“What [Connecticut] tells us about the fall is something I think we’ve known all along, and that is the status quo in Iraq is unacceptable. It’s unacceptable to Democratic primary voters, it’s unacceptable to independents and it’s unacceptable to a large minority of Republicans. Iraq is the number one issue and the message is exceptionally simple: We cannot abide the status quo.” As Joe Lieberman likely nears the end of his days as a Democrat, Hillary, the DLC, and other centrist Dems prep for the fallout from the Connecticut primary.
Tag: War in Iraq
Government Accounting: The Ken Lay Way.
As reported over the weekend in the NYT, an audit finds that the US Agency for International Development (AID) has been using funny math to hide huge cost overruns for Iraqi reconstruction projects. “The agency hid construction overruns by listing them as overhead or administrative costs, according to the audit…[for one new power station]the project’s overhead, a figure that normally runs to a maximum of 30 percent, was a stunning 418 percent.“
The Round Mound is Sound.
“The word conservative means discriminatory practically. It’s a form of political discrimination. What do the Republicans run on? Against gay marriage and for a war that makes no sense. A war that was based on faulty intelligence. That’s all they ever talk about. That and immigration. Another discriminatory argument for political gain.” Basketball legend Charles Barkley sets the story straight about his political affiliation: “I was a Republican – until they lost their minds.” (Via Now This.)
Spoils Spoiled.
As war profits begin to dry up, the Army announces it is finally ending Halliburton’s exclusive deal to provide logistical support to US troops, in favor of a multi-company approach that will hopefully spur some degree of price competition. Good news, sure, but this newly rational stance against Cheney’s pet corporation is coming more than a little bit late in the game: “The decision on Halliburton comes as the U.S. contribution to Iraq’s reconstruction begins to wane, reducing opportunities for U.S. companies after nearly four years of massive payouts to the private sector….No contractor has received more money as a result of the invasion of Iraq than Halliburton, whose former chief executive is Vice President Cheney.“
The Death of Dubya Diplomacy.
“‘It’s difficult to think of many other times and many other presidencies when so many dangerous events were happening at once,’ says Wendy Sherman, a State Department official under President Clinton. ‘But there’s so much going on in every global hot spot because the Bush Administration really opened up Pandora’s box with little-to-no plans to support their actions.’” TIME Magazine composes a cover story obit for the Bush doctrine. Good riddance: “As it turns out, Iraq may prove to be not only the first but also the last laboratory for preventive war. Instead of deterring the rulers in Tehran and Pyongyang, the travails of the U.S. occupation may have emboldened those regimes in their quest to obtain nuclear weapons while constraining the U.S. military’s ability to deter them.“
Not this time, Karl.
“He’s making a political speech. He’s sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big, fat backside saying, ‘Stay the course.’ That’s not a plan.” As justifiably disgruntled veteran John Murtha lights into bile-spouting chicken-hawk Karl Rove for another gutterball attack on Dems’ patriotism, the Democrats step up to the bar and offer two substantive plans for phased withdrawal from Iraq, to be debated tomorrow. “Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Russell Feingold of Wisconsin…pushed an amendment requiring that U.S. combat troops be out by July 2007…In a statement, Kerry and Feingold said a deadline ‘gives Iraqis the best chance for stability and self-government’ and ‘allows us to begin refocusing on the true threats that face our country.‘”
Truman/False?
“The idea that Truman and Dean Acheson could be hauled out as exhibits for preventive war in Iraq against ‘abject pacifists’ such as myself made me feel that I was living in Oceania, and the Ministry of Peace had rewritten the textbooks to prove that the legacy of a president who rejected preventive war in fact constituted the best justification for it!” By way of my friend Mark, Peter Beinart and Michael Tomasky go toe-to-toe over the legacy of ’48 at Slate‘s Book Club. I’m inclined to agree with the latter.
Free Byrd.
Sorry, Strom. West Virginia mainstay Robert Byrd is now the longest-serving Senator in American history, having been in office 17,327 days. (He first won his seat in 1958.) “Although he is frail and walks with two canes, Byrd still gives theatrical speeches on the importance of preserving the Senate’s traditional powers and other issues dear to him. Some of his most emotional orations in the past three years have involved the Iraq war, which he opposed from the start and considers a historic misadventure.“
Hellfire Clubs.
“We can’t win this militarily. It can only be won politically; it can only be won diplomatically and internationally…And you’ve got to listen to realism and what the public wants in the United States.” Hopefully (but not likely) heeding John Murtha’s words, Dubya’s Iraq team retreats to Camp David for a strategy pow-wow. By the way, is it just me or does the “Interagency Team on Iraq” look suspiciously like the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants?
Heck of a Job, Sully.
“I do think she is so into this that she sees it from the inside out…And I’m not sure she adequately grasps all the mistakes we have made.” The NYT profiles Meghan O’Sullivan, the deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan. “In Baghdad, American Embassy officials sometimes use the phrase, ‘Let’s not Meghan-ize the problem,’ meaning, let’s not try to impose order on the chaos of Iraq with one of her five-point presentations.” But, to be fair to O’Sullivan, the fellow she’s briefing every day hasn’t shown a propensity for understandiing anything more complex. In fact, five points may be stretching the limits of the presidential curiosity.