Iraq Invasion
A Pentagon audit of $8.2 billion in American taxpayer money spent by the United States Army on contractors in Iraq has found that almost none of the payments followed federal rules and that in some cases, contracts worth millions of dollars were paid for despite little or no record of what, if anything, was received. [...]
In one case, according to documents displayed by Pentagon auditors at the hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, a cash payment of $320.8 million in Iraqi money was authorized on the basis of a single signature and the words "Iraqi Salary Payment" on an invoice. In another, $11.1 million of taxpayer money was paid to IAP, an American contractor, on the basis of a voucher with no indication of what was delivered. [...]
The Pentagon report, titled "Internal Controls Over Payments Made in Iraq, Kuwait and Egypt," also notes that
The most recent USA Today/Gallup poll finds 63% of Americans saying the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq, a new high mark by one percentage point.
The new high in Iraq war opposition is also notable because it is the highest "mistake" percentage Gallup has ever measured for an active war involving the United States — surpassing by two points the 61% who said the Vietnam War was a mistake in May 1971. At that time, however, Gallup found greater uncertainty (11% no opinion) and lower outright support for the Vietnam War (28% said it was not a mistake) than it does for the Iraq war today (36%), so it is not clear-cut as to which war was less popular with the American public.
Today the NYTimes published convincing details of the Defense Department's program to shape public opinion on the Iraq war, before and after the invasion of Iraq, by using retired military officers who are authoritative "military analysts" for FOX and other media organizations.
Other administrations had made sporadic, small-scale attempts to build relationships with the occasional military analyst. But these were trifling compared with what [Torie Clarke, Assistant Secretary of Defense for public affairs] had in mind....a strategic decision was made in 2002 to make the analysts the main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for war. Journalists were secondary....
The Pentagon's regular press office would be kept separate from the military analysts. The analysts would instead be catered to by a small group of political appointees....The decision recalled other administration tactics that subverted traditional journalism. Federal agencies, for example, have paid columnists to write favorably about the administration. They have distributed to local TV stations hundreds of fake news segments with fawning accounts of administration accomplishments....
Josh Marshall at the The Hill:
First we heard [from McCain] that it's not right to say that he's happy for the Iraq "war" to continue for a century because he's insisting that he's only OK with it if we're talking about the fantasy Iraq, where none of our soldiers ever gets killed and where we don't have to pay tens of billions of dollars a year to garrison the country. Even "occupation" is unacceptable, because what McCain says he's really talking about is a "presence" on the model of Korea, Japan and Germany. [...]
McCain's defenders come back with his caveats. Americans don't like being in Iraq because we're seeing American soldiers and Marines dying at a rate of one or more a day and it's costing us $100 billion a year. McCain's only for staying there forever as long as our troops aren't getting killed anymore. But this is simply a bizarre counterfactual that again shows how simply out of touch he is. While American casualties are down significantly from their peak in 2007, there's little reason to think our occupation will ever become bloodless. And even if Iraq becomes Finland, it will still take mountains of American cash to sustain it.
What McCain wants is to make a total commitment to the permanent garrisoning of Iraq but also add a big fat asterisk that stipulates that the occupation that has been bloody and fiscally ruinous will suddenly cease to be so in his fantasy future. But, again, that just makes it clear how out of touch he is — for all his trips to the region — with the real situation and where the American people are.
I think this is the right approach to McCain's remarks. It's not accurate to say he wants "100 more years of war." But it's totally legitimate to ask in what magical future will Iraq become a peaceful nation where American troops no longer get shot at.
Don't miss BUSH'S WAR -A History of the Iraq War - a 2-part documentary on the way the decision to invade Iraq was made and sold to us. View it on FRONTLINE this week. Channel 7 (KUED) shows it at :
Bush's War Part I Mon Mar 24 8 pm OR Tues Mar 25 11 pm
Bush's War Part II Tues Mar 25 8 pm OR Wed Mar 27 11 pm
It will be available for download from NPR.org after the Frontline broadcast.
From Obama's speech in West Virginia yesterday (barackobama.com):
[W]hen I am President, I will spare no expense to ensure that our troops have the equipment and support they need. There is no higher obligation for a Commander-in-Chief. But we also have to understand that the more than $10 billion we're spending each month in Iraq is money we could be investing here at home. Just think about what battles we could be fighting instead of fighting this misguided war.
Instead of fighting this war, we could be fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and who are plotting against us in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We could be securing our homeland and stopping the world's most dangerous weapons from falling into terrorist hands.
Instead of fighting this war, we could be fighting for the people of West Virginia. For what folks in this state have been spending on the Iraq war, we could be giving health care to nearly 450,000 of your neighbors, hiring nearly 30,000 new elementary school teachers, and making college more affordable for over 300,000 students.
We could be fighting to put the American dream within reach for every American — by giving tax breaks to working families, offering relief to struggling homeowners, reversing President Bush's cuts to the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, and protecting Social Security today, tomorrow, and forever. That's what we could be doing instead of fighting this war.
As we enter year 6 of the Iraq occupation, Democrats are proposing a responsible way to bring our involvement in Iraq to a close. What do the Republicans offer? More of the same with no end in sight. See the full plan at responsibleplan.com.
Our plan will:
- End U.S. military action in Iraq
- Use U.S. diplomatic power
- Address humanitarian concerns
- Restore our Constitution
- Restore our military
- Restore independence to the media
- Create a new, U.S.-centered energy policy
Atrios reminds us that the Iraq Study Group released their report one year ago today.
Nice one, TIME.
Or, Yet Another Example of Conservative Cognitive Dissonance. Responding to a post from a right-winger who accuses an Iraq veteran with PSTD of faking his symptoms, digby says:
The political activists who metaphorically spit on the troops today are on the right.
This is going to be more common as we come up against the government's responsibility toward our military and the brainwashing these selfish right-wing creeps have undergone for the last 20 years. I don't think they've ever contemplated the fact that their patriotic reverence for the troops might conflict with their anti-government philosophy. After all, the military is a government program. And there are going to be veterans who need the government's help for the rest of their lives.
What's the ideologically correct right-wing position here? Conservatives simultaneously believe that (1) Americans should do everything possible to "support the troops," and anyone who doesn't is unpatriotic, and (2) "socialized medicine" is evil. So what happens when thousands of returning Iraq veterans need medical and psychiatric care — services that are provided to them through that evil "socialized" healthcare program known as the VA? It's quite a dilemma.
It's kind of like that bill that would've prohibited the sale of guns to terrorism suspects. That one had conservatives tied up in knots too. "Terrorists are bad, but buying guns is good! Urgh!"
Most Americans oppose fully funding President Bush's $190 billion request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a sizable majority support an expansion of a children's health insurance bill he has promised to veto, putting Bush and many congressional Republicans on the wrong side of public opinion on upcoming foreign and domestic policy battles.
The new Washington Post–ABC News poll also shows deep dissatisfaction with the president and with Congress. Bush's approval rating stands at 33 percent, equal to his career low in Post-ABC polls. And just 29 percent approve of the job Congress is doing, its lowest approval rating in this poll since November 1995, when Republicans controlled both the House and Senate. It also represents a 14-point drop since Democrats took control in January. [...]
Part of the displeasure with Congress stems from the stalemate between Democrats and the White House over Iraq policy. Most Americans do not believe Congress has gone far enough in opposing the war, with liberal Democrats especially critical of their party's failure to force the president into a significant change in policy.
When will congressional Democrats realize that Americans hate this war, Bush is deeply unpopular, and they control the funding?
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