Iraq's Finger Pointers - The Right Starts Cannibalizing Its Own

Truthmonger

This last week saw American forces and Iraqis themselves being blamed for the current state of chaos in Iraq. It seems everyone is at fault but those who orchestrated this fucking fiasco. But now, its the political right in the U.S. that's starting to feast on itself. Check out Richard "fuckface" Pearle, taking the wood to Bush and his "imcompetent administration":

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/12/neocons200612


And check out that drunken sack of shit, Christopher Hitchens, reaming Bush over Iraq:

http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2006/11/02/of-rats-and-sinking-ships/

Rats and sinking ships - great analogy.

Truthmonger

Oh man, I'm bustin' a gut here !! Hoooboy

"Kenneth Adelman: "The most dispiriting and awful moment of the whole administration was the day that Bush gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to [former C.I.A. director] George Tenet, General Tommy Franks, and [Coalition Provisional Authority chief] Jerry [Paul] Bremer—three of the most incompetent people who've ever served in such key spots. And they get the highest civilian honor a president can bestow on anyone! That was the day I checked out of this administration. It was then I thought, There's no seriousness here, these are not serious people. If he had been serious, the president would have realized that those three are each directly responsible for the disaster of Iraq." "

and.....

"Kenneth Adelman: "The problem here is not a selling job. The problem is a performance job.… Rumsfeld has said that the war could never be lost in Iraq, it could only be lost in Washington. I don't think that's true at all. We're losing in Iraq.… I've worked with [Rumsfeld] three times in my life. I've been to each of his houses, in Chicago, Taos, Santa Fe, Santo Domingo, and Las Vegas. I'm very, very fond of him, but I'm crushed by his performance. Did he change, or were we wrong in the past? Or is it that he was never really challenged before? I don't know. He certainly fooled me." "

Truthmonger

I'm lovin it. Here's Ahmed Chalabi slamming Paul Wolfowitz on Iraq:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003350110


'NYT' Sunday Preview: Ahmad Chalabi Says, 'The Real Culprit is Wolfowitz'

By E&P Staff

Published: November 03, 2006 9:40 AM ET

NEW YORK So, Ahmad Chalabi, what went wrong in Iraq in the war you helped to sell? “The Americans sold us out,” he tells longtime Baghdad reporter Dexter Filkins in a lengthy cover story in this coming Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, reviewed by E&P.

Chalabi was the Iraqi exile who worked -- via everyone from Paul Wolfowitz to Judith Miller -- to convince America to topple Saddam in 2003 (not that many in the administration needed much convincing).

Now, in an interview in his London home, Chalabi, betraying what Filkins calls “a touch of bitterness,” declares, “The real culprit in all this is Wolfowitz,” the former assistant secretary of defense, whom he still considers a friend. “They chickened out. The Pentagon guys chickened out…The Americans screwed it up.”

But that’s not because they did too little but, rather, too much. Chalabi thinks the U.S. should have exited quickly and turned things over to Iraqis, such as himself and Moktada al-Sadr. “It was a puppet show!" he says referring to the occupation. “The worst of all worlds. We were in charge, and we had no power.”

He adds: “America betrays its friends. It sets them up and betrays them. I’d rather be America’s enemy.”

The massive article is titled "Where Plan 'A' Left Ahmad Chalabi." It ranges from the present day in London – where Chalabi still carries himself “like a monarch” despite the utter rejection by Iraqi voters earlier this year – to Filkins’ travels with him in 2005, including a visit to Iran.

One of the fascinating anecdotes revolves around the May 20,2004 raid by Iraqi and American forces on Chalabi’s Baghdad compound, after the U.S. accused him of giving secrets to the Iranians. “Look, I think they tried to kill him,” Richard Perle, the Pentagon adviser and close Chalabi friend, tells Filkins. “I think the raid on his house was intended to result in violence….It is a miracle that it didn’t result in a massive shootout.”

Filkins returns later to speculation that it was at the behest of the Iranians that Chalabi got the U.S. into the war. Perle refutes this.

What about the WMD propaganda? Chalabi counters views that he was the catalyst, saying that it was Bush officials who “came to us and asked, ‘Can you help us find something on Saddam?’”

He also claims that he warned the Bush people that various Iraqi informants were unreliable, only to hear the Americans say, referring to the source, “This guy is the mother lode.” Chalabi, of all people asks, “Can you believe that on such a basis the United States would go to war?

Chalabi has nothing to say about his leaks to Judith Miller of The New York Times, but Filkins does recall her famous email from 2003 when she boasted that Chalabi had “provided most of the front-apge exclusives on WMD to our paper.”

David Kay, the weapons inspector, weighs in on Wolfowitz: “He was a true believer. He thought he had the evidence. That came from the defectors. They came from Chalabi.”

Filkins concludes: “The gamble failed, a nation imploded and Chalabi never ascended to the throne he so coveted. But in an odd turn of fortune, the throne no longer had anything to offer.”

Truthmonger

Oh no, wait, its Donald Rumsfeld that's fucked things up....

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2333360.php


Editorial
Time for Rumsfeld to go




Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld —

“So long as our government requires the backing of an aroused and informed public opinion ... it is necessary to tell the hard bruising truth.”


That statement was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Marguerite Higgins more than a half-century ago during the Korean War.

But until recently, the “hard bruising” truth about the Iraq war has been difficult to come by from leaders in Washington.

One rosy reassurance after another has been handed down by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “mission accomplished,” the insurgency is “in its last throes,” and “back off,” we know what we’re doing, are a few choice examples.

Military leaders generally toed the line, although a few retired generals eventually spoke out from the safety of the sidelines, inciting criticism equally from anti-war types, who thought they should have spoken out while still in uniform, and pro-war foes, who thought the generals should have kept their critiques behind closed doors.

Now, however, a new chorus of criticism is beginning to resonate. Active-duty military leaders are starting to voice misgivings about the war’s planning, execution and dimming prospects for success.

Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, told a Senate Armed Services Committee in September: “I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it ... and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.”

Last week, someone leaked to The New York Times a Central Command briefing slide showing an assessment that the civil conflict in Iraq now borders on “critical” and has been sliding toward “chaos” for most of the past year. The strategy in Iraq has been to train an Iraqi army and police force that could gradually take over for U.S. troops in providing for the security of their new government and their nation.


But despite the best efforts of American trainers, the problem of molding a viciously sectarian population into anything resembling a force for national unity has become a losing proposition.

For two years, American sergeants, captains and majors training the Iraqis have told their bosses that Iraqi troops have no sense of national identity, are only in it for the money, don’t show up for duty and cannot sustain themselves.

Meanwhile, colonels and generals have asked their bosses for more troops. Service chiefs have asked for more money.

And all along, Rumsfeld has assured us that things are well in hand.

Now, the president says he’ll stick with Rumsfeld for the balance of his term in the White House.

This is a mistake. It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.

These officers have been loyal public promoters of a war policy many privately feared would fail. They have kept their counsel private, adhering to more than two centuries of American tradition of subordination of the military to civilian authority.

And although that tradition, and the officers’ deep sense of honor, prevent them from saying this publicly, more and more of them believe it.

Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.

This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth:

Donald Rumsfeld must go.