Pentagon’s military officers are NOT all on the same page…
August 30, 2007 by Dusty
The page I am referring to is the Iraq War page and what should be done next. McClatchy has a good article up that points out how many of the military minds can not come to a consensus on how to deal with the war. From the McClatchy article:
Sphere: Related ContentIn a sign that top commanders are divided over what course to pursue in Iraq, the Pentagon said Wednesday that it won’t make a single, unified recommendation to President Bush during next month’s strategy assessment, but instead will allow top commanders to make individual presentations.
“Consensus is not the goal of the process,” Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters. “If there are differences, the president will hear them.”
Military analysts called the move unusual for an institution that ordinarily does not air its differences in public, especially while its troops are deployed in combat.
Thus far, we have an NIE assessment that is less than rosy. The leader of Iraq says that the escalation is not reducing violence there — it’s just shuffling it around in a more intense version of whack-a-mole.
And this morning, we have a leaked GAO report that says that the Iraqi government has failed to meet all but 3 of 18 political benchmarks. And we hear that the report was leaked by someone at the GAO who feared that the Bushies would tart it up (read: Cheney would blue pencil it) for public consumption. (What does it say when an official at an independent government watchdog agency fears that the President’s minions will tamper with a report like this? Has this been happening frequently the last few years? Shouldn’t we be asking that question?)
None of that matters. The only “benchmark” the WH is interested are those “Revenue sharing agreements”
Which ammounts to:
We(Exon, Mobil, shell, BP) take all your (Iraqi) oil and pay you next to nothing for it.
Our profit: 75%
You get leftovers of 25%
What’s slightly more surprising is that the GAO all but calls the administration and the Pentagon liars. Politely, of course.
Yes, it would be useful if Petraeus and the White House provided actual credible data to back up their assertions of tactical triumph, wouldn’t it? The fact that they don’t most likely means they know exactly what would happen if their methodology ever saw the light of day: it would get laughed off the stage before the noise machine even had a chance to clear its throat.
One more interesting thing: the Post actually explains why someone leaked a draft copy of the report to them: the leaker was afraid it would get watered down before final publication and wanted to make sure that someone knew what the GAO really thinks. Considering what happens to most reports that go through the DoD wringer, I’d say that shows considerable foresight.
MULTIPLE CHOICE QUIZ….Rep. John Porter, who recently hopped the Baghdad Shuttle to chat with our guys on the ground, reports back:
The Nevada Republican, who returned Tuesday from his fourth trip to Iraq, met with U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Iraqi Deputy President Tariq al-Hashimi and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh.
“To a person, they said there would be genocide, gas prices in the U.S. would rise to eight or nine dollars a gallon, al-Qaida would continue its expansion, and Iran would take over that portion of the world if we leave,” Porter said Wednesday in a phone interview from Las Vegas.
There are two possibilities here: (a) Petraeus and Crocker really did say that stuff, or (b) Porter is lying. If it’s the former, then Petraeus and Crocker have pretty plainly decided to become frothing administration attack dogs on Iraq, not honest brokers. If it’s the latter, Petraeus and Crocker ought to be plenty pissed. Which is it?
Unless (c) there would be genocide, gas prices in the U.S. would rise to eight or nine dollars a gallon, al-Qaida would continue its expansion, and Iran would take over that portion of the world also if we stay in Iraq.
Maybe Porter misheard. They told him that those things would happen if we attacked Iran.
yes! i’m encouraged!! the president, with his brilliant intellect, his ability to understand nuanced situations, his encyclopedic knowledge of the middle east, of iraq, iran, of our history as it relates to the middle east. this president, oh joy, will be listening to each individual one-on-one.
could it be that he does not want them to hear EACH OTHER?? this way, he can always blame this individual, or that one, and there will be no one available to back up the blamee.
did i say i hate george bush? i was out at noon today running errands and looking at all of the folks in their (gigantic) cars and SUVs. i was wondering whether or not any of them are aware that we are on the verge of invading yet another country ~ iran ~ for no clear reason except that we want to, and iran opposes us.
the few people i do hear talk about it assure me that iran has threatened us. maybe so, that’s pretty much what happens when a big sonofabitch comes to your doorstep talking shit and beating up on your neighbor. i’d threaten the fucker too, and i’d go get my guns, and i’d try to run that bastard off.
could it be that iran, iraq, all of the rest, that they just want us to get the fuck out of there? i know it can’t be this simple, but i come back to believing that the future of the world depends upon OUR ~ the US ~ pursuing energy independence with the same degree of vigor we’ve pursued this misbegotten disaster in iraq.
as long as we depend on the middle east we’re going to be fucking around over there. and those folks ~ understandably, in my view ~ don’t like it. we arm one country after another, we’re friends with you and then we’re not, who the hell can trust the foreign policy of this country??
it makes me sick. the whole thing. i really, really want to move to canada.
I read the same WaPo article re the leaked GAO report. Bushco’s own government (again) trying to get the word out, knowing that Bush/Cheney will edit & spin, & now this–does anybody actually know how many times the Pentagon has done anything like this? Very interesting.