DON'T FORCE STATE DEPARTMENT EMPLOYEES TO GO TO IRAQ

The State Department professionals who object being assigned to the embassy in Baghdad are putting the lie to the Bush/Petraeus spin that things are going swimmingly in Iraq. As one employee said, assignment to Iraq is like a death sentence.

Ambassador Ryan Crocker says it is the duty of State Department foreign service employees to put the nation's interest over their own personal safety. This sounds nice to say, but let's not forget, Ryan Crocker, qua ambassador, is accompanied wherever he goes by those Blackwater thugs. And he probably sleeps in a triply fortified bedroom in the embassy. Whereas the ordinary foreign service chump is subject to mortars and suicide bombers at every turn.

If the State Department insists on forcing unwilling employees to Iraq, then Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice should also do a turn of duty there. No trips alllowed back to the U.S. or to destinations outside Iraq for at least the first six months.

U.S. DOES LITTLE TO AID PLIGHT OF IRAQI REFUGEES

It's about time that Ryan Crocker, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, has complained about the dire treatment of Iraqi refugees by the United States government. Crocker has penned a State Department cable complaining about the slowness of processing refugees for entry into the Untied States, Spencer S. Hsu and Robin Wright report today in The Washington Post. More than two million Iraqis have left their homes and fled Iraq mostly to Jordan and Syria. Shamefully the U.S. has accepted only a handful.

Bush, Cheney and Chertoff, head of Homeland Security, think that Iraqi refugees pose a danger of terrorism if allowed into the U.S. And why do they think that? They know the dimensions of the public relations disaster they have caused by their unjustified war and invasion, and they believe the man in the street in Iraq blames them for the destruction of Iraqi society.

We don't hear Bush's question any more whether Iraq is better off now without Saddam, do we? Iraq is so much worse off, when you count the million or so Iraqis killed since the start of the war in 2003, the number of families displaced, the humanitarian refugee crisis, the lack of social and political order, the destruction of a functioning health and welfare systems.

Write Hsu and Wright:

"About 2 million Iraqis are displaced inside Iraq, and an estimated 2.2 million more have fled to Syria, Jordan and other neighboring countries, where they are straining local resources and threatening to destabilize host communities, the United Nations has reported. With 60,000 Iraqis fleeing their homes each month, Jordan largely closed its borders to Iraqis earlier this year, and Syria said yesterday that it will begin requiring visas for Iraqis at the conclusion of Ramadan next month, essentially closing off exit routes from the country."

Yet the U.S. has committed to take in only 7,000 refugees for 2007, and the actual number will be about 2,000. Last year, the U.S. took in only about 700.

Destroy a country with bombs and tanks. Tell the world you were "liberators." Then walk away from the carnage. Let the injured population fend for itself in the resulting social chaos and disorder. Show no mercy to would-be refugees.

PETRAEUS CLAIMS IRAN IS SUPPLYING WEAPONS TO SHIA INSURGENTS IN IRAQ

Gen. David Petraeus appeared at the National Press Club today together with Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Petraeus had some bad things to say about Iran. William Branigin reports on Petraeus' comments on the web page of The Washington Post:

"Asked whether his testimony about Iran could be viewed as part of a campaign to build toward an attack, Petraeus said: "I'm not blaming Iran for all that's gone wrong in Iraq." But he said Iran has contributed to sophisticated attacks in Iraq that otherwise would not be possible, including strikes with armor-piercing "explosively formed projectiles" and 240mm rockets."

Yet we know the military has offered no verifiable proof or evidence that the government of Iran is involved. Petraeus claims there is clear evidence.

Writes Branigin:

""The evidence is very, very clear," Petraeus said. He cited documents discovered during the capture in March of Qais Khazali, a Shiite Muslim militant with ties to the Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the arrest of a deputy commander of Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese Shiite group supported by Iran. Petraeus said the evidence links Iran to an attack in Karbala in January that resulted in the deaths of five U.S. soldiers.

"Under interrogation, Khazali was asked if he could have carried out that attack without Iranian support, Petraeus said in the news conference. "He literally throws up his hands and laughs and says, 'Of course not,' " the general said.

"Khazali and other captives have told U.S. investigators about funding, training, weapons and ammunition they had received from Iran, he said."

But the evidence is not "very, very clear." On the basis of one captured Shiite Muslim throwing up his hands who laughs and says of course not? Is this the extent of it?

Gen. Petraeus, sir, how about answering the following questions? Has this guy Khazali been deputized by the Iranian mullahs? Has he received anything from the government of Iran? Has he actually himself been a trainee in an Iranian training camp? Khazali is an officer in Hezbollah, but so what? What does that prove about any alleged Iranian involvement? Is the involvement an ad hoc arrangement where members of the same Shiite tribe help one another financially or militarily, no matter that some members live across the border in Iran and some live in Iraq?

To think that Bush and Cheney, and even Petraeus, base their claim of Iranian involvement in the civil and anti_U.S. bloody strife in Iraq on one guy, Khazali who really says very little about Iranian involvement! And this is going to be a casus belli for the American neo-cons to bomb and attack Iran and kill hundreds and thousands of Iranians!

So far the United States government and military have offered no creditable evidence that Iran is sending in powerful explosive-shaped charges or IEDs, notwithstanding the bellicose comments of Joe Lieberman and Dick Cheney and the other Republican war mongers. When we analyze their statements, all we get are accusations lacking reasonable basis and innuendos demonizing Iran and Iranians.

Is it too much to ask of our leaders that they sit down with those countries perceived to be "enemies" and work things out through peaceful negotiation and diplomacy? The United States should engage in peaceful relationships, not in bloody and murderous acts of war.

FROOMKIN ASSEMBLES QUESTIONS FOR PETRAEUS AND CROCKER

Dan Froomkin today in his White House Watch in The Washington Post assembles questions suggested by news organizations and commentators for Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker who are testifying today before Congressional panels.

Froomkin notes that the appearances today by Petraeus and Crocker are merely charades, and that Bush is not going to change his tactics or strategy, because he hopes to prolong the War in Iraq until at least he is out of office.

GAO PAINTS BLEAK PICTURE OF BUSH'S "PROGRESS" IN IRAQ

So now that the GAO has found that Iraq has missed or failed in 15 of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks, the White House and the Pentagon are disputing the findings. In other words, fit the evidence around the policy. If the report is not what Bush and Cheney want to hear, then change it!

Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks write in yesterday's Washington Post:

"Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.

"The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq."

This is truly embarrassing for Bush & Co. We know that the White House is writing the report to be given by Petraeus and Crocker, notwithstanding Petraeus' protestations that he is writing his own report. And we can predict the content of the WH report: good progress is being made in Iraq; the Iraqis are standing up so Americans can stand down; Al Maliki is creating a unity government, etc., etc. ad nauseam. Does Bush think that anyone really believes his spin? Even Republicans must cringe when they hear Bush's propaganda on how good things are going in Iraq.

Karen DeYoung writes a follow-up in today's WashPo:

"Democrats seized on the GAO draft conclusions, first reported in yesterday's Washington Post, to warn that President Bush would be likely to distort the Iraq situation when he makes his own report to Congress in mid-September after long-awaited testimony by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. "As in the past, President Bush stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the facts on the ground about the sectarian civil war in Iraq or the growing bipartisan opposition to his failed policies," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement.

"Pelosi cited negative conclusions in the GAO report and last month's National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq to say that "the Iraqi government has failed to achieve required reforms." Influential Republicans have joined Democrats in recent months to demand that Bush begin drawing down U.S. troops. Bush has argued that the strategy he announced in January, which increased the U.S. presence to more than 160,000 troops, is succeeding and deserves more time."

BUSH TRIES TO MINIMIZE TESTIMONY OF PETRAEUS TO CLOSED DOOR SESSION

Jonathan Weisman and Karen De Young write in The Washington Post today that the White House (i.e., George Bush and Dick Cheney) want to restrict the testimony of "my man David" (Gen. David Petraeus) and Ambassador Ryan Crocker to a closed-door Congressional briefing. In their place giving the "report on progress" before the full Congress would be the Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, and the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.


"Senior congressional aides said yesterday that the White House has proposed limiting the much-anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill next month of Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to a private congressional briefing, suggesting instead that the Bush administration's progress report on the Iraq war should be delivered to Congress by the secretaries of state and defense."


The question can only be why?

It is obvious that Bush/Cheney want to restrict Petraeus and Crocker to the background because they fear the truth these guys would present. Iraq is a disaster, the worst foreign policy blunder of the United States in in 221 years of existence. It is a black hole that continues to grow deeper and darker. There is no chance for military victory in Iraq, no chance to quell the Sunni-Shia violence, no chance to establish or help to organize a representative government.

Is Iraq better off since Saddam Hussein was overthrown by invading American troops? No way! It is so much worse off. Ask any Iraqi who has lost a father or son, wife or child, wither from the itchy trigger fingers of the U.S. troops or from the sectarian blood-letting. Ask any one of the relatives of the 650,000+ Iraqis who have been killed since the invasion if Iraq is better off now than under Saddam.

And how about the 3,600+ American soldiers who have lost their lives in Iraq? Why? To preserve freedom? Freedom for whom? Americans in the U.S.? Iraq was never a threat to anyone in the U.S. And it would be foolish and naive to claim as do Bush/Cheney that Iraqi insurgents are going to follow U.S. troops back to Kankakee or Salt Lake City.

The Congress should not allow this sleight of hand. Petraeus promised to report back to Congress and Bush should not be allowed to relegate him to the closet. I don't mind if Robert Gates also testifies but Condoleeza Rice is just another Bush shill who has no business testifying on what is happening on the ground in Iraq.