“President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence. Neither assertion is wholly accurate.“ Update: Slate‘s Fred Kaplan parses Dubya’s speech further.
Tag: War in Iraq
Adding Insult to Intelligence Failures.
As McCain calls for changes in Dubya’s Iraq strategy, White House National Security advisor Stephen Hadley inaugurates Dubya’s comeback plan, which will get more run in a presidential speech today. Step One: Call the Dems out on their pro-war votes. “‘Some of the critics today,’ Hadley added, ‘believed themselves in 2002 that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, they stated that belief, and they voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein posed a dangerous threat to the American people.‘” Well, yes, but if Dems were relying on faulty and doctored intelligence to come to that supposition in 2002, that only brings us back to the $64,000 question: What exactly happened to our prewar intelligence once it reached the White House?
Grey Lady Down.
“Even before I went to jail, I had become a lightning rod for public fury over the intelligence failures that helped lead our country to war…I believed then, and still do, that the answer to bad information is more reporting.” To no one’s surprise, Judy Miller “retires” from the New York Times, but not before getting in one last word (and setting up her own website.) Well, she was way wrong on WMD, but she’s right about this: The best thing the NYT can do to restore its credibility after Judy and Jayson Blair would be to lead an investigatory charge into the pre-war Iraq intelligence, and pronto.
A Murder Most Foul.
“Two years ago, at Abu Ghraib prison, outside Baghdad, an Iraqi prisoner in [C.I.A. officer Mark] Swanner’s custody, Manadel al-Jamadi, died during an interrogation. His head had been covered with a plastic bag, and he was shackled in a crucifixion-like pose that inhibited his ability to breathe; according to forensic pathologists who have examined the case, he asphyxiated…Swanner has not been charged with a crime and continues to work for the agency.” So, as the New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer reports, “we do not torture“…we just crucify. Sweet merciful Jesus, what have we become? (Via Malice Aforethought.)
The Hell Jar.
Generally well-made and well-acted, and at times beautifully shot (particularly in the oil-fire sequence late in the film), Sam Mendes’ Jarhead, alas, doesn’t really work. One marine recruit’s account of his time in “the suck” and his service in Gulf War I, which involved a lot of waiting around in the Saudi desert with nary an enemy combatant in sight, the film is strangely flat and uninvolving for most of its run. It must’ve been hard to figure out a way to make a movie about anxious boredom seem compelling to an audience, and I haven’t read Anthony Swofford’s much-acclaimed memoir, so I don’t really know how much the source material is at fault, but stocking Jarhead with war movie cliches and nods to other, better films was not the correct answer.
As the movie begins, Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) undergoes a mercifully brief stint in Basic Training (a la Full Metal Jacket), before being assigned to a unit under the severe but well-meaning Staff Sgt. Siek (Jamie Foxx). Soon, Iraq invades Kuwait, and Swofford’s unit (which includes an excellent-as-usual but somewhat miscast Peter Sarsgaard, and memorable turns by Lucas Black and Jacob Vargas) find themselves in the Saudi desert, and the interminable waiting begins. Trained to be lethal killing machines, Swofford & co. are all dressed up with no place to go, so they spend their days hydrating, pining over their (serially unfaithful) ladyfriends, running chemical attack simulations, and rather unsuccessfully staving off insanity with machismo and masochism. Finally, they’re given the chance to fulfill their training, only to discover to their disgust that marine infantry are somewhat extraneous in this particular conflict, and they’ll have very little chance to exorcise their ingrained bloodlust. (To which I say, better than the alternative — I suspect very few veterans of live combat situations would share their disappointment.)
In almost any war, long stretches of waiting followed by intermittent bursts of activity is the soldier’s lot, so perhaps Jarhead should be commended for trying to bring this reality into focus. But, I have to admit — and admittedly, I’m as civilian as they come — a lot of the movie rings false. And, even if the many implausible details are in fact true and documented, the movie does itself a disservice by wallowing in broad war movie cliche. We’ve got the aforementioned hellish basic training, the sergeant with a heart of gold, the private who goes bug-nuts psycho in the field, the obligatory descent into madness by the protagonist, so on and so forth. In its best moments, Jarhead riffs on these obvious nods — marines hoop and holler to the valkryie scene in Apocalypse Now, and Swofford complains that The Doors’ “Break on Through” is “Vietnam music.” But most of the time, Jarhead just feels like more of the same.
In sum, if you want to see a great Gulf War I movie, watch Three Kings. Jarhead, unfortunately, is at best a low two-pair.
Fein Time.
“There has never been more frustration with the war in Iraq, and less clarity about our mission there, than we face today…And while we haven’t heard the administration clearly articulate our military mission in Iraq, there is another silence that is just as deafening — the lack of a debate in Congress about how and when that mission will be brought to an end.” Over at Salon, Sen. Russ Feingold argues for a timetable in Iraq, or at the very least a congressional debate on the issue.
The B-Team.
“‘Everyone thinks it is over for Karl and they are wrong,’ a source close to Rove said. The strategist’s legal and political advisers ‘by no means think the part of the investigation concerning Karl is closed.’” As Scooter Libby preps for his Thursday arraignment, Rove continues to sweat the Fitzgerald investigation. Meanwhile, Cheney picked Libby’s replacements yesterday, and they’re more of the same: The new chief of staff, David Addington, was the co-author of the infamous torture memo, and Cheney’s new national security advisor, John Hannah, acted as the conduit for false Iraq intel in the lead-up to war. And, as you might expect of Cheney’s cronies, both are already implicated in Plamegate.
Uncomfortable analogies.
According to National Security Agency historian Robert Hanyok, his recent work outlining a deliberate NSA cover-up following the Gulf of Tonkin incident has been suppressed by the agency since 2001, in part because of Weaponsgate. “He said N.S.A. historians began pushing for public release in 2002, after Mr. Hanyok included his Tonkin Gulf findings in a 400-page, in-house history of the agency and Vietnam called ‘Spartans in Darkness.’ Though superiors initially expressed support for releasing it, the idea lost momentum as Iraq intelligence was being called into question, the official said.“
Dubious Milestones in Baghdad.
As Iraq announces the approval of its draft constitution (which passed in a manner Slate‘s Fred Kaplan has deemed “the worst of both worlds“), the war claims its 2000th US military casualty. (Of these, 357 were under 21, 487 were National Guard, and 1863 — over 9 in 10 — have died since Dubya’s “Mission Accomplished” fiasco.) We’re still well under the casualty rate for Vietnam, true, but what comfort is that to the families of the fallen? Two thousand US men and women have been killed in the line of duty, and this blatantly amateurish administration still has no plan either to win or to disengage from a conflict they orchestrated, other than “stay the course.” As with so much else under this president, the conduct of this war from its inception has been shameful and unacceptable — in short, a national embarrassment.
First Blood for Fitzgerald?
As breaking everywhere this morning, it seems Scooter Libby, for one, has clearly perjured himself in the Plamegate investigation. Whatsmore, his boss, “Big Time” Dick Cheney, may well have initiated the smear campaign against Valerie Plame, in order to promote the administration’s push for war in Iraq. What else has Fitzgerald uncovered? We should know within 72 hours.