I picked up Larry Diamond's book Squandered Victory a few weeks ago after hearing about it and seeing that a few bloggers were mentioning it in relation to some of the more incompetent moments in our occupation of Iraq.  So far its been an interesting read and so in a series of installments I wanted to share with our readers some of the highpoints of the Iraqi occupation according to Diamond.  I know some of the sections won't be news, but bear with me:

• Talk of planning for a post-Saddam Iraq starts in October 2001 at the State Department with formation of Future of Iraq Project under Tom Warrick.  By fall 2002 Democratic Principles Working group made up mostly of Iraqi exiles recommends handing over of power immediately to a vague Iraqi Transitional Authority and not a strongman.  At same time, the White House and Pentagon, instead of planning for a democratic Iraq, want to quickly install Chalabi, the CIA wants Ayad Allwai and the State Department suggests Adnan Pachachi, a moderate Iraqi exile who probably hasn't been in the Iraq since 1968.  (p. 27-29)
•  In the fall of 2002, President Bush looks deep and decides the Pentagon is to be in charge in postwar Iraq--NYT notes "It was the first time since World War II that the State Department would not take charge of a post-conflict situation."  Rumsfeld and Feith proceed to choose Jay Garner to run things and then go out of their way to marginalize everyone associated with State Department's Future of Iraq Project, especially Tom Warrick.  At one point Feith vetoes every nominee for civil administration posts that come from the State Department. (p. 29-30)
• Tip to Kevin Drum who mentioned this a couple weeks ago, but it was too good to pass up:  Former Ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine is brought in to help Garner and brief Rumsfeld just before start of war in March 2003.  Tells Rumsfeld that they needed to make sure Iraqi civil servants got paid after war was over in order to keep gov't services going in Iraq.  Rumsfeld true to form tells her he doesn't care if they have to wait two weeks or two months to get paid and didn't care if they got paid at all because he wasn't going to ask US taxpayers to pay their salaries.  When someone tells him that they could riot, Rumsfeld says such a situation could be used to get the Europeans to help pay for reconstruction. (p.31)
• Meanwhile at the same meeting Paul Wolfowitz shows his limited knowledge of Iraqi history by suggesting that one of the changes the US needed to make in Iraq was to redraw all the provincial and district boundaries?  Bodine advises against it saying it will remind the Iraqis about how the British and French redrew the map of the Middle East after the end of the Ottoman empire. (Ibid)
• Jay Garner and his Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance staff are a disaster.  You know there's going to be a problem when almost no one on Garner's team speaks Arabic yet they still arrive in Baghdad with no professional translators or interpreters.  Garner only knows what Rumsfeld tells him and his lack of ideas and informal style only confuse the Iraqis.  Early meetings to reach out to Iraqi leaders are likened to "Oprah Winfrey-style" free-for-alls and Iraqi calls for establishing stability, security and quick turnover of power go unheeded.  The original goals set by the Pentagon are unrealistic (US out by August 2003?, or how about all Iraqi government services up and running again only a week or two after the fall of Baghdad?) and are either discarded or constantly changed. (p. 31-36)

Well thats the first installment but we'll have more later....

 

$33,000 a month would more than wipe out that student loan debt I've been carrying all these years.  You'd think they could get a company of Marines to secure reconstruction sites for the same price?

Wow, check out this clip from Crooks and Liars where a Fox analyst suggests that Al-Qaeda's planning to trick non-Arab brown skinned people into acting suspicious so they become targets for the police and anti-terrorist units, thereby making the authorities look bad when they kill innocent people.   

Seems you really can make up anything you want and be taken seriously by Ailes and Co.

Question for all the lawyers out there: 

I came across this suggestion that Pat Robert's upcoming "investigation" into the Fitzgerald probe and whether or not the intelligence community provides too much cover to its members may become a vehicle whereby Rove, Libby and associates could be given congressional immunity as a means to shield them from prosecution, ala North and Poindexter.  Putting the conspiratorial tone of the piece aside, could something like that happen in legal terms or would it be pretty extraordinary? 

It seems like the Roberts hearings are geared towards putting the blame once again on the CIA so I don't know why Rove or Libby would be brought in as witnesses.  Furthermore, I've always thought that much noted political hacks Judges Sentelle and Silberman really pulled the North and Poindexter acquittals out of their asses but obviously other legal commentators have mentioned the problems caused by competing investigations.

Update:  Say, since we're talking about Pat Roberts (R-WH) have a look at his greatest hits via Carpetbagger.

When I heard about the shooting of a terrorist suspect in a London Underground Tube station last Friday I thought that something must have gone wrong because surely they would want to bring in a suspect for questioning.  The report I heard on the radio however repeated at least seven times that the suspect wore a large bulky jacket and made it clear he had jumped turnstile when confronted.  One subway passenger even declared that he thought the man had a bomb strapped to his waist even though the report could not confirm any bombs were found. 

Sadly it turned out that the man they shot was a young Brazilian immigrant and electrician on his way to a job who the police and government eventually cleared, but the story gets even murkier.  The man's family, after meeting with London's Metropolitan police flatly declared that just about every piece of the original story was false: no bulky jacket, the MET confirmed he didn't jump the turnstile, and he was shot not five times in the head, but seven, and once in the shoulder.   

I don't know what will happen with this from here on out, but its not a stretch to say that trying to deflect criticism by concocting a story that is pretty easy to destroy with even a little investigation doesn't work at any level and only causes more pain for those involved.  My sympathies to the de Menezes family.

Remember this video when someone tells you how much the man has grown in office.

Although it is too soon to say that all is well in Northern Ireland, this a welcome development and the culmination of more than twenty-five years of debate within Irish Republican circles over the efficacy of pursuing their goals through the political process.  Northern Ireland may no longer be the focus of Anglo-American relations the way it was in the 1990's but it is my hope that we will continue to support British and Irish efforts to bring all groups into a workable political framework.

Read the statement.

Well, not quite but it should henceforth be call "The Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism".  Not nearly as sexy a political phrase as the old "GWOT", in fact it really doesn't roll off the tongue at all, but it does retains many of the unfocused and openended qualities of our previous committment. 

I especially love all the quotes about how the change in terminology was important because we needed to signal that this struggle would not be won by the use of American military power alone.  Funny how in the last election cycle such a suggestion showed you weren't serious about defending the United States and at the very least put you in league with the terrorists. 

 

Update:  Fred Kaplan over at Slate isn't impressed with the new slogan although he does note that as an acronym it spells GSAVE (SAVE the World, maybe?) which is kinda catchy if you're hip enough to get it.

Although the Iraq situation is generally the biggest FUBAR'd situation for the U.S. since Viet Nam, I do think we have done a few things right.  Take for example, our guidance on the constitutional principles that the Constitutional Assembly is supposed to be using to guide its drafting of the new Iraqi constitution.  What the Iraqis came up with based on this guidance sounds like it is a very good start:

1. the principle of the republican system
2. the principle of Democracy
3. the principle of federalism and decentralization of governance
4. the principle of Islam being the official religion of Iraq and a source of legislation
5. the principle of equality in rights and freedoms
6. the principle of the separation of the three powers and the independence of judges
7. the principle of peacefulness in international relationships and the rejection of violence and terrorism
8. the principle of the unity of Iraq’s people and land
9. the principle of civilian power over military
10. the principle of Iraq’s independence and sovereignty
11. the principle of natural resources being owned by the people
12. the principle of acknowledging that Iraq is a multi-ethnic, mulit-religious country
13. the principle of the family forming the forming unit of society
14. the constitution and the law is above all
15. the role of civil society organizations in monitoring the work of governmental institutions.
16. for the articulation of paragraphs 3 and 4 what has been stated in the Iraqi Transitional Law should be observed

Let's hope these lofty and well-crafted goals do not sink under the weight of our endless mistakes in Iraq.

Our point man to deflect any criticism of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Barack Obama, Senator from Illinois.

The drafting of Iraq's constitution stumbled when Sunnis drafting the vital document boycotted a key meeting, as Al-Qaeda claimed the recent abduction of two Algerian diplomats in Baghdad.

"None of the Sunni members of the committee attended the meeting," Ayad al-Samarrai, spokesman for the Islamic Party, a leading Sunni faction, told AFP.  The 15 Sunni Arab members of the committee, most of whom were coopted on to the parliamentary committee, announced Thursday they would not attend meetings after two of their number were gunned down in the capital on Tuesday.

While the Sunnis have demanded an international investigation into the killings, their withdrawal could raise questions about the constitution's legitimacy in the eyes of the disenchanted Sunni minority.

That in turn could lead to the new constitution being turned down in a referendum scheduled for mid-October as rules stipulate it can be rejected if two-thirds of people vote against it in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces.

Sunni Arabs form a majority in Al-Anbar, Salaheddin and Nineveh provinces.

Thank God we have been pouring billions in there, we should be able to fix it:

US diplomats have been "talking intensively with all the key players in the Iraqi constitutional negotiations," a senior US official told reporters Friday.

They have urged them to be "flexible" and "realistic", while stressing "the tremendous importance" of meeting an August 15 deadline to complete the draft constitution.

We've been in Iraq for 856 days.  Somebody do something.

NFL agent Drew Rosenhaus has a strategy for almost all of his clients.  If you have a breakout season in the middle of a contract, hold out.  Terrell Owens and Javon Walker are two such players.  They apparently think breaking a signed contract makes sense.  Rosenhaus is a little "too" good with the media though.  He's a practioner of the latest fad, the Big Lie.  Sound reasonable when saying something totally outrageous and the fact that you can say it counts for something.  Unfortunately for Rosenhaus and his clients, it doesn't count for much.  Read:

The Voice of Reason:

"The Packers say they aren't going to change their position, so we are leaning that way. We're hoping for a change of heart or a trade," Drew Rosenhaus told the Associated Press.

The people who won't discuss our outrageous demands are unreasonable.  Talking is good:

Rosenhaus said the Packers have refused to negotiate with him ever since he first approached the team this spring to tear up Walker's current contract, which has two years remaining and calls for him to make $515,000 this season. "I haven't had very many holdouts in my career, but I've been unable to get the Packers to commit to any discussion of a new deal," Rosenhaus said. "The Packers have refused to negotiate with us. They expect him to play the year out." 

No shit.  Isn't that what you agreed to do?

Rosenhaus said that won't happen.

"I can't let this player go out on the field and jeopardize his career for that kind of money. I just can't fathom it," he said in an interview with HBO taped last Friday and scheduled to air next week.

Dumbass goes off on Farve, too:

Walker's holdout threat has drawn the ire of quarterback Brett Favre, who also criticized Rosenhaus for his tactics.

Rosenhaus responded by saying Favre should call him to get all the facts.

"I don't think he'll answer my calls," Favre said this week while playing in a charity pro-am at the US Bank Championship golf tournament in Milwaukee. "Set me straight on what? I've played 14 straight years. I have not held out one time. He has nothing to say to me."

Rosenhaus said Wednesday he has plenty to say to the three-time MVP.

"I reached out to Brett. If you take issue with our position, call me," Rosenhaus said. "I'm not allowed to call him. But if he calls me, I'll tell him what our status is. I don't think he knows all the facts. I'd love to fill him in."

Walker will play.  Rosenhaus is done.

Remember that anonymous source for the NY Times known as  "someone who has officially been briefed on the matter" who gave them the "a journalist did it" scoop? 

Well, it looks like his real name is:  Robert Luskin, Rove's lawyer. 

I had heard something to this effect last night, but it appears the Sunni delegation to the constitutional committee has left and is currently boycotting the proceedings.   

It gets hot and heavy.

Bloomberg's Richard Keil will reveal tonight: "Two top White House aides have given accounts to the special prosecutor about how reporters told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to persons familiar with the case.

Lewis “Scooter'’ Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn’t tell Libby of Plame’s identity.

And some people call me cynical......

Question: When was the last time a President interrupted primetime network broadcasting at 9pm to present his Supreme Court pick?

Look familiar?

Yep.

Al-Jaafari, for his part, expressed pleasure over his meeting with Ayatollah Khamenei. He called the late Imam Khomeini the key to the victory of the Islamic Revolution, adding, “We hope to eliminate the dark pages Saddam caused in Iran-Iraq ties and open a new chapter in brotherly ties between the two nations.”

Everyone knows the truth:

Some people just don't tell it.  (Thanks, Al)

Bush starts to auger in.  You can imagine what the effect will be on his approval numbers.  Now the hammer and the anvil.  The Christian Right does not understand that Bush's position has degraded to the point it has.  If they push him on his nominee and retreat from him they way they have deserted the Republicans in the Senate, there's no limit to how low Bush can go.  The 25% here who believe Bush is cooperating with the prosecutor are probably his floor.  They'll believe he always tells the truth.  They haven't realized it yet.  Pretty much everyone else knows he lies all day long.

Ironically, they don't even know the danger.   True believers, they are eating up what Ken Mehlman has to say right now.  That means that they do not understand the danger and will push for a conservative nominee, undermining Bush at his weakest.  Too bad for them it appears some people from the White House are going to be indicted.

Another hammer and anvil--the August 15 deadline for Iraq to write a constitution.  The Sunnis will be out in main force strength.  We need to beef up troops IMMEDIATELY.  I hope they have planned for a big upsurge in violence.  Iraq needs us now and Bush keeps letting it down.

The worst of it?  Afghanistan is the deep dark secret Bush doesn't want you to know.