So Bin Laden is "virtually impotent," but Al Qaeda has "regained a significant level of their capability"

Wait, yesterday, Bush's Homeland Security adviser said the Osama Bin Laden was "virtually impotent." Yet, today, Bush's National Intelligence Director testified that Bin Laden's forces pose a real threat. What is it? And, if we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here, how can they still be a real threat? That can only happen because of Bush's failed leadership. On many levels, unfortunately, it's Bin Laden who is claiming "Mission Accomplished":

Six years after the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network is bleeding the U.S. military in Iraq while regrouping with an avowed aim of another strike on the United States.

U.S. intelligence agencies and other analysts say security improvements and international efforts against al Qaeda have helped prevent another major U.S. attack.

But the network's ability to attack the West is rebounding, they say, and already it has met what some analysts describe as a goal of luring the United States into a damaging Middle East war that would cripple U.S. influence in the region.

Al Qaeda has inspired cells and sympathizers who may be unable to strike on the scale of September 11 but can nevertheless cause death and destruction.

"They have regained a significant level of their capability," National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell said of al Qaeda during a Senate hearing on Monday, the eve of the sixth anniversary. "The threat is real," he said.

So, six years later, despite all the tough guy talk, the terrorists who attacked America are still a real threat. Plus, they've lured us into an intractable war in Middle East. And, of course, Bin Laden is still free to taunt us. So who exactly is "virtually impotent" these days? Not Bin Laden. Read More......

Larry Craig: It's all the fault of the press

It was nice to wake up on a Monday and have a full laugh-out-loud moment like this. May the jokes start up all over again. (AP):

Sen. Larry Craig should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea in a sex sting because he was under extreme stress after being hounded by journalists asking questions about his sexuality, his lawyer argues.

...In particular, Martin cited pressure from Craig's hometown newspaper, the Idaho Statesman, which spent months investigating whether Craig engaged in homosexual encounters.

Craig, who has denied such suggestions and accused the newspaper of conducting a "witch hunt," was so concerned about that investigation, he quickly pleaded guilty when arrested in the bathroom sex sting, Martin said. Craig did not consult with a lawyer or appear in court.

...Craig will also argue in court documents that he cannot have pleaded guilty since what he did was not illegal. The police officer said Craig bumped his foot, then tried to signal him with hand gestures beneath the stall divider.

Craig maintains he inadvertently touched the officer's foot but made no hand gestures. He said he was merely picking up a piece of paper.

W-E-A-K. The newspaper was investigating whether you were a Republican Sexual Hypocrite. I like this whining about witch hunts when there are plenty of those going on under Don't Ask, Don't Tell, investigating patriotic men and women, not for potty cruising/lewd behavior as Craig pled guilty to, but for an accusation or suspicion of being gay. How does it feel, Larry? If his defense is successful -- that the behavior he engaged in (wide stance toe-tapping and "picking up paper" isn't illegal -- then that could lead other bathroom sting cases going bye-bye. That should make the right wing ecstatic! Also, take a look at a piece in today's NYT that discusses Craig's case -- and those of other men caught in stings at the Minnesota airport.

At this point Craig is small potatoes -- you don't have the MSM looking into what could be a potentially much more serious GOP gay scandal surrounding a murder-suicide case. Read More......

No wonder Fred Thompson thinks Osama deserves "due process," he's probably looking for a new client

Fred Thompson helped the Libyans who blew up Pan Am 103. Thompson now says that Osama deserves due process. Anyone else see the connection?

(Funny that when Howard Dean said something similar years back he was skewered by the Republicans.) Interesting that suspected terrorists at Guantanamo don't get due process, but Thompson thinks known terrorists like Osama due. I just find that curious.

Say what you will about John Edwards and the trial lawyers, but I don't recall any Democratic front runners representing terrorists. Read More......

New Orleans prostitute had a "four-month relationship" with Vitter -- and she's doing a press conference about it

Tomorrow, a former prostitute is going to tell us all about her "relationship" with David Vitter, the Senator from Louisiana. Depending on the details, this revelation should get Vitter another standing ovation from his Senate colleagues:

A former New Orleans prostitute who says she had an affair with Sen. David Vitter has passed a lie-detector test and will provide details of the four-month relationship at a press conference Tuesday, according to Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt.

Wendy Cortez, whose real name is Wendy Ellis, says she had a sexual relationship with Vitter, R-La., in 1999, when he was a state legislator.

Copies of the results of Cortez's polygraph test, which she took at Flynt's request, will be provided to reporters at the news conference at Flynt's office in Beverly Hills, Calif., Hustler said in a news release Monday.

Vitter spokesman Joel Digrado wouldn't comment on the Flynt news conference. In an e-mail, Digrado said, "Sen. Vitter and his wife have addressed all of this very directly. The senator is focused on important Louisiana priorities like the water resources bill and the Iraq debate."

Interesting that Katrina recovery and rebuilding New Orleans aren't "important Louisiana priorities" for Vitter. But, he does have other things to worry about. Read More......

Changing (A Different) Failed Policy

This blog, like all of Washington, is focused on the testimony and report of General Petraeus. As for me, I'm not really all that interested. If I wanted to see a lousy, contrived performance, I'll watch the replay of Britney Spears at the MTV Awards (zing!).

On the other hand, this article caught my eye. It's about Cuban-Americans in Miami supporting Sen. Obama, even though he wants to lift some of the restrictions we place on relations with Cuba.

For Obama, it's good politics and good policy. First, it shows he is the real change agent. And second, I think it will get him some votes in Miami from younger Cubans, who want to move away from the failed Cuba policy of the past (when a policy designed to take down Castro hasn't worked for about a half century, I think it safely can be described as a failure).

It's policy proposals like this that make me like Obama and his team. I hope other candidates, and specifaclly other Democrats take note. Read More......

Fact checking the testimony of Petraeus (and the Bush administration). The numbers don't add up.

The Senate Democrats did a fact check of the testimony delivered by General Petraeus. It's a very good and thorough rebuttal to today's presentation -- and because of its relevance, we're posting the whole document:

Today in his prepared remarks, General Petraeus made the following statements regarding sectarian violence in Iraq. Unfortunately, his remarks raise as many questions as answers.

General Petraeus Claimed the Pentagon’s Methodology for Tracking Sectarian Killings Was Reviewed By Two US Intelligence Agencies, But Did Not Name Them. In his prepared remarks, General Petraeus argued, “We endeavor to ensure our analysis of that data is conducted with rigor and consistency, as our ability to achieve a nuanced understanding of the security environment is dependent on collecting and analyzing data in a consistent way over time. Two US intelligence agencies recently reviewed our methodology, and they concluded that the data we produce is the most accurate and authoritative in Iraq.” [LINK]

However, U.S. Intelligence Officials Questioned Pentagon’s Methods of Tracking Violence in Iraq. “The intelligence community has its own problems with military calculations. Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. ‘If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian,’ the official said. ‘If it went through the front, it's criminal.’” [Washington Post, 9/6/07]

A Military Spokesman Admitted It Did Not Track Shiite-on-Shiite or Sunni-on-Sunni Violence. “According to a spokesman for the Baghdad headquarters of the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), those attacks are not included in the military's statistics. ‘Given a lack of capability to accurately track Shiite-on-Shiite and Sunni-on-Sunni violence, except in certain instances,’ the spokesman said, ‘we do not track this data to any significant degree.’” [Washington Post, 9/6/07]

And, the GAO Found Claims of Decreased Sectarian Violence Could Not Be Verified. “On trends in sectarian violence, we could not determine if sectarian violence had declined since the start of the Baghdad Security Plan. The administration’s July 2007 report stated that MNF-I trend data demonstrated a decrease in sectarian violence since the start of the Baghdad Security Plan in mid-February 2007. The report acknowledged that precise measurements vary, and that it was too early to determine if the decrease would be sustainable.” [GAO Report: Securing, Stabilizing and Rebuilding Iraq, September 2007]

General Petraeus Claimed the Number of Car Bombings Has Come Down. In his prepared remarks, General Petraeus argued, “The number of car bombings and suicide attacks has also declined in each of the past 5 months, from a high of some 175 in March, as this chart shows, to about 90 this past month. While this trend in recent months has been heartening, the number of high profile attacks is still too high, and we continue to work hard to destroy the networks that carry out these barbaric attacks.” [LINK]

However, The Military Does Not Include Car Bombings in Sectarian Violence Statistics. “According to U.S. military figures, an average of 1,000 Iraqis have died each month since March in sectarian violence. That compares with about 1,200 a month at the start of the security plan, the military said in an e-mailed response to queries. This does not include deaths from car bombings, which the military said have numbered more than 2,600 this year.” [LA Times, 9/4/07 ]

And, The Number of Car Bombings In Iraq Was Five Percent Higher in July 2007 than in December 2006. The number of car bombings in July actually was 5 percent higher than the number recorded last December, according to statistics given to the McClatchy news organization, and the number of civilians killed in explosions is about the same. [McClatchy Newspapers, 8/15/07]

General Petraeus Claimed the Number of Ethno-Sectarian Deaths Has Come Down By Over 55 Percent. In his prepared remarks, General Petraeus argued, “The number of ethno-sectarian deaths, an important subset of the overall civilian casualty figures, has also declined significantly since the height of the sectarian violence in December. Iraq-wide, as shown by the top line on this chart, the number of ethno-sectarian deaths has come down by over 55%” [LINK]

However, The Overall Death Toll in Iraq Has Risen. According to Iraq’s Interior Ministry, which provided figures to The New York Times 2,318 civilians died violently in the country in August, compared with 1,980 in July. Statistics compiled from Iraqi government sources by Reuters and The Associated Press also showed significant increases, although the precise figures varied. [New York Times, 9/2/07]

And The Comptroller General Said There Were Various Sources of Violence Statistics in U.S. Government Which Did Not Agree. “Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers -- most of which are classified -- are often confusing and contradictory. ‘Let's just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree,’ Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.” [Washington Post, 9/6/07]

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While Petraeus whitewashes Iraq, the abuse of our troops continues

Why do Republicans hate our troops? They owe every American service member an apology for the continually abysmal treatment our vets receive at the hands of this Republican administration. Mitch McConnell, Tony Snow and the Republicans love to talk about standing by our troops while using them as political props, but when our troops are actually being abused, McConnell and Snow and the Republicans are silent. Read More......

Petraeus deception begins

Petraeus today before Congress:

When I testified in January, for example, no one would have dared to forecast that Anbar Province would have been transformed the way it has in the past 6 months.

What Petraeus said 6 months ago at his confirmation hearing (via CQ, subscription only link):

"You've seen it, I know, in Anbar province, where it has sort of gone back and forth. And right now, there appears to be a trend in the positive direction where sheiks are stepping up, and they do want to be affiliated with and supported by the U.S. Marines and Army forces who are in Anbar province. That was not the case as little as perhaps six months ago, or certainly before that."

Not an outright lie, but still he's twisting his own words. He spun Anbar positively in January, now he's trying to pretend like the positive developments in Anbar are some kind of huge surprise that we had no inkling of back in January. The man simply can't keep his stories straight because he's always spinning. Read More......

Live blogging Petraeus' report on himself

Democracy Arsenal is doing the dirty work, so you don't have to. But feel free to join in.

Oh this is good. Petraeus just said that he hopes that we can get to the point where we can get back to the pre-surge levels of 130,000 or so US troops in Iraq by next summer. That means in a year he hopes we can have the same level of forces we've had there for years. We're in Iraq forever. Read More......

So did Petraeus cook the books about Iraq's security forces or not?

I hear he did, and that he got an earful from US government officials about it. They told him to stop lying to the public and to congress and to the media, to stop falsely inflating the number of security forces he trained (but really didn't), to stop cooking the books about the situation in Iraq.

Petraeus has a reputation in the US government of being a yes-man who always presents a rosy picture, even when things aren't so rosy. Petraeus has a reputation for not telling the truth (especially when assessing his own work).

Hopefully, some member of Congress will ask Petraeus if he was scolded privately by Bush administration officials for cooking the books about Iraq's security forces. If he says no, I hear he'd be lying. And while testifying, that's a crime. Read More......

Real experts on the Petraeus report

A little over a year ago, I started working for a small, upstart group called the National Security Network. I was wary of think tanks for a variety of reasons, but I thought the organization had great potential. NSN had a founder, Rand Beers, who was an actual expert on terrorism and who got the Iraq war right, and policy and communications leadership with talent, aggressiveness, and good political instincts.

Still, I felt like my blog life and establishment life were starkly separate. There wasn't a ton of communication between those worlds, key people didn't know each other, and there was some mistrust.

Today, however, thanks to tons of hard work and the occasional leap of faith, there is unbelievable cooperation and stellar results. Iraq -- and especially the escalation of troops -- has brought together activists, wonks, bloggers, and establishment types to work for a sane foreign policy. It's a privilege to be part of so many valuable parts of this effort, especially when the quality is at the level of NSN's latest, a video of *actual* experts explaining exactly why the Petraeus White House September "report" on Iraq is completely and utterly bogus:



Richard Clarke's comment is especially worth repeating: "What it's going to say is, if we keep troops in a given area, a lot of troops in a small area, we can achieve security in that area. Well, duh, of course we can! The United States military, which is costing us a half a trillion dollars, ought to be able to do that. That's not the issue: the issue is, why the hell are we there in the first place?"

Indeed. Read More......

Reviews are in. "The Surge" sucks.

Petraeus and Bush may love "The Surge." But, it's getting panned by the public. Check out this new video shorty by Hollywood genius Andy Cobb - it's hysterical (and sad):
Read More......

Iraqis say surge has failed. Only 25% say security has improved in past six months.

I wonder if General Petraeus will mention this when testifying to Congress today on how well General Petraeus has done in Iraq?

And by the way, general - lying to congress, even if you're not sworn in, is a crime. Just thought I'd mention that since you've gotten into so much trouble in the past (and got balled out for it) for lying to the media, the congress and the public about the number of Iraqi security forces you supposedly trained, but really didn't. Someone in congress needs to ask Petraeus about this today while testifying - did he or did he not get bawled out by Negroponte for misrepresenting the situation on the ground with the Iraqis security force training? Read More......

The market at Rue Daguerre

Chris (in Paris), his wife Joelle and I decided to go shopping yesterday at the street market at the Rue Daguerre. It's in the 14th arrondissement, near Metro Denfert-Rochereau. (We walk there from Chris' place via the Cimitiere Montparnasse, a neat above-the-ground cemetery, where Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, among others, are buried). This is a market I used to frequent when I studied in Paris 25 years ago (25 years, ugh) - I lived around the corner. On the map above, I've marked the street market with a nice long yellow tint. The arrow at the end of the market is the bakery that I talk about below (and the cafe I talk about is right next to the bakery).



Here's the meatshop on the Rue Daguerre.



The street market at Rue Daguerre is only open until 1pm, though open most days (maybe closed Mondays). Here's a quick video of the market yesterday.


Chris likes to go to a great, very typical, cafe at the end of Rue Daguerre, at the intersection with avenue du General Leclerc, right on the NW corner. Chris and Joelle ordered "cafe" - i.e., strong black coffee - and I got my usual, a "creme" (a cafe-au-lait, though in Paris they're called cremes). Total for 3 coffees: 5 euros (should be 5 bucks, but with the screwed up exchange rate it's more like 7 now).



Here's a quick video of the cafe, with cameos by Chris and Joelle (Joelle was reading about the Rugby World Cup taking place in Paris at the moment - more on that shortly).

Click To Play

Another view looking out of the cafe.



And finally, a woman sitting outside the cafe, as shot from the inside window.



Next we went to an organic bakery right off the Rue Daguerre. It's called, Moisan, and it's at 4, avenue du General Leclerc. They have great bread and pastries. Chris had us buy a "kouign amann" - pronounced "KOON-ya-man." Kind of a sweetened roll, from Brittany. Excellent. Here's a close-up of the kouign amman, with a row of palmiers in the middle.



Here's the bakery window.



And again, a quick video entering the bakery. Check out the bustle.


A closer look at the baked goods available in the bakery. It's funny, you probably can't hear it on the video, but the entire scene was one big "bonjour, bonjour, bonjour" as they served the never-ending swarm of customers.


And finally, rugby. It's the world cup of rugby here this month and the town is insane. The only sport I understand less about than soccer is rugby. Lots of ads all over town, and oh, they're the kind of ads that the French do so well.

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Musharraf government deports Sharif

This case will now move into the court system which may not be as friendly to Musharraf as the military.

About four hours after he arrived on a flight from London, Sharif was taken into custody and charged with corruption, but then quickly spirited to another plane and flown out of Pakistan toward Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, an intelligence official said.

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Previously exiled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrives in Pakistan

Sharif was greeted at the airport by police and has since been detained. Musharraf had warned against his return, fearing even greater disruptions to his own rule which is increasingly losing its grip on the country. So how is the Bush administration planning for the very likely, next dramatic change to one of its closest allies in the so-called war on terror? Read More......

Why did retired British General Mike Jackson send his troops to die if the plan was so bad?

I've heard about enough out of this sniveling little worm who now conveniently finds the backbone to stand up and criticize Rumsfeld and the Pentagon but somehow when he was actually in a position of power, failed to take a stance and say no. Listening to this sorry excuse for a leader makes me want to be ill because he just can't have it both ways. Jackson was comfortable enough with the plan to send UK troops into battle and join the campaign himself so why the criticism today when the public is overwhelming against the Iraq fiasco? What ever happened to showing leadership when it matters and when something can actually be done about it?

Criticizing this mess is one thing and none of us here have been short on criticism of the war but this is nothing more than a self serving attempt to cover his own failure as the top military leader in the UK, who sent his own troops into Iraq to die. Maybe the military in the UK and the US will figure out what true leadership is all about but this is quite the contrary. Either Jackson knew the plans were bad or he didn't. If he knew it was so bad and still sent troops to Iraq, then shame on him and the death of UK troops sits squarely on his shoulders. If he bought into the plans and took his troops into battle, quit crying and quit blaming everyone else. Sandhurst is going to have to do better if this is supposed to be one of the most respected officers in the British military because he's as much of an ass as the Pentagon leadership that he's criticizing. How about a bit of leadership when it counts instead of this after-the-fact criticism? Read More......