The New American Cold War......

wath?

Putin ,guest of the 2 Bush,father and son.

This weekend Putin has been invited by the 2 Bush to the
resort of Kennenbunkport .
Bush father takes over the meeting.
Things are going from bad to worst.
The dollar ,like the the credibility of junior Bush ,
is losing ground to the Euro ,every day.
Putin is asking for a new financial architecture.
No solution for Kosovo without the consent of Serbia.
On Iraq,Afghanistan and Middle East ,it is very well know what Putin thinks.
Putin compared USA to the Hitler"s Germany.
Sergei Lavrov ,his minister of foreign affairs, has met Ahmadinejad on june 19
and assured him that Russia does not consider Iran a threat to the peace and also Russia will continue to cooperate with Iran in many fields including the
construction of the nuclear central.

Bush father knows about the dominant position Russia has in the
petrol region.
The a..h.. of junior Bush wants to revive the cold war The idiot ,deserter,of the Vietnam war.
Another slap on the idiot Bush ,the agreement between Eni and Russia
for the gasduct to Italy.

Bush ,son,who always said he talks to his father God (when he is not sober)
this weekend he will listen to his biological father.

Russia can bury USA in 2 hours.

When in doubt, the world dislikes America
By Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff
Saturday, June 30, 2007



A new Pew Research Center Global Attitudes Survey published this week reveals that public attitudes toward the United States around the world continue to deteriorate, as they have for half a decade now, with particularly strong negative views about the US role in Iraq and American-style democracy.

The massive survey of 45,000 people in 47 countries contained few surprises or any major new trends: America is still admired by many around the world, and distrusted by many others. The survey results document the strong opposition to both the substance and manner of American foreign policy, but they also tell us something important about the societies being surveyed around the globe.

The continued and often deepening negative views of the US on all continents mainly reflect temporary distaste for specific American policies in Afghanistan, Iraq and other lands; but they are also a natural reaction against any global power that projects its might, values and interests around the world. The poll also shows similarly mixed favorable and unfavorable reactions to China and Russia, especially as both of those powers start to impact on other countries, especially in terms of energy, environment or economy.

The findings on global public views on American democracy are especially interesting. When asked if they "liked or disliked American ideas on democracy," majorities or pluralities in 33 of 47 polled countries said they disliked American ideas about democracy. Seventy-six percent in France and 92 percent in Turkey expressed dislike - and these two NATO allies are, respectively, a birthplace of modern democracy and a showcase of its taking root in a developing, predominantly Islamic, society. Numerous polls in these and other countries repeatedly show strong commitments to or yearnings for democratic governance. So the problem here is American policy, not democratic principles.

One of the short-term dangers of growing anti-Americanism is precisely that budding indigenous movements to promote democracy in developing countries will be seriously set back because democracy activists will not want to be associated with the Bush administration's erratic rhetoric and violent wars to "promote democracy."

In expressing their distaste for the heavy-handed manner in which the US engages the world, ordinary people in many countries also are practicing a kind of anti-colonial or anti-imperial resistance that is common in relations between societies of unequal power. This is most clear in the Middle East, where many Arabs, Iranians and Turks share a common will to resist and defy the US and Israel. History may judge this to be a foolhardy or excessively emotional response to the exercise of American power. All we can say for now is that the dominant political movements and public sentiments throughout the Middle East seem to be unified only in their common opposition to the combination of American-Israeli policies that they see as threatening their well-being, and in some cases their identity and values. This is the only thing that brings together Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas and ordinary citizens of many different shades and colors, including those who adhere to Islamist, Arab nationalist, progressive, democratic and other political movements in the region.
The Daily Star - Lebanon - The Middle East's Leading English Language Newspaper

There is a sad and even tragic dimension to this phenomenon, as well in the Arab world, because resisting and defying the US and Israel is about the only meaningful way in which ordinary citizens can express themselves politically in many of these countries. All other normal routes of democratic participation or accountable, participatory governance are monopolized by the security-dominated Arab state and its unchanging ruling elites. Democratic politics are likely to remain frozen for some time in this region. This is because the modern Arab security state does not welcome democratic systems, and also because the American-Israeli-driven Western response to Hamas' election victory in Palestine last year is likely to further dampen popular enthusiasm for democracy.

Criticizing American policies is common throughout the world, the Pew poll confirms again, but active collective resistance to the US is emerging in the Arab and Islamic Middle East as a defining attitude of probably a majority of people - and a policy program for many Islamist groups and a few governments. This is partly a response to the immediate threats that people perceive from the US and Israel, but it is also a recurring theme in anti-colonial struggles around the world.

Many people in the Middle East see themselves engaged in a battle against Anglo-American-Israeli domination and colonial subjugation. The Anglo-American-Israeli push for war in Iraq and the continued pressure on Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hizbullah have sparked a whole new level of collective political resistance throughout the region. In part this parallels global criticism of the US, but it is also a distinct Middle Eastern historical process of mass self-expression and self-determination in the face of local and foreign powers that have never allowed such processes to occur.


Rami G. Khouri is published twice-weekly by THE DAILY STAR.




Tags: American, Hamas, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Middle East, Opposition, War, World

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Jim bond..chatto in italiano altrimenti..ci metto troppo tempo con l'inglese (non

The 3 stooges

The three stooges?


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GLENN C. ALTSCHULER, THE JERUSALEM POST Jun. 28, 2007

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Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower
By Zbigniew Brzezinski
Basic Books
234 pages; $26.95
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States emerged as the world's only superpower. Three presidents - George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush - were anointed Global Leaders.

According to Zbigniew Brzezinski, president Jimmy Carter's national security adviser and now a professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, these men had a chance to forge a truly cooperative transatlantic alliance, bring stability to the Middle East, reduce the threat of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and broker a coherent response to environmental and ecological crises.

How did they do? "In a word, badly."

In Second Chance, Brzezinski explains why he gives the elder Bush, "the policeman," a grade of B; Slick Willie, "the social welfare advocate," a C; and flunks "W," "the vigilante."

Acknowledging that leadership rests on "the interaction of fate and chance," as well as character, intellect and organizational skills, Brzezinski puts a premium on strategic vision. He accepts, perhaps too readily, George H.W. Bush's confession that he lacked "the vision thing." More persuasively, he faults Clinton for a casual approach "not conducive to strategic clarity," and Bush, fils, for "a simplistic, dogmatic world-view." Beneath Brzezinski's unsparing critique of all three Global Leaders is dissatisfaction - and anger - at America's "self-damaging" involvement in the Middle East. The United States, he claims, bears responsibility for the perception in the region that it always acts on Israel's behalf.

Brzezinski's Bush I was a skilled, sophisticated and cautious practitioner of traditional power politics. He tried to forestall the dismantling of the Soviet Union, telling Ukrainians in 1991 that "freedom is not the same as independence." But as events raced past him, Brzezinski acknowledges, Bush adapted, sometimes brilliantly. He recognized the Baltic states almost immediately. He helped persuade Gorbachev to accept German reunification. And he worked effectively to make sure that the Soviet nuclear arsenal did not go on sale at an international arms bazaar. To be sure, the Bush Administration let Yugoslavia drift and did little to prevent nuclear proliferation in South Asia and North Korea. But it seems unfair to conclude that Bush was a tactician who did not apply his nation's political influence or moral legitimacy strategically.

Of course, Bush also put together the coalition that expelled Iraq from Kuwait. With 20/20 hindsight, Brzezinski now indicts the president for leaving Saddam Hussein in power, suggesting, improbably, that an ultimatum - go into exile or your forces will be decimated - might have worked.

Nor did Bush, who had "more leverage than any president since Eisenhower," craft a comprehensive peace formula for the Middle East. He should have put on record a US commitment to: no right of return for Palestinians, no significant Israeli expansion beyond the 1967 borders, a formula for sharing Jerusalem, and a demilitarized Palestinian state.

Whatever the merits of his suggestions, Brzezinski's label for Bush's "failures" - "original sin" - is incendiary and inaccurate.

In contrast to Bush, Brzezinski suggests, Bill Clinton offered "an appealing vision of the future," preaching about globalization "with apostolic conviction." He helped establish the World Trade Organization. His assistance in the orderly enlargement of NATO was "the most constructive and enduring achievement of his presidency." It created a "felicitous atmosphere" for intervention in Bosnia and Serbia. And yet, Brzezinski acknowledges, "globaloney is no substitute for geostrategy." Susceptible to "enemy du jour" vacillation, Clinton faltered in Somalia and Rwanda, made no effort to mediate the war in Chechnya, and waived human rights stipulations to grant most-favored-nation status to China.

And Clinton left the Middle East more volatile than he found it. Between the historic handshake of Rabin and Arafat in 1993 and the Camp David Summit in 2000, Brzezinski insists, Clinton "drifted from impartial commitment to a fair settlement, to an increasingly one-sided pro-Israel posture."

With key officials in his administration increasingly recruited from pro-Israeli research institutes and lobbies, the president played into the hands of Israelis determined to create "accomplished facts" on the ground to force concessions from the Palestinians. The "Clinton Parameters" at Camp David were "momentous and remarkable," but the president did not press them during the negotiations. Arafat's objections, Brzezinski concludes, made it easy to pin the blame on him.

Brzezinski makes no effort to conceal his contempt for the current President Bush. Despite a seasoned foreign policy team, Bush brought to the complexities of foreign policy a Manichean perspective - and a "destructive decisiveness" that took the United States from its zenith in world public opinion following 9/11 to its nadir.

Bush II has done nothing right. The Iraq adventure has done colossal damage. Overwhelming majorities in Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Pakistan now regret that Saddam's military did not more effectively resist American forces. Nor has "the decider" been any more effective in the rest of the world. He continued to praise Vladimir Putin long after the Russian president retreated from democracy. His tacit endorsement of India's nuclear program troubled China and sent the wrong signal to North Korea and Iran. And his environmental non-policy has alienated just about everybody.

And Bush has made charges of collusion between American imperialists and Israeli occupiers even more credible. In 2002, Brzezinski asserts, Bush encouraged Sharon's violent response to a suicide attack which, in effect, derailed Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah's peace initiative. And the president has stopped pressing Israel on deadlines for a Palestinian state. Brzezinski would not be surprised if oil exporters "began to solicit protection" from China.

Brzezinski offers two consolations: Had the Iraq war been more successful, the United States would probably now be in Iran and Syria; and Americans, he writes, should remember that presidents of the United States are limited to two terms in office. But it's a long way until November 2008 - and while he's waiting, Brzezinski can do little more than beat about the Bushes.

The writer is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.



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The Bush/Cheney Holocaust in Iraq



Criminality, Immorality, Incompetence and Desperation



By Walter C. Uhler

Part One: Criminality and Immorality

I. Criminality

06/30/07 "Huffington Post" -- -- According to Article VI of our U.S. Constitution, treaties entered into by the United States become the "Supreme Law of the Land." At the urging of President Harry Truman, on July 28, 1945, the U.S. Senate ratified the United Nations Charter by a vote of 89 to 2, with 5 abstentions. Thus the UN Charter became the supreme law of the land. And, thus, the United States was legally prohibited from waging war unless attacked, unless an attack was imminent, or unless the United Nations approved such a war.

Not for the first time, but most egregiously, did a President of the United States violate both his oath to uphold the Constitution and international law when President Bush ordered the unprovoked invasion of Iraq. Unbeknownst to the American public at the time, criminal plans for removing Saddam Hussein not only dominated the early 2001 meetings of Bush's National Security Council, they also crowded out time and attention that would have been better spent attempting to thwart the impending terrorist attacks by al Qaeda terrorists -- about which the Bush/Cheney regime had been frequently warned.

Why the obsession with Iraq? Credit the decade-old drumbeat for war by America's neoconservatives. Then, like cockroaches, they literally infested the newly installed Bush/Cheney regime. Thus, it became an article of faith -- explicitly expressed during the NSC meetings in early 2001 -- that regime change in Iraq would reshape the Middle East and, thus, enhance Israel's security and strengthen America's ability to leverage the region's oil.

Unfortunately the very success of al-Qaida's criminal plans for 9/11 provoked the very anger and fear within the U.S. that enabled the Bush/Cheney regime to implement its criminal plans. By successfully (although falsely) linking Iraq to al-Qaida's 9/11 attacks, the Bush/Cheney regime was able to portray its long-planned war as unavoidable self-defense. After all the UN Charter permits its members to engage in wars of self-defense while explicitly prohibiting "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."

Thus, members of the Bush/Cheney regime soon were giving speeches that falsely and maliciously conflated 9/11 and Iraq. Subsequently, they also began to warn about the grave and growing threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ties to al-Qaida. Although nobody but the dumbest of ignorant Americans should have been persuaded by hints of Iraq's complicity in the 9/11 attacks, in fact, a majority of Americans were persuaded. Imagine, then, how easily persuaded they were by false assertions about Iraq's WMD and ties to al-Qaida.

Only after the invasion would Americans learn conclusively that Iraq possessed no WMD, that Iraq had no significant ties to al-Qaida. Then the questions cascaded: Were the false assertions by the Bush/Cheney regime mere mistakes or were they evil lies?

The Bush/Cheney regime responded by blaming the failure to find WMD on the poor intelligence provided by America's intelligence community -- adding that the intelligence services of other countries also mistakenly believed that Iraq possessed WMD. Although such scapegoating contained a large nugget of truth, it was designed to obscure two important facts: (1) the intelligence reports often contained qualifiers, expressions of doubts about Iraq's WMD that were not publicized by the Bush/Cheney regime before the invasion and (2) senior officials in the Bush/Cheney regime embellished the faulty intelligence, lied about it, and fabricated contrary intelligence to render the evidence more ominous than it actually was (see "Immorality").

Moreover, when it became certain that the UN would not approve a second resolution, one that authorized the use of force against Iraq, the U.S. (acting jointly with Britain and Spain) withdrew its draft of the second resolution from the UN Security Council. Why? Because Britain's Lord Goldsmith warned, "if the sponsors of the U.S.-UK draft resolution sought a vote at the council and failed to get it, serious doubts would be cast on the legality of military action against Iraq."

After withdrawing the second resolution, the Bush/Cheney regime made the following argument: because resolution 1441 "decided that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of all relevant resolutions," the U.S. already possessed the authority to use force. This argument was blatantly false, especially because it is up to the UN Security Council, not individual members, "to decide whether and how to enforce its resolutions." [John Burroughs and Nicole Deller, "The United Nations Charter and the Invasion of Iraq," Neo-Conned Again pp. 368-69]

Such slimy behavior fooled almost nobody in the world except a large number of Americans, including Americans in the news media. Which explained why the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, called the Bush/Cheney regime's subsequent invasion of Iraq "illegal." In fact, as the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal put it (in the wake of Nazi Germany's defeat), "To initiate a war of aggression" is "the supreme international crime."

Lesser war crimes by the Bush/Cheney regime already had been committed. As the Guardian reported, "Evidence of prisoner abuse and possible war crimes at Guantanamo Bay reached the highest level of the Bush administration as early as autumn 2002, but Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, chose to do nothing about it." ["Bush team 'knew of abuse' at Guantanamo," Sept. 13, 2004] The paper also reported, "The secret 'special access program' facilitating much of the mistreatment, widely held to have contravened the Geneva convention, was established following a direct order from the president." [Ibid]

The criminal rot from Guantanamo was "eventually transferred wholesale" to Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where subsequent revelations of prisoner torture there by U.S. soldiers irreparably dishonored the United States in the eyes of the world. Writing in the 27 June 2007 issue of the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh notes a May 2004 meeting, during which Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba informed Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others about the torture of prisoners occurring at Abu Ghraib. Taguba "described a naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an interrogator shoving things up his rectum, and said, 'That's not abuse. That's torture.'"

According to Hersh, General Craddock and Vice-Admiral Timothy Keating, the director of the Joint Staff of the J.C.S., were e-mailed a summary of the Abu Ghraib abuses in January 2004. Thus, Rumsfeld appears to have lied when, "in his appearances before the Senate and the House Armed Services Committees on May 7th, [he] claimed to have had no idea of the extensive abuse." [Hersh, New Yorker 27 June 2007] Only when the scandal became public, did the regime's cover-up fall apart.

Yet, the crimes continue. According to Human Rights Watch, "In the past five years the administration has authorized torture and other abusive interrogation techniques, "disappeared" dozens of suspected terrorists into secret prisons, twisted domestic law to permit indefinite detention without charge of persons suspected of links to terrorism, and confined hundreds at Guantanamo Bay without charge while denying them information about the basis for their detention and meaningful opportunity to contest it. The administration has sought to exempt its actions from court oversight." [Human Rights Watch, "United States," World Report 2007]

II. Immorality

In order to support their BIG LIE about the grave and growing threat to the U.S. posed by Iraq, the Bush/Cheney regime not only pressured the intelligence community to produce conclusions that supported its own preconceptions about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaida, it also embellished and lied about that intelligence. Moreover, it fabricated damning intelligence where the intelligence community found none.

Thus, to say "the intelligence community got it wrong" or "intelligence agencies in other countries also concluded that Iraq possessed WMD" still doesn't explain Cheney's deceptive half-truth, asserted at the Veterans of Foreign Wars 103rd National Convention on August 26, 2002. Cheney told his audience, "The Iraq regime has in fact been very busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents." Worse, he claimed, "We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons."

To support that claim, Cheney cited evidence provided by Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel Hassan, who claimed that Iraq possessed WMD. What Cheney failed to mention, however, was that Kamel also said: "All chemical weapons were destroyed. I ordered the destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons-biological, chemical, missile, nuclear-were destroyed." Only after the illegal, immoral invasion would we learn that Kamel had told the truth -- and that Cheney had deceived us.

Neither do the glib assertions, "the intelligence community got it wrong" and "intelligence agencies in other countries also concluded that Iraq possessed WMD" explain why the then National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, would assert that the high-strength aluminum tubes that Iraq was allegedly attempting to purchase could "only" be used in a nuclear weapons program. In fact, when she told her lie, Ms. Rice already knew that disagreement existed within the intelligence community about how such tubes might be used.

Building upon that lie, Ms. Rice then fear mongered by asserting: "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he [Saddam] can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

When, in September 2002, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said, "American intelligence had "bulletproof" evidence of links between al-Qaida and the government of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq," he deceived Americans about the nature of that intelligence. First, America's intelligence community already had dismissed such "links" as insignificant. Second, because the intelligence community already had discounted such "links", a rogue intelligence unit headed by neocon ideologue Douglas Feith was set up inside the Pentagon and specifically tasked with finding such links.

Feith's "Gestapo Office" proceeded to fabricate "intelligence" from shards of evidence already dismissed by the intelligence community. Such shards were then passed to neocon Paul Wolfowitz, then Rumsfeld and Cheney for public dissemination. Former Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, has commented on such intelligence in his recent book, At the Center of the Storm. [W]e weren't too impressed with their work�especially their willingness to blindly accept information that confirmed preconceived notions." [p. 348] Calling such work, "Feith-based analysis," [Ibid] Tenet adds, "The best source of information was our January 2003 paper, which said that there was no Iraqi authority, direction, or control over al-Qa'ida." [Ibid, p. 358]

President Bush, not only conflated Iraq and 9/11 and reiterated the canards about Iraq's WMD and ties to al-Qaida, he also repeated Ms. Rice's scare mongering about a mushroom cloud and added a few unique lies of his own. For example, while speaking to reporters in mid-July 2003, our immoral President answered a question about Iraq by asserting: "The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in."

In fact, Saddam had permitted the UN weapons inspectors to return. But our lying President preempted their work, lest they prove that Iraq had no WMD. As USA Today reported on March 17, 2003: "In the clearest sign yet that war with Iraq is imminent, the United States has advised U.N. weapons inspectors to begin pulling out of Baghdad." Although such lies failed to persuade most of the world, they did persuade the dumbest or most frightened of Americans. And, armed with their support, the Bush/Cheney regime was able to exert political pressure on incumbents in Congress during the months before mid-term Congressional elections of November 2002, by questioning the patriotism of any congressman (congresswoman)), who didn't support the regime's rush to war.

To get a better idea of the effectiveness of such immoral political hardball, simply compare the votes in favor of authorizing the Bush/Cheney regime's war of choice with the actual number of congressmen who actually read the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate -- the document that supposedly proved (while actually raising doubts about) the existence of Iraq's threatening WMD, and thus justified war.

On the "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002," the House of Representatives adopted the resolution on October 10, 2002, by a vote of 296-133 and the Senate adopted the resolution on October 11, 2002, by a vote of 77-23. Yet, "no more than six senators and a handful of House members who did not serve on the house and senate Intelligence Committess read beyond the five-page National Intelligence Estimate executive summary." [Tenet, quoting from the Washington Post , p. 337] Such gross negligence on the part of our congressional representatives constitutes a distinct type of immorality.

But nothing captures the immorality of the Bush/Cheney regime as the contrast separating the President's very gestures on the eve of initiating his war of choice and the devastating impact it made -- and continues to make -- in Iraq. Recall that during the moments before Bush "gave his national address announcing that the war had begun, a camera cought Bush pumping his fist as though instead of initiating a war he had kicked a winning field goal or hit a home run. 'Feels good,' he said." [Paul Waldman, Fraud, p. 8]

Some two weeks later, at eleven A.M on March 30, fourteen-year-old Arkan Daif was killed by an explosion that lacerated his body with white-hot shrapnel. One piece tore off the back of his skull. You see, Arkan and two cousins were digging a trench in front of his house; a feeble attempt to protect it from the bombs that Bush unleashed two weeks earlier with such inhuman insouciance. [Anthony Shadid, Night Draws Near, pp. 73-74]

To date, Bush's immoral insouciance has claimed the lives of more than 3,500 American soldiers, wounded another 29,000 plus -- many having their brains shattered or becoming double or triple amputees -- killed or wounded hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and caused some five million Iraqis to flee their homes for other parts of Iraq or for safety outside the country.

Part Two: Incompetence



By Walter C. Uhler

Last month -- more than four years after the Bush/Cheney regime's criminal and immoral invasion -- oil rich Iraq was able to produce only 2 million barrels of oil per day, some 500,000 barrels per day less than it produced on the eve of the U.S. invasion. It also produced but an average of 3,700 megawatts of electricity, or some 300 megawatts less than it produced on the eve of the U.S. invasion. [Jason Campbell, Michael O'Hanlon and Amy Unikewicz, "The State of Iraq: An Update," New York Times, June 10, 2007]

Such sobering facts highlight the incompetence of the ideologue who most fervently argued in favor of undertaking the regime's criminal invasion, Paul Wolfowitz. Speaking to Congress about Iraq's oil just one week after the invasion began, Wolfowitz asserted: "We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon."

In fact, as the General Accountability Office (GAO) reported just last month, "From fiscal years 2003 through 2006, the United States spent about $5.1 billion to rebuild the oil and electricity sectors. The United States also spent an additional $3.8 billion in Iraqi funds on these sectors. However, Iraq will need billions of additional dollars to rebuild these sectors." [GAO Report No. 07-677, "Rebuilding Iraq: Integrated Strategic Plan Needed to Help Restore Iraq's Oil and Electricity Sectors," May 2007]

Moreover, as the Chicago Tribune reported four days ago, "Across the country, most provinces get electricity 10 to 12 hours a day. Baghdad usually had been getting about two hours, and when sabotage attacks destroyed all but one transmission line to the city in late May, many city residents got just one hour." [James Janega, "After 4 Years, Electricity Still Luxury," Chicago Tribune, June 25, 2007]

The GAO report blamed "poor security conditions" for slowing reconstruction and rising costs. By "poor security conditions," the report means looting, sabotage, insurgency and civil war. Yet, all these ills are direct and predictable consequences of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's failure to dispatch a military force to Iraq that was large enough to secure the peace.

Notably, it was Rumsfeld's deputy, Wolfowitz, who ridiculed General Shinseki's (strikingly prescient) prewar estimate that peacekeeping in Iraq would require "something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers." Calling it, "widely off the mark," Wolfowitz added: "It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army. Hard to imagine." [George Packer, The Assassins' Gate, pp. 114-15]

Lacking such imagination, the ideologues running the Pentagon failed to plan for an insurgency. But, worse, they adamantly refused to do any planning at all for post-invasion Iraq, lest they be required to inform Congress about the potential problems that might arise. As one Defense official told George Packer, "The senior leadership in the Pentagon was very worried about the realities of the postconflict phase being known, because if you are [Douglas] Feith or if you are Wolfowitz, your primary concern is to achieve the war." [Ibid, p. 114]

Two erroneous assumptions permitted Rumsfeld and the neoconservatives in the Pentagon to justify their politically inspired negligence: (1) the war would be a "cakewalk," because Iraqis would greet American troops as liberators and (2) the technological superiority of America's forces, thanks to the "revolution in military affairs," was a force multiplier that rendered a huge invading force and post-invasion plans unnecessary.

Eager for war, the Bush/Cheney regime spent much of 2002 planning for the invasion - Phase I (the buildup of troops), Phase II (covert operations) and Phase III (air and ground assaults). In fact, by early 2002 military resources had been diverted from Afghanistan to support the invasion of Iraq. On February 19, 2002 General Tommy Franks admitted as much when he confidentially told Florida's Senator, Bob Graham: "Senator, we are not engaged in a war in Afghanistan" because "military and intelligence personnel are being redeployed to prepare for an action in Iraq." [Graham, Intelligence Matters p. 125]

(According to Graham, "[O]nce America turned to Iraq, al Qaeda was able to regroup, refocus, and begin carrying out attacks again. From September 2002 until the train bombings in Spain in 2004, al Qaeda carried out twelve attacks that took, in all, more than 600 lives." [Graham, p. 218])

Eager for war, the Bush/Cheney regime also ignored two Intelligence Community Assessments issued in January 2003 that warned about the numerous potential problems that might result from an invasion of Iraq. These reports warned about the difficulty of establishing democracy in Iraq, about the opportunities that the invasion would provide for al Qaeda, about the possibility of unleashing violent conflict in a divided society (e.g., civil war), about fueling a heightened terrorist threat, a surge in political Islam and increased funding of terrorist groups, and about how Iran might profit from the whole ordeal. ["Report on Prewar Intelligence Assessments About Postwar Iraq," Select Committee on Intelligence, United States Senate, May 25, 2007, pp. 6-12]

(Note the total abuse of intelligence: First, the Bush/Cheney regime pressured the intelligence community (IC) to produce conclusions that supported its own preconceptions about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda. Then, it embellished or lied about the IC's WMD intelligence while fabricating damning intelligence about Saddam's ties to al Qaeda, when the IC found none. Finally, it ignored the IC's quite accurate assessments about potential problems resulting from an invasion.)

Consequently, "by March 2003, the planning for Phase IV [postwar operations] was barely under way." [Packer, p. 119] Moreover, when General Franks -- the man responsible for Phases 1 through 3 - was asked about Phase IV, he replied: "Mr. Wolfowitz is taking care of that." [Packer, p. 120]

Wolfowitz assigned responsibility for postwar planning to his subordinate, Douglas Feith. In mid-January 2003, Feith asked retired lieutenant general Jay Garner to take the job. Garner eventually accepted and commenced work. But when he asked Feith for copies of planning documents, "Feith told him nothing useful existed." [Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, p. 31]

And, thus, the Bush/Cheney regime started a war without having a plan to win the peace. Not only did it field too few troops, it gave them no orders about how to handle the looters who ravaged Iraq after the invasion. According to Noah Feldman, an adviser in Iraq, "The key to it all was the looting. That was when it was clear that there was no order. There's an Arab proverb: Better forty years of dictatorship than one day of anarchy." The looting "told them that they could fight against us and we were not a serious force." [Packer, p.138]

Or, as former Reagan administration official, Fred Ikle, characterized the American response to the looting: "America lost most of its prestige and respect in that episode. To pacify a conquered country, the victor's prestige and dignity is absolutely critical." [Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco, p. 136]

The invasion also answered the prayers of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorists. For, as bin Laden's number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, asserted in late 2003: "We thank God for appeasing us with the dilemma in Iraq after Afghanistan�If they [the Americans] withdraw they will lose everything and if they stay, they will continue to bleed to death." [Michael Scheuer, Imperial Hubris, p. xxi]

By its failure to plan to prevent looting, which "caused far more damage to Iraq's infrastructure than the bombing campaign" [Chandrasekaran, p. 46] and reached into the depths of Iraq's (and the world's) cultural treasures, the Bush/Cheney regime not only proved that it was riddled with barbarians, it also violated international law. As noted in a very significant June 2007 report, "War and Occupation in Iraq," issued by the Global Policy Forum, the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Properties in the Event of Armed Conflict "specifies that an occupying power must take necessary measures to safeguard and preserve the cultural property of the occupied country and must prevent or put a stop to 'any form of theft, pillage or misappropriation of, and any acts of vandalism directed against cultural property." ['War and Occupation in Iraq," p. 20]

Yet, when, on April 11, 2003, Rumsfeld was asked about the looting in Iraq, he responded, "Stuff happens!" Perhaps he simply was unaware that even the Nazis felt compelled to protect the Louvre.

The insurgency born of the looting picked up steam in mid-May 2003 with the arrival of L. Paul Bremmer in Baghdad to replace Garner and to head the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). On May 16 Bremmer issued his "De-Baathification" order, which threw some 85,000 members of Saddam's Baath Party out of work. Doctors, professors and other professionals - the kind of people "'that you can't do without' in running a society" [Ricks, p. 161] - were out of work.

On May 23, 2003, Bremmer issued the order, which dissolved the Iraqi armed services, the staff of the Ministry of Interior and the presidential security units. As one expert observed: "Abruptly terminating the livelihoods of these [720,000] men created a vast pool of humiliated, antagonized and politicized men." [Ricks, p. 162] And, as Army Colonel John Agoglia subsequently observed: That was the day "that we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and created an insurgency." [Ibid, p. 163]

But the incompetence didn't end there. As Rajiv Chandrasekaran detailed in his book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone the CPA was teeming with incompetents. "One 24-year old official with no background in finance was given the job of resurrecting the Baghdad stock exchange. Another aide, tasked with devising new traffic regulations, down-loaded those of Maryland from the internet. A 21-year old charged with helping to rehabilitate the interior ministry boasted that his most meaningful job to date had been as an ice cream truck driver." [Chandrasekaran, "Lords of misrule still in charge at the Baghdad bubble," TIMESONLINE, June 24, 2007]

Ignorant of what he had wrought, as well as the implications of Bremmer's incompetent acts, a complacent Wolfowitz told Congress, in June 2003, that the insurgency was the "remnants of the old regime�I think these people are the last remnants of a dying cause." [Ricks, p. 170] Rumsfeld called the insurgents "dead-enders," not knowing that he would be politically dead long before the insurgency. Predictably, Bush uttered the dumbest statement of them all. On July 2, 2003, from the safety of the White House, our brave president observed: "There are some who feel that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: Bring 'em on." [Ricks, p. 172]

And "Bring 'em on" they did! When Bush opened his big mouth in July 2003, insurgent attacks already averaged 16 per day. Moreover, while Bush attempted to bamboozle Americans with one bogus "turning point" after another, the insurgents increasingly brought 'em on.

Thus, when Saddam Hussein was captured in December 2003, the insurgents were averaging 19 attacks per day. When L. Paul Bremmer signed the hand-over of sovereignty in June 2004, it was 45. When Iraq held its elections for a transitional government in January 2005, it was 61. Notwithstanding these mounting daily attacks, Cheney seized a moment in June to make yet another asinine assertion: the insurgency is "in the last throes."

Yet, in December 2005, six months into its "last throes" when Iraqis voted for a permanent government, the daily attack rate had reached 75. And when terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al Zarqawi was killed in June 2006, it was up to 90. [See Tom Lasseter, Miami Herald, Aug. 16, 2006] Worse, in October 2006 attacks surged to a record high of 176 per day.

Even in the teeth of Bush's so-called "surge," attacks averaged 164 per day in February 2007, 157 in March and 163 in April. Thus, enemy attacks for the entire month of April totaled approximately 4,900. "Bring 'em on," indeed!

In addition to nurturing an ever-growing insurgency and civil war, the Bush/Cheney regime's criminal, immoral and incompetent invasion and occupation of Iraq "has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism" that "has metastasized and spread across the globe."

That's the conclusion reached in the April 2006 National Intelligence Estimate titled: "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States." Moreover, thanks to the regime's incompetence, "the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks." [Mark Mazzetti, "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat," New York Times , 24 Sept. 2006]

And while the attacks increase in Iraq and the terrorist threat grows around the world, the U.S. Army, to quote retired General Colin Powell, is "about broken." As retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich has observed: "President Bush has nickeled and dimed the nation's fighting forces to the verge of collapse. Even today he remains oblivious to the basic problem that his administration has confronted for the past four years - too much war and too few soldiers." [Bacevich, "Bushed Army," The American Conservative June 4, 2007]

Finally, one cannot complete an examination of the gross incompetence of the Bush/Cheney regime without noting the perverse results of its objective to reshape the Middle East. Not only did it fail to increase Israel's security and leverage the region's oil, it inadvertently fostered Iran's emergence as a regional force to be reckoned with.



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Putin with the 2 Bush

Difficult menu at 'lobster summit'
By Jonathan Beale
BBC News, Washington



It has been dubbed the "lobster summit". Lobster is the seafood of choice at Kennebunkport,- the small town on the Maine coast that is home to President Bush senior's summer retreat and is now the venue for talks between his son and Vladimir Putin.

But the menu of issues to be discussed by both leaders will prove more difficult to digest: missile defence; Kosovo; democratic reform; and how to deal with Iran - to name a few that are already causing heartburn.

Why Kennebunkport? Well, President Putin was on his way to Guatemala and the Russians suggested that it may be a good time to talk.


HAVE YOUR SAY
The two should put their individual egos aside
Ashipa James Olashupo, Abuja


President Bush responded positively and thought that his father's compound would be a congenial setting for informal discussions - in other words, away from the White House and the media spotlight.
Serious miscalculation?

US officials want to avoid another blast of Cold War rhetoric from President Putin. They want the two leaders to work out their differences in private.

For President Bush, it is another opportunity to look into President Putin's "soul".

At their first meeting in June 2001, Mr Bush famously said: "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy... I was able to get a sense of his soul."


That now looks like a serious miscalculation. Does the US president now see more the darker side of this former KGB officer?

President Putin's recent rhetoric has alarmed Washington.

First, his oblique comparison of US foreign policy to the Third Reich, his criticisms of the war in Iraq and then his threat to point Russian missiles at Europe if America located missile defence bases in the Czech Republic and Poland.

In turn, Mr Bush criticised Moscow for rolling back on democracy.

Echoes of the Cold War certainly. But US officials say they want to avoid "a rush to the bottom".

Opportunity

The G8 summit in Germany saw an attempt by both leaders to draw back from the brink.

President Putin appeared to catch Mr Bush by surprise by offering the use of an ageing Russian radar base in Azerbaijan for America's missile defence shield.

The Russians clearly see that as an alternative to sites in eastern Europe - once part of the Soviet empire.


But President Bush is ignoring the gamesmanship and taking it as an opportunity to co-operate.

At Kennebunkport he will repeat his offer for US and Russian experts to sit down together to try to find a solution.

But do not expect any breakthroughs on missile defence - or for that matter any other issue.

US officials have been stressing that there is unlikely to be any "grand announcement". They say this is not about "deliverables".

It is as much an acknowledgement that the US is still working out how to deal with a more assertive Russia. But that diplomacy is the only way forward.

Perhaps the presence of George Bush senior will help his son learn a few tricks on that front.

Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Americas | Difficult menu at 'lobster summit'

Published: 2007/06/30 10:46:10 GMT

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