Little Mr Mahatma

In which the middle-aged Peacenik mouths off about War Drones--and all the other things that make him cranky.

Mr Mahatma--who is a Mr in real life--lives in the valleys of Southern California with his wife, a herd of Dears, and an impressive collection of books. Pnorny!
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Little Mr Mahatma

Monday, May 17, 2004

Bucks for Bush
Worth a read so I reprinted it below. The Buck Stops … Where?

"Stop blaming your henchmen, Mr. President.

By Fred Kaplan

Posted Friday, May 14, 2004, at 2:41 PM PT

Not out of the loop after all?

And so it seems I, too, have misunderestimated the president. This past Wednesday, I wrote a column holding George W. Bush responsible for our recent disasters-the torture at Abu Ghraib and the whole plethora of strategic errors in Iraq. My main argument was that Bush has placed too much trust, for far too long, in the judgment of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, despite his ceaseless string of bad judgments.

However, two news stories that have since come to my attention-one that appeared on the same day, the other more than two months ago-suggest not merely that Bush is guilty of "failing to recognize failure" (as my headline put it) but that he is directly culpable for the sins in question, no less so than his properly beleaguered defense chief.

The first story, written by Mark Matthews in the May 12 Baltimore Sun, quotes Secretary of State Colin Powell-on the record-as saying Bush knew about the International Committee of the Red Cross reports that were filed many months ago about the savagery at the prison. Powell is quoted as saying:

We kept the president informed of the concerns that were raised by the ICRC and other international organizations as part of my regular briefings of the president, and advised him that we had to follow these issues, and when we got notes sent to us or reports sent to us … we had to respond to them.

Powell adds that he, Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice kept Bush "fully informed of the concerns that were being expressed, not in specific details but in general terms." (Thanks to Joshua Micah Marshall, whose blog alerted me to the Sun story.)

So much for Rumsfeld's protective claim, at last week's hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, that he had failed to bring the matter to the president's attention. No wonder Bush, in turn, rode out to the Pentagon and praised his servant-secretary for doing a "superb" job.

It's amazing, by the way, how Colin Powell seems to have scuttled his good-soldier routine altogether, criticizing his president at first quasi-anonymously (through Bob Woodward's new book), then through close aides (Wil Hylton's GQ article), and now straight up in the Baltimore Sun. One wonders when he'll go all the way and start making campaign appearances for John Kerry.

The second news story that heaves more burdens on the president comes from an NBC News broadcast by Jim Miklaszewski on March 2. Apparently, Bush had three opportunities, long before the war, to destroy a terrorist camp in northern Iraq run by Abu Musab Zarqawi, the al-Qaida associate who recently cut off the head of Nicholas Berg. But the White House decided not to carry out the attack because, as the story puts it:

[T]he administration feared [that] destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.

The implications of this are more shocking, in their way, than the news from Abu Ghraib. Bush promoted the invasion of Iraq as a vital battle in the war on terrorism, a continuation of our response to 9/11. Here was a chance to wipe out a high-ranking terrorist. And Bush didn't take advantage of it because doing so might also wipe out a rationale for invasion.

The story gets worse in its details. As far back as June 2002, U.S. intelligence reported that Zarqawi had set up a weapons lab at Kirma in northern Iraq that was capable of producing ricin and cyanide. The Pentagon drew up an attack plan involving cruise missiles and smart bombs. The White House turned it down. In October 2002, intelligence reported that Zarqawi was preparing to use his bio-weapons in Europe. The Pentagon drew up another attack plan. The White House again demurred. In January 2003, police in London arrested terrorist suspects connected to the camp. The Pentagon devised another attack plan. Again, the White House killed the plan, not Zarqawi.

When the war finally started in March, the camp was attacked early on. But by that time, Zarqawi and his followers had departed.

This camp was in the Kurdish enclave of Iraq. The U.S. military had been mounting airstrikes against various targets throughout Iraq-mainly air-defense sites-for the previous few years. It would not have been a major escalation to destroy this camp, especially after the war against al-Qaida in Afghanistan. The Kurds, whose autonomy had been shielded by U.S. air power since the end of the 1991 war, wouldn't have minded and could even have helped.

But the problem, from Bush's perspective, was that this was the only tangible evidence of terrorists in Iraq. Colin Powell even showed the location of the camp on a map during his famous Feb. 5 briefing at the U.N. Security Council. The camp was in an area of Iraq that Saddam didn't control. But never mind, it was something. To wipe it out ahead of time might lead some people-in Congress, the United Nations, and the American public-to conclude that Saddam's links to terrorists were finished, that maybe the war wasn't necessary. So Bush let it be.

In the two years since the Pentagon's first attack plan, Zarqawi has been linked not just to Berg's execution but, according to NBC, 700 other killings in Iraq. If Bush had carried out that attack back in June 2002, the killings might not have happened. More: The case for war (as the White House feared) might not have seemed so compelling. Indeed, the war itself might not have happened.

One ambiguity does remain. The NBC story reported that "the White House" declined to carry out the airstrikes. Who was "the White House"? If it wasn't George W. Bush-if it was, say, Dick Cheney-then we crash into a very different conclusion: not that Bush was directly culpable, but that he was more out of touch than his most cynical critics have imagined. It's a tossup which is more disturbing: a president who passes up the chance to kill a top-level enemy in the war on terrorism for the sake of pursuing a reckless diversion in Iraq-or a president who leaves a government's most profound decision, the choice of war or peace, to his aides.

Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate."

And Colin Powell just apologized for his U.N. speech regarding WMDs, putting the blame on the CIA. But really the blame should go on those who pushed forward the agenda to give the speech despite faulty data.

Prison Abuse
The Bush Administration is claiming that the Iraqi Prison abuse is the work of a few rogue employees. How to put this politely...

Bullshit!

If the evidence coming out that this was not the case weren't enough, simple common sense should tell you that the Bushies are trying to cover up yet another idiocy.

The guards were tasked with getting Intel by any means and they did so with gusto, perhaps too much gusto. But they did their jobs with such a comfort level that they not only took pictures but even allowed the Red Cross to report on their activities! If this were the acts of a few rogues, these people would know they were doing something wrong and try to cover their tracks from the Red Cross, their superiors, and any other observers. But they didn't.

They were blessed from above. And how far up is the question.

The guards were trying to get Intel, not just having "sport". The Bush Admins are desperate for Intel, anything to show WMDs, anything to show al Qaeda links, anything to justify the invasian of Iraq. So do you think that the Bush Admin would bless this type of behavior? Of course, they would as long as they don't get caught!.

Like I said before, taking pictures was either real stupid or real arrogant.

Hussein
Prediction time. Within the next two months or so Saddam Hussein will "confess" that he did pursue WMDs, did plan to use them against the U.S., and did have links to al Qaeda. Al Qaeda will deny the links but by then the Bush Admin will be steamrolling off the revelations.

Michael Moore
I've never seen any of his films and I've read only one of his books. I like him because he gives Bushies fits.

They claim that Moore distorts the truth and manipulates the media so that he can make a buck. His films are nothing but chock full of lies and blatant Liberal propaganda.

Sounds like professional jealousy to me. The Bush cabal does exactly the same thing but with two big differences.

One - whereas Moore may make a few million off his movies, Bush et al are siphoning billions out of the U.S. treasury via open-ended contracts for an open-ended war.

And - two - Moore didn't start a war to further his own agenda. There's not a single drop of American blood on Moore's hands. Nuf said.

9:00 AM

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