Cost of the War, click HERE

Bush Hides Iraq Costs

President Bush's military budget request of $401.7 billion increases spending by 7%. But that figure includes nothing to fund the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also not covered is Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's decision to temporarily increase the Army by 30,000 troops to staff the Iraqi reconstruction effort. Pentagon officials have said they will ask for additional money for that budget measure next year. . .

Unlike the detailed annual funding request, supplemental appropriations measures allocate money through vague categories, giving the federal government greater spending latitude. . . Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called funding additional troops through emergency spending measures unprecedented. Funding the fighting later "deceives the American people about the size of the deficit and the debt that we are incurring," he said. John Hendren, LA Times, 1/11/04

3 - 5 Years and Billions More

Iraq will require at least three to five years to put together a respectable armed force, and only if it gets generous foreign aid and cuts corners on welfare programs for civilians, a U.S. [Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, head of a U.S. program to train the budding army] said yesterday.

. .Eaton estimated that Iraq needed "between eight and 12 divisions" to provide credible deterrence or a robust defense from foreign attacks. Divisions number about 10,000 troops. . . Current plans call for the U.S.-led coalition to train three light infantry divisions in the coming months.
But "this is a tough neighborhood and three light infantry divisions do not provide, and will not provide, the end-state defensive requirement for the Iraqi ground forces - it never was intended to be so," he said.  Matthew Rosenberg, Associated Press, 1/22/04

Costanzo.org Question for President Bush

A study to be released today by the House Budget Committee's Democratic staff concluded that the cost of the Iraq war and occupation could easily reach $417 billion over the next decade Jonathan Weisman and Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post 9/23/03

=  $17,375 per Iraqi

= $1,438 per American

If we had just given every Iraqi $17,375 under the condition that they get rid of Saddam, wouldn't we have been better off?

Bush at Play

The direct military cost of the occupation is $4 billion a month, and there's no end in sight. But that's only part of the bill.

This week Paul Bremer suddenly admitted that Iraq would need "several tens of billions" in aid next year. That remark was probably aimed not at the public but at his masters in Washington; he apparently needed to get their attention. . . .

The biggest cost of the Iraq venture, however, may not be Mr. Bremer's problem; it may not even come in Iraq. Our commitment of large forces there creates the need for a bigger military, even as it degrades the effectiveness of our existing forces. . . . Someday, when the grown-ups are back in charge, they'll have quite a mess to clean up.  Paul Krugman, NY Times 8/29/03

Things are Not Going so Well

Rebuilding Iraq will cost between $400 billion and $600 billion. Military costs for Afghanistan and Iraq are $6 billion or 7 billion per month and things are not going so well in either place. American influence in Afghanistan is limited to Kabul. No one is even asking the cost of rebuilding Afghanistan. If administration officials know, they are not talking. What is the plan to hold Afghanistan? Will it be to send more troops to act as targets for terrorism or leave it to NATO? Any bets on how long NATO countries will remain if German, Dutch and French soldiers are regularly killed?Ed Garvey, The Capital Times (WI), 8/19/03
 

$60B per Year:

Military Costs Only

The Pentagon claims that U.S. operations in Iraq are costing only about $3.9 billion a month, but those figures are extremely deceptive. They do not, for instance, include the costs of replacing damaged vehicles and equipment. Nor do they include the costs of replacing munitions expended in combat. Considering the fact that Iraq remains an active war zone - despite the president's "mission accomplished" claim of early May - the best bet is that the price tag for the military is a lot closer to $5 billion a month. That adds up to $60 billion a year. And, considering the cozy relationship Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon has developed with corporate contractors, the final accounting will probably prove to be dramatically more expensive for American taxpayers. Editorial, The Capital Times, Wisconsin  8/17/03

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Bin Laden's Laugh

Even as these brave troops were dying in the cruel and bloody environs of Iraq, the Senate Intelligence Committee in Washington was unfurling its damning unanimous report about the incredibly incompetent intelligence that the Bush administration used to justify this awful war. . . A government with even a nodding acquaintance with competence and good sense would have launched an all-out war against Al Qaeda, not Iraq, in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11. After all, it was Al Qaeda, not Iraq, that carried out the sneak attack on American soil that destroyed the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon and killed 3,000 people. . . .Bin Laden and Al Qaeda must have gotten a good laugh out of that.  BOB HERBERT, New York Times, 7/12/04

Bush NOT Exonerated *

Intelligence and arms control experts said today that new findings detailing the past errors in assessing Iraq's weapons capabilities do not exonerate the Bush administration, which bears ultimate responsibility for exaggerating the Iraqi threat and for discarding the UN inspections that had effectively contained Saddam Hussein's unconventional weapons programs.  "The erroneous judgments delivered by the CIA and other intelligence agencies about Iraq's alleged nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs do not excuse the president and senior administration officials for misrepresenting U.S. intelligence and for ignoring contrary findings by UN weapons inspectors in order to justify toppling the Iraqi dictator," said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.  Arms Control Association, 7/9/4

Bush Goes Back to the Future*

It is less than two weeks since Iyad Allawi took office as Iraq's interim prime minister, yet his governing methods already carry a whiff of the old-style Arab authoritarianism. . .One chilling example is the decree Dr. Allawi had drawn up this week to give him the authority to exercise martial law powers anywhere he sees fit. As the interim prime minister, Dr. Allawi heads an unelected caretaker government whose main responsibility is guiding Iraq toward free elections in January. Preparing to impose martial law is not an encouraging way to start.. . .Dr. Allawi, who lived in exile on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency, became better known to Washington than he was to most Iraqis.  NY Times Editorial 7/8/04

The Real Human Cost *

The Pentagon keeps a close watch on the grim tally in Iraq and Afghanistan. The latest figures: 922 killed. 5,457 wounded in action. And the press reports those numbers. But there's another figure neither the Pentagon nor the press are talking about — the more than 11,000 soldiers coming home disabled, injured, sick who aren't on the Pentagon's casualty list because the military says they weren't injured in combat. . . .You watch the C-17 come in on the runway and the big bellied plane latch goes down the back. And you see the intubated patients which would need a trach tubes and very severe things where you weren't sure if they were gonna make it. From transcrpt of "NOW" with Bill Moyers, 6/29/04

How Bush Found the al Qaeda Connection*

"We on the Bin Laden side [of the agency's analytic ranks] were required repeatedly to check, double-check and triple-check our files about a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq," said the officer, who spoke on condition that he be identified only by his first name, Mike.  Asked whether he attributed the demands to an eagerness among officials at the White House or the Pentagon to find evidence of a link, he said: "You could not help but assume that was the case. They knew the answer [they wanted] before they asked the question."  The officer is the author of a forthcoming book titled, "Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror," published by Brassey's Inc. of Dulles, Va. Greg Miller, LA Times, 7/1/04

Iraq Contracts Ripe for Corruption*

Christian Aid, the UK-based international development charity, says the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) has approved a flurry of spending commitments using Iraqi funds with few controls ahead of Wednesday's handover of sovereignty.  "In the run-up to the handover, billions more dollars have been hastily allocated to projects that do not appear to have been properly planned," the report said. "This lack of accountability creates an environment ripe for corruption and theft at every level."  At a meeting on May 15, the CPA approved $2bn (?1.6m, £1.1m) of spending of Iraqi funds on security, infrastructure projects and future compensation funds. In June, it approved a further $500m for security ahead of the change of sovereignty.  Gareth Smyth, Financial Times, 6/28/04

Calling it Autonomy, Does Not Make It so *

U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer has issued a raft of edicts revising Iraq's legal code and has appointed at least two dozen Iraqis to government jobs with multi-year terms. . .As of June 14, Bremer had issued 97 legal orders, which are defined by the U.S. occupation authority as "binding instructions" . . .perhaps Bremer's most far-reaching and potentially contentious order is the election law, which he signed June 15.. . . Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor . . ., said the appointed electoral commission's power. . . would allow it "to disqualify people someone didn't like."  He likened the power of the commission to that of religious mullahs in Iran, who routinely use their authority to remove candidates before an election. Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Walter Pincus, Washington Post, 6/27/04

Bush and Plain Talk*

Of all the ways Mr. Bush persuaded Americans to back the invasion of Iraq last year, the most plainly dishonest was his effort to link his war of choice with the battle against terrorists worldwide. While it's possible that Mr. Bush and his top advisers really believed that there were chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq, they should have known all along that there was no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. No serious intelligence analyst believed the connection existed; . . .Nevertheless, the Bush administration convinced a substantial majority of Americans before the war that Saddam Hussein was somehow linked to 9/11. And since the invasion, administration officials, especially Vice President Dick Cheney, have continued to declare such a connection. NY Times Editorial, 6/17/04

Kurds Served Up Bush's Way*

[W]hile the United Nations congrat-ulates itself on the resolution passed last night, the Kurds see only a further undermining of the conditions that make a unified Iraq acceptable to them. And we should not take lightly their threats of boycotting the government and even seceding. . . . the Kurds are the only players at the table with the ability and the mettle to walk away. If they do, hopes of a democratic, multiethnic Iraq go with them. . .The alternative is for the Kurds to head back to their lands and — even in the face of a potential invasion of the Turks — set about building one of the Middle East's only prosperous democracies. . . . If they don't receive their guarantees, soon there may be no Iraq — just a free Kurdistan and a burning Arabistan.

BARTLE BREESE BULL, NY Times, 6/9/04

Bush's Incompetent Intelligence Policies*

When President Bush took office, Mr. Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress were embraced by senior policy makers at the Pentagon, which became his main point of contact in the American government. . . Last month, American and Iraqi forces raided Mr. Chalabi's Baghdad compound and carted away computers, overturned furniture and ransacked his offices. The raid was said to be part of an investigation into charges that Mr. Chalabi's aides, including a leading lieutenant, had been involved in kidnapping, torture, embezzlement and corruption in Iraq. It is still unclear what the connection might be between that raid and the continuing counterintelligence investigation of the possible leaks of secrets to Iran. DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN, NY Times, 6/3/04

Iran Irony: NeoCons Conned*

An urgent investigation has been launched in Washington into whether Iran played a role in manipulating the US into the Iraq war by passing on bogus intelligence through Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, it emerged yesterday.
Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour, and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq.
. . . the CIA has hard evidence that Mr Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Karim Habib, passed US secrets to Tehran, and that Mr Habib has been a paid Iranian agent for several years, involved in passing intelligence in both directions.
The CIA has asked the FBI to investigate Mr Chalabi's contacts in the Pentagon Julian Borger, The Guardian (UK), 5/25/04

Of Illegal Wars and Weddings*

A videotape obtained Sunday by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by U.S. planes early Wednesday, killing up to 45 people. . . ."There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday. . .
But video that APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans and brightly colored beddings used for celebrations, scattered around the bombed out tent. . .An AP reporter and photographer, who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video — which runs for several hours. . .Kimmitt has denied finding evidence that any children died in the raid . . .Iraqi officials said at least 13 children were killed.  SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, AP, 523/04

The Abu Ghraib Spin

The administration and its Republican allies appear to have settled on a way to deflect attention from the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib: accuse Democrats and the news media of overreacting, then pile all of the remaining responsibility onto officers in the battlefield, far away from President Bush and his political team. . . These silly arguments not only obscure the despicable treatment of the prisoners, most of whom are not guilty of anything, but also ignore the evidence so far. While some of the particularly sick examples of sexual degradation may turn out to be isolated events, General Taguba's testimony, and a Red Cross report from Iraq, made it plain that the abuse of prisoners by the American military and intelligence agencies was systemic. NY Times Editorial, 5/12/04

Bush/Rumsfeld War Crimes

A secret report by the international Red Cross in February warned U.S. authorities that American forces were behaving brutally toward Iraqis, committing human rights violations that were "in some cases tantamount to torture." . . . U.S. occupation authorities are running a brutal, unjust prison system that is damaging the lives of tens of thousands of people. . . The report details several horrific cases of torture, including one in which troops in Basra beat and stomped on a group of detainees -- one, a 28-year-old father, died. ICRC staffers told of finding two detainees who had been hooded, manacled and forced onto hot surfaces -- thought to be vehicle engines. One was permanently disabled.  JAMES RUPERT, Newsday, 5/11/04

Bush Brings Democracy to Iraq - NOT!

In one case, the [the military's classified report on the abuse of prisoners] says, U.S. military police at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad shifted six to eight undocumented prisoners "around within the facility to hide them" from a visiting delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross. 
"This maneuver was deceptive, contrary to Army Doctrine and in violation of international law," the report adds. 
Human rights groups said the practice of keeping prisoners off written lists and physically concealing them from humanitarian aid groups and independent monitors has been well known over the years in dictatorships from Guatemala to Sudan.  Bob Drogin, LA Times, 5/5/04

Bush/Rumsfeld War Crimes in Iraq*

The story of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US and British forces is rightly gaining a demonic momentum. As a US Army report published by The New Yorker followed revelations by CBS and the allegations by the Daily Mirror, President Bush and Tony Blair must be wondering when it is going to end. It is now clear that not only did they fail to find weapons of mass destruction, but that their fall-back justification for the invasion, that of bringing democracy and human rights to Iraq, is little more than a sham.
The abuse, which is described by the US Army report as "sadistic, blatant and wanton", includes beatings, rape and serious assaults with chemical lights. To the Middle East, it all provides a stark symbol of subjugation. Whether or not people in Basra and Baghdad are better off than they were is no longer the point. The gruesome irony that these terrible things occurred at Abu Ghraib, the very prison used by Saddam Hussein's torturers, will not be lost on Arabs.   Henry Porter, The Independent (UK), 5/2/04

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But these soldiers aren’t simply mavericks. Some accused claim they acted on the orders of military intelligence and the CIA, and that some of the torture sessions were under the control of mercenaries hired by the US to conduct interrogations. Two “civilian contract” organisations taking part in interrogations at Abu Ghraib are linked to the Bush administration.
California-based Titan Corporation says it is “a leading provider of solutions and services for national security”. Between 2003-04, it gave nearly $40,000 to George W Bush’s Republican Party. Titan supplied translators to the military.
CACI International Inc. describes its aim as helping “America’s intelligence community in the war on terrorism”. Richard Armitage, the current deputy US secretary of state, sat on CACI’s board. Neil Mackay, Sunday Herald (UK), 5/2/04
 

Wolfowitz, Get a Clue*

Asked during a Congressional budget hearing on Thursday how many American troops had been killed in Iraq, Mr. Wolfowitz missed by more than 30 percent. "It's approximately 500, of which — I can get the exact numbers — approximately 350 are combat deaths," he said.  As of Thursday, there were 722 deaths, 521 in combat. The No. 2 man at the Pentagon was oblivious in the bloodiest month of the war, with the number of Americans killed in April overtaking those killed in the six-week siege of Baghdad last year.
This is, of course, an administration that refuses to quantify or acknow-ledge the cost of its chuckleheaded empire policies, in bodies, money, credibility in the Arab world, reputation among our allies or the reinvigoration of militant Muslims around the globe.Dowd, NY Times, 5/2/04

Bush Neglects GIs*

Twenty percent of the U.S. troops killed in Iraq might have lived had there been more armored, heavier vehicles available to them, Newsweek reports Monday. . . Newsweek reports that an unofficial study by a defense consultant now circulating through the Army says 142 Americans were killed by land mines or improvised roadside bombs and 48 others by rocket-propelled grenades.
"Almost all those soldiers were killed while in unprotected vehicles, which means that perhaps one in four of those killed in combat in Iraq might be alive if they had had stronger armor around them," according to Newsweek's account.  UPI at Military.com, 4/27/04

Iraq Spinning out of Control *

As the violence spread, Diamond [an adviser to the U.S. occupation authority,] said, he felt ever more painfully the mistake the United States had made by not sending in more troops to keep the insurgents at bay. The American policies basically encouraged Iraqis to stand up -- only to face the threat of being mowed down for doing so, he said.
"It was totally hypocritical of us to do one and not the other," Diamond said of the lack of security. . . .His recommendations for rescuing the situation run counter to some of the policies that the Bush administration insists it will not alter. Diamond said that, in his view, the United States must more than double its current military force of about 135,000  James Stemgold, SF Chronicle, 4/25/04

Bush Snatches Defeat Again*

The prosecution of Saddam Hussein . . . should provide a great stimulus to the Iraqi public's understanding of and respect for the rule of law. The image of former tyrannical leaders standing before a judge provides a potent message about the capacity of law to trump arbitrary power.. . .Yesterday, the Coalition swung and missed again when it named nephew Chalabi to the top post. His presence significantly increases the chance that the story during the trial will not be about the evidence presented, but rather about the shadow of U.S. influence over the proceedings.. . . Iraqis may decide . . . that it represents yet another extension of American control.  Tom Perriello, Center for American Progress, 4/23/04

Bush's Vietnam*

Mr. Bush, for all his talk about staying the course, hasn't been willing to strike anything off his domestic wish list. On the contrary, he used the initial glow of apparent success in Iraq to ram through yet another tax cut, waiting until later to tell us about the extra $87 billion he needed. And he's still at it: in his press conference on Tuesday he said nothing about the $50 billion-to-$70 billion extra that everyone knows will be needed to pay for continuing operations. This fiscal chicanery is part of a larger pattern. Vietnam shook the nation's confidence not just because we lost, but because our leaders didn't tell us the truth. Last September Gen. Anthony Zinni spoke of "Vietnam, where we heard the garbage and the lies," and asked his audience of military officers, "Is it happening again?" Krugman, NYTimes, 4/16/04

Bush's Sr. Officers Disagreed

The US army's top think-tank yesterday severely criticized the Bush administration's preparations for attacking Iraq, saying "the logic of war was flawed" by a belief that the US could "win the war quickly and on the cheap".  The report by the Army War College says the administration should have known reconstruction would be long and arduous - but senior officials were so enamored with military technology such as high-precision bombs that they believed combat could be completed quickly. . .Lt Col Echevarria stresses that senior officers disagreed with civilians in the office of the secretary of defense (OSD) about the force size needed for stabilization. . . ."The administration. .. downplayed the possibility that the overall financial cost of the war would be high, . . ." he wrote.  Peter Spiegel, Financial Times, 4/15/04

Conspiracy Theories Abound

1: Media Ignores 911 Evidence

Governor Jeb Bush of Florida had all documents from Huffman Aviation in Venice, Florida, where some of the hijackers trained to fly, removed and flown out of the country in a cargo plane shortly after 9/11.  Stephen Simac, Coastal Post, 4/04

2:  Thinking Unthinkable Thoughts

“They’re doing it, they’re forcing their way into the cabin, they’re going to make it.” As soon as that happened, with the FBI listening in, the plane went down. . . .people on the ground reported hearing what Vietnam veterans said sounded like a missile. Furthermore, there was debris from the plan eight miles from the crash site, suggesting the plane had been hit and stuff started falling out. And one of the engines was found over a mile from the crash site. Nick Welsh, Santa Barbara Independent, 4/04

The Bush Terrorist Haven*

It is hard to accept the deaths of young men and women when all the world's other military powers, save Britain, have chosen to sit this one out. The ill-prepared troops who form the contributions of places like Ukraine and Bulgaria seem to need protection themselves. With less than 90 days before the symbolic transfer of authority to an Iraqi governing body, the United States has not even seriously started working out the arrangements for bringing the United Nations into Iraq as a real partner.

The rationale for the American military presence in Iraq has quickly morphed into a negative one. If the troops leave, bloody civil war would probably follow and Iraq, which had not been a haven for terrorists, could easily become one.  NY Times Editorial, 4/11/04

Bush Plays into Hands of Sadr*

Last night I asked one of the senior political advisers with the [Iraqi governing] council if he was depressed.
"No, I am not. I am angry," he said.
"This was all completely avoidable."
People like him feel the Americans have just played into the hands of the extremists by letting themselves be drawn into a war, or at any rate a crisis on two fronts . . . Now, because the Americans have decided to take them on, he [Moqtada Sadr] and his Mehdi army have suddenly assumed the status of defenders of the faith. . . What worries the Iraqi politicians even more is the timing of it all.  From Friday evening, Shia pilgrims will be gathering in their hundreds of thousands in the holy city of Karbala to mourn the victims of the huge bomb explosion at the beginning of March which killed one of the greatest figures of Shia Islam. John Simpson BBC, 4/9/04

The Meaning of "Bring 'em On"*

When the president challenged Iraqi militants last summer with the now-famous taunt "bring 'em on," he betrayed a fundamental lack of understanding of the horror of war . . . Mr. Bush has behaved on more than one occasion as though he's at the controls of a video game. He does not appear to be taking this great tragedy nearly as seriously as he should. . .One of the things soldiers on the ground in Vietnam learned is that while there were many South Vietnamese who were genuinely fearful of the Communist North . . ., it was difficult to get them to fight for their freedom. . . Among other things, we underestimated the strength of the ethnic and cultural bonds that the Vietnamese felt with one another, whatever their political inclinations. Bob Herbert, NY Times, 4/9/04

Bush Minimizes Iraq Folly*

Administration officials have portrayed Moktada al-Sadr, a rebel Shiite cleric who is wanted by American forces, as the catalyst of the rising violence within the Shiite community of Iraq.  But intelligence officials now say that there is evidence that the insurgency goes beyond Mr. Sadr and his militia, and that a much larger number of Shiites have turned against the American-led occupation of Iraq, even if they are not all actively aiding the uprising. . . United States intelligence says that the Sunni rebellion also goes far beyond former Baathist government members. Sunni tribal leaders, particularly in Al Anbar Province, home to Ramadi, the provincial capital, and Falluja, have turned against the United States and are helping to lead the Sunni rebellion, intelligence officials say. The result is that the United States is facing two broad-based insurgencies that are now on parallel tracks.  JAMES RISEN, NY Times, 4/8/04

The Bush Mirage*

The administration does not want to admit the extent of anti-American hatred among Iraqis. And even if some of the perpetrators are outsiders, they could never succeed without the active help of Iraqis.
Just as they once conjured a mirage of a Saddam sharing lethal weapons with Osama, now the president and vice president make the disingenuous claim that Al Qaeda is on the run and that many of its capos are behind bars. Meanwhile, counterterrorism experts say terrorism has become hydra-headed, and one told Newsweek that the spawned heads have perpetrated more major terror attacks in the 30 months since 9/11 than in the 30 months before. Experts agree that the nature of the threat has shifted, with more than a dozen regional militant Islamic groups reflecting growing strength.  Maureen Dowd, NY Times 4/4/04

Powell Admits It*

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell voiced new doubt yesterday on the administration's assertions of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, saying the description in his U.N. presentation of mobile biological weapons laboratories appears to have been based on faulty sources. . . As recently as January, Vice President Cheney cited the discovery of the trucks as "conclusive" evidence of the mobile labs described by Powell. But CIA Director George J. Tenet later told Congress he warned the vice president not to be so categorical about the discovery. . . "Now it appears not to be the case that it was that solid," Powell said yesterday. Now, if the sources fell apart, then we need to find out how we've gotten ourselves in that position. I've had discussions with the CIA about it." Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, 4/3/04

Bush, Cheney & Mercenaries *

The private companies employ about 15,000 people in Iraq, making them effectively the second-largest armed component of the coalition after the United States' 100,000 troops.. . .
Military and civilian officials in Baghdad say the companies will be paid $100 million in the next year for work in Iraq. . .
The use of such companies in U.S. military operations dates to the first President Bush. After the 1991 Gulf War, the Pentagon, headed by then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, paid a Halliburton subsidiary, Brown & Root Services, nearly $9 million to study how private companies could provide support in combat zones. . .
Cheney went on to serve as CEO of Halliburton before becoming vice president.  TOM SQUITIERI GANNETT NEWS SERVICE  4/2/04

Cheney's Iraq "Exaggerations"*

George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, told a Senate committee on Tuesday that he had privately intervened . . .to correct what he regarded as public misstatements on intelligence by Vice President Dick Cheney and others, . . . Mr. Tenet identified three instances in which he had already corrected public statements by President Bush or Mr. Cheney . . .[his action] to correct administration statements involved the State of the Union address in January 2002, when he objected after the fact to Mr. Bush's inclusion of disputed intelligence about Iraq's seeking to obtain uranium from Africa, and [when] Mr. Cheney portrayed trailers found in Iraq as being for biological weapons, and thus "conclusive evidence" that Iraq "did in fact have programs for weapons of mass destruction."  DOUGLAS JEHL, Washington Post, 3/10/04

Empty Words

Since President Bush's State of the Union speech last year, thousands of Americans have experienced the emotional equivalent of a 9/11 event in their lives. Because the tragedies weren't collective, didn't occur in a single day or within the confines of a downtown city block, the devastation and pain may have been lost on the rest of us. But within the past year, more than 500 Americans have lost their lives, thousands have been maimed -- many for life -- and an untold number of U.S. families and communities have been shattered because of war in a far-off place called Iraq.   Last Tuesday night was an opportunity for George W. Bush to eulogize the fallen, a chance for him to tell their families what their sacrifices mean to the nation -- a time for the president to help heal broken hearts. That didn't happen.  Colbert King, Washington Post, 1/24/04

A Dishonest War

 A month after the inauguration, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said: "We have kept him contained, kept him in his box." The next day, he said tellingly that Hussein "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction." . . . Karl Rove, in a rare public stumble, made his own role clear, telling the Republican National Committee on Jan. 19, 2002, that the war on terrorism could be used politically. Republicans could "go to the country on this issue," he said. . . .The war has made America more hated in the world and made the war on terrorism harder to win. As Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in announcing the latest higher alert: "Al Qaeda's continued desire to carry out attacks against our homeland is perhaps greater now than at any point since September 11th."  Edward M. Kennedy, Washington Post , 1/18/04

The Awful Truth

People are saying terrible things about George Bush. They say that his officials weren't sincere about pledges to balance the budget. They say that the planning for an invasion of Iraq began seven months before 9/11. . . the credentials of the [Bush] critics just keep getting better. How can Howard Dean's assertion that the capture of Saddam hasn't made us safer be dismissed as bizarre, when a report published by the Army War College says that the war in Iraq was a "detour" that undermined the fight against terror? How can charges by Wesley Clark and others that the administration was looking for an excuse to invade Iraq be dismissed as paranoid in the light of Mr. O'Neill's revelations? . . . good news doesn't excuse a consistent pattern of dishonest, irresponsible leadership. And that pattern keeps getting harder to deny.  Krugman, NY Times 1/13/04

Bush and the Army*

the Bush administration is pushing America's peacetime armed forces toward their limits. Washington will not be able to sustain the mismatch between unrealistic White House ambitions and finite Pentagon means much longer without long-term damage to our military strength. The only solution is for the Bush administration to return to foreign policy sanity, starting with a more cooperative, less vindictive approach to European allies who could help share America's military burdens. . . .if a sudden crisis were to erupt in North Korea, Afghanistan or elsewhere, the Pentagon might be hard pressed to respond. For a time, it could make do by sending tired troops back into action, mobilizing reserves and borrowing forces from areas that are quiet but still highly volatile. Such expedients have severe long-term costs.  NY Times Editorial, 12/29/03

Bush Deceives*

By now, we've become accustomed to the fact that the absence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction — the principal public rationale for the war — hasn't become a big political liability for the administration. That's bad enough. Even more startling is the news from one of this week's polls: despite the complete absence of evidence, 53 percent of Americans believe that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, up from 43 percent before his capture. The administration's long campaign of guilt by innuendo, it seems, is still working.

The war's more idealistic supporters do, I think, feel queasy about all this. That's why they lay so much stress on their hopes for democracy in Iraq. They're not just looking for a happy ending; they're looking for moral redemption for a war fought on false pretenses. Krugman, NY Times 12/19/03

Mr. President, Here's the Difference

DIANE SAWYER:   But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons still —

PRESIDENT BUSH:   So what's the difference?

DIANE SAWYER:   Well

ABC News, 12/16/03

—

Here is the Difference

Coalition Casualties

War Cost

Got Him, But Does Bush have a Plan?*

Everyone agrees that the goal is some kind of democratic Iraq, but I have yet to come away from any of these conversations with a clear sense of how we are going to get from here to there, or even who exactly is the overall conductor of this diplomatic, financial and military symphony. I keep meeting with people, expecting to hear "The Plan," but I never quite hear it. 

What I hear a lot of, though, are horror stories of Pentagon and White House red tape for anyone who wants to go to Baghdad to work in our mission there; continued guerrilla warfare between the State Department and the Pentagon and between the C.I.A. and the Pentagon, which borders on one quietly hoping for the other to fail; and a shocking lack of continuity in the U.S. team in Baghdad.  Friedman, NY Times, 12/14/03

Iraqification*

Everyone seems to be in favor of Iraqification. The president has urged an accelerated training schedule for the Iraqi army. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld says that more Iraqi troops, and not Americans, would be the best answer to his problems.. , , ,

When we speak of sending "Iraqis" on raids into the Sunni Triangle, who would these soldiers be? Sunnis? They might not want to hunt down Baathists, or might easily be bought off. Shiites and Kurds? That would galvanize the Sunni populations in support of the guerrillas. If the goal is to stabilize Iraq, fomenting intergroup violence might not be the best path.

If the American footprint is reduced, it will not make the guerrillas stop fighting. ("Hey, Saddam, we've scared the Americans back into their compounds. Let's ease up now and give them a break.")  Fareed Zakaria, The Washington Post, 11/4/03

How Could Bush have Imagined?*

But on the ground, the looting and the violence went on and on, and for the most part American forces largely did nothing. Or rather, they did only one thing -- station troops to protect the Iraqi Oil Ministry. This decision to protect only the Oil Ministry -- not the National Museum, not the National Library, not the Health Ministry -- probably did more than anything else to convince Iraqis uneasy with the occupation that the United States was in Iraq only for the oil. ''It is not that they could not protect everything, as they say,'' a leader in the Hawza, the Shiite religious authority, told me. ''It's that they protected nothing else. The Oil Ministry is not off by itself. It's surrounded by other ministries, all of which the Americans allowed to be looted. So what else do you want us to think except that you want our oil?''

As Istrabadi, the Iraqi-American lawyer from the Future of Iraq Project, says, ''When the Oil Ministry is the only thing you protect, what do you expect people to think?'' DAVID RIEFF,
NY Times Magazine 11/02/03

Bush Overstretched *

Now nobody realistically expects that the size of the American occupation force in Iraq can be significantly reduced anytime soon. On Thursday, the commander of American ground forces there predicted it would take years before Iraqis could maintain security, allowing American forces to withdraw. At least 100,000 American troops are likely to be needed for quite some time. . .

America now spends some $400 billion a year on defense, more than all other major military powers combined. The best answer to the strains being felt by the Army is not to extend combat tours, cannibalize forces from other missions or undertake vast new spending. A wiser course would be to return to the sound practice of a half-century and treat war only as a last resort, to be undertaken with as wide a coalition of allies as possible. Doing it Mr. Bush's way unnecessarily risks undermining the fighting strength of even the world's strongest military power.  NY Times Editorial 10/5/03

Confusing the Public *

Given the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been uncovered in Iraq, the president needs to be much more up-front with the American people about why our troops are there. Polls show most Americans still believe that Iraq was behind the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, although there is no evidence connecting Saddam Hussein to the terror plot. That is in part because the president continues to draw a line between Sept. 11 and Iraq. There are still good reasons to maintain America's commitment in Iraq. But Mr. Bush's tendency to refer to everyone from Baath Party loyalists to guerrilla fighters as terrorists seems designed to confuse the public rather than clarify the administration's goals. . . .. But while Mr. Bush is getting more specific about the numbers, he has yet to really tell Americans that they will have to make sacrifices to pay the bill. NY Times Editorial 9/8/03

Bush's Closed Mind *

The administration's reconstruction effort is costing the American people $1 billion a week. It is costing the lives of American soldiers and of civilians from many nations. Only an entirely closed mind could fail to grasp the need for a change in course. Close cooperation with the international community might yet yield a plan for peace and security for the people of Iraq. Haughty statements and unilateral actions will not advance our cause. We must work with other countries to forge what we cannot achieve alone: a lasting peace for Iraq and, in fact, for the Middle East region as a whole.

A hallmark of true leadership is the ability to admit when one is wrong and to learn from errors. Candidate George W. Bush spoke about the need for humility from a great and powerful nation.  Senator Robert Byrd, NY Times, 8/26/03

Think Ahea

d, Mr. President

Given the current size of the U.S. military, the Pentagon can replace the 150,000 men and women deployed now with fresh troops for next year. But unless troop requirements in Iraq fall much more quickly than they did in places like the Balkans, the next rotation will be possible only by sending back most of the original occupation forces for another tour or duty, or by relying on more troops from abroad.

If any of the potential crises in North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Liberia or elsewhere flares up, the strains on the American military—and the defense budget—will become severe.  Philip H. Gordon, The Brookings Institution 8/20/03

Conservative Columnist George Will Speaks Out

Currently, 139,000 U.S. troops and about 22,000 from other nations do not seem sufficient. And there may not be enough U.S. troops to do the job. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican, writing in the Washington Times, says that to keep 370,000 deployed in more than 100 countries, "we have called to active duty an unprecedented 136,000 members of the Reserve and National Guard." Today's tempo of operations threatens the services' retention and recruitment.

To those who say that further internationalization of the occupation of Iraq would lessen U.S. "control," the response is: Control -- such as it is -- should not be the grandiose U.S. objective. Neutralization of Iraq as a source of terror will be sufficient  George F. Will, Washington Post, 8/21/03

Bush Failed to Plan

Yesterday's attack, the worst in U.N. history, was another sign that surly, chaotic postwar Iraq is becoming a magnet for terrorists. That is yet another consequence of the Iraq war that the Bush administration failed to anticipate, like the uncontrolled postwar looting, the delays in restoring water and electricity, the ambushes of American soldiers and the sabotage of infrastructure. . . So far, the identity of the terrorists, the resources available to them and their geographic reach all remain unknown. These attacks appear to reflect more than spontaneous local discontent or the rear-guard efforts of fugitive former Baathist officials. There have been reports of radical Islamists infiltrating into Iraq from Iran and Saudi Arabia.  NY Times Editorial, 8/20/03

Cynical Campaign*

Mr [Ray] McGovern worked near the very top of his profession, giving direct advice to Henry Kissinger during the Nixon era and preparing the President's daily security brief for Ronald Reagan. . . .

"Unless what has happened in the past year and a half is recognized as a scandal, in which the CIA has been badly abused, then there's no hope," he said. "I pin my hopes mostly on the press these days. Turns out, surprise surprise, that even the US press doesn't like to be lied to."    Andrew Gumbel, 09 November 2003

Bush's Valley Forge*

Today many reservists are unhappily serving longer and for less pay than regular soldiers in Iraq. Their numbers will climb from less than a quarter of the occupation force now to more than one third, or 39,000, by next spring. The “weekend warriors” have become full timers and have already put in more “duty days per year” than ever before—62.8 million days through the end of September, more than the entire first gulf war (44.2 million), NEWSWEEK has learned. “This is our Valley Forge,” says Lt. Gen. Roger Schultz, director of the Army National Guard, referring to the winter of the Continental Army’s near desertion. Schultz doesn’t see a “mass exodus” but thinks re-enlistments will drop. “To be straight up, we did a lousy job communicating the expectations to these folks on the time they’d spend in the field.”  Michael Hirsh and John Barry, NEWSWEEK, Nov. 17 issue

Monopoly on Power *

the attacks also exploited continuing tensions between the Bush administration and the U.N. leadership. Despite the president's declared intention to seek a larger U.N. role, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and his staff openly campaigned against it; they succeeded in blocking any weakening of the Pentagon's monopoly over power in Baghdad. , ,        ,It will now fall almost exclusively to U.S. soldiers to fight the insurgents in Baghdad and the Sunni triangle, and the United States will have to pay most of the cost of humanitarian relief and reconstruction in the coming year. The administration says the help it was seeking from foreign governments will instead come from Iraqis:  Washington Post Editorial 11/4/03

Believe It or Not*

Halliburton Co. will retain a no-bid contract in Iraq longer than expected, the Bush administration said Wednesday, citing sabotage of oil facilities for delays in replacement contracts.

Halliburton's contract, valued at $1.59 billion so far, will be extended until December or January while the government receives and evaluates revised bids for replacement work that could total $2 billion. Associated Press in the LA Times, 10/30/03

And Bechtel*

Bechtel was second with a $1 billion capital construction contract involving Iraq's utilities, telecommunications, railroads, ports, schools, health care facilities, bridges, roads and airports. . .

Former Secretary of State George Shultz is a member of Bechtel's board of directors, . . .

Riley Bechtel, the chairman and chief executive officer, was named early this year to the President's Export Council, which advises the president on programs to improve U.S. trade.

Jack Sheehan, senior vice president in Bechtel's petroleum and chemicals business, served on the Defense Policy Board

Associated Press in the NY Times, 10/30/03

Profiteering in Iraq*

Rumsfeld’s Pentagon used to make a point of saying that Iraqis were far more sophisticated and educated than, say, Afghans, and that Iraq’s economic recovery would be far more self-sustaining. So why the top-heavy presence of foreign corporations? Even in finance, a six-bank consortium led by J.P. Morgan is accused of crowding out Iraqi banks. This domination by outsiders seems to be crimping the very free-market Iraq that George W. Bush says he wants to create—and requiring far more Americans on the ground. That creates more targets for Iraq’s growing numbers of disaffected militants. It’s far more expensive to: Iraq’s many unemployed engineers get paid less than one tenth what their American counterparts receive.
        . . . The open-ended nature of the occupation, combined with Washington’s refusal to explain in detail what its plans for Iraq are, continues to generate ill will, especially among Iraqis.  Rod Nordland and Michael Hirsh, NEWSWEEK, Nov. 3/03 issue

Iraq:

No Surprises Here *

If I were a Republican senator, here's what I'd tell the Bush team:

• What in God's name are you doing forcing Iraqis to accept Turkish peacekeeping troops? Are you nuts? Not only will Turkish troops in Iraq alienate the Kurds, our best friends, but they will rile the Shiites and Sunnis as well. . .

Attacks on our forces are getting more deadly, not less. Besides those killed, we've had 900 wounded or maimed. We need to take this much more seriously.  . .

"There is now a struggle for power emerging within the Shiite community," says Mr. Nakash, "between those clerics and secular leaders who are ready to give the Americans a chance and a grass-roots leadership that wants to challenge both the Americans and the traditional Shia hierarchy. Friedman, NY Times 10/23/03

The Bush Curse

On Monday, Representative George Nethercutt Jr., a Republican from Washington State who visited Iraq, chimed in to help the White House: "The story of what we've done in the postwar period is remarkable. It is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day." The congressman puts the casual back in casualty. . .

Greg Thielmann, the retired State Department official who was a top analyst for Colin Powell on Iraq's W.M.D., told "60 Minutes II" last night that Iraq had been so far from being an imminent threat that Mr. Powell's speech making that case at the U.N. was "probably one of the low points in his long, distinguished service to the nation." . . .

Everything is wrong, and nothing is wrong. We are trapped in the Bush illogic. Call it our curse.  Maureen Downd, NY Times 10/16/03

Fakery *

What amounts to a warmly worded form letter telling of open-armed welcomes and rebuilt infrastructure was printed by hometown newspapers in the mistaken belief that it was the individual composition of the undersigned soldier in Kirkuk, a relatively peaceful city in Iraq. According to the Gannett News Service, which uncovered the deception, one soldier said his sergeant had distributed the letters to the squad, while another traced his to an Army public affairs officer. . .Fakery is the worst possible way to answer the public's rising demand for information about the true state of affairs in Iraq.  NY Times Editorial, 10/15/03

Politics in Command

But doesn't the US, in any case, want exactly what the Iraqi people want - independence and freedom for Iraq? And hasn't the United States already embarked on a program of Iraqization? . . .The United States doesn't want just any Iraqization; it wants Iraqization that suits American interests. Would the United States, for example, accept an Iran-style Shiite-dominated Islamic republic in Iraq? "That's not going to happen," Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has already said. . . . It's one thing to want Iraqis to take control of their own country, but quite another to accept the Iraq that they create for themselves. Even if democratic procedures are successfully implanted in Iraq, the choices that the Iraqi people make may be dramatically at odds with any or all of the purposes that sent the US into Iraq in the first place. Jonathan Schell YaleGlobal, 29 September 2003

UN Inspectors are Cheaper *

The most striking findings in David Kay's interim report on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are his revelations about the backward state of Iraq's chemical and nuclear programs. Based on the evidence gathered so far in three months of searching, it seems clear that these programs barely existed and posed no immediate threat to the global community. To the contrary, it looks as if international inspectors succeeded in reducing or eliminating Iraq's arsenals and dedicated production capacity, forcing Saddam Hussein to lie low and wait for a new opportunity. . .

At least $300 million has been spent on the search, and the administration is reported to be seeking $600 million more to finish it.

Before approving that substantial sum, Congress may want to consider bringing back the U.N. inspectors, whose costs would be paid by the international community.   NY Times Editorial 10/4/03

Slime and Defend *

It's slime and defend," said one Republican aide on Capitol Hill, describing the White House's effort to raise questions about Mr. Wilson's motivations and its simultaneous effort to shore up support in the Republican ranks.

"So far so good," the aide said. "There's nervousness on the part of the party leadership, but no defections in the sense of calling for an independent counsel." . . .

Still, one Republican with close ties to the administration said the White House was monitoring five Republicans in Congress, all of whom have an independ