8 posts tagged “iraq”
From ThinkProgress:
Last week, President Bush submitted his $515.4 billion defense spending budget for FY ‘09. Contained within that budget is a windfall for defense contractors — “$104.2 billion for weapons procurement and nearly $80 billion for research and development.” This budget is 7.5 percent higher than the current year’s.
Even Defense experts are surprised at how generous the Bush administration is willing to be with the taxpayers’ money, in light of a faltering economy and deep cuts to domestic programs:
“The expectation has been that it can’t continue to increase as it has,” Phil Finnegan, a defense analyst at the Teal Group in Fairfax, said of defense spending. “But it has surprised everyone to see how long this increase has continued. This budget was a great budget for all defense contractors.” […]
“The fiscal year 2009 budget may be about as good as it gets for defense contractors,” said Steve Kosiak, vice president of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “We have had eight years of quite dramatic growth in [the Defense Department’s] weapons acquisition accounts. Whoever the next president is, it is unlikely that we are going to continue a major buildup.
The administration may get its way on many of these spending requests. The military has dispatched “legions of lobbyists and defense contractors” to Capitol Hill to push for approval. Several lawmakers are actually asking for spending above what the administration requested. Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and James Inhofe (R-OK), for example, are lobbying for F-22 fighter planes, even though Defense Secretary Robert Gates has deemed more of these useless planes unnecessary.
A 2007 report by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found that between 2000 and 2005, procurement was the “fastest growing component of federal discretionary spending.” Non-competitive and sole-source contractors rose “by 115% from $67.5 billion in 2000 to $145 billion in 2005.”
The biggest beneficiary of the Bush administration’s generosity toward contractors? Halliburton.
The number of false statements made by President Bush and his top officials about the threat from Iraq in the two years following 9/11. A new study by the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism found that Bush “led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq’s links to al Qaeda.”
Almost a thousand separate misrepresentations, baseless assertions, uses of cherry-picked data, and outright lies.
Nearly 5 years later, all we have to show for it is more terrorists, less allies, trillions in additional debt, 4000 American kids and at least 150,000 Iraqis dead, an emboldened Iran, a resurgent Taliban and Al Qaeda, and no good options going forward.
In a news conference today, President Bush said that he now sees political progress in Iraq that is “matching” the security gains achieved last year:
It was clear from my discussions [with Prime Minister Maliki] that there’s great hope in Iraq, that the Iraqis are beginning to see political progress that is matching the dramatic security gains for the past year.
But Pentagon officials are wary of sounding such an optimistic note, particularly on “political progress.” In fact, they say more difficult times are ahead.
Today at the Heritage Foundation, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle Eastern Affairs Mark Kimmitt said 2008 will be “far more difficult” than 2007 for the U.S. strategy because “it depends far more on the Iraqis themselves to show progress on key legislation, on their economy, and reconciliation.” Kimmitt predicted only a mild chance that “surge” security gains will last:
2008 and beyond will be a success, the surge will be a success, if the gains in security can be translated into gains in stability…if I had to put a number to it, maybe it’s three in 10, maybe it’s 50-50, if we play our cards right.
Kimmitt added that seeing “such significant progress in security with only the foundations of progress in reconciliation is a bit disheartening, not to mention sobering.”
Let us remember that a reduction in violence in Iraq was not the goal of the "surge"; rather it was a means to the real goal of the troop escalation: political reconciliation between Iraq's religious and political factions that results in lasting peace and stability for the Iraqi people.
Until we see any movement towards that goal, any and all claims that "the surge has worked" are as premature and unfounded as Bush's "mission accomplished" speech more than four and a half years ago.
How's the rest of that refrain go? Oh yeah...
It looks like 2007 is going out fighting; at minimum it seems as if it's doing its best to ensure that 2008 will start out no more peaceful or hopeful that this year did.
- Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated.
Despite being a known target who survived a massive blast directed at her in October, the security detail guarding her somehow allowed a man to get close enough to shoot her twice before blowing himself up. Longtime advisor and confidante Husain Haqqani lays blame with the man who benefits most: Pervez Musharraf. There is a supposed claim of responsibility from Al Qaeda; it says that the killing was ordered directly by No. 2 Ayman Al-Zawahri. However it is doubtful that such an attack could've been successful without at least intelligence, if not direct assistance, from the Pakistani Military and Security services, many of who are garrisoned in Rawalpindi where the assassination occurred. Rawalpindi is just outside of the Capital City of Islamabad, and is within miles of the disputed territory of Kashmir.
Musharraf has called for three days of mourning. I suspect that he will, within days, make two additional announcements that he has long wanted regardless of today's events: the suspension of January's scheduled elections, and; a re-imposition of martial law.
Bush, delivered a brief, and according to the AP account, tense statement to reporters today:
"The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy," he said. "Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice."
He took no questions.
- Naturally, the Bush Administration is expanding the presence of US Special Forces inside Pakistan.
- Also, Russia is selling Iran sophisticated air missile defense systems.
- Meanwhile, Turkey continues it's bombing campaign in Northern Iraq. At what point do we call the Iraq war what it is (and what those opposed to the war warned it could be): a regional conflagration?
- In other paradoxical Iraq news, the US Military is apparently at war with Muqtada Al-Sadr. Muqtada Al-Sadr is one of the most powerful Shiite clerics in Iraq, and one of the most influential voices in the Shiite-dominated government of Nouri Al-Maliki, who is consistently supported by President Bush. Figure that one out.
- Have we always been at war with Eastasia? Or was that Eurasia? Either way, it's costing us $15 Billion a month.
- Military families aren't buying it anymore: A majority of family members of US Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines think Bush is doing a shitty job.
- War Crimes Watch: The White House is terrified of what Jose Rodriguez might say to Congress if he gets immunity. Rodriguez is the former head of the CIA's clandestine service, and has been fingered by the White House as the person responsible for destroying videos that documented the interrogation, and torture, of prisoners in US custody.- 141,387 American's have signed on to Rep. Robert Wexler’s (D-FL) online petition demanding congressional impeachment hearings for Vice President Dick Cheney.
- Consolidated debt obligation write-off forecast for this quarter:
- Is TimeWarner-- the world's largest media conglomerate, really going to sell AOL and Time Media?
- Citigroup - $18.7 billion.
- Merrill Lynch - $11.5 billion.
- JPMorgan Chase & Co. - $33 billion.
- The Bush Administration's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission rules that employers can eliminate retirement benefits for their oldest retirees. They'll be fine, right? The primary cost driver? What else-- health care. Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have risen 78% since 2001.
- In other statistical news, 60% of all executions in the United States in 2007 took place in Texas. I'd wager that most Texans are actually proud of that.
- There was some good news today: Paris Hilton's planned inheritance will be given to charity instead.
From Andrew Sullivan, in his post endorsing Ron Paul for the GOP Nomination:
Let's be clear: we have lost this war. We have lost because the initial, central goals of the invasion have all failed: we have not secured WMDS from terrorists because those WMDs did not exist. We have not stymied Islamist terror - at best we have finally stymied some of the terror we helped create. We have not constructed a democratic model for the Middle East - we have instead destroyed a totalitarian government and a phony country, only to create a permanently unstable, fractious, chaotic failed state, where the mere avoidance of genocide is a cause for celebration. We have, moreover, helped solder a new truth in the Arab mind: that democracy means chaos, anarchy, mass-murder, national disintegration and sectarian warfare. And we have also empowered the Iranian regime and made a wider Sunni-Shiite regional war more likely than it was in 2003. Apart from that, Mr Bush, how did you enjoy your presidency?
I would add that although it is true that the American people are the real losers in this conflict, the fault for all the repercussions that we will continue to suffer from as a result of the disaster that is Iraq-- the exponential increase in worldwide terrorism; the loss of American credibility, prestige, and influence with our competitors and allies; the billions of dollars that will have to be paid off by future generations-- lies with George W. Bush and his Administration.
They lost this war. Not the soldiers on the ground. Not the American people. George Bush lost this war the moment he started it.
Don't they want us to "win"?
From the LA Times:
Families with ties to the military, long a reliable source of support for wartime presidents, disapprove of President Bush and his handling of the war in Iraq, with a majority concluding the invasion was not worth it, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.
The views of the military community, which includes active-duty service members, veterans and their family members, mirror those of the overall adult population, a sign that the strong military endorsement that the administration often pointed to has dwindled in the war's fifth year.
Nearly six out of every 10 military families disapprove of Bush's job performance and the way he has run the war, rating him only slightly better than the general population does.
And among those families with soldiers, sailors and Marines who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, 60% say that the war in Iraq was not worth the cost, the same result as all adults surveyed.
Another inconvenient truth for the 30 percenters out there.
From Matthew Yglesias:
The trouble is that the war's rationale has become circular -- "success" means success at putting the military engagement on a sustainable basis. We're fighting for the ability to keep on fighting. But sustaining that posture keeps making the United States and our position in the world as a whole weaker and weaker.
Hard to argue with that. The rest of his essay is just as good.
Remember the "Iraq Study Group"?
A year ago today the Iraq Study Group report was released, which advised Bush that we need a total change of course in our Iraq policy-- and most significantly called for the removal of all U.S. troops by the end of 2008.
Almost 1000 American servicemen and women have been killed since then.
