Look at some of what has been divulged just this week. The article "U.S. Spied on Iraqi Leaders, Book Says-- Woodward Also Reveals That Political Fears Kept War Strategy Review 'Under the Radar'" at
click here
demonstrates that W lied to us. It should not surprise us that W spied on his hand-picked Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. W perpetrated illegal surveillance on his own citizens. It follows that he would not have any compunction in doing the same to his allies. After all W described Iraq as a dangerous country in a dangerous part of the world.
"We know everything he says," according to one of multiple sources Woodward cites the practice in "The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008," scheduled for release Monday.
The book also says that the U.S. troop "surge" of 2007, in which President Bush sent nearly 30,000 additional U.S. combat forces and support troops to Iraq, was not the primary factor behind the steep drop in violence there during the past 16 months."
We were told that the purpose of the surge was to provide security for the
political reconciliation in Iraq. That hasn't happened-consequentially the surge has failed.
The violence hasn't been reduced as a result of the surge anyway, as the article continues "Overall, Woodward writes, four factors combined to reduce the violence: the covert operations; the influx of troops; the decision by militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to rein in his powerful Mahdi Army; and the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and allied with U.S. forces."
This week Anbar became the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces to take control of its security from U.S. forces. Isn't that a failure? According to W's speeches
about holding Iraq to its benchmarks, they were all supposed to be under Iraqi control by now, but someone how or other mini-me is saying that the Democrats are surrender monkeys.
The September 4, 2007 article "Bush's Magic Benchmarks"
http://www.observer.com/2007/bush-s-magic-benchmarks
dealt with how Rove spun reality regarding Iraq and concluded "So now we will be assured that those benchmarks never really mattered or can't really be measured, or something like that. Don't look there! Look over here! It is the traditional cry of the shell game, except that these bets are much too high."
I haven't heard a blessed word about the benchmarks or just the mathematical fact that 11 out of 18 is 61% and change. I guess that qualifies as a gentleman's C in W's Yale.
The article "U.S. Spied on Iraqi Leaders, Book Says-- Woodward Also Reveals That Political Fears Kept War Strategy Review 'Under the Radar'" dealt with W as a leader who did precious little leading and as a human being who exhibited laziness and an eagerness to spew propaganda about his failed Iraq policy. Remember W is the man mini-me is tied to in both international and domestic policy.
The article states "The book portrays an administration riven by dissension, either unwilling or slow to confront the deterioration of its strategy in Iraq during the summer and early fall of 2006. Publicly, Bush maintained that U.S. forces were "winning"; privately, he came to believe that the military's long-term strategy of training Iraq security forces and handing over responsibility to the new Iraqi government was failing."
Why was he saying we were winning when we weren't and he and his advisors knew differently? It is a tendency mini-me adopted from W.
The article continues "Eventually, Woodward writes, the president lost confidence in the two military commanders overseeing the war at the time: Gen. George W. Casey Jr., then commander of coalition forces in Iraq, and Gen. John P. Abizaid, then head of U.S. Central Command.
In October 2006, the book says, Bush asked Stephen J. Hadley, his national
security adviser, to lead a closely guarded review of the Iraq war. That first
assessment did not include military participants and proceeded secretly because of White House fears that news coverage of a review might damage Republican chances in the midterm congressional elections."
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