Today, the Iraqi and Afghan people are on the path to democracy and freedom. The governments that are rising will pose no threat to others. Instead of harboring terrorists, they’re fighting terrorist groups. And this progress is good for the long-term security of us all. George W. Bush, UN General Assembly, September 21, 2004
Gunmen have seized six Egyptians in a raid on their Baghdad office, Iraqi officials say, the third in a series of kidnappings of foreigners in the Iraqi capital this month.
[…]
Rahman said the Egyptians work for Iraqna, a subsidiary of Orascom which is an Egyptian-owned mobile telecommunications company.
Last week, two Americans and a Briton were kidnapped at their home in Baghdad by armed men.
A group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi later beheaded the Americans, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley, and posted video footage of the killings on the Internet.
But, don’t worry about it. We’ll stop hearing about all this unpleasantness soon. It’s only a matter of time before it’s too dangerous for any journalists to report on what’s going on:
Germany’s biggest television network, ARD, said on Friday it planned to pull out its two correspondents in Iraq after a foreign ministry warning that German journalists could be singled out for kidnappings.
Separately, the Spanish government has recommended to media that they withdraw their correspondents from Iraq following the increase in attacks and kidnappings there, the newspaper El Mundo said on its Web site on Friday.
The Spanish news agency EFE has withdrawn its only Spanish correspondent, Jose Manuel Seage, from Baghdad, a senior journalist at the agency said.
More than 100 foreigners have been abducted in Iraq since April in a deepening campaign, among them two French journalists who are still being held. Most hostages have been released, but around 30 have been killed.
The German foreign ministry last week strengthened a warning originally issued in March 2003 that mentioned journalists and the “very high risk” of kidnapping. But it declined to comment specifically on the issue on Friday.
[…]
Until this month, almost all the kidnapped foreigners were snatched on Iraq’s perilous roads. But the capture of foreigners in Baghdad in operations that seem carefully planned is an escalation that has alarmed foreign embassies and firms.
Everything is going very well. If it weren’t for that little problem with fifty percent unemployment, civil war, beheadings and suicide bombers, it would be a lot like Nebraska.
What happens when a horserace is being called by different commentators in completely different ways? This post in Salon’s War Room again shows that something has gone seriously wrong with the polling this election:
It’s been said that the 2004 election would be a challenge for pollsters, and today’s polls are a fine demonstration. Put simply, side by side they make little to no sense.
In the national arena, the Associated Press finds Bush up by nine points, 52-41. An Economist poll, conducted on the same days, finds Kerry leading by one point. Both surveys were of registered voters, so previous disputes between pollsters regarding who constitutes a likely voter, can’t account for the discrepancy.
Some new state polls also lead nowhere, with Wisconsin going from a two-point Kerry lead to a 14-point Bush romp in 24 hours, and Oregon, which went from a 12-point Kerry rout to a one-point Bush lead in the same span. And two Florida polls released today are at odds. Gallup gives Bush a 47-45 lead among registered voters, while Quinnipiac University finds Bush ahead 49-41.
I wonder if the campaigns can trust their own polls any more than these? How scary. Politics without a net.
I’m beginning to truly believe that this race is the one we’ve all been waiting for for the last few cycles — the election when so many people screen their calls and so many people use cell phones that you can no longer get an accurate sample.
One experiment worth watching is the Zogby online poll. He seems to have faith that he’s got a good model. We’ll see.
If we don’t see a better consensus before November 2nd, it’s going to be one nail-biter of a night.
Following up on my earlier post about the Bush campaign claiming that Kerry is causing the insurgency, I find this article by Matt Yglesias that points out that two-faced Junior Codpiece is actually doing it. it is one of the most egregious cases of projection we’ve yet seen.
Bush has adopted policies designed to keep the death count low, primarily by avoiding ground combat in the Sunni triangle. Good campaign tactics, needless to say, but, as ever, the Bush team seems better at winning elections than winning wars. By delaying any assault on the wily Salafi terrorists (read: Democratic campaign operatives) lurking in Fallujah, Samarra, Ramadi, and Baquba until after November, we give them more time to dig in, prepare defenses, and strengthen their forces before the attack.
An important point comes next, so it gets a paragraph of its own: This plan will get people killed. If an assault is to be mounted, it should be done as soon as possible, before the adversary has been given months to prepare for it. The Marines and soldiers serving in Iraq volunteered for the military, but they’ve been conscripted into the Bush campaign. Decisions, as Lieutenant General James Conway recently stated, are being made on the basis of narrow political considerations rather than military ones. It’s appropriate for generals to be subordinate to civilian politicians, but not to civilian campaign strategists. We’re waging war as an extension of an electoral campaign, exposing our soldiers to harassing attacks right now and to a more difficult fight later on in order to help secure the president’s re-election.
George W. Bush is setting up our soldiers for a killing field in order to keep the casualty count down during the election campaign. There’s a word for that and starts with a “t” and ends with a “reason.”
As I watched Judy Woodruff go on and on yesterday about the alleged Security Moms and how they are abandoning the Democrats in favor of that handsome hunk of manhood, Crusader Codpiece, I was reminded of the interesting piece that Matt Stoller wrote during the RNC on the subject.
This “security mom” story is a campaign tactic to keep Republican women in the fold. The bogus polls gave them cover to make their appeal based upon a two-faced premise that they were already busting the gender gap open. Attractive housewives have been popping up all over television to discuss “their issues” and make the case for Junior as their security teddy bear.
Here’s what Matt reported from a GOP training seminar for women at the GOP convention:
“The Bush campaign is not anywhere in the hemisphere of where these women are…” Leslie Sanchez, political analyst for Bush/Cheney
I spent three and a half hours in a training session for grassroots leaders of the GOP, hosted by GOPAC, Newt Gingrich’s group that led the Republican Congressional takeover in 1994. …the most interesting part of the day was a presentation by Leslie Sanchez, Bush/Cheney advisor and frequent commentator on MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN, on how to win women voters. According to Sanchez, women voters make up the majority of registered voters in every battleground state, and they are angst-ridden, scared, tolerant, cynical, distrusting, and want and fear change. They are also the key to this election.
In 2000, there was an eleven point gender gap in terms of Republican support for women. Women are more often registered to vote, they are usually registered independent, and Republican women – who tend to be married – are voting increasingly for Democrats. The model is that they first vote for a Democratic female, and then start voting for Democratic candidates in general. This trend is worrisome to Republicans. The target for the Bush campaign this year is married women with high religiosity, women who voted for Bush in 2000 and value their family’s safety.
[…]
The bottom line here is that the President’s messaging strategy so far has been a failure with women, and women will decide this election. This Convention is an attempt to fix this political problem, but the only real solution is to scare women into voting for him, because Bush has no real successes that he can credibly point to (and that women believe).
In other words, the “security mom” is actually a Republican who Rove is fearful of losing, not a Democrat who is drifting to the Republicans. As usual, the media got seriously spun.
Indeed, just about the only evidence you can find in support of the security mom proposition comes from the New York Times/CBS poll. A Times/CBS poll conducted September 12-16 found that Bush gained 14 points relative to Kerry among women since mid-August, but a mere four points relative to men (itself a highly dubious proposition), which would have narrowed the gender gap substantially. When I asked CBS polling director Kathy Frankovic about this, her response was sheepish. “I attribute it to short-term/long-term” differences, she said. In any case, Frankovic was quick to add, CBS had just finished another poll, which showed a return of the “gender gap one would expect.”
Joie Chen on CNN just interviewed Brigadier General David Grange who basically said that John Kerry is causing the insurgency in Iraq because he is criticizing the president and “emboldening” the bad guys. (Poodles Chen and Grange hit all the GOP catch phrases right on cue.) It looks as if their plan is to say that the increased violence is John Kerry’s responsibility in the hopes that Kerry will ratchet down his effective attack.(See Cheney’s remarks of yesterday which he is repeating on the trail today.)
This is just the latest chapter in the classic post 9/11 playbook in which they virtually shut down dissent and paralyzed the country with accusations of 5th columns and treason for speaking out against two-faced Junior Bush. More and more it looks to me as if Rove is simply running a 2002 replay, which depended on keeping the dems off balance on national security and ginning up turnout.
It does not appear that Kerry is going to fall for this line of balderdash and I hope that the red staters in tight contests can resist the urge to fall in line. I think giving in on this is much worse for the Democrat psychologically than aggressively responding. At this point, when Junior forces a member of the opposition to bow to his will it makes them look much weaker than if they are bloodied in the fight.
I’ve noticed that the wingnuts always vociferously deny impugning the patriotism of their rivals even though they constantly do it. So, I’m hoping the Dems run straight at their accusers with this latest nonsense. I suspect this patented fratboy “don’t blame me” strategy is not ringing true with the swing voters. It’s just kool-aid for the faithful in a turn-out street fight.
We Dems have been enjoying a little sip of a nice Cabernet (we don’t drink children’s drinks) ourselves these past few days and it tastes quite good. Give ’em hell John-John.
“You don’t listen to the president? We’re gonna mop the floor with the whole fuckin’ world. The whole world’s gonna be under our control. So what are you worked up about? “
I know the country is feeling all gushy and gooey about our handpicked Iraqi George Washington and all, but it’s probably good to keep in mind that in spite of Junior’s eloquent rendering of his courage in facing Saddam’s henchmen at the foot of the bed in his posh London townhouse, Allawi is reportedly a homicidal maniac himself. This explains why Bush and Cheney love him so much, but the press corpse should probably be a little bit more skeptical:
Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings.
They say the prisoners – handcuffed and blindfolded – were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city’s south-western suburbs.
They say Dr Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they “deserved worse than death”.
The Prime Minister’s office has denied the entirety of the witness accounts in a written statement to the Herald, saying Dr Allawi had never visited the centre and he did not carry a gun.
But the informants told the Herald that Dr Allawi shot each young man in the head as about a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister’s personal security team watched in stunned silence.
[…]
Given Dr Allawi’s role as the leader of the US experiment in planting a model democracy in the Middle East, allegations of a return to the cold-blooded tactics of his predecessor are likely to stir a simmering debate on how well Washington knows its man in Baghdad, and precisely what he envisages for the new Iraq.
There is much debate and rumour in Baghdad about the Prime Minister’s capacity for brutality, but this is the first time eyewitness accounts have been obtained.
A former CIA officer, Vincent Cannisatraro, recently told The New Yorker: “If you’re asking me if Allawi has blood on his hands from his days in London, the answer is yes, he does. He was a paid Mukhabarat [intelligence] agent for the Iraqis, and he was involved in dirty stuff.”
[…]
The witnesses said the Iraqi police observers were “shocked and surprised”. But asked what message they might take from such an act, one said: “Any terrorists in Iraq should have the same destiny. This is the new Iraq.
“Allawi wanted to send a message to his policemen and soldiers not to be scared if they kill anyone – especially, they are not to worry about tribal revenge. He said there would be an order from him and the Interior Ministry that all would be fully protected.
“He told them: ‘We must destroy anyone who wants to destroy Iraq and kill our people.’
“At first they were surprised. I was scared – but now the police seem to be very happy about this. There was no anger at all, because so many policemen have been killed by these criminals.”
[…]
One witness justified the shootings as an unintended act of mercy: “They were happy to die because they had already been beaten by the police for two to eight hours a day to make them talk.”
[…]
The Herald has established that as many as 30 people, including the victims, may have been in the courtyard. One of the witnesses said there were five or six civilian-clad American security men in a convoy of five or six late model four-wheel-drive vehicles that was shepherding Dr Allawi’s entourage on the day. The US military and Dr Allawi’s office refused to respond to questions about the composition of his security team. It is understood that the core of his protection unit is drawn from the US Special Forces units.
[…]
The two witnesses were independently and separately found by the Herald. Neither approached the newspaper. They were interviewed on different days in a private home in Baghdad, without being told the other had spoken. A condition of the co-operation of each man was that no personal information would be published.
Both interviews lasted more than 90 minutes and were conducted through an interpreter, with another journalist present for one of the meetings. The witnesses were not paid for the interviews.
Dr Allawi’s office has dismissed the allegations as rumours instigated by enemies of his interim government.
[…]
US officials in Iraq have not made an outright denial of the allegations. An emailed response to questions from the Herald to the US ambassador, John Negroponte, said: “If we attempted to refute each [rumour], we would have no time for other business. As far as this embassy’s press office is concerned, this case is closed.”
It’s worth noting that the reporter of this piece, Paul McGeough, is a widely respected hotshit investigative journalist. This story was buried, but it’s probably true. Allawi is a gangster, which explains his comfortable affiliation with the dumbshit Soprano of American politics, Junior Bush.
For too long our culture has said, “If it feels good, do it.” Now America is embracing a new ethic and a new creed: “Let’s roll.” In the sacrifice of soldiers, the fierce brotherhood of firefighters, and the bravery and generosity of ordinary citizens, we have glimpsed what a new culture of responsibility could look like. We want to be a nation that serves goals larger than self. We’ve been offered a unique opportunity, and we must not let this moment pass.
Inspiring words from the man who said:
“I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes.”
I have not been among those pumping my fist in blog triumphalism, but I have to say that when I went to Google News tonight and saw at the top of the page…
Vice President Cheney’s delicate sensibilities were bruised today by Senator Kerry’s bad manners:
“I must say I was appalled at the complete lack of respect Senator Kerry showed for this man of courage when he rushed to hold a press conference and attack the prime minister, a man America must stand beside to defeat the terrorists,” Cheney told an audience in St. Joseph, Missouri.
“John Kerry is trying to tear down all the good that has been accomplished, and his words are destructive to our effort in Iraq and in the global war on terror.
“As Prime Minister Allawi said in his speech, and I quote, ‘When political leaders sound the siren of defeatism in the face of terrorism, it only encourages more violence,'” Cheney added.
If there is one thing that the Bush Cheney administration will not stand for it’s disrespect to our allies around the world.
It’s quite clear that any criticism of the president’s leadership in a time of war is sounding the siren of defeatism in the face of terrorism. It’s another example of what Zell Miller decried at the Republican convention — Democrats determined to bring down the commander in chief by contesting an election. What could be more antithetical to freedom and democracy than that?
Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace, and America’s determination to lead the world in confronting that threat.
The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime’s own actions — its history of aggression, and its drive toward an arsenal of terror. Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons, and to stop all support for terrorist groups. The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism, and practices terror against its own people. The entire world has witnessed Iraq’s eleven-year history of defiance, deception and bad faith.
[…]
Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today — and we do — does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?
[…]
Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles — far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and other nations — in a region where more than 135,000 American civilians and service members live and work. We’ve also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We’re concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States. And, of course, sophisticated delivery systems aren’t required for a chemical or biological attack; all that might be required are a small container and one terrorist or Iraqi intelligence operative to deliver it.
[…]
Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.
Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract from the war against terror. To the contrary; confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror. When I spoke to Congress more than a year ago, I said that those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves. Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror, the instruments of mass death and destruction. And he cannot be trusted. The risk is simply too great that he will use them, or provide them to a terror network.
[…]
The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his “nuclear mujahideen” — his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.
If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. And if we allow that to happen, a terrible line would be crossed. Saddam Hussein would be in a position to blackmail anyone who opposes his aggression. He would be in a position to dominate the Middle East. He would be in a position to threaten America. And Saddam Hussein would be in a position to pass nuclear technology to terrorists.
[…]
Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. As President Kennedy said in October of 1962, “Neither the United States of America, nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world,” he said, “where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nations security to constitute maximum peril.”
Understanding the threats of our time, knowing the designs and deceptions of the Iraqi regime, we have every reason to assume the worst, and we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring.
David Kay, The Central Intelligence Agency’s outgoing chief weapons:
“I’m personally convinced that there were not large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction,” he said on Saturday. “We don’t find the people, the documents or the physical plants that you would expect to find if the production was going on. I think they gradually reduced stockpiles throughout the 1990s.”
Q. In the last campaign, you were asked a question about the biggest mistake you’d made in your life and you used to like to joke that it was trading Sammy Sosa. You’ve looked back before 9/11 for what mistakes might have been made. After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say? And what lessons have you learned from it?
A. Hmmm. I wish you’d have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it. I’m sure historians will look back and say, Gosh, he could have done it better this way or that way. You know, I just I’m sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn’t yet.
I would have gone into Afghanistan the way we went into Afghanistan. Even though what I know today about the stockpiles of weapons, I still would have called upon the world to deal with Saddam Hussein. See, I happen to believe we’ll find out the truth on the weapons. That’s why we sent up the independent commission. I look forward to hearing the truth as exactly where they are. They could still be there. They could be hidden, like, the 50 tons of mustard gas in a turkey farm.
One of the things that Charlie Duelfer talked about was that he was surprised at the level of intimidation he found amongst people who should know about weapons and their fear of talking about them, because they don’t want to be killed. You know, there’s this kind of, there’s this terror still in the soul of some of the people in Iraq. They’re worried about getting killed. And therefore, they’re not going to talk. And it’ll all settle out. We’ll find out the truth about the weapons at some point in time.
However, the fact that he had the capacity to make them bothers me today just like it would have bothered me then. He’s a dangerous man. He’s a man who actually not only had weapons of mass destruction — and the reason I can say that with certainty is because he used them. And I have no doubt in my mind that he would like to have inflicted harm or paid people to inflict harm or trained people to inflict harm on America because he hated us.
You know, I hope I don’t want to sound like I’ve made no mistakes. I’m confident I have. I just haven’t — you just put me under the spot here and maybe I’m not quick, as quick on my feet as I should be.
In Washington, in the tense months before war in Iraq, Charles Duelfer was confident. “Of course he is developing his weapons of mass destruction,” the American arms expert wrote of Saddam Hussein.
In Baghdad, however, Hans Blix was much less convinced. The UN weapons inspector, on the eve of the conflict, remarked sadly on the likelihood that armies would be “waging the war at a tremendous cost, and in the end find there was very little”.
In the end, as a hurricane distracted Americans, as terrorist car bombings and US air strikes bloodied Iraq, the findings of a Duelfer-led investigation were quietly leaked in Washington.
And, after 16 months of trying, what his teams have found is less than little.
In fact, the only unconventional weapon turned up in Iraq wasn’t turned up by the Americans at all, but by the other side, Iraq’s shadowy resistance.
In May, in an incident causing no serious injuries, insurgent fighters in Baghdad rigged an old artillery shell as a roadside bomb, apparently unaware it was loaded with sarin nerve agent.
Otherwise, two or three stray shells have been discovered with traces of degraded agent – far short of the 100 to 500 tons of usable chemical weapons that Secretary of State Colin Powell warned of on February 5 2003, as he sought a UN blessing for the US-British invasion.
Q Mr. President, you say today that the work in Iraq is tough and willremain tough. And, yet, you travel this country and a central theme of your campaign is that America is safer because of the invasion of Iraq. Can you understand why Americans may not believe you?
PRESIDENT BUSH: No. Anybody who says that we are safer with SaddamHussein in power is wrong. We went into Iraq because Saddam Hussein defied the demands of the free world. We went into Iraq after diplomacy had failed. And we went into Iraq because I understand after September the 11th we must take threats seriously, before they come to hurt us.
And I think it’s a preposterous claim to say that America would be better off with Saddam Hussein in power. I certainly know that that’s the case for America and I certainly know it’s the case for the Iraqi people. These are people who were tortured. This good man was abed in a London flat, and he wakes up with two Saddam henchmen there with axes, trying to cut him to pieces with an axe. And, fortunately, he’s alive today; fortunately, we call him friend and ally. But he knows what it means to have lived under a society in which a thug like Saddam Hussein would send people with axes to try to kill him in bed in a London flat. No, this world is better off with Saddam Hussein in prison.
Q Sir, may I just follow, because I don’t think you’re really answering the question. I mean, I think you’re responding to Senator Kerry, but there are beheadings regularly, the insurgent violence continues, and there are no weapons of mass destruction. My question is, can you understand that Americans may not believe you when you say that America is actually safer today?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Imagine a world in which Saddam Hussein were still in power. This is a man who harbored terrorists — Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal, Zarqawi. This is a man who was a sworn enemy of the United States of America. This is a man who used weapons of mass destruction. Going from tyranny todemocracy is hard work, but I think the argument that says that Saddam Hussein — if Saddam Hussein were still in power, we’d be better off is wrong.
King.
Q Sir, I’d like you answer Senator Kerry and other critics who accuse you of hypocrisy or opportunism when, on the one hand, you put so much stock in the CIA when it said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and now say it is just guessing when it paints a pessimistic picture of the political transition.
[…]
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes, got it. Listen, the other day I was asked about the NIE, which is a National Intelligence Estimate. This is a report that talks about possibilities about what can happen in Iraq, not probabilities. I used an unfortunate word, “guess.” I should have used, “estimate.” And the CIA came and said, this is a possibility, this is a possibility, and this is a possibility. But what’s important for the American people to hear is reality. And the reality is right here in the form of the Prime Minister. And he is explaining what is happening on the ground. That’s the best report. And this report was written in July, and now we are here in September, and as I said, “estimate” would have been a better word.
