Or not:
S president Bush on Thursday cautiously endorsed a truce between Gen Musharraf and pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan even as terrorist violence soared in Afghanistan and Al Qaida sent a sharp reminder of 9/11 with a video message ahead of the anniversary.
Bush said in an interview that he did not think the controversial amnesty deal between the Pakistani military and pro-Taliban elements in Waziristan gave a safe haven to terrorists, but added “we are watching this very carefully, obviously”.
“I don’t read it that way” Bush said when asked about the truce, which many analysts are reading as a retreat by Musharraf’s army and ceding of both territory and responsibility by Pakistan.
… Under the terms of the deal, Pakistani forces will not only withdraw from the region, but also return arms seized from militants, pay reparations, and have no say in militants coming and going from the area into Afghanistan.
September 11th, 2006
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Politics, Iraq |
one comment
Osama Bin Laden is still free.
That, five years after the fall of the towers, is as good a symbol for the failures of the Bush Administration as any. As I mentioned earlier today, not only is Bid Laden till free, but the US government has lost all trace of him after bungling the operation to catch him at Tora Bora because it shifted focus to Iraq. Even worse, there is no one single person responsible for finding him; the various bureaucracies have been left to fight it out among themselves. Bin Laden’s freedom is hardly the only failure of the last five years. You all know the list: leaving Afghanistan to quietly collapse back into the hands of the Taliban; the invasion of a nation that had nothing to 9/11 and was no threat to the US; the botching of the occupation; the abandonment of the Israeli/Palestinian peace process; the horribly botched Dept. of Homeland Security; the authoritarian assault on American ideals and Constitutional government. Bin Laden isn’t the only failing of the past five years, not by a long shot.
But the biggest failing isn’t a failure elf commission, but rather a failure of omission. There was an opportunity after 9/11 for something better. It was right there, the lowest of fruit, a better world just waiting for someone to come along and pick it. Surely, it was clear and obvious. After 9/11 the United States had a unique mix of goodwill and a world ready to believe it would take whatever action necessary to punish the perpetrators and their allies. It could have used that leverage to pressure Saudi Arabia to reign in the Whabist missionaries, to help Pakistan challenge the madrasses and Taliban sympathizers in its intelligence services, to help Israel and the Palestinians overcome the extremists’ veto. At home, he had a public willing, almost begging, for something to do, someway to help. Converting that desire into action on better CAFE standards, for alternate energy programs, for paying for common sense measures to protect ports, chemical depots, and power plants would have been useful an easy. Surely, all this was clear and obvious.
But when George W. Bush stopped running around the country that day, he turned the department of Homeland Security into a political ploy and a patronage shop, turned his back on Afghanistan, rushed headlong and recklessly into Iraq, and asked us to go shopping.
Apparently, the opportunity for something better was not as obvious as I thought.
September 11th, 2006
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Politics, Culture, Iraq |
one comment
Bush has completely lost Bin Laden. He lost him becasue he was bound and determined to attack Iraq — a country that was perfectly contained and had no WMDs and no connection to Al Qeada:
Many factors have combined in the five years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to make the pursuit more difficult. They include the lack of CIA access to people close to al-Qaeda’s inner circle; Pakistan’s unwillingness to pursue him; the reemergence of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan; the strength of the Iraqi insurgency, which has depleted U.S. military and intelligence resources; and the U.S. government’s own disorganization.
… 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.”
Several officers confirmed that the number of special operations troops was reduced in March 2001.
George W. Bush is directly responsible for losing the man responsible for 9/11. I wonder if he wil talk about this during his little speech tonight?
September 11th, 2006
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Iraq, Terrorism |
7 comments
Since ABC thought to debase today with a fictional political hit piece, I thought I would share my favorite piece of art about 9/11 as an antidote. It’s a kind of lament and a kind of affirmation; sad but not broken. It’s also kind of a ghost story. But I suppose every story about tragedy is a kind of ghost story. It’s well worth the few minutes it will take you to read.
September 11th, 2006
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Writing, Terrorism |
one comment
First, the Republican controlled Senate just released a report that said that there was no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq and that Iraq had no WMDs. That information has been clear for a long time. What is more interesting is that the Bush white House apparently knew that their public statements were incorrect:
A declassified report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq.
Far from aligning himself with al-Qaeda and Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Hussein repeatedly rebuffed al-Qaeda’s overtures and tried to capture Zarqawi, the report said.
The Bush Administration, particularly Cheney several times presented as established fact several things that the intelligence services did not consider credible:
In a classified January 2003 report, for instance, the CIA concluded that Hussein “viewed Islamic extremists operating inside Iraq as a threat.” But one day after that conclusion was published, Levin noted, Vice President Cheney said the Iraqi government “aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda.”
Intelligence reports in June, July and September 2002 all cast doubts on a reported meeting in Prague between Iraqi intelligence agents and Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. Yet, in a Sept. 8, 2002, appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Cheney said the CIA considered the reports on the meeting credible, Levin said.
In February 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that “Iraq is unlikely to have provided bin Laden any useful [chemical and biological weapons] knowledge or assistance.” A year later, Bush said: “Iraq has also provided al-Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training.”
Even more interesting is this conclusion:
The report also said exiles from the Iraqi National Congress (INC) tried to influence U.S. policy by providing, through defectors, false information on Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capabilities. After skeptical analysts warned that the group had been penetrated by hostile intelligence services, including Iran’s, a 2002 White House directive ordered that U.S. funding for the INC be continued.
My emphasis. The Bush Administration was warned that they were being fed disinformation by Iranian agents and then promptly turned around and fed that information to the American public:
But, as Snowe emphasized in her statement, the report concluded that information provided by an INC source was cited in that estimate and in Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s February 2003 speech to the United Nations as corroborating evidence about Iraq’s mobile biological weapons program. Those citations came despite two April 2002 CIA assessments, a May 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency fabrication notice and a July 2002 National Intelligence Council warning — all saying the INC source may have been coached by the exile group into fabricating the information.
They wanted their glorious little war that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda so badly that not only were they perfectly willing to deceive the American public, they were perfectly willing to deceive the American public with information fed to them by people who were almost certainly compromised by Iranian intelligence.
I think we can put to bed the notion that the Bush Administration was not deceiving the American public, at least about Iraq and Al Qaeda. They presented things as fact that their own intelligence agencies were telling them either had not been proven or were almost certainly false. I breathlessly await the condemnation from the right over Bush’s deliberate deceptions over a life and death matter.
While we wait for the crickets to quiet down, let me say that I am afraid that this report is just going to highlight how debased our democracy has become. In a sane world, this report would have Congress calling for the head of the President, with the members of his own party leading the way. The Senate has just concluded that the Administration deliberately mislead the American public on a matter of life and death. Such deception destroys the democratic process; how can the people be asked to decide an issue of the President is deliberately misleading them about the factual basis for his case? Unfortunately, I am sure we will see the GOP introduce a measure to attack Iran before they introduce a measure to hold Bush accountable for his betrayal of democratic principles.
September 11th, 2006
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Politics, Iraq, Iran |
one comment
