THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

ican711nm wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

They're still ignoring the increase in deaths of the Iraqi people. Who are we fighting this war for? Our troops?

We are fighting this war primarily to stop al-Qaeda from re-establishing training sanctuaries in Irag and Afghanistan. To accomplish that over the long run we must enable the people of both countries to establish governments that will protect and not kill them, and will protect them from enemies inside their countries as well as enemies outside their countries. Yes, it is a very very difficult problem to solve. But we must solve it in our all mutual self-interests.

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I answered your questions. Now please answer my question.
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cicerone imposter wrote:
ican, You ever play Chinese checkers?

Ican wrote:
Sure! Why do you ask?

If you don't understand the question, it's too spacial for you!

No, the obvious is as soon as our troop level decreases, violence will increase. This war cannot be won with 140,000 troops. The open borders provides the "enemy" to come into Iraq at will - meaning they will never run out of men to fight their war.

Bush merely said the obvious:

Quote:

... if the kind of success we are now seeing continues, it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces.

My post is also "obvious."

the Iraq military is already infiltrated by the Sunni militia; it's broken. When will you get that through your brain? If you think that's success, you have no idea what you are talking about.

ican:
When will you comprehend that what is true today ain't necessarily what will be true tomorrow?

When will you comprehend that what is false today ain't necessarily what will be false tomorrow?

When will you comprehend that what you think is true today ain't necessarily what you will think is true tommorrow?

When will you comprehend that what you think is false today ain't necessarily what you will think is false tommorrow?


What exactly are you trying to say? ROFL

September 3, 2007

Fake Photos Helped Lead US to War in Iraq
The News Drones
By WALTER BRASCH

Add faked photos to the list of lies told by the Bush­Cheney Administration before its invasion of Iraq.

In a town hall meeting in Bloomsburg, Pa. this week, Rep. Paul Kanjorski, a 12-term congressman, said that shortly before Congress was scheduled to vote on authorizing military force against Iraq, top officials of the CIA showed select members of Congress three photographs it alleged were Iraqi Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), better known as drones. Kanjorski said he was told that the drones were capable of carrying nuclear, biological, or chemical agents, and could strike 1,000 miles inland of east coast or west coast cities.

Kanjorski said he and four or five other congressmen in the room were told UAVs could be on freighters headed to the U.S. Both secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and President Bush wandered into and out of the briefing room, Kanjorski said.

Kanjorski said it was the second time he was called to the White House for a briefing. He had opposed giving the President the powers to go to war, and said that he hadn't changed his mind after a first meeting. Until he saw the pictures, Kanjorski said, "I hadn't thought that Iraq was a threat." That second meeting changed everything. After he left that meeting, said Kanjorski, he was willing to give the President the authorization he wanted since the drones "represented an imminent danger."

Kanjorski said he went to see Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a retired Marine colonel. Murtha, said Kanjorski, "turned white" when told about the drones; Murtha, a former intelligence officer, believed that such information was classified.

Several years later, Kanjorski said he learned that the pictures were "a god-damned lie," apparently taken by CIA photographers in the desert in the southwest of the U.S. The drone story itself had already been disproved, although not many major media carried that story.

In October 2002, President Bush said in Cincinnati that "Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas." He said that he was concerned "that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States." In that same speech, he claimed, "Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles-far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and other nations-in a region where more than 135,000 American civilians and service members live and work." Bush further claimed, "Surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons." Those claims were later proven false.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said that at the time the President made his speech, intelligence analysts had already discounted that threat. Nelson had told Florida Today in December 2003 that no analysts had "found anything that resembles an UAV that has that capability." Any drones that Iraq did have, John Pike, director of Global Security, a major military and intelligence "think tank," told Florida Today, had limited range, and would not be able to target Tel Aviv, let alone the U.S.

Nelson, on the floor of the Senate in January 2004, said that the information presented by the Administration was crucial in getting him and others to authorize a pre-emptive strike.

In a four-day period after that meeting in northeast Pennsylvania, Rep. Kanjorski did not return phone calls to follow up on his statements. The Department of Defense and the CIA did not comment. Certain representatives who could confirm the meeting were unavailable.

Assisting on this story were Bill Frost, and John and Sandie Walker.

Walter Brasch, professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University, is an award-winning syndicated columnist and the author of 15 books, most of them about social issues, the First Amendment, and the media. His forthcoming book is America's Unpatriotic Acts; The Federal Government's Violation of Constitutional and Civil Liberties (Peter Lang Publishing.) You may contact Brasch at [email protected] or at www.walterbrasch.com

ican :
sorry but i'm having trouble following your thoughts/arguments .
with many of the so-called "leaders" gone - think : secretary powell , secretary rumsfeld , many generals , is there now going a NEW LEADER who has the answers ?
is general petreaus now going to be the ONE who knows how to get things done or will be be joining the many other "retired" leaders in a while ?

you said : "what is true today ain't necessarily what will be true tomorrow? " .
so if general petreaus is perhaps going to be the one who knows "what's true today , will he also know what is true tomorrow ?
or will he be joining the club of generals who all said that "victory is just around the corner" ?

imo one of the real problems is , that none of the present LEADERS (generals and others) has been willing to put the cards on the table and be willing to spell out the costs of the war .

perhaps churchill was one of the last leaders willing to say :
"I say to the House as I said to ministers who have joined this government, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat ... "

today that might not be considered prudent and the PR people take over to take out any objectionable phrases .
hbg

ican, You talk in riddles - just like Bush.

More lies that got us into Iraq.

Quote:

September 3, 2007

Fake Photos Helped Lead US to War in Iraq
The News Drones
By WALTER BRASCH

Add faked photos to the list of lies told by the Bush­Cheney Administration before its invasion of Iraq.

In a town hall meeting in Bloomsburg, Pa. this week, Rep. Paul Kanjorski, a 12-term congressman, said that shortly before Congress was scheduled to vote on authorizing military force against Iraq, top officials of the CIA showed select members of Congress three photographs it alleged were Iraqi Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), better known as drones. Kanjorski said he was told that the drones were capable of carrying nuclear, biological, or chemical agents, and could strike 1,000 miles inland of east coast or west coast cities.

Kanjorski said he and four or five other congressmen in the room were told UAVs could be on freighters headed to the U.S. Both secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and President Bush wandered into and out of the briefing room, Kanjorski said.

...

revel wrote:

About those benchmarks met: Read Here

Juan Cole's claim that the benchmarks met are trivial, would have been more credible if he had stated those alleged trivial benchmarks that were met and then said why he thinks them trivial.

I guess Juan Cole's incompetence prevents him from doing that.

A Government Accounting Office report has found that the Iraqi government has not met 13 of 18 benchmarks set by the US Congress.

The report was leaked before it could be doctored by the Bush administration, which promptly denounced it and pledged to . . . doctor it.

Another thing that could be said is that of the 18 congressional benchmarks some are frankly trivial. The trivial ones are the only ones met.

Iraq 'fails to meet key targets'

Iraq has managed to reach only three out of 18 progress benchmarks set by the US, a draft of a key report seen by the Washington Post newspaper says.
The reported findings of the Government Accountability Office - a Congressional watchdog - contrast with a White House study saying eight goals have been met.

The targets were established to monitor Iraq's military and political progress.

"Key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high," is the report's bald assessment, the Post says.

The Iraq Progress Report

In the security category, progress on three of eight benchmarks were marked satisfactory. The satisfactory categories were providing Iraqi brigades for the surge, setting up joint security stations with the Americans and reducing the level of sectarian violence.

In other categories considered key to success in Iraq, such as ensuring that Iraqi security forces are providing evenhanded enforcement and increasing the number of Iraqi forces capable of operating independently, the report determined progress had not been satisfactory.

The report concludes that the Iraqi forces, a major part of Bush's strategy, simply have "not made sufficient progress."

Of nine benchmarks on the political front, only four were found satisfactory, and those were hardly significant achievements.