The Tale Of A Kidnapping

More than a few months ago, Jill Carroll was released by her kidnappers in Iraq and came home with much fanfare as one of the very few brights spots of news from the war-torn country. Though she was relieved to be home, she did not immediately give a full account of how she was abducted nor her treatment at the hands of the insurgents.

Through the Christian Science Monitor and over ten parts, Ms. Carroll tells the tale of her abduction and her detention. It is quite a powerful story of what gathering news from outside the Green Zone was like, and why not many reporters venture out of those confines today. It is a powerful story.

On The Connecticut Senate Race And Control In Iraq

A great deal of attention was paid to the primary election held in the state of Connecticut this past Tuesday. Senator Joe Lieberman versus businessman Ned Lamont pitted the three-term incumbent against a single-issue candidate for the right to compete in the general election under the Democrat banner.

The single issue won.

While Senator Lieberman is not resigned to the fact that he has lost his Senate seat just yet, there does appear to be a greater issue here - unbridled support for the invasion and occupation of Iraq might hurt candidates that still need to appeal to those in the middle of the electorate. While any primary usually attracts those most motivated to vote in any election cycle (meaning those more politically active and interested), all those in the House may not take too lightly the idea of siding with the Bush Administration's single message which is "stay the course." From the current polling data, 60% of Americans believe the war and subsequent occupation a mistake.

It may well become diametrically defining issue of the nation come this November as it was in all of the races in 2004.

Related to this issue, it was interesting to hear the opinions of one Rory Stewart regarding how life appears on the ground within the confines of Iraq. Part of his book The Prince of Marhses has been excerpted on Salon.com. His direct participation in the lives and affairs of those in and around Maysan demonstrate the tremendous complications one undertakes when invading and occupying a foreign land.

To his credit, he made mention while making a guest appearance on a radio show that no matter how well one planned to set up the bureaucracy to fill the void of post-Baath control there really is nothing better to be done. His sense that an occupying force would get the situation invariably wrong is a lucid assessment given the current climate of sending more ground troops to Baghdad in order to improve the tense situation. The United States fixes things by putting more money, more security, and more boots on the ground which may well act as a destabilizing force to the existing hierarchy of the country.

The book should be a good read.

They Made Us Do It

Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres knows who is responsible for the deaths of many children, women, and elderly in the town of Qana in southern Lebanon. Hizbullah is the party that killed all of those people.

When asked who was responsible for the civilian deaths in Qana, Peres -- a former Israeli prime minister -- said, "Totally, totally it's (Hizbollah's) fault."

This line of reasoning is astonishing to say the least.

Imagine an armed bank robber who flees the scene of the crime only to be followed by the authorities. The thief breaks into a house and closes the door behind him. The police follow in and after rushing through the door, they see a figure duck into a dark room; they open fire. The victims are a mother and child who were running away from where the criminal had just escaped via the back door.

The police chief comes out and excuses the officers of wrong doing since it was the bank robber's fault that those two innocents were killed. This type of argument would not stand, as the officers have a responsibilty to aprehend the criminal while not harming the rest of the law-abiding public. They are first to identify the subject before using lethal force.

Certainly the authorities would not have been in the house with guns drawn had the criminal in this scenario not created the condition first, but his actions do not absolve the authorities of their duty to the public. "Shoot first and ask questions later," is meant to highlight the dubious ethical and moral nature of such an action - there is no second chance to revoke the decision.

Retuning to the Qana incident, Isreal conducted a severe bombing campaign on the village and in pursuing Hizbullah forces, the Israeli Defense Forces destroyed a building which was being used as a makeshift bomb shelter by residents. By dropping bombs on a village Israel was accepting a risk of civilian casualties in a cavalier manner. When such an event happens, they are no longer responsible for their actions since Hizbullah has tied their hands.

If this is the rationale, then no one in Lebanon is safe. Israel will have a free hand to take intelligence of where they sense Hizbullah is operating from and launch an assault on a populated area without regard to repercussions. If the people of Lebanon do not like this policy, then they can make Hizbullah stop. How they would make them stop is not explained by Peres since it seems readily apparent that a much-vaunted military such as the IDF cannot stop Hizbullah very well either.

It is inexcusable for Israeli officials to switch the onus onto those they fight for their missteps and poor execution of battle operations. Hizbullah has its myriad faults in their attacks against towns in Israel, yet this should give Israel less room, not more, in excusing wanton destruction and loss of civilian life.

What To Hope For

Over the recent two to three weeks, it has been mentioned on current event talk shows that Baghdad will be receiving additional reinforcements via an American supplement of approximately 4,000 troops along with 4,000 Iraqi security forces. The hope is to repress the sectarian civil war and keep the unity government stable.

The question posed more often though is, "What is the next milestone?" The past markers that the Adminstration would point to as signs of success have all come and gone. Elections here, the constitutional process in terms of drafting and a vote, and then the formation of a final government were all followed by press announcements of how the citizens of Iraq were choosing democracy and freedom over terror and killing.

Yet now, there is nothing on the horizon that becomes the next marker in terms of progress. The United States will continue its occupation of the country and the American government has no immediate plans for a draw down in force structure on the table. The costs of operating in the arid land is close to 1.5 billion U.S. dollars per week. The cost in terms of injured and killed to American forces is a constant flow of a casualties daily, lately averaging two deaths per day, and several more wounded. A tally of Iraqi deaths is hard to gauge, but multi-execution reports are too numerous to list here, and often come in totals of the 50 to 80 variety.

So what can an American hope for in Iraq in the coming months? What is the United States' responsibility if the Maliki government in Baghdad collapses and a real power struggle breaks out? What happens if everything suddenly reverses itself and things become positively stable in every province of Iraq? What will the Bush Administration do to change course?

When One War Is Not Enough

Over the course of the past week, events have made a precipitous slide within and without the borders of Israel. It began with the capture of Cpl. Gilad Shalit on June 25th, 2006. Militants within the borders of the Gaza strip were able to capture the corporal after slipping through the border via an underground tunnel. Almost immediately, Israel put the group responsible and Hamas as a whole on notice that it was not going to negotiate an exchange. Not only were the Israelis not going to negotiate, they moved militarily back into the Gaza strip where the kidnappers were understood to be hiding the soldier.

A mess quite serious in itself.

Adding the events of July 12th and things are moving quite quickly with very few prognosticators guessing where things end.

Hizbullah militants set up and detonated an explosive against an Israeli tank beyond the border of Lebanon - i.e. an incursion into Israeli territory. Two Israeli soldiers were then taken hostage by the attackers back into Lebanon. The incursion was followed by an announcement by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah of Hizbullah that a "prisoner" exchange would be in order for the safe return of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

Israel again replied that under no circumstances were they going to negotiate a trade. The demands of Israel as it stands today are:

1. Return of the two soldiers


2. Pushing Hizbullah north of the Litani River (further away from the Israeli border)


3. A halt to rocket attacks on Israel

While each of these particular events involves a smoldering fire from the past, the fear is that the escalation in military tit-for-tat fighting will embroil further nations in the Middle East to join in the fray. Syria and Iran head that list, but at the moment it looks less likely that this entrée will come to pass. This won't stop Iranian officials from expressing rhetorical statements that sympathize with Hizbullah and the Palestinians. It hasn't prevented the Iraqi Parliament from condemning Israel either for the invasion of southern Lebanon.

At some point there will be a cooling off period (just not very soon) and all sides will pick up the pieces.

It should go without saying that what is not needed now is another step by the United States to conduct a military operation in hopes of further securing a country that is not our own. Over the past weekend, many conservative voices on the far right concluded that to not strike back at Iran (and to a lesser extent Syria) with our military is to be seen as weak. William Kristol of the Weekly Standard led the charge on the weekend political talk show circuit, as well in his editorial titled, "It Is Our War".

Beyond the assertion that America is now tightly in the grasp of an imagined war with radical Islam, Kristol envisions a world bathed in conflagrations as far as the eye can see. Bombing Iran now is a must. Accepting the wrath of world condemnation a necessary price for "showing a strong America," will be a certainty. Siding strictly with Israel making things more difficult in Iraq (with a predominantly Shi'ia population), well, the U.S. was tiring of propping that place up anyway.

War, war, and more war. Some neoconservative principles are best left to the historical dustbin where they belong.

Voicing National Concerns

Texas Representative Ron Paul gave a speech in the House that entertains the subject, "Why Are Americans So Angry?" It is well worth reading.

Some insightful passages:

"No matter how noble the motivations of political leaders are, when they achieve positions of power the power itself inevitably becomes their driving force. Government officials too often yield to the temptations and corrupting influences of power.

But there are many others who are not bashful about using government power to do "good." They truly believe they can make the economy fair through a redistributive tax and spending system; make the people moral by regulating personal behavior and choices; and remake the world in our image using armies. They argue that the use of force to achieve good is legitimate and proper for government -- always speaking of the noble goals while ignoring the inevitable failures and evils caused by coercion.

Not only do they justify government force, they believe they have a moral obligation to do so."

"We are constantly told that the next terrorist attack could come at any moment. Rather than questioning why we might be attacked, this atmosphere of fear instead prompts giving up liberty and privacy. 9/11 has been conveniently used to generate the fear necessary to expand both our foreign intervention and domestic surveillance."

Emphasis added.

"Constitutional and moral restraints on war should be strictly followed. It is understandable when kings, dictators, and tyrants take their people into war, since it serves their selfish interests -- and those sent to fight have no say in the matter. It is more difficult to understand why democracies and democratic legislative bodies, which have a say over the issue of war, so readily submit to the executive branch of government. The determined effort of the authors of our Constitution to firmly place the power to declare war in the legislative branch has been ignored in the decades following WWII."

This and many more clear-headed observations are included in his remarks.

And The Band Plays On In The Green Zone

After the surprise visit last month by President Bush to Iraq's Green Zone, the news seemed to take on a positive note. The Iraqi cabinet and government was fully in place after many months of uncertainty, and Zarqawi was killed with the help of two 500-pound bombs.

Those were the good old days.

On the return trip home, the President said:

"I assured them that we'll keep our commitment," Bush said ... "I also made it clear to them that in order for us to keep our commitment and be successful, they themselves have to do some hard things. They themselves have to set an agenda. They themselves have to get some things accomplished."

One month later, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is pleading with his country to avoid further bloodbaths like that which took place yesterday when 60 were murdered in and around Baghdad. From Reuters:

Maliki has vowed to disband militias, some tied to parties in his government, that are carving Baghdad into sectarian no-go areas. But he faces an uphill struggle as most, including the Mehdi Army, have powerful allies inside the ruling coalition.

Sectarian violence will not subside for quite a long while no matter the official pronouncements from the Executive's office.

Ending The Occupation Of Iraq

The Senate got through the long slog today of defeating the proposed withdrawl plans of Democrats today. It was so popular that Senators voted to defeat it twice.

What is it about the occupation of Iraq that is so popular among the Administration and Congressional Republicans? There is certainly something in it for them that they continue to resist the idea of an end to an armed presence inside that country. Else, how does one explain the persistence?

It is far from a still-raging war. That would imply that: A) Congress actually declared war which it did not do in the case of Iraq, and B) that President Hussein's armies still were functioning and the capital and the countryside was under his control. The Iraqi Army was routed in scant time by the U.S. military, and the President himself declared that major combat operations were over. It is not knowable if that statement meant that minor combat operations were just beginning, but it was unequivocally accepted as a victory speech by President Bush.

What is left is a low-level civil war (obviously the result of unleashing the ethnic strife between three groups of people) and a resistance movement against the U.S. occupation. The insurgency does not exist to re-fight the war but to remove and resist the occupier. Those that are self-described jihadists (along the lines of al Qaeda in Iraq) number a small fraction of the total insurgency as can best be ascertained by those close to the events.

So the fall of Iraq as a nation has been accomplished, and a new government erected and blessed by the U.S. authorities stands in its place. Again, from the surface this does not sound like an ongoing war.

Let us add to this one very plain notion repeated often enough to be quoted verbatim, "as the Iraqi security forces stand up, coalition forces can stand down." It is said quite a bit actually. By its very nature, that rule explicitly implies that it is not the duty of the United States military to kill every last insurgent, or collar every single jihadist. From the Administration's own rhetoric, leaving is not to be based on when the last person like Zarqawi is dead. Hence there is no further victory to be had; the military presence acts more like a caretaker force until such time that Iraq's nascent army can take modest control.

Recall that the debate in the Senate focused on "surrender" and "cut and run," without aknowledging that even the President has not committed the Army, Air Force, and Marines to fully occupy Iraq until 100% peace is achieved. It is almost as if Republicans on the Hill are asking that the men and women who remain targets in Iraq to simply accept that this is their sole function. From what can be found on the web today about Iraqi security force levels the number approximately comes to 117,900. This accounts for Iraqi Army personnel, Support Forces, and Special Operation Forces. The Ministry of the Interior claims 145,500 individuals. 263,400 security personnel, and not many American servicemen have been called back home. How tall do those Iraqis have to stand up?

One can question whether the Iraqis would be able to maintain a stable country were it not for the American forces, yet should the civil war expand and consume the several provinces, will the U.S. take a side? covertly combat all ethnic groups and force a peace?

Cut and run? It was suggested that the euphimism for the Republican desire be "Sit and wait." Maybe it would help America to continue the debate without the quips and snips of the opposite side. Even still, Americans and Iraqis will continue to die for months if not years to come in an unending occupation.

At some point the American public will thoroughly sour of the adventure. Maybe then some sense will begin to take hold in Washington, D.C.

Creating The Threat And Believing In It

Every so often there are snippets of insight that come out by way of faithful investigators following a story for the long haul. Even items that are weeks, months, or years old bear covering if the story leads there.

By way of the Cunning Realist from Andrew Sullivan, we have a review of Ron Suskind's book The One Percent Doctrine by Barton Gellman.

In the book it is put forward that the Administration puffed up the resume of captured al Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah. What was thought to be a top leader of the secretive terrorist organization may actually have been a mentally unstable member who was given primary duties of assisting members in moving people around such as wives and families of al Qaeda members. It was also known that his diary was written in the voice of three separate people. Not quite stable.

After his case was presented as such to top Administration officials, they continued with the theme that this was a top official of bin Laden's inner circle. President Bush alluded to Zubaydah as the "chief operating operator". Not to be shown up, the Vice President brought Abu back out in December of 2002, saying:

"...we've captured or killed many key leaders within the al Qaeda organization. These include Abu Zubaydah, bin Laden's chief of operations, who was seized last March in Pakistan and has been providing valuable information to U.S. interrogators".

Suskind puts forward that after it was known that Zubaydah wasn't as critical a piece of the terrorist network as was thought, steps were taken to add some pressure to his interrogation.

From the Washington Post review:

Which brings us back to the unbalanced Abu Zubaydah. "I said he was important," Bush reportedly told Tenet at one of their daily meetings. "You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?" "No sir, Mr. President," Tenet replied. Bush "was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth," Suskind writes, and he asked one briefer, "Do some of these harsh methods really work?" Interrogators did their best to find out, Suskind reports. They strapped Abu Zubaydah to a water-board, which reproduces the agony of drowning. They threatened him with certain death. They withheld medication. They bombarded him with deafening noise and harsh lights, depriving him of sleep. Under that duress, he began to speak of plots of every variety -- against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty. With each new tale, "thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each . . . target." And so, Suskind writes, "the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered."

To be fair, this was an Administration that in 2002 was still preoccupied with hunting down al Qaeda and their techniques were quite unpolished. They were also still contemplating if torturing suspects was legal.

If the story bears out to be true, is there still a question as to whether the Administration will use any device possible to convince citizens that they are protecting the country?

The President's Best Week Of 2006

One dead terrorist. A full complement of ministers installed in the Iraqi Prime Minister's cabinet. What appears to be a cogent and rational discussion on Iraq at Camp David. The long round-trip tickets to Baghdad and back for a meeting with Al-Maliki. Poll numbers that moved up to 38% job approval rating.

This may well prove to be the best week for President Bush of 2006. It will be difficult to determine if it is the best week of his second term until January 2009.

What seems likely is that Iraq will not become a miracle next week or next month. More violence and strife will befall the people of Baghdad and in Kirkuk. Basic services and security will be daily struggles for what may be years to come with or without the Unite States Army and the Marines presence. A grisly first-hand account of an event from June 14th. There will be more of these stories.

It may well be that there is more good news coming from Iraq of the Zarqawi kind, repleat with video of the bombs landing and photos of the blast site. Yet the civil war will continue to weigh heavily on both countries.

At least there was one good week.

Zarqawi Killed In Airstrike - Civil War Continues

From this morning's headlines America learned that Abu Musab Zarqawi was ambushed from the air last night and most likely killed. Iraqi forces apparently discovered the body after Zarqawi left the scene of the bombing for medical attention. Two women were also killed in the strike.

There is much to be thankful for when a radical along the lines of Zarqawi is removed from the picture though capturing him alive would have rendered vital information on various aspects of his group. Even if Zarqawi was propped up by the U.S. government to fit a need to incorporate terror, there is a very good chance that he was heavily involved in making lives much worse in Iraq.

Yet with all the puffery it could muster, the White House put forward the news as if Saddam Hussein had been captured. This is good news of course for the Executive branch, yet this is far from a sign of curtailing of violence in Iraq. Moreover, it was not the singular work of Zarqawi that exposed sectarian tensions but more than likely the democratic process and the fight for power in the country that has brought about the rifts between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

Far from being a moment when peace will settle in to the land of Iraq, the death toll will continue to rise day by day, and American forces will be placed further down the hole of occupying a land that is in civil war.

Book Review: How Would A Patriot Act?

Often linked to from this web log, Glenn Greenwald's book How Would A Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok is the short recap of the more recent revelations of government surveillance and secrecy in terms of wiretaps and executive power.

Greenwald is a Constitutional attorney in Manhattan. His politics had been worn far away from his sleeve before the terrorist hijackings on September 11, 2001. After this moment, he found himself in favor of an attack against Afghanistan. When the Administration pushed for a war in Iraq against a country that had not attacked us in 2001, his views began to turn away from support of the President and towards a more skeptical view of his policies and practices.

Then came the eavesdropping on phone calls. Americans participating in calls from or to foreign countries were being listened to without the Administration first obtaining a warrant. The explanation given by President Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez was that these were only calls from known numbers that were linked to terrorist organizations.

In December 2005, the New York Times disclosed that there was a secret program in which the Administration went around the FISA courts in order to eavesdrop on telephone calls. There is still relatively little known about the program other than an acknowledgement of its existence by the President after the story was reported. Congress was notified of its existence if one may conclude that if the leadership of each house was notified and sworn to secrecy then Congress as a whole knew of its existence.

Greenwald picks up on the story after the article and dissects the reasons and logic that supporters of the President and of the policy use to defend the eavesdropping. One by one, his view is that either the logic is flat out false (that FISA is unnecessary during a time of war) or that the justification of the country at war is enough to warrant drastic executive powers that curb civil liberties is a flimsy veneer meant to hide illegalities. There are many points that he takes time to outline, but the underlying theme in How Would A Patriot Act?, is that of a Presidency that has dizzying difficulties in distinguishing what is right and what is wrong.

Greenwald revisits the detention and removal of citizenship rights of two men by the names of Hamdi and Padilla who have been batted about in ethereal legal limbo for upwards of three years. Both men were labeled terrorists and detained without charges and without legal representation and locked up in military brigs. In Hamdi's case, the Supreme Court eventually ruled that the Executive does not have a Constitutional right to detain without charges a citizen of the U.S. For Padilla, a similar situation arose where the Attorney General (at the time Ashcroft) proclaimed his arrest as a terrorist attempting to plot a dirty bomb somewhere in the U.S. Thus, he was labeled an enemy combatant; an ill-defined status that allows for the Commander-in-Chief to decide what fate he may wish to mete on the subject. Before his detention could be challenged the Administration finally charged him with crimes that were unrelated to those claimed at the time of his original detention. More on Padilla from Glenn Greenwald's web log.

In closing his book, Greenwald focuses on why terrorism is so important to the White House and to the Republican-controlled Congress: fear. His suggestion is that with the fear of further attacks the conservative response of strength to the indifference of civil liberties will reward the government with greater control through electoral success. There must certainly be an honest belief within the West Wing and at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue that what is being done in the name of safety is really helping the country, yet one may only read the speeches at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City to learn how fear dominated the discourse.

In order to defend its policies whether they be torture, warrantless eavesdropping, rescinding habeas corpus, or an overly secretive state, President Bush made use of fear in order to quell any popular resentment at the loss of civil liberties. All of our lives could be wiped out tomorrow if he is not permitted to listen in to calls without a warrant. Never mind that the President very carefully told an audience in Buffalo, NY that when he talks about wiretaps there is always a court order involved. He knew that not to be the case, but when it would poll well to admit to illegally eavesdropping on American citizens if it was couched in, "I'm protecting you," language, then so it must be.

If the reader has the chance, this book is strongly suggested to better understand what it is that upsets those who wish their civil liberties not be trampled upon. Glenn Greenwald may not have delivered a book epic in length, but it captures the spirit of patriotism and indignation that is the movement against this Administration.

Visit Glenn's web log or buy the book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Borders.

Civil War's Toll

When speaking of homicide, there are two separate frames to contend with in the popular media. The first probably consists of reporting murders within the country, and to that end it is likely to be a quick number and brief details on the nightly news of who was killed in a major metropolitan area. The second frame must contend with deaths outside of America, and then it is most likely a total reported via a conflict of some sort.

Just comparing basic statistics for a major metropolitan area inside the borders of the United States, the murder rate can be gathered year by year and compared historically. For the metro area in and around Washington D.C., the number of homicides for 2005 was 466. The year prior the number hit 420. Obviously that is more than one slaying per day in the general vicinity of the nation's capital and a grisly reminder of the rate of violent crime in the area.

For the month of April, Baghdad tallied almost 1,100 dead by violence. Pause on that figure for a moment. This is not crime-related violence, or a surge in drug gangs and turf wars. Rather, this is one ethnic group taking on another ethnic group and bodies are piling up.

If Baghdad has a homicide rate of 10,000 per year, would that be enough to state that there is a civil war raging in Iraq, or is it that a civil war is classified when one side wears dark blue uniforms and the other butternut gray?

Senate Majority Leader Bill "C-Note" Frist

A few months back, this web log reviewed the year that was for 2005, and one of the commentaries focused on the leadership qualities of Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee. Or the lack of leadership from the southern Senator.

Just a few days ago, there was a well-timed press conference conducted by Sen. Frist introducing the Republican idea that Americans needed some extra money in their pockets to take to the pumps. It has not gone over so well on either side of the aisle.

Again Frist faces what will look like in hindsight an opportunistic grab at publicity and 2008 voter appeal intertwined with public policy. The idea of reimbursement must have seemed appealing at some point, but the details and the logic of the legislation fall by the wayside when the shorthand rationale is explained as "throw money at the voters".

From Dictionary.com:
Leader- n 1: a person who rules or guides or inspires others

Senator Frist is having issues again with this noun.

The Imminence Of Iran

Today was the day the United Nations received a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding Iran's actions in regards to enriching uranium. Here's the first report from the New York Times, "Iran Is Not Cooperating, Agency Says". Without going into extreme detail, the article makes mention, "that after more than three years of an IAEA investigation, 'the existing gaps in knowledge continue to be a matter of concern.'" It would appear that the IAEA is looking for more information on the enrichment process, and not getting the answers they want.

Then comes this fine quote from America's representative at the U.N.:

''I think if anything, the IAEA report shows that Iran has accelerated its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, although, of course, the report doesn't make any conclusions in that regard,'' Bolton said.

His statement at first implies that the report "shows" that Iran is after nuclear weapons, and the second portion of his statement is a concession that the report does not say this. Interesting.

Further rattling of cages in the Mideast to follow.

Match this action against cooler heads that might say "not so fast", such as David Isenberg's opinion piece published at TomPaine.com and the Center for Defense Information entitled, "Saber Rattling Backed Up by Weak Intelligence." A quick passage:

Even if all the questions are answerable, much would still depend on having excellent intelligence. And our intelligence on Iran, to put it politely, stinks. U.S. News & World Report recently reported that Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said that, “we have not made the progress on our oversight of Iran intelligence, which is critical.” Last year, the report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction stated, “From Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons to the inner workings of al-Qaida, the intelligence community frequently admitted to us that it lacks answers.”

The United States will be planning future actions that are based on insufficient intelligence, or so it appears.

These are precisely the same type of arguments that would lead the United States into a sticky civil war in Iraq. The policy driving an attack on Iran would undoubtedly not follow that model - which quite possibly would leave the door open for a uniquely different Rumsfeldian blunder in Iran.

Iran may well be doing research which would lead them to a nuclear bomb. It may also be doing research which may lead to nuclear energy for its country. How much more difficult will this confrontation be when the Administration tries to bully Iran into doing what the U.S. wants?

About as difficult as affording a barrel of oil at $100-plus.

Five Times Too Many

Just yesterday, Karl Rove returned to the federal grand jury for a fifth time. That is not good news and it only allows critics to wonder whether his change in job duties was to allow him more time to prepare his legal defenses. This is not to say that being called before a grand jury is a sign of wrongdoing, but making multiple passes makes conflicting testimony possible.

Jason Leopold puts forward some ideas on what might be going on behind the scenes in the Valerie Wilson (Plame) CIA leak case to which Rove now is becoming a more prominent figure. Leopold's sources would suggest that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald knew he the originators of the leak were over a year ago, but the process of obtaining information from reporters prolonged the case.

In addition, much more attention is being paid to John Hannah, currently a senior national security aide in the Vice President's office. It may have been Hannah that gave Fitzgerald's investigation the pointer towards Irving Lewis Libby and Karl Rove. From the sound of the entire article, it was this lead and the reporters' own testimony that led to Libby's and Rove's desks.

It remains to be seen if the Vice President's Chief of Staff David Addington will put Hannah up for promotion.

Can It Get Any Worse?

The President, his Administration, and his policies are all suffering intensely during the spring of 2006. The phrase "new low" must be recurring far too often at the White House. Poll numbers have consistently fallen over the past twelve months to the now dismal 33% level. Can it go down even further from here?

As noted in the poll, it is now a first that Republican support for the President has dipped below the 70% number. To see further movement in these polls, it will likely be from the Republican side of the polling data as 11% of Democrats approve of the job the President is doing.

It appears that there will be little in the way of legislation that a GOP-controlled Congress will take on given the certain unpopularity of the President throughout 2006. Even if the White House manages to fend off a lurch to the Left in either or both houses of the legislative branch, there might be a few state legislatures that line up articles of impeachment.

Will George W. Bush find poll numbers dipping into the 20s soon?

Democracy, Mayhem And Destruction - Not Necessarily In That Order

To be certain that things are continuing to get worse, Patrick Cockburn penned this passage about the current conditions in Iraq. Some brief excerpts:

"I have been covering the war in Iraq ever since it began three years ago and I have never seen the situation so grim. More than a week ago, I was in the northern city of Mosul, protected by 3,000 Kurdish soldiers, but even so it was considered too dangerous to send out patrols in daytime. It is safer at night because of a curfew."

"I was in Lebanon at the start of the civil war in 1975. Baghdad today resembles Beirut then. People are being murdered solely because of their religious identity. A friend called to say he had a problem because his two half brothers had been born in Fallujah, the Sunni Muslim stronghold, and this was on their identity cards. If they were picked up by Shiite militiamen, a glance at their place of birth alone could get them killed."

And the conclusion of his piece:

"Three years ago, when Saddam's statue was toppled, Iraqis were promised their lives would get better. Instead Iraq has become the most dangerous place in the world."

When the nightly news in the U.S. begins to frame the news from Iraq as coming from the site of a civil war, only then will the American public begin to understand the full brunt of the cost that this escapade has incurred to both countries. The canard that President Bush often repeated, "We're fighting them over there so we don't have to face them here," is a falacy of epic proportions. Over top of that falacious reasoning, it carries the logic of, "We'll raze your country to buy an ounce of security for ours."

Making It Up As We Go Along

It must be terribly difficult to find the sunny side of things in the White House this year. So little has gone right in the first three months that the success of Associate Justice Alito being confirmed to the Supreme Court might be measured by light years.

To wit, Americans may find it difficult to swallow that a document or state secret stays secret only until it becomes politically convenient to release it. Worse still, the decision to declassify is soley based on a need to repel a story or criticism and otherwise might just as well stay secret.

President Bush stands accused of such a ploy via Irving Lewis Libby's testimony before the grand jury. A brief excerpt:

The presidential authorisation prompted Mr Libby to disclose the information - taken from the government's secret National Intelligence Estimate - to Ms Miller at a meeting in July 2003, at the St Regis hotel in Washington DC.

It was during Mr Libby's several meetings with Ms Miller that he was accused of disclosing the identity of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative married to former US ambassador Joseph Wilson.

It is always helpful to bear in mind the history of what transpired during 2003 when a war had been won, an insurgency had been birthed, and a pesky diplomat was suggesting that stories about Niger were debunked months prior to a State of the Union address.

Juan Cole provides such a timeline, with pictures no less.

The executive branch does have latitude when administering the laws of the land - it was supposed to as per Article II of the Constitution. The designers of that austere document might never have known that the Chief Executive would resort to pettiness when making decisions for the good of the entire country. Actually, maybe they did conceive of such leaders.

There is always Section 4. of Article II.

Immigration In The U.S.A.

Molly Ivins had an insightful tongue-in-cheek commentary regarding the immigration issue currently on the political talk show circuit. Titled "Immigration 101 for Beginners and Non-Texans", Ms. Ivins takes a stab at reducing illegal immigrants.

"Numero Two-o, should you actually want to stop Mexicans and OTMs (other than Mexicans) from coming to the United States, here is how to do it: Find an illegal worker at a large corporation. This is not difficult—brooms and mops are big tipoffs. Then put the CEO of that corporation in prison for two or more years for violating the law against hiring illegal workers.

Got it? You can also imprison the corporate official who actually hired the illegal and, just to make sure, put some Betty Sue Billups—housewife, preferably one with blond hair in a flip—in the joint for a two-year stretch for hiring a Mexican gardener. Thus Americans are reminded that the law says it is illegal to hire illegal workers and that anyone who hires one is responsible for verifying whether or not his or her papers are in order. If you get fooled and one slips by you, too bad, you go to jail anyway."

The point being that people from many places come here for work - to make money to send back home - because they know they can find that job. Employers are eager to save money in a capitalist-style economy, so they continue to hire cheap labor.

Hence, if one is serious about slowing down the rate of illegal immigration, one might wish to curtail the sugary nectar that is bringing the worker bees over to the field.

Groups and individuals that hire workers with little background check or desire to know the legality of their workers would not be friendly to this type of enforecement that Ivins suggests. The House Republicans likely will not be able to produce a piece of legislation that will satisfy their nativists base along with their corporate benefactors.

For the most part, the Democrats appear to be working on the margins while the Republicans try and figure out which policy will come closer to a political victory. The prediction: Immigration will be a third-rate issue come November 2006. Coming in first will be Iraq and the Administration's grand policy on nation-building as well as general security. Second on the scale may be institutional corruption of Republican making.

Democrats may well find an opportunity to claim some form of solidarity this year.