ben Craw
Today's Must Read
Conservative super-lawyer Ted Olson is the front-runner to be President Bush's pick for attorney general. Senate Dems are less than thrilled, but if last week's 4th Circuit nominee is any indication (oh, and the last 6 1/2 years), the White House will not be offering a consensus-building nominee. We already know that Senate Democrats are threatening to slow down the nomination until they get responses from the Department of Justice and White House to some of their oversight requests, but will Senate Dems fight this nomination on its merits?
--David Kurtz
The Times Goes Man-on-the-Street in Iraq on the Petraeus Report
From the Times ...
A city employee in Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province, vividly described his ambivalence.“The withdrawal of the occupation forces is a must because they have caused the destruction of Iraq, they committed massacres against the innocents, they have double-crossed the Iraqis with dreams,” said the worker, Ahmad Umar al Esawi, a Sunni. “I want them to withdraw all their troops in one day.”
Dropping his voice, he continued: “There is something that I want to say although I hate to say it. The American forces, which are an ugly occupation force, have become something important to us, the Sunnis. We are a minority and we do not have a force to face the militias. If the Americans leave, it will mean a total elimination of the Sunnis in Iraq.”
Mr. Esawi added, “I know I said I want them to leave, but if we think about it, then I have to say I want them to stay for a while until we end all the suspicions we have of each other and have a strong national government.”
Check out the rest of the article. It's worth your time to read.
--Josh Marshall
Pants Down
Ex-prostitute spills the beans on Sen. Vitter (R) in press conference outside senator's DC office.
In case you're keeping track, this was a NOLA based hooker, not the one the DC madam hooked him up with.
--Josh Marshall
Cuttin' It Close
Sen. Craig's I'm-not-guilty-after-all court date set for September 26th -- four days before his self-imposed resignation deadline.
--Josh Marshall
Hearts & Minds
Public Approval numbers in Pakistan for a few international political figures ...
Osama bin Laden (46%)
Pervez Musharraf (38%)
George W. Bush (9%)
--Josh Marshall
Not Lookin' Good for Sen. Stevens ...
From the AP ...
During a secret meeting to discuss what prosecutors say was a dirty deal to keep Alaska oil taxes low, two oil contractors said they had a powerful ally coming to town who could help build support for the plan: Sen. Ted Stevens.The FBI played a videotape of the 2006 meeting Tuesday in a corruption trial against former Alaska House Speaker Pete Kott, who is accused of taking gifts and favors in exchange for supporting oil interests.
In the grainy video, VECO Corp. executives Bill Allen and Rick Smith can be heard talking about how to ensure passage of an oil tax bill. If approved, the bill would increase chances that a natural gas pipeline would be built, a deal that could mean huge profits for VECO.
Now, note that name: Bill Allen. And remember that criminal investigation Stevens is already the subject of? The one where the oil services executive renovated Stevens' home for him? Yeah, same guy: Bill Allen.
Here's our report from early June on the house renovation scandal ...
--Josh Marshall
Lemme Try That Again
In case you missed it, Gen. Petraeus came back later and revised his "I don't know" response to the question of whether being in Iraq had made us safer.
--Josh Marshall
BREAKING: Bush To Announce Possible Troop Cuts to Take Place in a Year
Does my headline pretty much get it right?
The AP is slugging this story: "Officials: Bush to announce troop cut"
You have to read the details to see that it's a troop cut next summer and whether it actually happens will depend on "continued progress."
--Josh Marshall
Coulter and Rudy
You may have seen over at Election Central that among the day's 9/11 commemorations is one hosted by Sean Hannity and featuring, among others, Oliver North, Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, and Ann Coulter. Now, Coulter has had some less than sympathetic things to say about some of the 9/11 widows, at one point remarking, "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much." So it seemed a little odd that Rudy would be appearing at the same 9/11 event as Coulter given that his links to the attacks have been a featured part of his presidential campaign. Now the DNC is calling out Guiliani, demanding that he denounce Coulter's earlier remarks.
--David Kurtz
Putting Lipstick on a Pig
As part of the surge-week PR offensive, the President will make a primetime address Thursday announcing that he intends to bring the surge to an end next summer. That means 30,000 U.S. troops will be rotated home without replacements. The White House--and most press reports--will describe this as a troop withdrawal, which is true in a very narrow sense. But this can't seem to be repeated often enough, if credulous press reports are any indication: the surge was only ever designed to be temporary and could not be sustained for any longer than next summer without seriously compromising overall U.S. military readiness. So the surge is coming to end, and troop levels will return to late 2006 levels. The White House can tout it as a troop withdrawal. Gen. Petraeus can claim it is his best professional military judgment. But bringing the surge to an end is a hard reality born of an overstretched military. They can smear all the lipstick they want on that pig, but it's still a pig.
--David Kurtz
Listening to Lieberman
For all that's happened, I still have a respect for Gen. Petraeus. Even though he's made himself into a GOP operative in the domestic political fight over Iraq, I think I agree with Juan Cole that over in Iraq I believe he's doing his best as a professional soldier to salvage something from a catastrophic mess. But here just before 4:00 PM I'm listening to Sen. Lieberman's colloquy with the general. And I really don't think I can think of anyone in this debate who is more treacly, sanctimonious and self-serving than Joe.
He's become that bad.
Late Update: Joe still wants to invade Iran and asked Petraeus about it. Take a look.--DK
--Josh Marshall
Off Message
You don't want to put too much emphasis on one response over two days of hearings, but when Sen. John Warner (R-VA) asked Gen. Petraeus a short time ago if victory in Iraq would make America safer, Petraeus hedged before saying, "I don't know." Perhaps it was just a moment of uncharacteristic befuddlement for the general, but if the answer to that question isn't a resounding yes, then, even on the Bush Administration's own terms, it's time to start loading up the troop carriers in Kuwait and bring our people home.
Late Update: In follow-up questioning from Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Petraeus backtracked from his "I don't know" to Sen. Warner.
--David Kurtz
A Dissent on the Vietnam Blame Analogy
TPM Reader TB responds ...
I don't readily agree with Mr. Cole's political assessment either (and to be fair your analogy of the Dems playing the role of holding the bucket when everything crashes and burns). There is a very relevant historical comparison that could be made here, and that's Vietnam.Ask yourself more than 30 years on, who gets the blame for the Vietnam catastrophe? Richard Nixon, or Lyndon Johnson? Did Nixon or Ford get the blame for losing Vietnam after the pullout? Did Gerald Ford lose in 1976 because the Democrats blamed him for losing the war?
This is Mr. Bush's mess - he and his Party cannot escape it, or history.
I think I agree with this heavy note of skepticism about who gets blamed for other this, at least to the degree that people think that the Democrats will 'own' the war post-2008. Many people would see Vietnam as the analogy, not the counter-example to Juan Cole's point. But I would say this. People aren't stupid. Second, not everything is Vietnam. As a very wise guy once said: History never repeats itself. It only appears to to those who don't know the details.
Of the many ways that Vietnam was unique is that the Democrats were in many ways both the party that got the country into the war and was also the party that became imbued (or tainted, depending on your viewpoint) with the culture of anti-war protest. But the lates 1960s and early 1970s were a very unique period in our national history. People, I believe, tend to loose track of the profound cultural (counter-cultural) dimension of the anti-war movement. And there is simply nothing comparable today -- to many people's disgust and disappointment. Opposition to the Iraq War is a profoundly mainstream position. And seldom, very seldom, has a war been so bought, conceived of, planned voted for and everything else by one administration and one political party.
I understand that there's a lot of very bitter disappointment in the Democrats over ending the war. I agree with some of it. But I doubt much of anything that happens from this point will efface, wash away or even substantially diminish the central fact that this is on George W. Bush's moral and political dime, and sustained from day one till today by the Republican party.
A lot of Republicans know that very well.
--Josh Marshall
Savage on the Unitary Executive
Pulitzer-winner Charlie Savage explains why the Bush Administration's grasp for more executive power has been one of its most successfully implemented policy initiatives.
--David Kurtz
Intriguing (Logical) Hypothesis
Quite a few commentators have noted that the decrease of violence in Anbar province cannot be because of the surge since it clearly predated the surge. That's just basic logical reasoning. And the numbers seem to bear it out. But this blogger suggests a more precise theory: that it was the US midterm election that turned the tide.
Specifically, did the change in thinking among the Sunni tribal chiefs happen because (in response to the 2006 elections) they could see that the US military presence would be winding down?
Look at the graph on page seven of Petraeus's slides. November is where the shift happens. (One might also hypothesize a degree of intentional ramp-up of violence to affect the November election.)
I think this may be too neat and economical an explanation and may play on our own ability to project our worldview and circumstances on to an Iraqi one we don't understand very well. But I suspect that some version of this may actually play some role. Especially when you consider that the switch likely has more to do with preparing for a future confrontation with the Shia government than a rethinking of the tactical alliance with 'al Qaeda.'
--Josh Marshall
Who is the Real Alexis Debat?
Via Laura Rozen, I see we have another journalism fraud exposed. This time it's a pseudo-expert in national security matters named Alexis Debat:
Debat is a well-known "expert" in Washington with an impressive resume: He serves as a fellow at the Nixon Center, a conservative think tank; he collaborates with The National Interest; a quarterly journal of international affairs; he has been consultant to ABC News for years. He belongs to the "expert market" of Washington DC. He appears credible, and the media often quotes him on matters pertaining to terrorism and Islam. . . .Alexis Debat is a strange character, with a resume that changes depending on who he is talking to. Once he claimed to our colleague Guillemette Faure, a reporter for Le Figaro, that he got his PhD in political science from Edenvale University, in Great Britain, a university which proved to be a a fraud.
Another time, he said that he received his PhD from the University of Sorbonne. But that's not true either. "He manufactured his doctorate. I had the document which he manufactured in my hands," says André Kaspi, a professor of North American history at the Sorbonne. Debat does not deny a "conflict" with the Sorbonne, but refuses to elaborate.
What apparently got Debat in trouble was publishing in a French magazine what purported to be an interview with Barack Obama, except Obama's people say no such interview actually occurred. Hard to figure how Debat thought that would slip by. But Debat's strange story doesn't end there. And as Laura notes, there's more to this story that has yet to be satisfactorily explained.
Late Update: Mr. Debat provided TPM with a written response to this post which can be viewed in full here.
--David Kurtz
Juan Cole: Dems Set Up to Take the Fall
Juan Cole has a sobering take at his site today about the Petraeus hearings. The upshot is that while Petraeus's shot at success of any sort in Iraq (let's call it a general cooling of ethnic tensions and mass violence) is a very long shot, Dems should want to let him continue trying. And that for the following reasons ...
Given the stabilization of Republican support for the war, there's not a lot Democrats can do to force the president to end the war during his term. Even if you assume heroic budgetary battles, there's just not enough time left. Even the most aggressive timetables for withdrawal would take upwards of a year to execute. And Bush is down to 18 months.
Add to that the fact that Cole believes that all hell really will break loose once US troops leave -- a not improbable assumption. And you come up with the conclusion that a Democratic president comes into office in early 2009 just in time to oversee Iraq's descent into anarchy.
Not that it's not pretty anarchic already. It's just that a lot of chaos we've sown will only be fully realized when we leave -- somewhat like you don't fully realize or lock in investment losses until you have to sell the stocks or other assets at fractions of what you bought them for. Until then you can always pretend the value is going to rebound.
I'm not sure I fully agree with Juan about the implicit assumptions about how the domestic US politics play out. But he's certainly right that the Republicans, conservatives and especially various characterologically malformed neoconservatives will blame on the party in power in 2009 (most likely the Democrats) the outcomes that Bush's fiasco have already made inevitable.
Thus the central Bush policy aim of making this mess someone else's problem. The Dems play the role of the one of Pop's business associates who come in and buy W's failed company out just in time for it to crash and burn.
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv Interviews John Edwards
On Friday September 7, John Edwards delivered a major policy address at Pace University in New York City on combating terrorism and the war in Iraq. TPMtv caught up with the 2008 Democratic presidential candidate following his speech and talked to him about the "global war on terror" slogan, his new international anti-terrorism initiative, and what he would do if America had actionable intelligence about terrorists inside Pakistan. We bring you part I of our interview in today's episode of TPMtv. Stay tuned tomorrow for part II ...
--Ben Craw
The 'Myopia of Iraq'
Sen. Feingold (D-WI) presses Petraeus and Crocker hard on whether Iraq has distracted from the fight against al Qaeda in Pakistan.
--David Kurtz
Petraeus's Dodge
If you want a read on the level on which this debate is being argued. In this exchange, Gen. Petraeus gets asked why his numbers don't square with the GAO numbers. He responds by saying, their numbers are our numbers. Same thing. And if they would have had our great August numbers they would have dropped their pessimistic analysis of the situation on the ground in Iraq.
But this is a nonsensical statement.
Petraeus's numbers from August couldn't have made a difference since the argument between him and the GAO is over methodology -- who gets counted as a dead Iraqi and who doesn't.
--Josh Marshall
Newsweek: Pentagon Drafting Report to Rival Petraeus'
Perhaps it's time Congress heard from military leaders other than Gen. Petraeus:
NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared by a Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’s recommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoing discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity. An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.” The strategy will involve unwinding the still large U.S. presence in big forward operation bases and putting smaller teams in outposts. “There is interest at senior levels [of the Pentagon] in getting alternative views” to Petraeus, the official said. Among others, Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon is known to want to draw down faster than Petraeus.
Yesterday, Petraeus testified that Adm. Fallon and the Joint Chiefs support his recommendations. Why take his word for it?
--David Kurtz
Rudy's emphasis on his terrorism-fighting qualifications not convincing GOP primary voters.
--David Kurtz
More on That Iraqi Poll
Let's return again to that BBC/ABC poll of Iraqis. This morning, Atrios links to an exchange between Michael Ware and Anderson Cooper on what's happening in al Anbar province. Ware explains in a pretty straightforward way what we've been hearing from a lot of other sources. The Sunni tribes are 'allying' with us because they think and the Maliki government thinks we're arming and supporting them as a counterweight to the central government. The Sunni insurgency has not only been against foreign (American) occupation but against domination by a majority Shia central government. So if we're working with these Sunni tribes on the second count, perhaps that is the basis of their tactical alliance with us -- not fighting al Qaeda.
In any case, back to those numbers from that poll.
What jumps out is overwhelming, even unanimous Sunni support for some key positions.
First, overall 57% of Iraqis think attacks on US troops are acceptable. 92% of Sunnis believe that.
Second, 62% of Iraqis support a unitary, as opposed to a decentralized state. But 97% of Sunnis believe that.
Third, 33% of Iraqis support the Maliki government. (Not great, but about Bush levels.) But only 2% of Sunnis support the Maliki government. 98% oppose it.
I'd like to hear what an Iraq expert thinks about those numbers. But it sounds to me like the Sunnis -- the former rulers of the country -- are entirely unreconciled to their new status as an embattled minority. And, as signified by the high percentage still committed to a centralized Iraq, they remain committed to regaining their earlier role. This latter point, is admittedly much more speculative. I can think of alternative readings.
But these numbers together make it sound very much like the civil war proper is ahead of us, not behind us. Each sides' belief that it can win is the fuel of civil wars. And I suspect a tactical decision with respect to the Shia central government, not al Qaeda, is what's behind the 'Anbar Awakening.'
--Josh Marshall
Romney Trails Badly in Home State Poll
Maybe it's a case of the better you know him, the less you like him. Election Central has the details.
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
The takeaway from yesterday's round of Iraq hearings: President Bush is content to leave the hard decisions on Iraq for the next President.
--David Kurtz
Petraeus/Crocker: Day 2
Spencer will be providing ongoing coverage at TPMmuckraker today of the second round of hearings. First up is the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this morning, followed by the Senate Armed Services Committee this afternoon.
--David Kurtz
'The Conscience of a Liberal'
Paul Krugman is over at TPMCafe today discussing Jon Chait's new book.
--David Kurtz
Legislating Iraq Policy
House GOP introducing legislation to condemn Moveon "Betray Us" ad.
--Josh Marshall
More on That Poll of Iraqis
Earlier I noted one key detail of the BBC/ABCNews poll of Iraqis: By a substantial majority (62%), they want Iraq to remain a unified, centralized state with its capital in Baghdad, notwithstanding the growing American consensus for some sort of soft partition. In my previous post I suggested that the numbers were likely substantially higher since I assume support for a centralized Iraq is very low among Iraqi Kurds.
That's true. But the details are still more telling. TPM Reader NB points out that the data chart at ABCNews (I was working off the one from the BBC.) And the ABC chart has the data broken down by ethnic group on page 21.
As expected, Iraqi Kurds are split about evenly between supporters of formal independence (49%) and federal state with three autonomous regions (42%). Only 9% support a unitary state.
The is the big gulf between Shia and Sunnis. Since March Iraq's Shia population has solidified in favor of a unitary state. 56% now support it as opposed to 41% in March. The key though are the Sunnis. 97% supported a unitary state in March and 97% support it today.
That's a telling number, and one that bespeaks a great deal of potential violence behind it. The group most excluded from power in Iraq today is the one most committed to an Iraq with strong centralized government -- presumably not one where they are systematically excluded from power.
--Josh Marshall
When Goober Republicans Attack!
It seems like the Romney campaign has had its fill of impersonating law enforcement officers and is on to poorly concealed phony websites.
Earlier today a new site went online -- phoneyfred.org. Only it took a reporter at the Post, it seems, a few minutes to figure out it was a production of the Romney campaign. And specifically the work of Romney consultant Warren Tompkins, who you may remember as the guy President Bush hired to axe John McCain back in the South Carolina primary back in 2000.
The thing is with these dirtball sites you either do them publicly -- the party committees do them all the time -- or you conceal your role. One or the other, not a mix of the two. But being that this is the Romney campaign they apparently couldn't get even that right.
--Josh Marshall
That Fox "Exclusive"
If you need a quick take on the Petraeus/Crocker interview tonight on Fox News, you catch this clip in which Brit Hume helps Petraeus explain how the Iraq War is really "more than anything else a War with al Qaeda."
--Josh Marshall
That Poll of Iraqis
There's been a lot of attention to that poll that showed that the great majority of Iraqis (70%) believe that the surge has failed and that security conditions have deteriorated. But there's a lot more in that poll that's worth looking at. (Click here for the full results.)
Matt Yglesias notes one key number. "Nearly 60%" of Iraqis see attacks on US troops as justified. As Matt notes, even a substantial minority who believe that would make a successful outcome very difficult, perhaps impossible.
Another number jumped out even more to me though. Over here in the US we all seem to have agreed that it's best that Iraq be reorganized as a decentralized state made up of three quasi-autonomous provinces -- Kurds, Sunnis and Shia. But the Iraqis themselves don't seem to agree. 62% believe Iraq should remain a centralized state with its capital in Baghdad.
So Iraqi nationalism is alive and well. They all agree. They just haven't decided who's going to dominate the centralized state -- Sunnis or Shia.
Indeed, this probably understates the problem since I suspect that the Kurds (many of whom don't really want to be part of Iraq at all) strongly favor the decentralized option.
In fairness that number was 79% in 2004. So it's come down substantially. But this is the sort of thing fuels civil wars for years. The Lebanese civil war was an example. Both sides keep fighting until they decide they can't ever really beat the other side. Then there's some kind of settlement. The Iraqis don't seem anywhere near there.
--Josh Marshall
So Low
It's 9:13 PM. If you have a chance, flip on Fox News at least for a moment. It's Gen. Petraeus's (and Crocker's) one hour "exclusive" with Brit Hume on Fox. The chyron actually reads "A Briefing for America." And that's really pretty much what it is. It's another briefing. It's not an interview. It's a continuation of today's bamboozlement but in prime time on Fox with the expected soft-ball questions and credulous analysis.
Late Update: The "exclusive" is also helpfully interspersed with commercials from the White House-organized pro-Iraq War astroturf group Freedom's Watch.
Later Update: As around 9:45, Hume is walking Petraeus toward explaining how the Iraq War is really a "war against al Qaeda." Petraeus is playing along.
Here t'is ...
--Josh Marshall
Then and Now
In 2004, Gen. Petraeus penned a Washington Post op-ed with a glowing account of the progress made in the training of Iraqi security forces, a program over which he was then in charge. In today's hearing, Petraeus was questioned about that op-ed and what, as events have borne out, were his overly optimistic assessments.
--David Kurtz
The Samarra Dodge
Here's an interesting exchange that took place late in Gen. Petraeus's testimony today. In the lead up to Petraeus's "report" there's been a lot of discussion of the September 2004 Washington Post editorial he wrote which not only seemed to track closely with the president's political campaign but also made arguments about how well things were going that in retrospect appear stunningly wrong. In short, Petraeus argued that things were going great in the training of the Iraqi security forces and victory was just around the corner.
This was going to be an awkward question to field. And one might have expected him simply to say that in retrospect things turned out to be a lot harder than he thought. But he actually defended the piece. And the manner of his defense is what interests me.
Petraeus says he was right. Things were going well with the security forces. But that was before the 2006 al-Askariya mosque bombing in Samarra. I won't say that this wasn't a major catalyzing event. But administration officials have increasingly seized upon it as a critical turning point of the occupation, which it quite simply was not.
That's convenient for them because it posits a very different narrative of events than most of us -- reality included -- believe in. In this alternative view, it was a hard slog before January 2006. There were mistakes and setbacks. But fundamentally the mission was on track and things were improving until a catastrophic and unpredicted event threw the whole operation into chaos.
It's not just Petraeus. Look back at President Bush's statements and the same argument comes up repeatedly from him as well.
But this argument doesn't square with any of the available facts. The best analogy is some variant of that darkly comic line about the guy falling from a tall building who gets asked, mid-fall, how things are going. So far, so good, he replies. In this case, it may be something like asking the guy what happened. And he replies, things were going well till we passed the second floor. From there on, it got very bad.
Pretty much everything we see began to happen in 2003, actually very soon after the invasion proper. It was all visible by the fall of that year. And every metric has been more or less downhill ever since.
The one thing that's clear in all the numbers from all the different sources is that things really spiraled out of control in the second half of 2006. But that was no more than an acceleration, probably an inevitable one, from everything that had been building up to that point.
--Josh Marshall
A GOP Defector on Iraq?
Rep. Jim Walsh (R-NY) is apparently set to reverse course and not only support the withdrawal of U.S. troops but call for a stop to funding of the war.
--David Kurtz
Another View of the Numbers
Several readers pointed out that the format of the chart of Iraqi civilian casualties produced by General Petraeus in the House committee hearing today didn't match up with the civilian casualty charts we had produced at TPMmuckraker. So we've combined the numbers into a single chart for comparison purposes (click to enlarge):
A couple of points of clarification. The Iraq Body Count provides a maximum and minimum range of casualties per month. We have included only the IBC minimum number in this chart (you can see both IBC numbers charted here). Also, as you can see from the chart, the most recent month for which IBC numbers are available is June 2007.
Let me emphasize again that this chart is not comparing apples to apples. The AP and IBC used different methodologies, and Petraeus has not revealed his command's methodology, which tellingly remains classified. So comparisons among the numbers have limited utility.
Late Update: One other point that should be emphasized is that the IBC's final numbers lag because of a reporting lag. The IBC expects its numbers, especially from more recent months, to rise as additional casualty reports are received.
Later Update: We've created a larger version of the chart above for your viewing pleasure.
--David Kurtz
A 1/2 Degree of Separation
It caught our ears when Gen. Petraeus testified that the U.S. military never gives weapons to Sunni tribal groups in Iraq. But that may be literally true, as the military actually gives the tribes money with which they are free to buy weapons.
--David Kurtz
The Key Question Didn't Get Asked
We've now had the first day of testimony. Gen. Petraeus made his arguments and presented his numbers. He even knocked down a few questions about how his command in Baghdad counts the civilian death count numbers. But no one asked the general why the White House and/or the Pentagon won't release the actual data, where it comes from and how it's counted.
That's extraordinary -- not only the refusal of Petraeus & Co. to release the numbers but the committee's failure to ask for them.
Don't get me wrong. I don't pretend that these statistics are the be all and end all of what we should be looking at in Iraq. They're not. Not even close. But they have taken on an outsized focus because they're the only thing the administration has seen fit to focus on. And yet we're asked to take on faith how the numbers are assembled even though there's ample evidence -- both circumstantial and direct -- that they're distorted to suit the administration's agenda.
The only reasonable course is to demand a public airing of the numbers -- to see if they hold up. So who's going to demand that?
--Josh Marshall
Petraeus on counting sectarian death counts: It's "not that complicated."
--Josh Marshall
Pentagon Politics
In his testimony today, Gen Petraeus was asked about a Washington Post story over the weekend that reported on a "schism" between Petraeus and his immediate superior, CENTCOM commander Adm. William Fallon. The Post quoted a senior civilian official as saying about the relationship between Petraeus and Fallon, "Bad relations? That's the understatement of the century. . . . If you think Armageddon was a riot, that's one way of looking at it."
In response to questioning today, Petraeus denied that there was any disagreement among top military officials about his recommendation on how to proceed in Iraq, saying he had the support of both Fallon and Joint Chiefs. Take a look at the exchange.
Given the usual difficulties of sorting through internal Pentagon politics, we may have to stash this one away for the historians to unpack later. But something tells me there is more here than what Petraeus is letting on.
--David Kurtz
The Power of the Press
Sen. Larry Craig was so harried by potential press coverage of rumors that he was gay that, in a "state of intense anxiety," he caved in and pleaded guilty to charges of which he believed himself to be innocent.
Got that?
He was so fearful of being wrongly outed as a gay man that he wrongly pleaded guilty to charges arising from seeking gay sex in a public restroom.
We have the latest documents filed in the case, as Craig attempts to withdraw his guilty plea.
--David Kurtz
Charlie Savage at TPMCafe
If you're looking for a Petraeus break, you can't do much better than checking out Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie Savage sitting down this week at TPMCafe's Table for One.
Savage joins us to discuss his book Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy. In his first post, he explains how he came to gradually understand the radical project that was underway:
I kept asking the question why. What was driving Dick Cheney and the other “presidentialists” who were so relentlessly and systematically pushing this agenda, about which they had said nothing to voters when campaigning for the office? Where was this coming from? This question took me to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, where the National Archives houses a bookcase full of documents in gray boxes titled “RICHARD CHENEY FILES.”Don't miss this.
--Andrew Golis
Running the Numbers
For ease of comparison, here are all three of the charts on Iraqi civilian deaths that we've been writing about today. The first chart was presented by Gen. Petraeus in his opening statement this afternoon to the House Armed Services Committee. The other two charts we created at TPMmuckraker, based on numbers compiled by the AP and Iraq Body Count, respectively.
Petraeus' numbers:
The AP's numbers:
The IBC's numbers:
We are still waiting to hear about the methodology employed by Petraeus in arriving at his numbers on civilian casualties, a methodology that he says was signed off on by two unidentified U.S. intelligence agencies. Earlier today, Spencer Ackerman provided an in-depth explanation of the AP and IBC numbers.
--David Kurtz
Opening Statements
We have the full text of Gen. Petraeus' prepared testimony posted.
Late Update: Ambassador Crocker's full statement is here.
--David Kurtz
Which Intel Agencies?
In defending his statistics earlier today, Gen. Petraeus said that two US intelligence agencies had signed off on his methods for collecting and analyzing the data. But he didn't say which two.
There are 18 US intelligence agencies, though probably a far smaller number have any direct competence for analyzing this kind of question. And Karen DeYoung's recent piece in the Post reported that the CIA and the DIA was following the same methodology as the GAO, which Petraeus's shop has said is all wrong. There's a lot of alphabet soup here, I admit. But the upshot is that the Post seems to be saying that CIA and DIA don't agree with Petraeus's methods.
So which two intel agencies is Petraeus talking about?
--Josh Marshall
Petraeus on the Numbers
Here's video of Gen. Petraeus making his case on declining civilian death rates in Iraq. He says that two US intelligence agencies have signed off on his methodology. But he doesn't say which two he's talking about.
--Josh Marshall
All the Latest
Spencer Ackerman has ongoing coverage of the Petraeus/Crocker hearings at TPMmuckraker.
Late Update: Petraeus offers his own stats on civilian deaths in Iraq--but has not yet divulged his methodology.
Later Update: So much for the spring of 2008. Looks like the surge will last into the summer of 2008.
--David Kurtz
Let the Games Begin!
Today is the day. No longer can a politician or pundit evade a question about the situation in Iraq with, "Let's wait until September." General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will testify today on exactly where we stand in Iraq regarding both the military and political components of the troop surge announced by President Bush at the start of the year. In today's Sunday Show Roundup episode of TPMtv we get a glimpse of what we might expect from the Iraq progress report and the debate to follow ...
--Ben Craw
Real Numbers
With little debate over the fact that there's been no progress in Iraq on political reconciliation, debate is centering on whether there's been improvement in purely military terms -- whether the 'surge' has resulted in reduced civilian deaths. Yet the debate has been confused -- in many cases intentionally so -- by a welter of incomplete statistics and apples to oranges comparisons that don't give us any real ability to understand the trends on the ground in Iraq.
Over the last several days, however, TPMmuckraker.com's Spencer Ackerman has done some good old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting to come up with what we believe are the only solid numbers available.
Both counts -- one from the Associated Press and another from Iraq Body Count -- follow very different methodologies. And each of them have particular strengths and shortcomings. What sets this data apart, however, is that each organization has used a consistent methodology going back to the beginning of 2006. That means that when you look at June 2006 vs. June 2007, or Jan 2007 vs. August 2007, you're actually making an apples to apples comparison. And that's key to get a real sense of the trends are in the country.
The thumbnail verdict? The death rate among Iraqi civilians is either stable or actually rising. But the details are key. Go take a look.
--Josh Marshall
Class War and The Big Con
This week at TPMCafe's Book Club, we have an all-star group to debate Jon Chait's new book, The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics. Paul Krugman, Stephen Moore, Will Wilkinson, Megan McArdle, Ross Douthat, and Ezra Klein will be joining in.
Blog debate so far has focused on Chait's history of the rise of suppy-siders, but as he explains in his first post they're only a piece of the puzzle:
The wealthy interests who favor tax cuts, and other pro-rich items, aren’t motivated by supply-side ideology. While they may believe that tax cuts help the economy, their deeper belief is that every dollar they have, including the dollars they inherited, is a reflection of their success and a measure of their virtue. So, in this sense, supply-side ideology simply plays the same role that Social Darwinism did a century ago and that economic orthodoxy did seventy years ago.
In other words, it acts as an altruistic gloss on a much more crass political project.
Some of the more right-wing participants in this week's discussion likely won't agree. In fact, we've put together a relatively more conservative group to respond to Chait's argument, so we're expecting fireworks. As one reader put it, it's like "like a celebrity death match within the dismal science."
Enjoy.
--Andrew Golis
Might Not Go Over Too Well
Hmmm. Seems Fred Thompson logged a few law firm hours for the Libyan intel agents who blew up the plane over Lockerbie.
--Josh Marshall
It's Confirmed ...
And in more ways than one.
After their Hill testimony Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker will head a couple blocks over to Fox News where they'll give an exclusive one hour sit-down to Brit Hume.
We knew this was an essentially political song and dance. So that's beyond confirmation. What this does tell us however is that the White House, Petraeus and Crocker aren't even interested in keeping up the pretense that this isn't what's going on.
It's a political roll-out, orchestrated by Ed Gillespie out of the White House, with facts so feeble that can't withstand scrutiny tougher than Fox News.
Petraeus has licensed himself out to the right-wing noise machine.
By all accounts he's one of the most knowledgeable people on counter-insurgency in the US military. But he's reduced himself to being no more than another White House press operative, with all that entails for his credibility.
--Josh Marshall
Petraeus vs. Everyone Else
Another must-read piece on Iraq, the surge and a lot more in the Post: a lot of key information in this one but one that stands out -- Adm. Fallon, head of Centcom seems to think the 'surge' is a bust and he's thought so for some time.
--Josh Marshall
It's Classified?
We've been hearing a lot about improved security conditions in Iraq and Baghdad. And there's been a lot of talk about percentage declines of deaths of one sort of another. But one thing we're going to be listening for tomorrow and Tuesday is some actual data, some numbers. And so far there's been very, very little in the way of hard numbers coming out of the US command in Iraq.
In fact, as near as we can tell, a lot of the numbers, the key metrics about what's actually happening on the ground remain classified.
And not just the numbers themselves.
A few days ago we flagged Karen DeYoung's piece in the Washington Post about critics questioning the alleged decline in violence in Iraq. And one key point she focused in on is the methodology that the folks in Baghdad are using to derive their numbers. Is it really true that it matters how a person is shot (in the front of the head or the back) for whether or not they get counted? Is it true that we're not counting Sunni-on-Sunni or Shia-on-Shia deaths? Or even killings by the folks we're now allied with in al Anbar province?
The best we can tell the methodology Petraeus's staff is using to tabulate the numbers also remains classified.
In other words, it's not just a matter of getting the numbers from Petraeus and his staff and deciding whether you believe them or not. They won't even tell us what the numbers are -- let alone how they came up with them. All they'll say is that they're very good. Or in some cases that there's X percentage drop over the course of the surge. Or an isolated number here or there.
But actual hard numbers? Going back over the last couple years? For some reason we're not allowed to see those.
Perhaps Petraeus and Crocker will sit down tomorrow and share all this data as part of their presentation. But if not, this is the issue. What possible security need is served by keeping this data secret? And with all we've been through, can anyone believe that if the numbers were solid that we'd wouldn't be being buried in data right now?
Something's wrong.
--Josh Marshall
Timesly Numbers
Greg Sargent has a good catch here at Horse's Mouth. In Michael Gordon's rather credulous piece in the Times on Saturday he cited military numbers showing a drop in civilian casualties across Iraq in August. This was proffered as a counter to the recent GAO report. But less than a week earlier another article in the Times cited Iraqi Interior Ministry numbers showing precisely the opposite.
--Josh Marshall
On Second Thought ...
Sen. Craig to file papers to withdraw bathroom sting guilty plea.
--Josh Marshall
Schwarzenegger's advice
Ordinarily, state party conventions are a chance for rank-and-file partisans to get a steady diet of red-meat, base-rallying rhetoric. Yesterday, at the California Republican Party's convention, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) tried a different tack.
"In movie terms, we are dying at the box office. We are not filling the seats," the California governor said. "Now, while the number of California Republicans has been declining, the number of independents has been growing. They may well outnumber both political parties in just 20 years." Schwarzenegger made the comments in an address to the California Republican party state convention.
"The real opportunity for Republicans is that independents generally agree with our core principles," he said. "I want to make the Republican Party welcoming to these Independents."
Schwarzenegger added that the GOP can become a majority party by "expanding into the center, not falling back upon ourselves into a smaller and smaller corner."
California Republican activists responded with enthusiastic agreement, realizing that their numbers are dwindling and that it's time to move away from the edge of the far-right cliff. Oh wait, that's not what happened at all.
"The Republican Party should stick to its core principles," said Mark Zappa, 48, a promotional business owner from Gilroy who said he was "very disturbed" by the governor's call to open the Republican Party to independent voters as the Democrats do.
"If you have to sway your beliefs just to satisfy society, you don't have a moral basis," Zappa said. "Does that mean you're marginalized? Possibly."
If Democrats are really lucky, Republicans will continue to ignore everything Schwarzenegger said.
--Steve Benen
'Chaos Hawks'
Kevin Drum explains in a terrific post this afternoon that Iraq hawks have entered their third and least-persuasive stage.
First, there were War Hawks, who insisted that invading Iraq was a necessary endeavor. Second, these folks became Pottery Barn Hawks, who insisted they could clean up the mess they created.
And now they've transformed again, into Chaos Hawks, who insist that a withdrawal strategy would be even worse than the status quo.
Having admitted, however, that the odds of a military success in Iraq are almost impossibly long, Chaos Hawks nonetheless insist that the U.S. military needs to stay in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Why? Because if we leave the entire Middle East will become a bloodbath. Sunni and Shiite will engage in mutual genocide, oil fields will go up in flames, fundamentalist parties will take over, and al-Qaeda will have a safe haven bigger than the entire continent of Europe.
Needless to say, this is nonsense. Israel has fought war after war in the Middle East. Result: no regional conflagration. Iran and Iraq fought one of the bloodiest wars of the second half the 20th century. Result: no regional conflagration. The Soviets fought in Afghanistan and then withdrew. No regional conflagration. The U.S. fought the Gulf War and then left. No regional conflagration. Algeria fought an internal civil war for a decade. No regional conflagration.
--Steve Benen
West Wing, Petraeus' shop 'hard-wired'
Perhaps Gen. Petraeus' choice of media venues should have been predictable. After all, he's part of a larger partisan operation.
Another new arrival in the West Wing set up a rapid-response PR unit hard-wired into Petraeus's shop. Ed Gillespie, the new presidential counselor, organized daily conference calls at 7:45 a.m. and again late in the afternoon between the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the U.S. Embassy and military in Baghdad to map out ways of selling the surge.
From the start of the Bush plan, the White House communications office had been blitzing an e-mail list of as many as 5,000 journalists, lawmakers, lobbyists, conservative bloggers, military groups and others with talking points or rebuttals of criticism. Between Jan. 10 and last week, the office put out 94 such documents in various categories -- "Myths/Facts" or "Setting the Record Straight" to take issue with negative news articles, and "In Case You Missed It" to distribute positive articles or speeches.
Now, it isn't exactly a big surprise that a Gillespie-run public-relations team in the White House would be fully integrated into Gen. Petraeus' team, but it does reinforce what observers have known for quite a while now: Petraeus is a part of the president's political operation. That's not necessarily a criticism. It is, however, a realization that Petraeus' testimony is not that of a neutral, dispassionate observer.
As Ezra said the other day, "Next week, Petraeus will not be acting as a general and he will not be acting as a soldier; he will be acting as a media campaign. He is the White House's press strategy."
--Steve Benen
Our Banana Republic
If you need any more sense of what this is going to be about (from Drudge) ...
Following their testimony to Congress, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will appear exclusively on FOX News Channel on Monday at 9pm EDT for a one hour live interview with Brit Hume... Developing...
So, the goods they're bringing home are so strong they can only withstand the scrutiny of Fox News and Brit Hume. Good to see we've turned over a new leaf.
--Josh Marshall
A question of credibility
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), this morning:
"Americans are sad, they're frustrated, they're angry, and they want out. And I understand that; there were four years of failure under Rumsfeld. As you know, I spoke out early on, in November of 2003, saying that strategy was doomed to failure."
McCain, in December 2003:
"This is a mission accomplished. They know how much influence Saddam Hussein had on the Iraqi people, how much more difficult it made to get their cooperation."
McCain, in March 2004:
"I'm confident we're on the right course."
McCain, in December 2005:
"I do think that progress is being made in a lot of Iraq. Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course. If I thought we weren't making progress, I'd be despondent."
When war supporters like McCain wonder why they have credibility problems when it comes to Iraq policy, this might offer a hint.
--Steve Benen
Back to the 'law enforcement' talking point
On its face, it's rather mystifying that "Meet the Press" has made David Brody a regular contributor. While progressive voices have been effectively absent from the Sunday morning shows in recent years, Tim Russert has invited the Capitol Hill correspondent for TV preacher Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network on for political analysis three times in as many months.
Perhaps, one might say, Brody's analysis is so enlightening, it transcends his bizarre and embarrassing televangelist boss. I'm afraid that's just not the case. Consider this exchange from this morning.
RUSSERT: Every debate, David Brody, the Republicans have, they make their point, "We understand Islamic fascism; we understand the terrorist threat; the Democrats don't." That is going to be their issue in 2008, just as it was in '04 and 2000.
BRODY: There's no doubt about it. I mean, it's somewhat of a, on the Republican side, a testosterone convention, in essence, is what it is. Because you have John McCain following him [bin Laden] "to the gates of hell." And you have Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney now saying Osama bin Laden is "crazy" and a little "cooky."
They are going to push this all the time. What's interesting though, I think, the bigger issue is on national security. You notice that the Democrats in all of these poll numbers that we see, that they trump the Republicans in many areas. When it comes to national security, it's roughly about even now.... At the end of the day, Republicans, this issue helps the Republicans more than the Democrats because they're going to be able to enforce this idea that Democrats want to go at this with law enforcement and Republicans don't and I think that will be the key difference as we move forward.
What?
It's hard to know where to begin with this kind of assessment, but the first thing that jumped out at me is the notion that Republican presidential hopefuls describing Osama bin Laden as "cooky" is evidence of "testosterone." Maybe I'm behind on my understanding of slang, but "cooky" doesn't strike me as a particularly aggressive insult for the terrorist responsible for 9/11.
Second, after an odd non sequitur, Brody believes Dems are going to lose support on national security because they believe intelligence gathering and law-enforcement efforts are the keys to effective counter-terrorism. But isn't it fairly obvious by now that Dems are right about this? Indeed, just last week, German officials disrupted a dangerous terrorist plot, not by sending in an army, but through months of intelligence gathering and law-enforcement legwork.
Brody is repeating a Bush talking point from three years ago, which was suspect at the time, and nonsensical now.
Maybe bookers for "Meet the Press" can expand their Rolodex a little bit?
--Steve Benen
When Bush and the AP have different standards
On Friday, the president was poised to tell the APEC conference in Australia that his policies in Iraq have been so successful, he was able to land at a well-guarded airport in Anbar province and visit with troops at a well-guarded base. As David Kurtz discovered, Bush realized how foolish this was, and wisely decided to leave the remarks out of his speech: "Citing the President's brief stop in a heavily guarded U.S. encampment as proof of peace and stability in the country at large was too over the top, even for the White House."
It was not, unfortunately, too over the top for the AP's Anne Gearan. (thanks to reader C.E.)
Anbar has transformed from an insurgent haven partly run by al-Qaida to a chunk of Iraqi heartland safe enough for the president and his war Cabinet to spend the day.
Sigh.
--Steve Benen
Takin' Care a'Bidness
From the AP ...
Texas' Hunt Oil Co. and Kurdistan's regional government said Saturday they've signed a production-sharing contract for petroleum exploration in northern Iraq, the first such deal since the Kurds passed their own oil and gas law in August.A Hunt subsidiary, Hunt Oil Co. of the Kurdistan Region, will begin geological survey and seismic work by the end of 2007 and hopes to drill an exploration well in 2008, the parties said in a news release. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
From Hunt's bio: "In October 2001 and again in January 2006, Mr. Hunt was appointed by President George W. Bush to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in Washington, D.C."
--Josh Marshall
The public already knows the score
I get the sense that congressional Democrats are deeply worried about how best to respond to tomorrow's testimony from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Everyone seems well aware of what we're likely to hear in terms of their assessment, but challenging their conclusions seems trickier.
If opponents of the war treat Petraeus and Crocker with kid gloves, the administration's public-relations offensive will have succeeded and dubious conclusions about conditions in Iraq will be largely embraced as the conventional wisdom. If war critics are overly aggressive, the right will characterize Democrats' skepticism as some kind of anti-military animus.
So, how do Dems convince Americans that the assessment from Petraeus and Crocker is really just a continuation of the White House line? As it turns out, they don't have to -- Americans are already there.
Most Americans think this week's report from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus will exaggerate progress in Iraq, and few expect it to result in a major shift in President Bush's policy. [...]
[T]hough the public assessment of progress in Iraq remains largely negative, most expected Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, to express a rosier view when he begins his congressional testimony tomorrow. Only about four in 10 said they expect the general to give an accurate accounting of the situation in Iraq. A majority, 53 percent, said they think his report will try to make the situation in Iraq look better than it really is.
What's more, 66% of respondents in the Post/ABC poll said the president will "stick with his Iraq policy no matter what the Petraeus report says."
--Steve Benen
