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Bush’s Iraq swagger a distant memory

Friday, September 7th, 2007

In the heady days when US Marines toppled a huge statue of Saddam Hussein in central Baghdad, President George W. Bush was riding high on his mission to remake Iraq as a beacon of democracy.Now, the lights have dimmed on that adventure — and not just because of the power blackouts that still plague Iraq four and a half years after the deceptively easy US-led invasion.

Back then, Bush rode roughshod over widespread global opinion that the war would be a disaster. Six weeks after the March 2003 invasion, he appeared on an aircraft carrier under the banner “Mission accomplished.”

Now, the president is battling a Democratic-led Congress that is agitating for a quick exit of US troops, who have suffered more than 3,700 fatalities in Iraq. Estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths range from 70,000 to 655,000.

The clamor has grown as General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, and Baghdad ambassador Ryan Crocker get set to testify in Congress next week ahead of a White House report reviewing a seven-month-old military “surge.”

But the future holds only bad and worse choices for the United States in Iraq, according to respected foreign-policy scholar Anthony Cordesman of Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Arguing the case for “strategic patience” given oil-rich Iraq’s importance in a simmering region, Cordesman told a recent seminar after a visit to the country: “Our legacy, if we abandon Iraq, will not be quick or easy.

“It will be one of lasting suffering over five to 10 years.”

Nearly two-thirds of Americans feel Bush was “too eager” to wage war in Iraq and is handling the conflict badly, a Harris Poll survey this week said. But another poll by UPI/Zogby said 54 percent believe the Iraq war is not lost.

Over the past year, several best-selling books have laid bare what critics say was the rank incompetence that marked Bush’s foray into Iraq, which was sold as a life-or-death mission to prevent Saddam from threatening his enemies with nuclear or chemical annihilation.

In “Fiasco,” Washington Post journalist Thomas Ricks argues that the invasion “was based on perhaps the worst war plan in American history,” one that “confused removing Iraq’s regime with the far more difficult task of changing the entire country.”

Vice President Dick Cheney, former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz are accused of an ideologically driven crusade against Saddam that ignored all the dangers inherent in the war.

Far too few troops were deployed, no thinking was given to a post-war Iraq, pro-US Iraqi exiles with shady pasts enjoyed undue influence, and the development expertise of other branches of the US government was shunned.

Policy appeared to be made on the fly, such as US viceroy Paul Bremer’s fateful edict to disband the Iraqi army and so throw thousands of armed and angry men onto the streets, helping to foster Iraq’s bloody insurgency.

In the newly published “Dead Certain: The Presidency of George Bush,” GQ magazine journalist Robert Draper quotes Bush as saying that Bremer surprised everyone with his order — a claim that the former occupation chief denies.

Draper’s account adds to a slew of portrayals of Bush as a curiously disengaged commander in chief, allowing his top officials to fight endless turf wars while Iraq burned and the Taliban and Al-Qaeda regrouped in Afghanistan.

Bush himself, who hinted at a possible reduction in US troops during a surprise visit to Iraq this week, is adamant that history will be his judge.

In a late August speech to US veterans of 20th century conflicts in Asia, he warned that a hasty withdrawal from Iraq would trigger a bloodbath like that in Southeast Asia after the US defeat and retreat from Vietnam.

“A free Iraq is not going to transform the Middle East overnight, but a free Iraq will be a massive defeat for Al-Qaeda,” he added.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid retorted: “Our nation was misled by the Bush administration in an effort to gain support for the invasion of Iraq under false pretenses, leading to one of the worst foreign policy blunders in our history.”

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hX8bJdpG4fH_lAGcXa6H6ZFcWXYA

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Ian R. Crane - “Fool me once…” - Lancaster

Friday, September 7th, 2007

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Bin Laden ‘to release new video’ on 9/11 anniversary

Friday, September 7th, 2007

OSAMA bin Laden is to a release a new video on the sixth anniversary of the 11 September attacks on the United States, it was reported last night.

The al-Qaeda figurehead will address his message to the American people, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors fundamentalism on the internet.

A still posted on an Islamist website, shows bin Laden addressing the camera. His beard, which in previous messages had been streaked with grey, was entirely dark and appeared aged.

A message on the webpage said it would soon carry the new bin Laden video to mark the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The site did not say when the video, produced by al-Qaeda’s media arm, al-Sahab, would be issued. Bin Laden was last seen in a video statement aired to coincide with the November 2004 US presidential election. Since then, he has issued several audio messages, the last one in July 2006 in which he vowed al-Qaeda would fight the US anywhere in the world.

Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed to be hiding in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. US-led forces have been searching for bin Laden since toppling Afghanistan’s Taleban government after it refused to hand over the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman last night declined to comment on the report.

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1429902007

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Sir Ian Blair’s future in doubt as political critics renew attack

Friday, September 7th, 2007

‘We got it appallingly wrong’: Sir Ian Blair said senior Met Police management were late in telling him that Mr de Menezes (below) was innocent

Sir Ian Blair faced growing questions about his future today as London politicians expressed new concerns about the way he runs the Met.

Critics claimed the Met Commissioner’s position was “rocky” while there were more allegations he has lost the support of some senior colleagues.

The new problems for Sir Ian surfaced a day after he suffered a fierce grilling from the Metropolitan Police Authority over the shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes.

During a combative meeting, Sir Ian was forced to say that he would not resign as Authority members accused him of trying to avoid the blame for the fatal blunder and of failing to be properly on top of what was happening inside his own force.

Although Sir Ian has the overall backing of the MPA and the support of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, critics piled on further pressure by mounting new attacks. MPA member Damian Hockney, who leads the One Party group on the London Assembly, said: “Sir Ian is in a difficult position. The criticism of him at yesterday’s full authority meeting was across the board. Even those who normally support him were critical.

“The difficulty may come when other issues come to the fore, such as the Met’s trial over the de Menezes shooting on health and safety grounds.”

Mr Hockney said that when Sir John Stevens, Sir Ian’s predecessor, faced a health and safety trial hewould have had no option but to resign had he lost.

Jean Charles de Menezes

Others close to the MPA warned that Sir Ian’s position was becoming rocky. One source said: “You cannot demand his resignation in an openmeeting because people like Jacqui Smith will rush to his defence and nothing gets done. But there is this sense now of how do you solve a problem like Ian Blair?”

The MPA has also announced its own review of the de Menezes shooting, focusing on issues such as why Sir Ian was not told an innocent man had been killed until the next day.

Insiders hope this report may be more incisive in its findings than the IPCC’s investigation, which cleared Sir Ian over claims he knowingly misled the public despite raising serious doubts about communication within the Met over the affair.

In his questioning of Sir Ian, Tory MPA member Richard Barnes blamed this on the “absence of an inquiring mind” and added: “I have deep-seated concerns about the leadership of the Metropolitan Police.”

Other London politicians defended Sir Ian. Jenny Jones, the Green Party representative on the MPA, said he was still the best man for the job and the Home Secretary is said to retain full confidence in him.

Point-blank: a marksman after the shooting at Stockwell Tube in July, 2005 when Jean Charles de Menezes was murdered

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=480270&in_page_id=1770

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Rift on Iraq as Bush meets man tipped as next Australian PM

Friday, September 7th, 2007

AFP

US President George W. Bush met Thursday with the man tipped to be Australia’s next prime minister, Kevin Rudd, who has pledged to pull the country’s troops out of Iraq.

Rudd, leader of the centre-left Labor Party, indicated that Bush had been unable to persuade him to change his mind about Iraq, saying he had stuck to his well-known position on a staged withdrawal.

“On the Iraq question … I made very plain to the president that we had a different point of view,” Rudd said. “I think I can safely say he noted that view.”

Bush did not respond to reporters’ questions about the talks, but White House national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the US leader “had a good session” with Rudd.

“They exchanged views on issues in Asia, the upcoming APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting and the war on terror, including Iraq,” Johndroe said.

Rudd and his party have a commanding lead over Prime Minister John Howard and the conservative government in opinion polls ahead of an election due by the end of the year.

Howard is Bush’s staunchest remaining war ally, and the US leader made a point of expressing his friendship and high regard for the prime minister after they met Wednesday.

“My own judgement is I wouldn’t count the man out,” he told a joint news conference. “As I recall, he’s kind of like me: we both have run from behind and won.”

Bush had said ahead of his trip to Australia for the weekend APEC summit that he would try to convince Rudd it was important for coalition forces to remain in Iraq.

“He doesn’t know me and I don’t know him, so I look forward to sharing my views and would ask, if he were to win, that he would consider conditions on the ground before making any decisions,” Bush said.

Rudd said late Wednesday, however, that he would not change his position and would implement a staged withdrawal from Iraq if he won the elections.

“That view is that we need to have a staged, negotiated withdrawal of our troops from Iraq, and I have no intention of changing that position.”

Howard, in contrast, pledged at Wednesday’s joint news conference with Bush that Australia’s 1,500-strong force involved in Iraqi operations would not be reduced or withdrawn.

That won him a firm endorsement from the US leader. “I admire your vision, I admire your courage,” Bush said.

Howard is one of Bush’s last major allies in Iraq in a coalition that has previously included former prime ministers Tony Blair of Britain, Spain’s Jose Maria Aznar, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and Poland’s former president Aleksander Kwasniewski.

Rudd told reporters Thursday after his own meeting with Bush that they had agreed to keep the content of the talks off the record.

“The talks lasted for 45 minutes in Mr Bush’s Sydney hotel today,” he said. “We had a wide-ranging, good-natured, very open discussion.”

Rudd, a former diplomat who served in Beijing and speaks Mandarin, said they talked about the rise of China and developments on the Korean peninsula and in Taiwan.

“We talked at length about the history of the alliance between Australia and the United States and about Iraq, Afghanistan and climate change.”

Bush has previously made it clear that despite his friendship with Howard, the US-Australia relationship is “bigger than any individual in office.”

In turn, Rudd has stressed that he values Australia’s close ties with the United States and that despite disagreements over Iraq, he is ready to work with Bush.

Asked if he thought he could develop a friendship with Bush similar to that enjoyed by Howard, Rudd replied: “I’m a friendly sort of guy.”

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