Iraq News

Condi Rice Throws Bush Under The Bus

3:03 pm EST October 24th, 2011 | Foreign Policy | 9 Comments

In the hopes of cleaning up history’s view of her and I guess selling more books.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the Bush administration was dismissive toward her concerns over security in a post-war Iraq, according to excerpts from her autobiography that Rice tweeted about Sunday.

“When I finally arranged a briefing on the issue before the President in early February 2002, he started the meeting in a way that completely destroyed any chance of getting an answer,” Rice wrote in an excerpt that appears in Newsweek.

Rice was Bush’s national security adviser, then later Secretary of State. She (like Colin Powell) wasn’t a sidelined party in these affairs, she was an active conspirator in the formulation and execution of these policies.

There are no takebacks.

Topic: Iraq

Obama Orders USA Out Of Iraq, Promise Kept

1:15 pm EST October 21st, 2011 | Foreign Policy | 71 Comments

President Obama just announced that all US troops will be out of Iraq come 12/31/11. This would not have been the case if John McCain had been elected President, and we would probably still be pursuing the failed Iraq war strategy.

Furthermore, we should have never been in Iraq in the first place. Iraq had no connection to Al Qaeda, was not an immediate threat to US interests, nor did they possess weapons of mass destruction. The Iraq War was a costly distraction from the war against Al Qaeda, and helped Osama Bin Laden escape capture/kill until President Obama redoubled our efforts to get him.

Most importantly, thousands of American lives were lost in this war. First, because the initially foolish, stupid invasion, and then from the mismanagement inflicted by President Bush and his leadership team. These poor decisions also led to the loss of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives.

The invasion of Iraq and the subsequent mismanagement of the occupation of Iraq will go down in history as one of the darkest, most horrible moments in American history.

Thank God it is over.

Topic: Iraq

Bill Keller Reduces Judy Miller’s WMD Lies That Killed Thousands To “Some Bad Stuff”

10:31 pm EST June 6th, 2011 | Media | 10 Comments

Section 60 At Arlington, Where The Soldiers Who Died Because Of “Some Bad Stuff” Are Buried

Our media is never accountable.

Esquire: Do you leave with a sense of anything left undone, any particular regret?

Bill Keller: There is a fairly long list of things that I’ve done that were stupid.

Esquire: Such as?

Bill Keller: I came in well aware that we had published some bad stuff about WMD in Iraq. I should have written a fulsome mea culpa and put [Judy Miller] on a leash. Instead I waited a year to do that. I should have just taken that thing by the lapels and done it sooner. And I would confess that some of the shots I’ve taken at various people or news outlets were a little intemperate. But on the whole I feel a sense of satisfaction.

The NY Times repeatedly allowed their influential front page to be used as a propaganda vehicle for the Bush administration’s lies about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. The false information in the NY Times helped lay the groundwork for the botched invasion of Iraq that killed thousands of Americans and Iraqis for no good reason.

Bill Keller thinks this is “some bad stuff” from the safety of his Manhattan offices, and waited forever for an explanation of what happened (while standing behind Miller during the CIA leak investigation).

It’s not just journalistic malpractice, it’s morally bankrupt.

Topic: Iraq, New York Times

Today Is Krauthammer Day

2:50 pm EST April 22nd, 2011 | Conservative | 8 Comments

Or, as most of us know, another reason you should never listen to conservatives. 8 years ago, conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer said this:

Hans Blix had five months to find weapons. He found nothing. We’ve had five weeks. Come back to me in five months. If we haven’t found any, we will have a credibility problem.

Modern Conservatives: Talking Out Of Their Asses Since At Least 1964.

Topic: Iraq

National Review Meet National Review

4:30 pm EST March 10th, 2011 | Conservative, National Security | 34 Comments

Jonah Goldberg in The National Review, 2002

The United States needs to go to war with Iraq because it needs to go to war with someone in the region and Iraq makes the most sense.

Andrew McCarthy in The National Review, 2011

What really increases terrorist recruitment is invading Muslim countries, killing Muslims there, and staying to try to build Western democracies.

Topic: Iraq

Our Strongman In Iraq?

9:08 am EST March 7th, 2011 | Foreign Policy, World | 2 Comments

If you look at the history of leaders the U.S. has supported in the past in order to further our own goals – for example in Vietnam, Cuba, Iraq, etc. – this doesn’t sound very promising:

Two political parties that led demonstrations in Baghdad over the past two weeks said on Monday that security forces controlled by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had ordered them to close their offices.

The actions came amid growing concerns that Mr. Maliki, who is backed by the United States, is using force and other measures to stifle this country’s democracy.

Officials for the Iraqi Nation Party and the Iraqi Communist Party said in interviews that dozens of armed security forces had come to their offices in Baghdad on Sunday, two days after nationwide protests calling for better services.

What often builds up international opposition to America is our habit of propping up really bad guys who promise to keep things in check for us. It isn’t a big stretch when people then blame the way they’re abused on the American money and power that kept the abuser in office.

Topic: Iraq

Of COURSE Donald Rumsfeld Is A Liar

11:42 am EST March 1st, 2011 | History | 2 Comments

He is Donald Rumsfeld after all. I’m no fan of Bob Woodward, but his data here is pretty solid on Donald Rumsfeld being a pretty big liar. Woodward doesn’t say it, but Rumsfeld – by the way – is the man whose decisions led to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis. It’s always worth pointing that out.

On January 9, 2002, four months after 9/11, Dan Balz of The Washington Post and I interviewed Rumsfeld for a newspaper series on the Bush administration’s response to 9/11. According to notes of the NSC, on September 12, the day after 9/11, Rumsfeld again raised Iraq saying, is there a need to address Iraq as well as bin Laden?

When Balz read this to Rumsfeld, he blew up. “I didn’t say that,” he said, maintaining that it was his aide Larry DiRita talking over his shoulder. His reaction was comic and we agreed to treat it as off the record. But Balz persisted and asked Rumsfeld what he was thinking.

“Yeah,” Rumsfeld finally told us. “I wanted to make sure that — I always ask myself, what’s missing. It’s easy for people to edit and make something slightly better. But the question is, what haven’t we asked ourselves? So I do it all the time. I do it here, I do it in cabinet meetings or NSC meetings. It was a fair question.”

“I don’t have notes,” Rumsfeld insisted. “I don’t have any notes.” His memoir cites his personal handwritten notes dozens of time.

…

One of the important questions about the Iraq War has always been about when and who started the Iraq clock after 9/11. On page 425, Rumsfeld alleges that Bush on Sept 26, 2001 — just 15 days after 9/11 — called him to the Oval Office. “He asked that I take a look at the shape of our military plans on Iraq…” Rumsfeld provides no footnote for this scene.

When I interviewed Rumsfeld at his Pentagon office on Oct. 23, 2003, Rumsfeld had a different story. “I do not remember much about Iraq being discussed at all with the president or me or the NSC prior to when the president asked me to — asked me what I thought of the Iraq contingency plan — that I believe was November 21st of ’01.” He was confident of the date because six days later he went to talk with the combatant commander for the region, Gen. Tommy Franks. “And I would not have waited long from the president asking me.”

Topic: Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Iraq

VIDEO: Donald Rumsfeld Daily Show Interview

7:06 am EST February 24th, 2011 | National Security | 2 Comments

Jon Stewart interviews Donald Rumsfeld on The Daily Show

Donald Rumsfeld Extended Interview Pt. 1

Topic: Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Iraq, Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Bush Administration’s “Curveball” Source Admits Lying About WMD

1:51 pm EST February 15th, 2011 | Foreign Policy, Republicans | 69 Comments

Powell WMD UN

In case you forgot for a minute about all the people who died thanks to the policies of worst President ever, George W. Bush:

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed “Curveball” by German and American intelligence officials, now admits he made up tales of mobile biological weapons trucks and clandestine weapons factories in Iraq, information that was used by the Bush White House to press the case for war. He also says he’d do it again.

How did the Bush machine use Curveball?

“We have teams of people that are out looking. They’ve investigated a number of sites. And within the last week or two, they have in fact captured and have in custody two of the mobile trailers that Secretary Powell talked about at the United Nations as being biological weapons laboratories.”

Donald Rumsfeld
Infinity Radio Interview
May 31, 2003

“Is it an embarrassment to people on the other side that we’ve discovered these biological production vans, which the defector told us about?”

Paul Wolfowitz
CNN Interview
May 31, 2003

Disgusting.

Topic: George W. Bush, Iraq