Open Thread

Got some Friday night threading to do. Read More......

British general says Iraq is lost

There is "no way" we can win, he says. Though the best part is where he compares the insurgents to George Washington. Read More......

Petraeus has already decided he's going to call the surge a success in September

An incredibly disturbing story from ABC News (this link is now suspiciously dead - I've posted the story below). Basically, General Petraeus has already decided that the surge in Iraq will be such a resounding success come September that we're going to keep the surge troops there another four months beyond when we were told they were needed. Did you get that? The mission is such a success that it's going to take twice as long. Now that's a man who knows how to spin.

But it's even better than that. We been told forever that it would just impossible to tell if the surge is working until September or even later because, you know, the surge troops wouldn't even all be in Iraq until July. Now, per ABC, Petraeus is telling people he already knows what he's going to report in September - that the surge has been a huge success. Which is a bit odd, since the last of the surge troops only just arrived in Iraq a day or two ago (yeah, they lied about July). Yet now we suddenly already know how successful we'll by September even though we were told that September would likely be too early to tell. It's all one big joke for Petraeus and Bush. Not to mention, I love that Petraeus and Bush basically misled the entire Congress last week. Congress just gave him $100 billion for Iraq based on the latest, best briefings on what was going on. Unless Petraeus told Congress last week that he already had determined that the surge would be a success in September, he misled them. He held back information that they needed to know in order to properly fund this war.

Oh but it gets better. Petraeus is already making plan to keep a sizable number of troops in Iraq for another five to ten years. And he says he wants us to "draw down" the number of troops to 130,000 by the end of 2008. Draw down? You mean, get us back to the number of troops we had in Iraq before this summer's surge. Some draw down.

So basically, Petraeus and Bush are not planning on doing squat with Iraq until after the presidential election. Isn't that convenient for the Republican presidential and congressional candidates. I'm sure it's just a coincidence - it's not like Petraeus would be actively scheming on how to throw a US election.

Here's ABC's story:

Soldiering On

ABC News Learns of Plans to Keep Troops in Iraq Beyond 2009

June 1, 2007 —

U.S. officials tell ABC News that the troop levels in Iraq cannot be maintained at the present level, either politically or practically, with the military stretched so thin.

But that does not imply an immediate drawdown. Officials tell ABC's Martha Raddatz the senior commanders in Iraq -- Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno and Gen. David Petraeus -- want the surge to continue until at least December, and expect to report enough progress by September to justify the extension.

The drawdown would begin in February 2008, although each of the two generals supports a slightly different plan.

Plan one, which officials say is being pushed by Odierno, calls for a reduction in troops from roughly 150,000 today to 100,000 by December of 2008.

Petraeus champions a slightly different approach that would be to cut the troops down to roughly 130,000 by the end of 2008, with further reductions the following year.

Presence in Iraq Beyond 2009

There is also discussion of how long troops will remain in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates envisions "some presence" on the part of the United States that "provides reassurance to our friends and to governments in the region, including those that might be our adversaries, that we're going to be there for a long time," Gates said.

A senior official said one long-term plan would have 30-50,000 U.S. forces in Iraq for 5-10 years beyond 2009.

During that period, the bulk of the troops would be deployed to bases at strategic points throughout Iraq to respond to crisis in those areas. Camp Victory would continue to operate as the U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad.

Iraq's president tells ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "This Week" this Sunday that Iraqi forces can take over, but no time soon.

When asked when the Iraqi army will be ready to defend its country, Jalal Talabani said, "I think the end of the next year."

But officials have serious doubts about that statement. And as far as the plans for troops, they could all change over the coming months.

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Friday Orchid Blogging

Okay, these are the latest photos of the Paph Temptation that I've been showing you the past several weeks. It's now almost fully open - four of the five flowers are open - and now you get a sense of the majesty of the plant in full bloom. Simply amazing.

Click each photo to see a much larger version.





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Donald Trump on Bush and Iraq

Donald Trump on Iraq:

VAN SUSTEREN: Do you have a single issue that make the most difference to you when you vote next time around?

TRUMP: Yes.

VAN SUSTEREN: Which is?

TRUMP: Get out of Iraq.

VAN SUSTEREN: How soon?

TRUMP: How about yesterday? We shouldn't have been there. We shouldn't have been there. It's ridiculous. We're overseeing a revolution. There's nothing we can do. Our soldiers were incredible. They won the war in one day. That was their job. Win the war. They're not policemen and they're acting as policemen, and they're getting killed acting as policemen. Get out of Iraq, and get out of it now.

VAN SUSTEREN: Were you one of those who thought we never should never gone in or after we went in, at some point you thought, we need to get out.

TRUMP: We never should have gone in.

VAN SUSTEREN: And you thought that from the beginning?

TRUMP: From the beginning.

VAN SUSTEREN: How do we get out? Just walk out at this point?

TRUMP: Just get out. Just get out. Our soldiers won the war. Get out.

VAN SUSTEREN: Why do you think the president won't get out?

TRUMP: He's stubborn -- very stubborn guy.

VAN SUSTEREN: You ever met him?

TRUMP: No, not really. I mean, I've seen him, I've been in rooms -- but not really.

VAN SUSTEREN: So his stubbornness is why.

TRUMP: He's a very stubborn guy and he's got people around him who I think are very poor, whether it's Rumsfeld and whoever. I mean, I could tell you lots of things about the people, but he's got some people around him that are very, very poor. Rumsfeld did a terrible disservice to this country by leading us in. Cheney, I don't know, it's just a very sad situation. But we should be out of Iraq, and be out of Iraq as soon as possible.

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Cliff's Corner

The Week That Was 6/01/07

Another week. More preposterousness to report.

Well, while Republicans provided their usual plethora of preposterousness to report this week, your humble scribe--me--is buried under a series of papers, memos, interviews and the like, as I hand in a manuscript on some guy named McCain on Monday. It will be nice to take a day or two off from giving him flak, or is that flack? I am so very confused, when McCain's Hawkingesque attack dogs are not around to lecture me on spelling, when they actually do grammar much like Harriet Myers lawyers.

So in any case, a quickie this week, or as Rudy Guiliani calls it, "marriage," as I must go back to writing a good 5,000-7,000 words more on our favorite Baghdad market prowler named McCain.

Here is what I learned this week:

1) Being a Republican means you've found your savior in Fred Thompson For President! You know a guy who fits in perfectly as a conservative. A former lobbyist for all manner of scummy corporations who accepts money from gun-runners, a member of the "treason faction" who wants to put Tiger Beat posters of patiot Scooter Libby posing in his American flag skivvies on his wall and a man who has such a deep understanding of combat that he can proclaim for all to hear, "wars are full of mistakes."

He forgot "and stuff."

Did you know he also, how shall we say this gently, knocked up his high school girlfriend and then married her only to leave her for a woman a quarter-century younger than he is? Thank God health care companies cover Cialis!

2) Being a Republican also means that when you have the choice of whether or not to renominate your indicted sitting governor, who pardoned virtually his whole corrupt administration, you do it. Meanwhile the Democrats reject corporate crony in their primary, and support a good-government progressive. That, my friends, can lead to some pretty crappy poll numbers, and bit of heartburn for your state's Don Corleone cum eighty-year-old-grandma-who-just-wet-herself looking party leader, Mitch McConnell.

As always, more of this pablum can be found at cliffschecter.com Read More......

Vote Vets blasts Lieberman on Iraq

Good interview from Olbermann's show with Jon Soltz of Vote Vets. About 3:49 into the interview he talks about Lieberman's notion that Iraq is going just dandy.

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Bush Surgeon General nominee runs program to "cure" gays

So will he get a chance to cure Mary Cheney and her lover Heather Poe? And if Mary and Heather are cured, then will Heather still be the parent of their child? Has Bush at least asked Mary to try to be cured by his Surgeon General nominee? Or does Bush not believe that his Surgeon General nominee's anti-gay science is legit, and if so, then why is he nominating him at all?

Fortunately, this nutjob needs to be confirmed by the Senate. And Hillary and Obama will be playing a key role in that confirmation:

"A date has not been announced for confirmation hearings for Holsinger's appointment. He will go before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, chaired by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. Three Democrats on the committee are presidential candidates: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, a graduate of the University of Louisville law school."

I trust the Democrats won't be confirming a "cure the gays" nut as our next Surgeon General. As Mitch McConnell always reminds us, it takes 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate. Hopefully the Democrats have been listening. More from DKos. Read More......

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More religious right anger over Mary Cheney's baby and girlfriend

This time from a former employee of the Family Research Council and the Concerned Women for America who also ran the top religious right group in Illinois until he suddenly left. He's upset that Bush is too pro-gay. Uh huh. Read More......

Conservative Catholics are preparing to Swift Boat Giuliani

From Tom Edsall at the Huff Post:

The early success of Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid has provoked a groundswell of opposition from disparate forces including conservative Catholics, remnants of Pat Buchanan's presidential campaigns and regional political operatives seeking to break into the Republican firmament....

The new organizations are relying on two fundraising models, both of which were highly successful in previous attacks. One is the drive in 2005 to force White House counsel Harriet Miers to withdraw her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. That campaign, spearheaded by conservatives opposed to Miers, raised an estimated $2 million. The other is the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign in 2004, which began with a modest budget but ended up raising millions in an effort to destroy John Kerry's reputation as a war hero....

Paul Nagy, the group's top-gun in New Hampshire, believes nominating Giuliani would be disastrous for the American conservative movement. Along with other activists, Nagy signed a letter seeking additional signatories to the anti-Rudy declaration. The letter states: "Rudy Giuliani is an unacceptable Republican nominee for President of the United States. He is pro-abortion, pro-partial birth abortion, pro-registration of handguns, and pro-homosexual rights. He is the most liberal Republican candidate for President in our nation's history."

It's sad that the fringe extremists running the Republican party have made "conservative" a virtue and "liberal" a vice. Why shouldn't a far-right Republican be viewed just as out of touch, out of the mainstream of GOP thought, as a far-left Republican? (And in fact, while a conservative Republican inhabits the fringe of American thought, the liberal Republican is near dead-center in the middle.) The far-right of the GOP fights back, they dominate the message, and that's why conservative Republicans are "good" while liberal Republicans are "bad." By contrast, the far-left of the GOP is typically made up of a bunch of wimps (e.g., Christine Todd Whitman, Olympia Snowe, and other paragons of mediocrity). Read More......

Dan Bartlett is quitting

Another Bush rat is jumping off the sinking ship. CNN just announced Dan Bartlett is resigning. Friend just sent me a message "I hate that guy. No one can smile and lie like him." Exactly.

Pretty soon it's just going to be Bush, Rove, Laura and those poor dogs. Read More......

"New" Bush climate plan same as old plan

The talk of Bush having a new plan for climate change is about as new as his plan for the war in Iraq or his plan for energy independence. It's more spin and no action with the GOP favorite "goals" but nothing more. The EU and Congress need to look at the facts involved here and isolate Bush and his silly idea of goals. Goals have been tried and they failed, so let's move back to the real world and get serious:

Accused of dragging his feet on global warming, President Bush on Thursday proposed that by 2008 the countries that emit the most greenhouse gases come up with long-term goals to curb emissions.

Critics dismissed the strategy as a diversion and a delaying tactic, but some European leaders and a U.N official expressed hope that it might be a first step to more action.

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Friday Morning Open Thread

A new month starts today. May was a long, horrible deadly month for our troops in Iraq. And, the thing that really, really sucks is that Bush is no closer to ending his war.

What do we need to know? Read More......

124 US casualties in May

April 2004 (135) and November 2004 (137) were the only months with higher rates since the start of the war. Of the seven months with US casualties over 100, two have been in 2007 and four of the seven have occurred since October 2006. More statistics including Iraqi estimates and US/coalition wounded here. Read More......

Religious extremism increasing in UK

Hopefully the British are more sensible than Americans and reject this movement, though senior leaders in the Catholic church are supportive and are announcing some very aggressive plans. Too often Blair caved in to these people, most recently on the issue of gay rights, so at least he will be removed from the issue.

Anti-abortion campaigners are ready to launch a US-style cultural war against the 40-year-old law that allows women in the UK to choose to terminate unwanted pregnancies - with politicians who are also practising Roman Catholics as their first targets.

MPs and other elected representatives who attend Mass but have not taken a hard line against abortion will be targeted by activists who say they should be disowned by the Church.

The head of the 17,000-strong Life League said yesterday that the organisation will write to every Catholic MP demanding a clear statement that they support the Church's line on abortion and all other "life" issues.

Those who fail to give a satisfactory answer face the prospect of being spied on to see if they are attending Mass.

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Iraqi civilians win landmark legal case in UK

The British law lords issued an important ruling, defending the Human Rights Act. The end result is that Iraqi citizens who are captured by British troops will have rights under the law and can pursue any violations in the European courts. The Blair government and the UK Ministry of Defence fought against extending these rights, ignoring a 1972 ban against extreme interrogation and insisting that the Human Rights Act would not apply. The case was specifically in response to Baha Mousa, an Iraqi citizen who died after being beaten to death by British soldiers.

The law lords ruling now means that besides actions in Iraq, future overseas military actions will also be covered so that citizens can seek justice at the European Court of Human Rights. The family of Baha Mousa and others will still have to pursue their case in both UK and EU courts though it is now clear that the citizens in such circumstances will be supported by the rule of law and not the whim of a political leader. Read More......

New US embassy in Iraq plans posted online

The state of the art fortress/embassy that is costing US taxpayers almost $600m could temporarily be found easily after the plans were posted online by the US architectural firm responsible for the project. Is there anyone on the Bush team who gives a damn about security? Regardless of what Google Earth shows (and yes, it's obviously also used by both the US and everyone else) it still displays a lack of common sense and arrogance to post this information online.

Detailed plans for the new U.S. Embassy under construction in Baghdad appeared online Thursday in a breach of the tight security surrounding the sensitive project.

Computer-generated projections of the soon-to-be completed, heavily fortified compound were posted on the Web site of the Kansas City, Mo.-based architectural firm that was contracted to design the massive facility in the Iraqi capital.

The entire website for Berger Devine Yaeger Inc is currently down. Read More......