BottleOfBlog

We Wear The Chains We Forge In Life

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Wal-Mart Stores will be offering new employees low premium high-deductible plans starting January 1, 2007.

The new plan offers $11 monthly premiums and deductibles of $1,000 along with 3 doctor visits and 3 generic prescriptions filled for just the co-pay price before the deductible kicks in.

Traditional plans that offered annual deductibles as low as $350 for a yearly premium of $1,043 for an individual, will be dropped for new hires.

Chris Kofinis of WakeupWalmart.com notes that Wal-Mart only offers catastrophic health coverage that no employee could afford. "God forbid they get sick."

"It's shameful when you consider that 54 percent of their employees don't have healthcare," Kofinis said.

Well, Walmart has to cut costs where it can.  To continue to bring you a whopping 3% savings on retail.  After all:

(AP) -- A list of the 102 richest Americans, according to Forbes magazine:

1. William Henry Gates III, 50, $53 billion, Medina, Washington, Microsoft

2. Warren Edward Buffett, 76, $46 billion, Omaha, Nebraska, Berkshire Hathaway
3. Sheldon Adelson, 73, $20.5 billion, Las Vegas, Nevada, casinos, hotels

4. Lawrence Joseph Ellison, 62, $19.5 billion, Redwood City, California, Oracle

5. Paul Gardner Allen, 53, $16 billion, Seattle, Washington, Microsoft, investments

6. Jim C. Walton, 58, $15.7 billion, Bentonville, Arkansas, Wal-Mart

7. Christy Walton and family, 51, $15.6 billion, Jackson, Wyoming, Wal-Mart inheritance

7. S. Robson Walton, 62, $15.6 billion, Bentonville, Arkansas, Wal-Mart

9. Michael Dell, 41, $15.5 billion, Austin, Texas, Dell

9. Alice L. Walton, 57, $15.5 billion, Fort Worth, Texas, Wal-Mart

11. Helen R. Walton, 86, $15.3 billion, Bentonville, Arkansas, Wal-Mart

Only five of the eleven richest Americans are Waltons.  With a net worth of only about 80 billion dollars.  And, you know, the Waltons own more than half of Walmart's stock.  And Walmart has to cut costs somehow to keep the shareholders happy.

Five people, 80 billion dollars.  And they're nickeling and diming Walmart associates.

Well, it's bidness, as Sam's ghost might say. 

Though, another ghost might say, "Mankind was my business."

No One's Perfect, Though Some Are Incredibly, Criminally Less Perfect Than Others

(CNN) -- Donald Rumsfeld's Iraqi war plan worked beautifully for three weeks. U.S. troops quickly deposed Saddam Hussein and captured Baghdad with a relatively small force and with lightning speed.

But with Iraq on the verge of civil war three years later, the secretary of defense now admits that no one was well-prepared for what would happen after major combat ended.

"Well, I think that anyone who looks at it with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight has to say that there was not an anticipation that the level of insurgency would be anything approximating what it is," Rumsfeld told CNN for the documentary, "CNN Presents Rumsfeld -- Man of War," which debuts Saturday at 8 p.m. ET.

No, Don, you great big bullshitter, I think that anyone who looks at Iraq with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight has to say the insurgency was well anticipated.

Similarly, the intelligence agencies, especially the CIA, were "utterly consistent in arguing that reconstruction rather than war would be the most problematic segment of overthrowing Saddam," a senior administration official said. In classified written and oral reports, the official continued, the intelligence community warned the administration "early and often" about obstacles U.S. authorities were likely to face.

In particular, the agencies repeatedly predicted that Hussein loyalists might try to sabotage U.S. postwar efforts by destroying critical economic targets, the official said. One analysis warned that Iraqis "would probably resort to obstruction, resistance and armed opposition if they perceived attempts to keep them dependent on the United States and the West."

In fact, quite a few people--like White, Shinseki, Shelton, Zinni, the entire State Department--looked at Iraq with 20/20 foresight and anticipated the level of insurgency that we've encountered.  And they anticipated the cost. 

And all of those people got fired for even bringing it up.

And now Donald wants to soft-pedal his costly stupidity by sneaking in words like the "level" of the insurgency.  As if, sure, he anticipated some insurgency, but no one anticipated "anything approximating what it is".

Well, that might be true--though, it's not.  But just for the sake of argument, let's pretend no one anticipated the level of the insurgency.  That still doesn't let Rummy off the hook.  Because, as Secretary of Defense, with the lives of thousands of Americans in his hands, he didn't anticipate any insurgency.

At all.

Thomas E. White, then the secretary of the Army, said he had received similar guidance from Mr. Rumsfeld's office. "Our working budgetary assumption was that 90 days after completion of the operation, we would withdraw the first 50,000 and then every 30 days we'd take out another 50,000 until everybody was back," he recalled. "The view was that whatever was left in Iraq would be de minimis."

Ninety days and out.

That's what Rummy anticipated.  And that's all he planned for.

WASHINGTON - In March 2003, days before the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American war planners and intelligence officials met at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina to review the Bush administration's plans to oust Saddam Hussein and implant democracy in Iraq.

Near the end of his presentation, an Army lieutenant colonel who was giving a briefing showed a slide describing the Pentagon's plans for rebuilding Iraq after the war, known in the planners' parlance as Phase 4-C. He was uncomfortable with his material - and for good reason.

The slide said: "To Be Provided."

Hey, no one said anyone had to know the exact "level" of insurgency.  No one said anyone had to plan for every contingency.

But, fuck.

Rumsfeld didn't plan for any contingency.  He didn't anticipate any insurgency.

And 3000 Americans are dead because of it.  And over twenty thousand are horribly crippled.  And this disaster is going to cost the American people a trillion dollars and take a generation to deal with.

It ain't about being perfect. 

It's about gambling lives and money that aren't yours on the chance that you are perfect, being dead wrong, and then shrugging your shoulders and saying, "Hey, nobody's perfect."

Who Hasn't Told The Truth?

(CBS) Veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward tells Mike Wallace that the Bush administration has not told the truth regarding the level of violence, especially against U.S. troops, in Iraq. He also reveals key intelligence that predicts the insurgency will grow worse next year…

According to Woodward, insurgent attacks against coalition troops occur, on average, every 15 minutes, a shocking fact the administration has kept secret. "It’s getting to the point now where there are eight-, nine-hundred attacks a week. That's more than 100 a day. That is four an hour attacking our forces," says Woodward…

The situation is getting much worse, says Woodward, despite what the White House and the Pentagon are saying in public. "The truth is that the assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the president and you have the Pentagon [saying], 'Oh, no, things are going to get better,'" he tells Wallace. "Now there’s public, and then there’s private. But what did they do with the private? They stamp it secret. No one is supposed to know," says Woodward.

"The insurgents know what they are doing. They know the level of violence and how effective they are. Who doesn't know? The American public," Woodward tells Wallace.

Woodward reported for two years and interviewed more than 200 people, including top officials in the Bush administration, to learn these and other revelations...

For two years, Bob Woodward has known this.  But the American People haven't.  And, now, after two years of knowing what a disaster Iraq is and that our government is intentionally misleading the American people with regard to that fact, Bob Woodward, desperate for the truth to be known, has to go on Sixty Minutes to tell the American people what is obviously widely known among the Washington Press corps.

Because, you know, being Assistant Managing Editor of the Washington Post, Bob's got no other way of letting Americans in on the horrific little secret of how their money and their blood is being squandered in Iraq.

Gee, Bob, why don't the American people know this?  Could it be that men and women like yourself haven't told them?  And won't tell them.  Unless you've got a book to plug?

Liberal media, my ass.

Christ, the Washington Post is still saying Iraq is a fight we ought to make.

The Error Apparent

During his interview with Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday," President Clinton also said he came the closest to killing bin Laden and suggested that his administration took the threat of terrorism more seriously than the Bush administration did before the September 11, 2001, attacks. (Watch as Clinton says he tried to kill bin Laden -- 1:18)

Clinton also lashed out against "the right-wingers who are attacking me now," saying the same people had accused him of being "obsessed" with bin Laden.

"They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed," he told Wallace.

He added that he "left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy" for the Bush administration.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has taken on former President Clinton, strongly rejecting that notion.

"What we did in the eight months [between Bush's inauguration and 9/11] was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years," Rice told the New York Post in comments published Tuesday.

My God, if we actually had a "liberal" press in this country, can you imagine what they'd do to "Mushroom Cloud" Rice?  She, who thinks the seriousness of a lie shouldn't be measured by its consequences, but by it's word count?  The Presidential Magic Eight Ball who, while faking her way through a four year stint as National Security Advisor, actually thought that not reading the footnotes in an NIE on the eve of War was an excuse and not a near criminal offense?  The woman who told Americans that no one could ever imagine terrorists using airplanes as missiles despite the fact that two years before 9/11 American intelligence not only imagined it, but wrote a big ol' report on it.  With footnotes and everything.

If we actually had a "liberal" media in this country, every time Rice opened her mouth, the headlines the next day would simply read, "Rice Says Some Other Stupid Thing That's Not True".  As it is, it's up to Al Gore's internets to point that obvious fact out:

The 9/11 Commission Report contradicts Rice’s claims. On December 4, 1998, for example, the Clinton administration received a President’s Daily Brief entitled “Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks.” Here’s how the Clinton administration reacted, according to the 9/11 Commission report:

    The same day, [Counterterrorism Czar Richard] Clarke convened a meeting of his CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group] to discuss both the hijacking concern and the antiaircraft missile threat. To address the hijacking warning, the group agreed that New York airports should go to maximum security starting that weekend. They agreed to boost security at other East coast airports. The CIA agreed to distribute versions of the report to the FBI and FAA to pass to the New York Police Department and the airlines. The FAA issued a security directive on December 8, with specific requirements for more intensive air carrier screening of passengers and more oversight of the screening process, at all three New York area airports. [pg. 128-30]

On August 6, 2001, the Bush administration received a President’s Daily Brief entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S.” Here’s how the Bush administration reacted, according to the 9/11 Commission report:

    [President Bush] did not recall discussing the August 6 report with the Attorney General or whether Rice had done so.[p. 260]

    We have found no indication of any further discussion before September 11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al Qaeda attack in the United States. DCI Tenet visited President Bush in Crawford, Texas, on August 17 and participated in the PDB briefings of the President between August 31 (after the President had returned to Washington) and September 10. But Tenet does not recall any discussions with the President of the domestic threat during this period. [p. 262]

That's pretty embarrassing.  But our Secretary of State, our former National Security Advisor, is just warming up:

"The notion that somehow for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn't do that is just flatly false."

But Rice told the Post that "we were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda."

Apparently, the comprehensive part was in the footnotes.  Which, we all know, Rice, a former college perfessor, doesn't read:

Here’s what the 9/11 Commission Report has to say about it:

    As the Clinton administration drew to a close, Clarke and his staff developed a policy paper of their own [which] incorporated the CIA’s new ideas from the Blue Sky memo, and posed several near-term policy options. Clarke and his staff proposed a goal to “roll back” al Qaeda over a period of three to five years …[including] covert aid to the Northern Alliance, covert aid to Uzbekistan, and renewed Predator flights in March 2001. A sentence called for military action to destroy al Qaeda command-and control targets and infrastructure and Taliban military and command assets. The paper also expressed concern about the presence of al Qaeda operatives in the United States.” [p. 197]

Clarke, who also worked for the Bush administration, wrote Condoleezza Rice a memo as soon as the Bush administration took office, stating, “[W]e urgently need…a Principals level review of the al Qida network.” His request was denied.

What else did the Clinton people leave the NIE report skimming Bushies?  Pretty much everything.

The terrorism briefing was delivered by Richard Clarke, a career bureaucrat who had served in the first Bush Administration and risen during the Clinton years to become the White House's point man on terrorism…

    Clarke supported a substantial increase in American support for the Northern Alliance… At the same time, the U.S. military would start planning for air strikes on the camps and for the introduction of special-operations forces into Afghanistan. The plan was estimated to cost "several hundreds of millions of dollars." In the words of a senior Bush Administration official, the proposals amounted to "everything we've done since 9/11."

We won't even get into Ashcroft knocking counter-terrorism off the Justice Department's strategic goals in May of 2001.  We won't mention how the Bush administration threatened to veto an assload of anti-terrorism funding on September 9, 2001, unless it got it's stupid, fanciful anti-missile shield money.  And we certainly won't mention that thing about Bush, on one of his first well earned month long vacations after only eight months in office, telling a CIA officer, who briefed Bush on the "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In America" PDB,  "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

Who needs to?

Before bin Laden killed 2000 Americans on live TV, Clinton at least tried to kill bin Laden.  Even after September 11th, Bush sent 36 guys with telephones after bin Laden.  That's after bin Laden exploded downtown Manhattan.

Are we really supposed to believe this serial bullshitting, incompetent Rice that before September 11th, Bush was at least as aggressive as Clinton in going after bin Laden when Bush hasn't been as aggressive at going after bin Laden since then?  When after September 11th, Bush, himself, said he doesn't give that much thought to bin Laden?

And your "liberal" media entertains the possibility that anything Rice says, after all of this, might possibly be true...

Good Lord.  I wouldn't even believe Rice if she swore to me on a stack of bibles that she was lying to me.

Facts Will Just "Confuse" The People

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Islamist terrorists are adapting to global counterterrorism efforts, as the "jihadist movement" is becoming more decentralized and spawning offshoot organizations with anti-American agendas, according to a declassified intelligence document released Tuesday.

Also, the National Intelligence Estimate on global terrorism trends states that the U.S.-led Iraq war has become a "cause celebre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement."

Also!  That's a purty big "also", isn't it?  That's like a phone call from your mom when she tells you about a book she just read and about the flowers in her garden and about how her arthritis is acting up and, oh, also, dad died.

That's the consensus opinion of sixteen government intelligence agencies--Iraq is breeding deep resentment against America and cultivating supporters for the "global jihadist movement".

Earlier Tuesday, President Bush angrily lambasted a media report that said the document asserted the Iraq war had increased the terrorist threat to the United States.

Even though that's exactly what the NIE says.  I can't imagine any way you can read "breeding deep resentment" and "cultivating supporters" and say, "But that's a good thing!"

[Bush] added that the media accounts of the leak of the National Intelligence Estimate were meant to "create confusion in the minds of the American people" and promised to push Director of National Security John Negroponte to declassify the findings.

"He'll do so in such a way that we'll be able to protect sources and methods ... that our intelligence community uses," Bush said during a joint White House press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai...

In other words, Negroponte redacted the parts which showed Iraq to be a catastrophe and released the parts which showed Iraq only to be a disaster.

And, by the way, is that the same Hamid Karzai, who is apparently now only the mayor of Kabul, who was in such deep trouble since Bush forgot to rebuild his country that he was just recently begging the Canadians for help?

[The NIE] adds that the number of Muslims who describe themselves as jihadists is increasing, and that "if this trend continues, threats to U.S. interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide."

The report credits four factors with facilitating the spread of the jihadist movement: 1) "entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice and fear of Western domination;" 2) jihad in Iraq; 3) the torpid pace of economic, social and political reforms in Muslim nations; and 4) a "pervasive anti-U.S. sentiment among Muslims."

Well, I can certainly see how that would, as the Preznit says, "create confusion" in the minds of Americans.  Since this incredibly gloomy indictment of the Iraq War was produced in April and for the last five months Bush has been insisting that the soon to be trillion dollar fiasco in Iraq has actually made us safer.

That is confusing.  Unless you're like me.  And after six years of the worst government in the history of our great country, you just discount nearly everything Bush says as high octane bullshit.

Oh, and also, Josh Marshall says there's another NIE about Iraq.  But that one's so bad the gubment didn't even call it an NIE--that way they didn't have to tell Congress about it.

Golly, if that leaks, how "confusing" do you think that will be?

Total Fraud, Part II

NEW YORK (CNN) -- President Bush said Wednesday he would order U.S. forces to go after Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan if he received good intelligence on the fugitive al Qaeda leader's location.

"Absolutely," Bush told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an interview scheduled for air Wednesday afternoon.

Although Pakistan has said it won't allow U.S. troops to operate within its territory, "we would take the action necessary to bring him to justice."

Which is amazing since The Shrubbery just told Fred Barnes last week that bringing the murderer of 3000 Americans to justice was not a top priority:

Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes appeared on Fox this morning to discuss his recent meeting with President Bush in the Oval Office. The key takeaway for Barnes was that “bin Laden doesn’t fit with the administration’s strategy for combating terrorism.” Barnes said that Bush told him capturing bin Laden is “not a top priority use of American resources.” Watch it.

It's even more amazing since fighting in Iraq doesn't seem to be a top priority either:

M. O'BRIEN: Well, Michael, you have talked to the people on the ground there. I'm sure they probably don't say it for the record, but how many troops do they think need in order to get a hold of this problem?

WARE: Well, officially, from Baghdad to Ramadi, the response you will get from American commanders is that we have an appropriate level of force to do what we have to do within the confines of our mission. However, the key term that all of them use is "economy of force"…

Privately, off line, what commanders, again, from Baghdad to Ramadi, will tell you is that they need at least three times as many troops as they currently have there now, be that Iraqi and American or, even better, just three times as many as American troops. I mean, there's an area there north of the Euphrates River that is used by al Qaeda's top leadership that Osama bin Laden himself points to. It's the size of New Hampshire.

You have only a few hundred American troops there. They can do nothing to hamper al Qaeda's leadership in that area -- Miles.

What our top priority might be is beyond me.

But Bush has certainly been consistent in one thing--if only one thing--and that's:  he really couldn't care less about catching or killing bin Laden.

Q    Mr. President, in your speeches now you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden.  Why is that?

THE PRESIDENT: …I don't know where he is.  You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you.

And, while usually, when I hear George W. Bush say "to be honest with you", I reach for my back pocket to make sure my wallet's still there, this is one of the few times the Ol' Straight Shooter said what he meant and meant what he said.

On the videotape obtained by the CIA, bin Laden is seen confidently instructing his party how to dig holes in the ground to lie in undetected at night. A bomb dropped by a U.S. aircraft can be seen exploding in the distance. "We were there last night," bin Laden says without much concern in his voice. He was in or headed toward Pakistan, counterterrorism officials think.

    That was December 2001. Only two months later, Bush decided to pull out most of the special operations troops and their CIA counterparts in the paramilitary division that were leading the hunt for bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for war in Iraq, said Flynt L. Leverett, then an expert on the Middle East at the National Security Council.

    "I was appalled when I learned about it," said Leverett, who has become an outspoken critic of the administration's counterterrorism policy. "I don't know of anyone who thought it was a good idea. It's very likely that bin Laden would be dead or in American custody if we hadn't done that."

But, to be fair, even though Bush let bin Laden go and then didn't give him much thought for years, Bush didn't tell Fred Barnes he wouldn't send any troops after bin Laden.  It would be unfair to characterize Bush as a big ol' Texas sized bullshitter for saying he wouldn't send troops to Pakistan after bin Laden after what he told Barnes.  Because what he told Barnes was this:

BARNES: Well, [Bush] said, look, you can send 100,000 special forces, that’s the figure he used, to the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan and hunt him down, but he just said that’s not a top priority use of American resources.

Basically, Bush said that he could send 100,000 special forces to Pakistan, but that wouldn't be the best use of our forces.  Bush didn't say he wouldn't send any forces to Pakistan.  He just wouldn't send the 100,000 special forces he could send.

I just want to make that clear.  Because I'd hate for anyone who reads my blog to walk away misinformed that Bush is a total fraud and a borderline idiot.  I want them to read my blog and then walk away well informed that Bush is a total fraud and a borderline idiot.

Even Fred Barnes seems to know it.  What does he say--"that's the figure [Bush] used"?  As if Barnes is embarrassed.  As if Barnes doesn't want anyone to get the impression that he, Barnes, actually thinks the United States could send one hundred thousand special forces to Pakistan.  Barnes wants to make it clear that the President said that.  Not him! 

That's your War Preznit.  Speaking candidly.  He could send a hundred thousand special forces to Pakistan.  He's that tough!

He's got a hundred and forty thousand Americans bogged down in Iraq and that's busting the National Guard and the Reserves, and your War Preznit thinks, if he felt like it, he could send a hundred thousand special forces alone to Pakistan.

And I know Bush was probably just pulling a number out of his ass--I've seen him talk about Social Security or the budget so I know his ass is just full of crazy numbers.  But doesn't anyone find that a little disturbing that Bush is apparently walking around the White House dressed up like Napolean and moving little imaginary armies around his Risk board?

He doesn't have a hundred thousand soldiers to send to Pakistan, never mind a hundred thousand special forces.

What a fucking nutty thing to say.

But, beyond that, are we even talking about a hundred thousand special forces?  Were we ever?  I mean, it might have been nice if Bush had committed one hundred thousand regular forces to Afghanistan to bring bin Laden home "dead or alive".  But he didn't need to do that.  He could have brought bin Laden back in a head bag with a lot less than a hundred thousand troops.

But, if he was serious, he would have needed a lot more than what he sent:

Now, as the last major battle of the war in Afghanistan began, hidden from view inside the caves were an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 well-trained, well-armed men. A mile below, at the base of the caves, some three dozen U.S. Special Forces troops fanned out. They were the only ground forces that senior American military leaders had committed to the Tora Bora campaign…

    It was only on the third day of the battle that the three dozen Special Forces troops arrived. But their mission was strictly limited to assisting and advising and calling in air strikes, according to the orders of Gen. Tommy Franks, the head of U.S. Central Command, who was running the war from his headquarters in Tampa, Fla…

    One of them was Brig. Gen. James N. Mattis, the commander of some 4,000 marines who had arrived in the Afghan theater by now. Mattis, along with another officer with whom I spoke, was convinced that with these numbers he could have surrounded and sealed off bin Laden's lair, as well as deployed troops to the most sensitive portions of the largely unpatrolled border with Pakistan. He argued strongly that he should be permitted to proceed to the Tora Bora caves. The general was turned down. An American intelligence official told me that the Bush administration later concluded that the refusal of Centcom to dispatch the marines - along with their failure to commit U.S. ground forces to Afghanistan generally - was the gravest error of the war…

    American intelligence officials now believe that some 800 Qaeda fighters escaped Tora Bora that night…

    Tora Bora was the one time after the 9/11 attacks when United States operatives were confident they knew precisely where Osama bin Laden was and could have captured or killed him. Some have argued that it was Washington's last chance; others say that although it will be considerably more difficult now, bin Laden is not beyond our reach. But the stakes are considerably higher than they were nearly four years ago, and terrain and political sensibilities are far more our natural enemies now.

We're not talking about committing a hundred thousand troops. 

But Bush committed three dozen.

That's less than what you need to play four good quarters of your average football game.

For the biggest mass murderer in American history.

For the worst terrorist attack in the history of the world.

Three dozen guys.  With telephones.

And, now, five years later, Bush gets on television and tries to tell the American people that he would send as many Americans into Pakistan as needed to get bin Laden if he had "good intelligence"?

He had the best intelligence he's ever going to get in Afghanistan.  He had Delta Force.  He had the SAS.  He had four thousand Marines.  And the 101st Airborne Division.

And he had the total support of the American people. 

We would have given him one million troops, if that's what he told us was needed.  And all the money the Treasury could possibly produce.

And Bush sent 36 guys. 

But now Bush would do what was necessary in Pakistan when he didn't do dick in Afghanistan?

Please.  Don't tell me Bush ever cared about bin Laden.

If he cares now, it's only because of how bad it looks.  And it only looks so bad because it is what it is.

Nothing Short Of Murder

Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.

The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration's gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation, which sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort…

Endowed with $18 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds and a comparatively quiescent environment in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. invasion, the CPA was the U.S. government's first and best hope to resuscitate Iraq -- to establish order, promote rebuilding and assemble a viable government, all of which, experts believe, would have constricted the insurgency and mitigated the chances of civil war. Many of the basic tasks Americans struggle to accomplish today in Iraq -- training the army, vetting the police, increasing electricity generation -- could have been performed far more effectively in 2003 by the CPA.

But many CPA staff members were more interested in other things: in instituting a flat tax, in selling off government assets, in ending food rations and otherwise fashioning a new nation that looked a lot like the United States. Many of them spent their days cloistered in the Green Zone, a walled-off enclave in central Baghdad with towering palms, posh villas, well-stocked bars and resort-size swimming pools…

As more and more of O'Beirne's hires arrived in the Green Zone, the CPA's headquarters in Hussein's marble-walled former Republican Palace felt like a campaign war room. Bumper stickers and mouse pads praising President Bush were standard desk decorations. In addition to military uniforms and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" garb, "Bush-Cheney 2004" T-shirts were among the most common pieces of clothing.

"I'm not here for the Iraqis," one staffer noted to a reporter over lunch. "I'm here for George Bush…"

Coming up on 400 billion dollars, and three thousand dead Americans. 

It's criminal.

You're Going To Need A Bigger Boat

"There is so much political corruption on Capitol Hill that the FBI has had to triple the number of squads investigating lobbyists, lawmakers and influence peddlers, the Daily News has learned.

"For decades, only one squad in Washington handled corruption cases because the crimes were seen as local offenses handled by FBI field offices in lawmakers' home districts. . . .

"But in recent years, the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and other abuses of power and privilege have prompted the FBI to assign 37 agents full-time to three new squads in an office near Capitol Hill.

"FBI Assistant Director Chip Burrus told The News yesterday that he wants to detail even more agents to the Washington field office for a fourth corruption squad because so much wrongdoing is being uncovered. . . .

"Two years ago, only 400 agents worked on public corruption cases. Now, 615 agents nationwide - including 30 in New York - are trying to nail public servants for betraying the public trust in 2,200 ongoing cases. . . .

And, remember, the FBI has tripled it's agents in Washington alone to combat corruption under a Republican president, with a Republican controlled Congress.  Jesus, can you imagine how many agents they'd need if Democrats could actually push a partisan investigation???

What is it, now?  Cunningham, DeLay, Ney, Libby, Hastert, Frist...and the little rodents, too numerous to count.

Thank God the Bush administration and the Gee Oh Pee Congress has restored honor and integrity to our nation's capital.

Well, at least no one's getting blown anymore!  That is, if you don't count Duke Cunningham's cell mate.

From Bad To Worse

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- President Bush challenged world leaders to do more to build democracy in the Middle East in an address at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday…

"From Beirut to Baghdad, people are making the choice for freedom," Bush told the General Assembly.

Good Gawd.  From Beirut to Baghdad???  This is what the Preznit offers up to the world as a shining example of what the rest of the Middle East could be?  Beirut and Baghdad???  How's it going there in Baghdad?

BAGHDAD, Sept. 7 -- Baghdad's morgue almost tripled its count for violent deaths in Iraq's capital during August from 550 to 1,536, authorities said Thursday, appearing to erase most of what U.S. generals and Iraqi leaders had touted as evidence of progress in a major security operation to restore order in the capital.

Separately, the Health Ministry confirmed Thursday that it planned to construct two new branch morgues in Baghdad and add doctors and refrigerator units to raise capacity to as many as 250 corpses a day.

And Beruit?  Beruit???  Do they even have a government there?  Does anyone know?

Can you think of two worse places to point to as an example of what the rest of the Middle East could be?  I can't.  Maybe Kabul.

Afghanistan voters also drew [Bush's] praise for establishing a free government that combats terrorists...

Of course...

BRUSSELS -- More than a week after NATO's top leaders publicly demanded reinforcements for their embattled mission in southern Afghanistan, only one member of the 26-nation alliance has offered more troops, raising questions about NATO's largest military operation ever outside of Europe and the goal of expanding its global reach.

The plea for more soldiers and equipment to fight resurgent Taliban insurgents comes as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's forces are suffering the highest casualty rates of the nearly five-year-long conflict in Afghanistan, and as European governments are feeling stretched by the demands for troops there and in Iraq, Lebanon, the Balkans and in several African countries.

Only Bush could go to the United Nations and hold up three failed nation states as an example of what the world can hope for from his "freedom agenda".

Following up on a speech he made last week on the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Bush said the "calling of our generation" is the fight between extremism and the "peaceful majority."

Comical words from a guy who got into the White House after losing the popular election and now holds a commanding 38% approval rating, while calling the desires of the "peaceful majority" dumb.

But wait!  He gets even funnier!

Bush cited Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt as examples of countries providing the diplomatic and financial leadership needed to foster Mideast democracy.

Yes, Bush, citing examples of countries who are bringing freedom and democracy to the Mideast, names the Kingdom of Saud and the Kingdom of Jordan.  A couple of monarchies.  And Bush sees them as providing leadership for democratic reforms.

Course, he did also name Egypt.  Which is a democracy.  It's president, Hosni Mubarek, has been president since 1981.  When Sadat was assassinated.  Mubarek, a high ranking air force officer, who had been appointed Vice President, succeeded Sadat.

And he's been there ever since.

And that is the "freedom agenda" George W. Bush offers the world.  The peaceful, brotherly egalitarianism of Beruit, Kabul, and Baghdad.  Brought to you by despotic monarchs of the Kingdom of Saud and life-term presidents of Egypt.

I missed the speech on TV.  Did they bleep out the laughter?

Yes, Please, Never Forget

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush will tell the American people Monday night that the country faces "a struggle for civilization" as it fights the war on terrorism sparked by the 9/11 attacks five years ago…

"On 9/11, our nation saw the face of evil," he will say.

And was Bush haunted by that face of evil?

Q    Mr. President, in your speeches now you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden.  Why is that?

THE PRESIDENT: …I don't know where he is.  You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you.

Oh.

Well, that's nice.  Because the rest of us have thought about him quite a bit.  And what we've thought is that we'd like him killed or captured.  And we've wondered why he wasn't killed or captured.

On the videotape obtained by the CIA, bin Laden is seen confidently instructing his party how to dig holes in the ground to lie in undetected at night. A bomb dropped by a U.S. aircraft can be seen exploding in the distance. "We were there last night," bin Laden says without much concern in his voice. He was in or headed toward Pakistan, counterterrorism officials think.

That was December 2001. Only two months later, Bush decided to pull out most of the special operations troops and their CIA counterparts in the paramilitary division that were leading the hunt for bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for war in Iraq, said Flynt L. Leverett, then an expert on the Middle East at the National Security Council.

"I was appalled when I learned about it," said Leverett, who has become an outspoken critic of the administration's counterterrorism policy. "I don't know of anyone who thought it was a good idea. It's very likely that bin Laden would be dead or in American custody if we hadn't done that."

It's all pretty appalling.

The speech caps a day of tributes at the sites where terrorists piloting hijacked airliners struck five years ago -- New York City's World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed as passengers tried to wrest back control of the airplane.

The anniversary features a flurry of flights to each location where Americans were murdered, capped with a speech.  And, yet, the actual day, featured a flurry of flights to various undisclosed locations, capped with hiding in a Norad shelter in Nebraska.

While the Vice President assumed control of the Shadow Government from his undisclosed location.

Later on, Bush would pull our troops from hunting bin Laden to attack a country that had fuck all to do with September 11th, Bush would no longer think or speak about bin Laden, and the voices of the modern Republican party would heap scorn on the widows and orphans of the victims of September 11th for enjoying the deaths of their loved ones so much.

Then, the Bush administration would attack anyone who questioned the disasterous Iraq War as "appeasors", in the 1930's sense.

One more time, let's not forget what Islamofascism wanted on September 11th:

Bin Laden's anger with the United States stems from the 1990 decision by Saudi Arabia to allow the U.S. to stage attacks on Iraqi forces in Kuwait and Iraq. After the U.S. victory, the U.S. military presence became permanent.

In a CNN interview with bin Laden in 1997, he said the ongoing U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia is an "occupation of the land of the holy places."

In 1996, bin Laden issued a "fatwah," a religious ruling urging Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and Somalia. A second fatwah in 1998 called for attacks on American civilians.

And let's not forget what September 11th got for the Islamofascists:

The United States has said that virtually all its troops, except some training personnel, are to be pulled out of Saudi Arabia.

The decision was confirmed by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during a joint news conference with Saudi Defence Minister Prince Sultan.

A great big appeaser.  Who doesn't give much thought to bin Laden.  And bogs down 130,000 American troops in Iraq, while NATO is sending up a rescue flair in very home of al Qaeda.

Shameless.  Souless.  Worthless.

And now he wants the American People to struggle for civilization? 

Someone, please, ask him, if it's a fight for our very lives, why in God's name didn't he fight it?