Conservatives Criticize the Pullback that Republicans Stipulated

Say what??? A number of conservatives have criticized the U.S. pullback, seeming to forget that the date was stipulated in an agreement hammered out by the Bush administration (and hailed at the time by the war's supporters as a victory for President Bush's Iraq policy). Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute called the pullback a "projection of weakness," and warned that the day "will likely mark another milestone: the end of the surge and the relative peace it brought to Iraq." Vice President Cheney -- who assured Americans in May 2005 that the insurgency was in its "last throes" -- used the occasion as another opportunity to cast the Obama administration as irresponsible, warning that he "would not want to see the US waste all the tremendous sacrifice that has gotten us to this point." Responding to Cheney's attacks, former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke said on MSNBC's Countdown this week, "He's trying to predict disasters -- another al Qaeda attack, more violence in Iraq; and say, in advance of these things happening, if they happen, it will be because of something Obama did. Even though in this case, it's something that Bush did.

Rightwing Extremists?

The Department of Homeland Security. What a joke.

No we learn that "Right-wing extremist groups may be using the recession and the election of the nation's first African-American president to recruit members,". Huh? The nine-page report said it has "no specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence," (no information ...sounds about right) it said real-estate foreclosures, unemployment and tight credit "could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past."


Christ. If these guys aren't hiring idiots like "Brownie ", waving container ships in to port* or taking bribes** they are obviously sitting round making stuff up.

*Through 2008 the DHS repeatedly attempted to cut funding for port security

even as we learned of more vulnerabilities in port security

programs.

**Stephen Payne, a Bush pioneer and a political appointee to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, was caught on tape offering access to key members of the Bush administration inner circle in exchange for “six-figure donations to the private library being set up to commemorate Bush’s presidency.”

POST SCRIPTUM: OK so maybe I was wrong on this one...

President Bush Dodges Shoes, Not Questions

I have to say I was pretty impressed with President Bush's cat-like reflexes when he dodged the shoes hurled at him by a journalist in Iraq (a sign of the utmost disrespect in that country as we know). That said, I was utterly unimpressed by his answers to questions relating to Al Qaeda in Iraq. It is now common knowledge, and a fact accepted by the Pentagon that Al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq until after the US invasion in 2003.



In an interview in Iraq yesterday, President Bush defended the war in Iraq, saying it was "where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand." Raddatz interrupted to point out that al Qaeda was not present in Iraq until after the United States invaded, to which Bush replied dismissively, "Yeah, that's right. So what?"

He continued, "The point is that al Qaeda said they're going to take a stand." In the lead-up to the Iraq war, Bush repeatedly and insistently cited a link between Iraq and al Qaeda. When it turned out those links never existed -- and that the Bush administration may have willingly distorted information to suggest that they did exist -- Bush continued to tie Iraq to al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 attacks, even as late as 2007.

Rather than take responsibility for the intelligence failures before the war, earlier this month Bush said cynically, "I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess." He has also repeatedly insisted that Iraq is "the central front in the war on terror," using the claim as justification for the war. Yet, as Raddatz points out, al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq until the U.S. invasion. The Bush administration has finally admitted "privately" that "Afghanistan is now the single most pressing security threat in the war on terror."

Shinseki Gets the Call

Yesterday, President-elect Barack Obama named ret. Army Gen. Eric Shinseki as his Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA), promising "the kind of VA that will serve our veterans as well as they have served us." Shinseki will face one of the country's most daunting tasks: managing an institution already plagued by backlogs, scandals, and inadequate resources, and is increasingly taxed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the press conference, Shinseki spoke directly to veterans: "If confirmed, I will work each and every day to ensure that we are serving you as well as you have served us. We will pursue a 21st-century VA that serves your needs." The nomination of the first Asian-American to the post -- Shinseki, a Japanese-American, grew up in Hawaii -- carried extra poignancy coming on the 67th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks. Military officials and some veterans organizations immediately praised Obama's announcement. Former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell called Shinseki "an inspired selection." "He is a man that has always put patriotism ahead of politics, and is held in high regard by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan," read a statement by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.



Shinseki is most famous for publicly contradicting Bush administration officials' overly optimistic predictions about the war in Iraq. In 2003, then serving as the Army's chief of staff, he told Congress that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to secure Iraq. The Bush administration's failure to heed Shinseki's warnings led to a decimation of the U.S. military -- underequipped forces, an over-reliance on the National Guard and Reserves, a dangerous stop-loss policy, and an increasing number troops coming home with mental and physical problems. As University of Michigan professor Juan Cole told the Washington Post, "If Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and [former undersecretary for defense Douglas J.] Feith had listened to Shinseki, there wouldn't be as many wounded veterans to take care of." Shinseki served two combat tours in Vietnam, receiving two Purple Hearts and four Bronze Stars. He has frequently worked with wounded veterans and visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center, referring to it as a "members-only section" since he, too, is an amputee.

Downtrodden by Bush administration. In 2002 and 2003, Bush administration officials tried to sell the public on an Iraq invasion by arguing that the costs to the United States would be almost nonexistent. "Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits," said then-White House adviser Lawrence Lindsey. Bush administration officials not only completely miscalculated the billions the United States would have to spend on combat and reconstruction but also failed to plan for the cost of caring for wounded troops after the war. The Iraq war has seen an unprecedented number of troops who "have been wounded or injured and survived," according to economists Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes. The ratio for Iraq and Afghanistan has been seven injuries for every fatality -- by far the largest in U.S. history -- compared to 2.6 and 2.8 for the Vietnam and Korean wars, respectively. The result of this lack of preparation has been a badly neglected VA, with the appalling conditions at Walter Reed as only the tip of the iceberg. In July 2007, Jim Nicholson resigned as VA Secretary in disgrace, leaving a tenure during which he stood by and even supported the Bush administration's slashing of the agency. President Bush has, in fact, repeatedly objected to large increases in the budget for veterans' medical care. However, Nicholson's departure hasn't cleared up all the problems. Under new secretary James Peake, VA officials have been trying to cover up data on the troubling rise in suicides among veterans.

Challenges. Veterans are suffering the consequences of the Bush administration's neglect. Last year, a Harvard Medical School study found that one in eight veterans younger than 65 is uninsured. Military retirees who are insured are often paying more for medical care than other retirees. Despite the Bush administration's promises to reform the veterans' care system after the Walter Reed scandal, a Government Accountability Office report last year found that delays for disability payments "still average 177 days -- nearly six months -- with no indication that dramatic improvement is in the offing." One of Shinseki's most pressing challenges will be modernizing the VA to deal with the increasing number of mental health troubles faced by soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly 20 percent of returning veterans have post-traumatic stress disorder, but only about half of them seek treatment. Another area where the VA has fallen short is in its treatment of women veterans. As the AP has reported, "Of the women veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who have walked into a VA facility, 15 percent have screened positive for military sexual trauma." Roughly 180,000 women have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and last year, the VA) "treated more than 255,000 female veterans. The number is expected to double within five years."