From the start W's pledge of obeying his military has been a transparent lie and now the article "Joint Chiefs Chair Will Bow Out" at
click here it clearly as "Gates said that his decision was rooted in political considerations and that he took guidance from members of Congress who warned that Pace could face a maelstrom on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers would dissect the military's failures in Iraq. Pace has been at the center of war planning and policy since the days immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when he started as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Pace's departure-along with the simultaneous retirement of Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, his vice chairman-completes a nearly clean sweep of top military advisers linked to the tenure of Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary. Both military officers were close to Rumsfeld and have been criticized for not challenging him."
W didn't obey his military commanders--he simply got rid of those who didn't agree with his failed policies.
They always blather on about giving the new commanding general in Iraq, who Congress recently voted into his job, time to see his pet tactic, the "surge", work. The article "Korb: Petraeus Cannot Be Trusted To Give Unbiased Assessment On Iraq" at http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/25/korb-on-petraeus/
states "Both Democrats and Republicans have begun rallying around a September deadline to reassess Bush's Iraq strategy. Whether the September reassessment successfully results in a drawdown currently depends on whether Gen. David Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, issues a candid report about the deteriorating conditions resulting from the escalation. Already, Petraeus has said that his report will not say "anything definitive...
As evidence, Korb cites the fact that just before the 2004 election, Petraeus wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post proclaiming there was "tangible progress" because Iraqi forces were "stepping forward." Korb writes, "If Petraeus wrote on his own initiative, he was injecting himself improperly into a political campaign. If he was encouraged or even allowed to do this by his civilian superiors, he was allowing himself to be used for partisan political purposes." That wasn't an isolated incident. Petreaus has allowed himself to be used as a "political prop" to support the White House's war czar nominee. And, Petraeus has echoed President Bush's line that al Qaeda, not sectarian civil war, is the greatest threat in Iraq - an assessment that contradicts the intelligence."
click here the fact that W's national security advisers, Rice and Hadley should have been doing the work that the sap Lute is getting to do now, four years too late.
W settled for three-star Army general General Lute after many others who are more qualified turned the position down. If Lute thinks that stating his differences with W's policies will soften his inevitable fall then he isn't only under-qualified for the position but also terribly deficient in understanding the culture of W's administration.
"General Lute that expressed skepticism that the solution in Iraq required increasing the number of American troops - which is exactly what was ordered by President Bush as part of his new strategy, announced in January.
General Lute is representative of a group of officers that worked at the military's Central Command under Gen. John P. Abizaid, now retired, who argued that a large American presence was like a virus in Iraq, with more troops adding to a sense of occupation and thrusting the Iraqis into a relationship of dependency."
Lute understands that Maliki's government isn't going to take the hard steps required to achieve reconciliation in Iraq as "General Lute also acknowledged doubts about the ability of the new Iraqi government to control its own affairs, and said he had concerns whether the government in Baghdad could make good on promises of political progress, regardless of pressure from the United States government. "The question, in my mind, is not to what extent can we force them or lever them to a particular outcome, but rather to what degree do they actually have the capacity themselves to produce that outcome, and if produced - or if pressed too hard, will we in turn end up with an outcome that isn't really worth the paper it's written on?"
Even that is too mild. They don't want us there as the article "Iraqi Lawmakers Pass Resolution That May Force End to Occupation" at
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/53230/
states "While most observers are focused on the U.S. Congress as it continues to issue new rubber stamps to legitimize Bush's permanent designs on Iraq, nationalists in the Iraqi parliament -- now representing a majority of the body -- continue to make progress toward bringing an end to their country's occupation.
The parliament today passed a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the U.N. mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December."
They can't agree to make needed political reconciliation, but they can agree to end the hated occupation.
We should have never gone into Iraq, as the article "Latest Intelligence Report Yet Another Smoking Gun On Bush" at
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_bob_geig_070606_latest_intelligence_.htm
states "The report, which the previous Republican Congress successfully kept from being produced for two years, shows that months before the Iraq invasion, the White House knew from U.S. intelligence agencies that a civil war would likely erupt after Saddam's ouster, that al-Qaeda would quickly move to exploit the American occupation and that Osama bin Laden's organization would actually gain strength globally due to Bush's action."
Once big bro 43 lied his way into the Iraq war more lies had to be made to cover-up the preceding propaganda. Good military experts were sacked so that chumps--military yes men for W's "bubble boy" administration, were given positions far exceeding their meager abilities.
Some recent history on this is that "When Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 25, 2003 to discuss preparations for a possible invasion of Iraq, he was asked by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) to estimate the size of a successful occupation force after victory.
"Something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably a figure that would be required," said Shinseki, a highly-decorated officer with almost four decades of service, including extensive combat duty in Vietnam. "We're talking about a post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems."...
Shinseki was immediately jumped by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Rumsfeld said publicly that Shinseki was "far off the mark" in his prediction, while Wolfowitz called his views "wildly off the mark" and said, "I am reasonably certain that they will greet us as liberators, and that will help us to keep requirements down."
In an example of how Rove's tactic of spouting euphemisms instead of facts has spread to even the newer crew of big bro 43 minions, such as the recently picked Defense Secretary the article "Gates 'would be happier with faster progression' by Baghdad" at
click here "We would certainly be happier if there were faster progress on the political front." ...
He noted that the Iraqis had missed a May 31 deadline for passing a hydrocarbons law - one of many political obstacles yet to be overcome."
We can assume that the Shiite Iraqis aren't going to give their hated foe the Sunnis anything of any value such as proceeds from Iraq's main asset, oil. Can't they even come through on their pledge to provide security?
No, as "General Petraeus has been pretty clear from the beginning that this was going to be a difficult process," Gates said. But a military spokesman said earlier that an interim assessment by US ground commanders of the three-month-old plan found Iraqi police have not been up to the task of securing cleared neighborhoods.
"There were some planning assumptions made that after an area was cleared and went into 'control' there would be sufficient Iraqi security forces to control the area," said Lieutenant Colonel Scott Bleichwehl. "We've had some issues in some areas with the availability of the police and in some cases there are some issues with reliability," he added.
Operation Fardh al-Qanoun [Imposing Law], which was launched in February, focused on a "clear, hold and build" strategy for securing the city, whereby each neighborhood would be systematically cleared of armed groups. Once an area was safe, the US forces would move on and Iraqi forces would patrol the district to maintain security for eventual building projects.
The assessment said that only 146 out Baghdad's 457 neighborhoods are in this "control" or "hold" stage. "There are areas that we have to go back and clear again and this is tough," Bleichwehl said, although he insisted that the downbeat assessment by no means indicated that the operation is behind schedule.
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