Digby's Hullabaloo

Urban Legend

by digby

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, there was a U.S. military strike in northern Iraq against an Iranian facility. And that, perhaps, is causing just as much consternation as the president’s new Iraq plan.

It was during his speech, the president gave, perhaps, his most aggressive warnings to date to Iran and Syria to stop meddling in Iraq’s affairs. The president saying that he would seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weapons and training to U.S. enemies in Iraq.

Now, there have been many political observers, military observers, who took this to mean that this was, in fact, some sort of signal that perhaps a military operation was ready to go, was poised to strike either Iran or Syria.

What we’re hearing from White House officials and Pentagon officials, they are pouring cold water on this, trying to dismiss that notion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I want to address kind of a rumor and urban legend that’s going around. And it comes from language in the president’s Wednesday night address to the nation that, in talking about Iran and Syria, that he was trying to prepare the way for war with either country and that there were war preparations underway. There are not.

GEN. PETER PACE, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: We can take care of the security for our troops by doing the business we need to do inside of Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So, Wolf, they’re trying to make that very clear here, that this is not a war that they think is going to escalate or cross borders. The White House also, of course, engaged in an all out charm offensive. The president trying to win over at least members from his own party to come and support this new Iraq plan.

The president is hosting the Republican Congressional leadership at Camp David over the weekend, along with the wives, to try to help mend fences, if you will. And White House aides are saying, look, the president is under no delusions here that he’s going to win support right away. What they are counting on is simply buying time here to see if Iraqis come through.

They do believe that they’ll get a sense of that at least within a couple of months, whether or not those Iraqi forces are able to perform — Wolf.

So, Bush’s left field bellicose talk about Syria and Iran in his speech to the nation was meaningless. Pay no attention to the fact that he’s suddenly talking about patriot missiles and carrier groups and he’s assigning admirals to run the entire mideast military operation

I honestly don’t know what purpose Suzanne Malveaux’s report served except to have a pretty face deliver the white house spin. Her story was technically correct in that this was the official white house spin, but completely misleading. So was Tony Snow’s “urban legend” nonsense. Bush’s speech and recent actions cannot be interpreted any other way than they have been. If he didn’t mean to signal that he was ratcheting up the war in the mid-east to include Iran and Syria, then he has made another huge blunder by using language and taking actions that clearly indicate he is.

Here’s Flynt Leverett:

According to the President, the Iranians are providing “material support” to attacks on U.S. forces. That is a casus belli. It fits in with the administration’s escalating campaign — encompassing rhetoric and detentions of Iranian officials in Iraq — to blame Iran for a strategically significant part of the ongoing instability and violence in Iraq.

In the context of describing the deployment of additional U.S. forces to Iraq, the President also noted the importance of securing Iraq’s borders. I suspect that at least some of the additional U.S. soldiers going to Iraq will end up on the border with Iran.

Moreover, the President strongly implied that the U.S. military would start going after targets in countries neighboring Iraq to disrupt supply networks for insurgents and militias.

The deployment of a second carrier strike group to the theater — confirmed in the speech — is clearly directed against Iran. Since, in contrast to previous U.S. air campaigns in the Gulf, military planners developing contingencies for striking target sets in Iran must assume that the United States would not be able to use land-based air assets in theater (because of political opposition in the region), they are surely positing a force posture of at least two, and possible three carrier strike groups to provide the necessary numbers and variety of tactical aircraft.

Similarly, the President’s announcement that additional Patriot batteries would go to the Gulf is clearly directed against Iran. We have previously deployed Patriot batteries to the region to deal with the Iraqi SCUD threat. Today, the only missile threat in the region for the Patriot to address is posed, at least theoretically, by Iran’s Shihab-3.

Here’s Condi:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused yesterday to rule out cross-border US military action against Iran, a day after President Bush pledged in a major speech to “seek out and destroy” Iranian and Syrian networks providing weapons and training to anti-American forces in Iraq.

Speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rice said the United States plans to target the networks inside Iraq, but added, “obviously the president isn’t going to rule anything out to protect our troops.”

Her comments followed questioning from three senators, including a high-profile Republican, on whether Bush believes he has the authority to conduct military missions in Iran without congressional approval. Rice said she wanted more time to study the question and would answer in writing. The three senators expressed fears that Bush’s new initiative might escalate into a wider regional conflict.

There are only two feasible interpretations of what the president is doing. He is either trying to provoke the Iranians or he and his Mayberry Machiavellis had no idea what his words were conveying. I could believe either. If it was just the latest in a long series of tactical and strategic blunders then we are in the soup now and it will take a combination of luck and skill to get us out of it — I don’t have much hope. If the president was rattling the sabre at Iran and Syria and preparing the ground for expanding the war, then I have even less. These people are deluded and incompetent on a level not seen since the final days of Rome.

This is very bad.

Update: Dick Cheney has consolidated his power and influence throughout the government and has the strongest underground network among all the various players, even with Rumsfeld gone. This article by Laura Rozen about how few restraints he has, either bureaucratically or politically, is chilling in its implications. Apparently, we must hope that the bureaucracy that still exists after six years of purges and quashing of dissent speaks out. Great.