cicerone imposter wrote:Krugman had it right before the Iraq War:
"GEORGE W. QUEEG
PAUL KRUGMAN, NEW YORK TIMES, March 14: Aboard the U.S.S. Caine, it was the
business with the strawberries that finally convinced the doubters that
something was amiss with the captain. Is foreign policy George W. Bush's
quart of strawberries?
Over the past few weeks there has been an epidemic of epiphanies. A long
list of pundits who previously supported the Bush administration's policy on
Iraq have publicly changed their minds. None of them quarrel with the goal;
who wouldn't want to see Saddam Hussein overthrown? But they are finally
realizing that Mr. Bush is the wrong man to do the job. And more people than
you would think --- including a fair number of people in the Treasury
Department, the State Department and, yes, the Pentagon --- don't just
question the competence of Mr. Bush and his inner circle; they believe that
America's leadership has lost touch with reality.
If that sounds harsh, consider the debacle of recent diplomacy --- a debacle
brought on by awesome arrogance and a vastly inflated sense of
self-importance.
Mr. Bush's inner circle seems amazed that the tactics that work so well on
journalists and Democrats don't work on the rest of the world. They've made
promises, oblivious to the fact that most countries don't trust their word.
They've made threats. They've done the aura-of-inevitability thing --- how
many times now have administration officials claimed to have lined up the
necessary votes in the Security Council? They've warned other countries that
if they oppose America's will they are objectively pro-terrorist. Yet still
the world balks.
Wasn't someone at the State Department allowed to point out that in matters
nonmilitary, the U.S. isn't all that dominant ?' that Russia and Turkey need
the European market more than they need ours, that Europe gives more than
twice as much foreign aid as we do and that in much of the world public
opinion matters? Apparently not.
And to what end has Mr. Bush alienated all our most valuable allies? (And I
mean all: Tony Blair may be with us, but British public opinion is now
virulently anti-Bush.) The original reasons given for making Iraq an
immediate priority have collapsed. No evidence has ever surfaced of the
supposed link with Al Qaeda, or of an active nuclear program.
And the administration's eagerness to believe that an Iraqi nuclear program
does exist has led to a series of embarrassing debacles, capped by the case
of the forged Niger papers, which supposedly supported that claim. At this
point it is clear that deposing Saddam has become an obsession, detached
from any real rationale.
What really has the insiders panicked, however, is the irresponsibility of
Mr. Bush and his team, their almost childish unwillingness to face up to
problems that they don't feel like dealing with right now.
I've talked in this column about the administration's eerie passivity in the
face of a stalling economy and an exploding budget deficit: reality isn't
allowed to intrude on the obsession with long-run tax cuts. That same "don't
bother me, I'm busy" attitude is driving foreign policy experts, inside and
outside the government, to despair.
Need I point out that North Korea, not Iraq, is the clear and present
danger? Kim Jong Il's nuclear program isn't a rumor or a forgery; it's an
incipient bomb assembly line. Yet the administration insists that it's a
mere "regional" crisis, and refuses even to talk to Mr. Kim.
The Nelson Report, an influential foreign policy newsletter, says: "It would
be difficult to exaggerate the growing mixture of anger, despair, disgust
and fear actuating the foreign policy community in Washington as the attack
on Iraq moves closer, and the North Korea crisis festers with no coherent
U.S. policy. . . . We are at the point now where foreign policy generally,
and Korea policy specifically, may become George Bush's `Waco.' . . . This
time, it's Kim Jong Il (and Saddam) playing David Koresh. .. . . Sober
minds wrestle with how to break into the mind of George Bush."
We all hope that the war with Iraq is a swift victory, with a minimum of
civilian casualties. But more and more people now realize that even if all
goes well at first, it will have been the wrong war, fought for the wrong
reasons ?' and there will be a heavy price to pay.
Alas, the epiphanies of the pundits have almost surely come too late. The
odds are that by the time you read my next column, the war will already have
started. "
Very little that comes out of the NYT is true... it is not worth the paper it is printed on... fabricated spun leftwing talking points.
U.S. Raids Alleged Chemical Plant
Saturday, August 13, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq ?- U.S. forces raided an insurgent facility that may have been producing an unspecified type of chemicals, the U.S. military said Saturday. It was unclear what was being produced or whether the materials were intended for weapons, the statement added.
U.S. troops, acting on a tip from detainees under interrogation, raided a "suspected insurgent chemical production facility" in northern Iraq last Tuesday, the statement said, without specifying the location.
However, the military cautioned that ongoing testing at the facility was "insufficient to determine what the insurgents had been producing." The military said it also was investigating which insurgent group was operating the facility.
The military has found many suspected chemical sites in the past, none of which ended up containing chemical or biological weapons. Testing of such sites can take several days.
One of the main reasons stated for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq (search) in March 2003 was to destroy Saddam Hussein's purported weapons of mass destruction. None were ever found.
The statement said officials were examining chemical evidence, but did not say if chemicals were stored at the facility.
"We are continuing to investigate the production and storage facilities to determine what type and quantities of chemicals were produced at the facility," said Col. Henry Franke (search), a nuclear, biological, and chemical defense officer with the multinational force.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,165635,00.html
