Bush Has Already Been Tossed Overboard By Cheney On Torture

Frank Rich, from the New York Times, sees former vice president Dick Cheney already distancing himself from his president, but at the same time plunging Bush into the same pit that he already occupies :

It will soon be every man for himself.

“Did President Bush know everything you knew?” Bob Schieffer asked Cheney on “Face the Nation” last Sunday. The former vice president’s uncharacteristically stumbling and qualified answer — “I certainly, yeah, have every reason to believe he knew...” — suggests that the Bush White House’s once-united front is starting to crack under pressure.

I’m not a fan of Washington’s blue-ribbon commissions, where political compromises can trump the truth. But the 9/11 investigation did illuminate how, a month after Bush received an intelligence brief titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,” 3,000 Americans were slaughtered on his and Cheney’s watch. If the Obama administration really wants to move on from the dark Bush era, it will need a new commission, backed up by serious law enforcement, to shed light on where every body is buried.

There's a lot of bodies....

And some more on the bizarre use of scripture by Donald Rumsfeld to convince Bush that the War On Terror was exactly the kind of biblical war he imagined it was :

(Official Bush biographer Robert) Draper reports that Rumsfeld’s monomaniacal determination to protect his Pentagon turf led him to hobble and antagonize America’s most willing allies in Iraq, Britain and Australia, and even to undermine his own soldiers. But Draper’s biggest find is a collection of daily cover sheets that Rumsfeld approved for the Secretary of Defense Worldwide Intelligence Update, a highly classified digest prepared for a tiny audience, including the president, and often delivered by hand to the White House by the defense secretary himself. These cover sheets greeted Bush each day with triumphal color photos of the war headlined by biblical quotations. GQ is posting 11 of them, and they are seriously creepy.

Take the one dated April 3, 2003, two weeks into the invasion, just as Shock and Awe hit its first potholes. Two days earlier, on April 1, a panicky Pentagon had begun spreading its hyped, fictional account of the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch to distract from troubling news of setbacks. On April 2, Gen. Joseph Hoar, the commander in chief of the United States Central Command from 1991-94, had declared on the Times Op-Ed page that Rumsfeld had sent too few troops to Iraq. And so the Worldwide Intelligence Update for April 3 bullied Bush with Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Including, as it happened, into a quagmire.)

What’s up with that? As Draper writes, Rumsfeld is not known for ostentatious displays of piety. He was cynically playing the religious angle to seduce and manipulate a president who frequently quoted the Bible. But the secretary’s actions were not just oily; he was also taking a risk with national security. If these official daily collages of Crusade-like messaging and war imagery had been leaked, they would have reinforced the Muslim world’s apocalyptic fear that America was waging a religious war. As one alarmed Pentagon hand told Draper, the fallout “would be as bad as Abu Ghraib.”

Read The Whole Story Here

Bush Quietly Advises Hillary Clinton On Iraq War And 'War On Terror'

Bush Says His White House Successor Will Find Gitmo And The War On Iraq "Necessary"

The War On Iraq will not end if Hillary Clinton is elected POTUS at the end of next year, just as the War On Iraq came no closer to ending when the Democrats won the mid-term elections last year.

President Bush wants to make sure that Hillary Clinton knows, as if she didn't already know, that shutting down the War On Iraq will be bad news for the United States, and the political and business elite.

Remember Vietnam is the chant, and the Democrats are not only listening, they're already singing along :

President Bush is quietly providing back-channel advice to Hillary Rodham Clinton, urging her to modulate her rhetoric so she can effectively prosecute the war in Iraq if elected president.

In an interview for the new book “The Evangelical President,” White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said Bush has “been urging candidates: ‘Don’t get yourself too locked in where you stand right now. If you end up sitting where I sit, things could change dramatically.’ ”

Bolten said Bush wants enough continuity in his Iraq policy that “even a Democratic president would be in a position to sustain a legitimate presence there.”

“Especially if it’s a Democrat,” the chief of staff told The Examiner in his West Wing office. “He wants to create the conditions where a Democrat not only will have the leeway, but the obligation to see it out.”

To that end, the president has been sending advice, mostly through aides, aimed at preventing an abrupt withdrawal from Iraq in the event of a Democratic victory in November 2008.

“It’s different being a candidate and being the president,” Bush said in an Oval Office interview. “No matter who the president is, no matter what party, when they sit here in the Oval Office and seriously consider the effect of a vacuum being created in the Middle East, particularly one trying to be created by al Qaeda, they will then begin to understand the need to continue to support the young democracy.”

To that end, Bush is institutionalizing controversial anti-terror programs so they can be used by the next president.

“Look, I’d like to make as many hard decisions as I can make, and do a lot of the heavy lifting prior to whoever my successor is,” Bush said. “And then that person is going to have to come and look at the same data I’ve been looking at, and come to their own conclusion.”

As an example, Bush cited his detainee program, which allows him to keep enemy combatants imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay while they await adjudication. Bush is unmoved by endless criticism of the program because he says his successor will need it.

“I specifically talked about it so that a candidate and/or president wouldn’t have to deal with the issue,” he said. “The next person has got the opportunity to analyze the utility of the program and make his or her decision about whether or not it is necessary to protect the homeland. I suspect they’ll find that it is necessary. But my only point to you is that it was important for me to lay it out there, so that the politics wouldn’t enter into whether or not the program ought to survive beyond my period.”

The Examiner asked Bush why Democratic candidates such as Clinton and Barack Obama, who routinely lambaste his handling of Iraq, should take his advice.

“First of all, I expect them to criticize me. That’s one way you get elected in the Democratic primary, is to criticize the president,” Bush replied. “I don’t expect them to necessarily take advice from me. I would expect their insiders to at least get a perspective about how we see things.”

He added: “We have an obligation to make sure that whoever is interested, they get our point of view, because you want somebody running for president to at least understand all perspectives, apart from the politics.”

Vice President Dick Cheney was philosophical about the possibility of a Democratic president fundamentally reversing the policies that he and Bush have worked so hard to implement in Iraq.

“It’s the nature of the business, in a sense,” he shrugged during an interview in his West Wing office. “I mean, you get two terms. We were fortunate to get two terms. And I think we’ll increasingly see a lot of emphasis on deciding who the next occupant of the Oval Office is going to be.”

The War On Iraq will not end, regardless of who is elected president in 2008.

Rice Pulls Bush Back From Cheney's Clutches, Tries To Teach Him To Use Diplomacy

A very interesting story from the New York Times detailing how, over many years, Condoleezza Rice has forced her way into the middle of the Bush-Cheney boys-with-war-toys club, and in the process coerced President Bush to favour diplomacy over war. After the Afghanistan and Iraq wars obviously.

Now Rice is even pushing Bush to "sit down and talk" with his dreaded enemy one, Iranian president Mahmoud Admadinejad :

Condoleezza Rice and President Bush are often described as opposites, but their closest advisers say they are remarkably alike. Both are products of their own elites — Mr. Bush from the old East Coast establishment, Ms. Rice from Southern black professionals — who are supremely self-confident on the surface but harbor resentments underneath. Ms. Rice, like Mr. Bush, has been underestimated her entire life, as an African-American, as a woman and often as the youngest person in the room.

Ms. Rice’s unusually tight bond with Mr. Bush has helped her as secretary of state in his second term to prod the president toward diplomacy with Iran and North Korea. But administration officials have long said that her devotion to Mr. Bush made her unwilling to challenge the president when needed during his first term, when she served as a less than confident national security adviser.

More often in those years, Ms. Rice used her relationship with Mr. Bush to try to gain control over the national security process as well as two powerful men who drove much of the agenda in the first term, Vice President Dick Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary. In January 2001, Ms. Rice went to Mr. Bush to stop Mr. Cheney from taking a major part of her job, running National Security Council meetings in the president’s absence, as Mr. Cheney had proposed to Mr. Bush that he do. “She threw a fit,” a former administration official close to Mr. Cheney recalled.

Ms. Rice, in an interview earlier this year, said that she went to the president because she was determined “to get it fixed,” and that she made the argument to him that it “wasn’t appropriate” for Mr. Cheney to run the meetings since that had not been the role of vice presidents in the past. “Mr. President, this is what national security advisers do,” Ms. Rice recalled that she told the president, who sided with her.

In August 2002, Ms. Rice went to Mr. Bush to tell him that Mr. Cheney had to be reined in after the vice president gave a speech to a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Nashville that effectively threatened war with Saddam Hussein and asserted that there was “false comfort” in sending United Nations weapons inspectors to Iraq.

“The president said, ‘Well, why don’t you call Dick and tell him what you want him to do?’”said Ms. Rice, who said she told Mr. Cheney that his speech was going to “trap” the president because Mr. Bush was planning to call for weapons inspections. The vice president, she said, agreed to temper his next speech. Mr. Cheney had no comment on Ms. Rice’s remarks.

In September 2003, Ms. Rice went to Mr. Bush to try to wrest control of the administration’s Iraq policy from Mr. Rumsfeld and L. Paul Bremer III, then the administration’s top civilian administrator in Iraq, whose dictates from Baghdad had frustrated Ms. Rice for months.

“I explained the problem, how we were starting to get decisions out there that we would know after the fact, that had huge policy implications, and we just couldn’t work that way,” Ms. Rice said she told the president, who by October had put Ms. Rice in charge of what the White House called the Iraq Stabilization Group to manage policy during the American occupation.

In the fall of 2006, when administration officials knew that the president would dismiss Mr. Rumsfeld once he found a replacement, Ms. Rice had a hand in his ouster when she went to Mr. Bush and enthusiastically recommended Robert M. Gates, an old friend and a superior from her days on the National Security Council staff of Mr. Bush’s father.

“I told the president, ‘We have to reach out to him,’” Ms. Rice recalled. She had battled for years with Mr. Rumsfeld, whose Department of Defense, she said, withheld so much crucial war planning information from her during the period before the Iraq war that she had to send members of her staff to the Pentagon to secretly ferret out documents.

In recent months, Ms. Rice has gone so often to Mr. Bush to push him on diplomacy with Iran and North Korea that he has started to needle her that she expects him to talk to people like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the radical Islamist who is president of Iran, or Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader whom Mr. Bush has said he loathes.

“You want me to sit down with Ahmadinejad?” a White House official recalled that Mr. Bush had archly asked Ms. Rice. “Kim Jong-il? Is he next?” The White House official said that Mr. Bush had also taken to calling Ms. Rice “Madame Rice,” as in “Madame Rice, you’re not coming in to tell me that we ought to change our position?”

A sit down sessions of talks between the US and Iran? It's about two decades overdue. And what a legacy for the final year of Bush's presidency. Chances of it actually becoming reality? About 0.002%

Bush : Bin Laden Is Like Lenin...And Hitler

In Pumping Terror Threats, US President Becomes Al Qaeda's Most Successful Promoter And Publicist

President Bush believes the Democrat-controlled Congress is not taking his 'War On Terror', and the threat of terror, seriously enough.

So what to do?

What else? Invoke Hitler, of course.

And while you're at it, throw in a few lines about how Osama is just like Lenin, as well :

He said that six years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, there is "a temptation to think that the threats to our country have grown distant," but warned that "the terrorists who struck America that September morning intend to strike us again."

"History teaches that underestimating the words of evil, ambitious men is a terrible mistake. In the early 1900s, the world ignored the words of Lenin, as he laid out his plans to launch a Communist revolution in Russia - and the world paid a terrible price. The Soviet Empire he established killed tens of millions, and brought the world to the brink of thermonuclear war," Bush said.

The president highlighted Washington's role in bringing down the Soviet Union. He told the gathering, attended by leading conservative lobbyists, "Together with a great President named Ronald Reagan, you championed a policy of rolling back communism oppression and bringing freedom to nations enslaved by communist tyranny."

He also compared Islamist plans to "build a totalitarian Islamic empire... stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia" to the Third Reich.

"In the 1920s, the world ignored the words of Hitler, as he explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state in Germany, take revenge on Europe, and eradicate the Jews - and the world paid a terrible price."

He insisted that the people of Iraq and Afghanistan have been "liberated" by U.S.-led campaigns: "We removed regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq that had supported terrorists and threatened our citizens, and in so doing, liberated 50 million people from the clutches of tyranny."

"...this is no time for Congress to hold back vital funding for our troops as they fight al Qaeda terrorists and radicals in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Bush has some interesting problems with this kind of rhetoric. He needs to say that the war is being won against Al Qaeda in Iraq to keep the national faith and support, which dwindles by the day. But he also needs to constantly enforce in the minds of Americans the threat posed by Al Qaeda, in order to convince Congress to keep funding the 'War On Terror'.

Few intelligence, terrorism or military experts will let any media quote them in saying that Al Qaeda is a worldwide force, an Army of millions or hundreds of thousands, comparable to the Nazis or the Soviet Army under Stalin.

In pumping the threat of Al Qaeda, President Bush is becoming their best publicist, constantly putting the name 'Al Qaeda' and rattling off their mantras and threat lists for the daily headlines and evening news.

Bush : We Are Not Planning To Attack Iran

During a fascinating interview with a reporter from the Arab television network, Al Arabiya, President Bush clearly spelled out his position on Iran, and whether or not the US is now planning to attack.

According to this interview transcript, President Bush said Iran must stop enriching uranium. If it does so, the US will be willing to engage in formal talks and negotiations.

He said the growing storm of leaks, theories and claims that the United States is gearing up to attack Iran are just "gossip".

"I would call that empty propaganda. Evidently, there's a lot of gossip … that try to scare people about me personally or my country or what we stand for. And that kind of gossip is just what it is. It's gossip. It's baseless gossip."

President Bush also acknowledged that he is widely seen as a man of war in the Middle East, and across the world, and that the United States is convincingly depicted as a violent, aggressive nation, picking fights and attacking sovereign nations.

"I understand the images of my country have been distorted," President Bush said. "And I understand people say things about me personally that simply aren't true."

"...the radicals have done a good job of propagandizing. In other words, they've spread the word that this really isn't peaceful people versus radical people or terrorists, this is really about the America not liking Islam."

President Bush insisted this was not true.

More On This Remarkable Interview Soon

Bush : We're Winning The War On Terror...In The Asia Pacific Region

The Melbourne Age has run an edited version of President Bush's speech to the APEC summit yesterday as a short column. It's a positive to see that Bush is talking about using education and lifting people out of positive as a way to combat extremist ideologies, instead of just "kicking ass" :

The fight against the terrorists in this region is one of the untold success stories in the war on terror and the rest of the world could learn from the approach that has been taken to fight the extremists. The two most dangerous terrorist networks in this region are a group called Jemaah Islamiah, or JI, and a Filipino terrorist group called Abu Sayyaf.

Nations in the Asia Pacific understand the threat posed by these groups and together we're following a clear strategy to defeat them. First, we must do everything we can to bring them to justice so they don't kill the innocent. Nations in the Asia Pacific have arrested and killed key leaders and operatives in networks.

Second, nations in the Asia Pacific are providing economic assistance to struggling communities where the terrorists operate. The reason we do this is we want to strengthen moderate leaders and give citizens in these communities alternatives to the path of radicalism and violence. For example, in Indonesia the Government is working with the United States to implement a $US157 million ($A189 million) initiative to improve basic education in 1500 public and private schools.

Third, the nations in the Asia Pacific are increasing regional co-operation in the fight against terrorism. Malaysia and the US have established a regional counter-terrorism training centre in Kuala Lumpur. There are law enforcement training centres in Jakarta and Bangkok that are improving the capabilities of security forces from across this region. Finally, nations in the Asia Pacific are working to defeat the terrorists' hateful ideology.

Our enemies have a vision that is narrow because it despises freedom, it rejects tolerance, it crushes all dissent. And they have goals. They want to impose this ideology as far and wide as possible. I believe that in the interest of peace we must promote an alternative vision based on human dignity and human liberty — a hopeful vision, a vision that is far stronger than the dark appeal of resentment and murder. And that's precisely what we're doing, and that's exactly what leaders here in the Asia Pacific region are doing.

These and other efforts are making a difference, (but) there's more work to be done here. We must work for the day when the people of North Korea enjoy the same freedoms as the citizens of their democratic neighbours. We must press the regime in Burma to stop arresting and harassing and assaulting pro-democracy activists for organising or participating in peaceful demonstrations. The Burmese regime must release these activists immediately. It must stop its intimidation of these citizens who are promoting democracy and human rights. It must release all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi.

We'll continue to work with nations like Russia to advance our shared interests while encouraging Russia's leaders to respect the checks and balances that are essential to democracy. We'll work with China, but as we do so, we'll never shy away from expressing our deepest-held values that each person has human dignity, and that we believe strongly in liberty. And finally, we look forward to free and fair elections in Thailand.

These are important steps — and now we must build on them by forging new regional institutions to encourage the continued expansion of freedom in this vital part of the world. And so this week, the US is proposing the creation of a new Asia Pacific Democracy Partnership. Through this partnership, free nations will work together to support democratic values, strengthen democratic institutions and assist those who are working to build and sustain free societies across the Asia Pacific region.

The lesson of freedom's advance in the Asia Pacific region is this: the desire for liberty is universal, written by our Creator into the hearts of every man, woman and child. Whenever they're given a chance, whenever they're given an opportunity, the people of every culture and every religion choose freedom over oppression.

By providing security in Iraq, we're creating conditions that allow people to reconcile. It's hard for people to come together after years of tyranny, particularly since the brutal dictator did all he could to divide society to stay in power. It's hard to imagine what it is like to recover — psychologically recover — from life under a thug like Saddam Hussein. But that's what's happening. And they need time to do so. And they need the security necessary to do so.

We're going to succeed in Iraq. Given a chance, liberty will succeed every time, and liberty will help yield the peace we need

Bush Keeps Pumping Al Qaeda As The New Nazis

"Surge Of Facts" To Become The New Bush Co. Mantra

Going against a near endless stream of national, and international intelligence, reports that claim that Al Qaeda in Iraq is a small, but still powerful, influence in the terror attacks in Iraq, President Bush has ramped up his claims that Al Qaeda in Iraq, is the very same Al Qaeda that attacked the United States on 9/11.

As the myth-making has failed to take root in the American mind, Bush is now losing patience with the spin he has been directed to unfurl, in the hope of bumping back up support for the Iraq War and the 'War on Terror'.

Bush needs Americans to see Al Qaeda in Iraq as the new Nazis - a massive, strong, well-armed, ideologically driven enemy worth of half trillion per year defence budgets. But the US Treasury is running low on funds, and the American people are running low on patience.

Bush, however, keeps up the myth-making :

President Bush sought anew on Tuesday to draw connections between the Iraqi group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the terrorist network responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, and he sharply criticized those who contend that the groups are independent of each other.

At a time when Mr. Bush is trying to beat back calls for withdrawal from Iraq, the speech at Charleston Air Force Base reflected concern at the White House over criticism that he is focusing on the wrong terrorist threat.

“The facts are that Al Qaeda terrorists killed Americans on 9/11, they’re fighting us in Iraq and across the world and they are plotting to kill Americans here at home again,” Mr. Bush told a contingent of military personnel here. “Those who justify withdrawing our troops from Iraq by denying the threat of Al Qaeda in Iraq and its ties to Osama bin Laden ignore the clear consequences of such a retreat.”

The Iraqi group is a homegrown Sunni Arab extremist group with some foreign operatives that has claimed a loose affiliation to Mr. bin Laden’s network, although the precise links are unclear.

In his speech, Mr. Bush did not try to debunk the fact — repeated by Mr. Reid — that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia did not exist until after the United States invasion in 2003 and has flourished since.

His comments also reflected a subtle shift from his recent flat assertion that, “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on Sept. 11.”

The overall thrust of the speech was that the administration believes that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has enough connections to Mr. bin Laden’s group to be considered the same threat, that its ultimate goal is to strike America...

Mr. Bush referred throughout his speech to what his aides said was newly declassified intelligence in his effort to link Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the central Qaeda leadership that is believed to be operating from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. Although the aides said the intelligence was declassified, White House and intelligence officials declined to provide any detail on the reports Mr. Bush cited.

In stark terms, Mr. Bush laid out a case that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia had taken its cues from the central Qaeda leadership, and that it had been led by foreigners who have sworn allegiance to Mr. bin Laden.

Mr. Bush quoted from what aides said was a previously classified intelligence assessment, saying, “The Zarqawi-bin Laden merger gave Al Qaeda in Iraq quote, ‘prestige among potential recruits and financiers.’ ” He added, “The merger also gave Al Qaeda’s senior leadership ‘a foothold in Iraq to extend its geographic presence.’ ”

Some administration officials have been more conservative in their assessments of any ability and desire that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia might have to carry out attacks here.

“When you look at how they are arraying their capabilities, those capabilities are being focused on the conflict in Iraq at this time,” Edward M. Gistaro, one of the principal authors of a recent National Intelligence Estimate on terrorist threats to the United States, said last week

From the Washington Post :

"Some will tell you al-Qaeda in Iraq isn't really al-Qaeda -- and not really a threat to America," Bush said. "Well, that's like watching a man walk into a bank with a mask and a gun, and saying he's probably just there to cash a check. We are fighting bin Laden's al-Qaeda in Iraq."

Critics of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq -- including former intelligence officials, lawmakers and regional experts -- have said that al-Qaeda in Iraq grew up in response to the U.S. occupation and that loyalists of the group represent just a small percentage of the insurgent forces battling U.S. and Iraqi forces. Moreover, al-Qaeda as a whole represents an ideology for extremists as much as it does a functioning organization, some intelligence analysts have said.

But Bush called the Iraqi organization an "alliance of killers" and repeated earlier assertions that a military withdrawal would allow Iraq to be used as a base from which to strike the U.S. homeland.

"Those who justify withdrawing our troops from Iraq by denying the threat of al-Qaeda in Iraq and its ties to Osama bin Laden ignore the clear consequences of such a retreat," Bush said. "If we were to follow their advice, it would be dangerous for the world -- and disastrous for America."

"The masterminds who want to harm this country are in Pakistan while our troops are in Iraq. It doesn't get much simpler than that," said Rand Beers, a former National Security Council aide who is president of the National Security Network, an advocacy group.

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) similarly said Bush's handling of the war has intensified the terrorist threat. "The National Intelligence Estimate contradicted what the president said today and made it clear that al-Qaeda is stronger because of our massive military presence in Iraq," he said Tuesday.

Bush also added that another terrorist leader recently captured in Iraq, whom he identified only as Mashhadani, had told U.S. interrogators that the Iraqi organization there went to "extraordinary lengths to promote the fiction" that it was not run by foreigners tied to the central al-Qaeda network. Khalid al-Mashhadani's capture was announced in a news conference last week by U.S. forces in Baghdad.

A Bush administration spokeswoman was quoted in the New York Times story as describing the added emphasis on Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as being part of the 9/11 Al Qaeda network as an element of the "surge of facts" that the White House was using to make its case to stay and keep fighting the 'War on Terror' in Iraq.

But while Al Qaeda-aligned terror groups in Iraq remain small, though formidable, Al Qaeda as a political and war fighting strength continues to grow in strength, capacity and tactical knowledge in the 'badlands' of Pakistan, close to the border of Afghanistan.

The call will grow amongst Americans : why are we fighting in Iraq to defeat Al Qaeda when we should be fighting them in Pakistan?

This is an argument, and debate, that the Bush administration doesn't want to take hold. Pakistan has soaked up more than $10 billion in American 'War on Terror' related funding, but Al Qaeda now appears to be stronger, and more numerous, in Pakistan than anywhere else in th world.

Note : Crooks And Liars noted on July 13 that White House press secretary Tony Snow had used the term "surge of facts" for the first time. It's already getting a strong workout from the Bush Co. spin ministry. Expect to see more of it. We await President Bush's first use of the term. Shouldn't be too long now.

Bush And Winston Churchill : The Only Thing They Have In Common Is The 'W'

It's no exaggeration to state that President Bush is all but obsessed with how history will view his presidency, but more importantly, how historians will write him up, in his words, as "a war fighting president."

He admires Winston Churchill, who used the power of a good speech and the then current media monolith that was radio, to rally a nation not only into fighting in Europe in World War 2, but fighting back on the homefront when it seemed, under the onslaught of Hitler's air raids and rocket attacks, that all hope was lost.

Bush did make some good speeches before the Iraq War, and in the first few weeks, as lose with the truth as they were, and he can be credited with rallying the United States in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, but the world, and history, is far more cynical today than it was in Churchill's days.

Even if the Iraq War ended tomorrow, with a democratically elected government in place that could provide security for the people and open up the country to global trade and new money,
many historians will pound Bush for dragging the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and Japan, primarily, into such a deeply unpopular, and civilian-death heavy, war.

He will not be remembered as fondly, or as vitally, as his hero. Bush will go down in history as a reckless troublemaker, who ignored the will of the world, at large, and threw hand grenades into the already churning chaos of the Middle East.

A column from the Washington Post argues that the debate and discussion should not be about drawing parallels between Bush and Churchill, but between Bush and Churchill's predecessor as British PM, the now nefariously, notoriously viewed "Hitler appeaser" Neville Chamberlain :

The president admires the wartime British prime minister so much that he keeps what he calls "a stern-looking bust" of Churchill in the Oval Office. "He watches my every move," Bush jokes. These days, Churchill would probably not care for much of what he sees.

I've spent a great deal of time thinking about Churchill while working on my book "Troublesome Young Men," a history of the small group of Conservative members of Parliament who defied British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasing Adolf Hitler, forced Chamberlain to resign in May 1940 and helped make Churchill his successor.

...I think Bush's hero would be bemused, to say the least, by the president's wrapping himself in the Churchillian cloak. Indeed, the more you understand the historical record, the more the parallels leap out -- but they're between Bush and Chamberlain, not Bush and Churchill.

Like Bush and unlike Churchill, Chamberlain came to office with almost no understanding of foreign affairs or experience in dealing with international leaders. Nonetheless, he was convinced that he alone could bring Hitler and Benito Mussolini to heel. He surrounded himself with like-minded advisers and refused to heed anyone who told him otherwise.

In the months leading up to World War II, Chamberlain and his men saw little need to build up a strong coalition of European allies with which to confront Nazi Germany -- ignoring appeals from Churchill and others to fashion a "Grand Alliance" of nations to thwart the threat that Hitler posed to the continent.

Unlike Bush and Chamberlain, Churchill was never in favor of his country going it alone. Throughout the 1930s, while urging Britain to rearm, he also strongly supported using the newborn League of Nations -- the forerunner to today's United Nations -- to provide one-for-all-and-all-for-one security to smaller countries. After the League failed to stop fascism's march, Churchill was adamant that, to beat Hitler, Britain must form a true partnership with France and even reach agreement with the despised Soviet Union, neither of which Chamberlain was willing to do.

Like Bush, Chamberlain also laid claim to unprecedented executive authority, evading the checks and balances that are supposed to constrain the office of prime minister.

...Churchill almost certainly would look askance at the Bush administration's years-long campaign to shut down public debate over the "war on terror" and the conflict in Iraq -- tactics markedly similar to Chamberlain's attempts to quiet his opponents.

Like Bush and his aides, Chamberlain badgered and intimidated the press, restricted journalists' access to sources and claimed that anyone who dared criticize the government was guilty of disloyalty and damaging the national interest. Just as Bush has done, Chamberlain authorized the wiretapping of citizens without court authorization; Churchill was among those whose phones were tapped by the prime minister's subordinates.

Churchill, by contrast, believed firmly in the sanctity of individual liberties and the need to protect them from government encroachment.

The president no doubt has his own Churchill. "He was resolute," Bush has remarked. "He was tough. He knew what he believed." But Churchill would snort, I believe, at the administration's equation of "Islamofascism," an amorphous, ill-defined movement of killers forced to resort to terrorism by their lack of military might, to Nazi Germany, a global power that had already conquered several countries before Churchill took office in 1940. Still, key members of the Bush administration have compared critics of the wars on terrorism and in Iraq to the appeasers of the 1930s, thus implicitly equating their boss and themselves to Churchill and the "troublesome young men" who helped bring him to power. During bleak days in Iraq, the administration's hawks can be forgiven for hoping that history will show them to be as far-sighted about a gathering storm as Churchill was in the 1930s.

But history has its own ways, and we cannot make the long-dead titans we admire give us their modern blessing. As the world's two most prominent and powerful democracies, the United States and Britain had a responsibility to serve as exemplars of democracy for the rest of the world, Churchill believed. But to be fitting role models, he argued, both countries had to do their best to ensure that the "title deeds of freedom" were strongly safeguarded within their own boundaries. "Let us preach what we practice," he declared in his 1946 "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton, Mo. "But let us also practice what we preach."

Bush's New Vision For Iraq : Like Israel, With Less Car Bombings

Bush Reconfigures 'War On Terror' To Be 'War Against Unacceptable Level Of Terror'



Bush told Iraqis, and US, that they better get used to scenes like this in a free and democratic Iraq.

If you want to define success in Iraq, says Bush, think of Israel. But with less car bombings. And less suicide attacks. And less beheadings. And less massacres, and IED attacks, and executions by the double dozen. Not no terror at all, just some terror. You know, like Israel.

I'll just hazard a guess here, but isn't Israel exactly what most Iraqis don't want their newly 'liberated' country to become?

Cue furious and Zionist Conspiracy headlines from the Arab and Muslim media across the planet.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, Bush is finding that even die-hard Republican backers of the war from day one are now publicly stating that American troops should begin coming home, within months, not years. Or decades.

From the Associated Press :

President Bush held up Israel as a model for defining success in Iraq, saying Thursday the U.S. goal there is not to eliminate attacks but to enable a democracy that can function despite violence.

With his Iraq policy under increasing criticism from the public and lawmakers in both parties, Bush went to the U.S. Naval War College to declare progress and plead for patience. At the same time, his top national security went to Capitol Hill to hear out Republican critics.

Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said this week U.S. troops should start leaving now because Bush's strategy will not have time to work.

The White House thought it had until an expected September assessment by military commanders before facing a showdown on the unpopular war.

But a majority of senators now believes troops should start coming home in the next few months. House Republicans want to revive the independent Iraq Study Group to get new options.

Here's some of Bush's most recent comments on Iraq, and his whole 'Think Israel, With Less Bombings' definition of success.

The president laid out in some of his plainest terms yet how to determine when the U.S. presence in Iraq has achieved its goals. This, Bush said, is "the rise of a government that can protect its people, deliver basic services for all its citizens and function as a democracy even amid violence."

"Our success in Iraq must not be measured by the enemy's ability to get a car bombing in the evening news," he said. "No matter how good the security, terrorists will always be able to explode a bomb on a crowded street."

So much for a safe and secure Iraq for all Iraqis. You're free, what's a few car bombings, in the mornings, and afternoons when you've got democracy?

(Bush) suggested Israel, the frequent target of terrorist attacks and a country in a decades-long, intractable and often violent dispute with Palestinians, as a standard to strive for.

"In places like Israel, terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks," Bush said. "The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it's not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that's a good indicator of success that we're looking for in Iraq."

It was likely to be controversial _ and possibly even explosive _ for Bush to set out Israel as a model for a Muslim Middle Eastern nation.

Aside from Israel's security problems, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is such a sensitive issue in the Muslim world that it has become a rallying cry for many and major recruiting tool for Islamic extremist groups such as al-Qaida.

Wasn't the whole idea of the 'War on Terror' to actually STOP TERRORISM?

Bush is now arguing that Iraqis must accept a certain level of car bombings and suicide attacks as part of their lives for however long into the future.

Should make for some extremely deadly future elections.

Iraq : Another American Massacre, 17 Slaughtered

From Palestine To Pakistan, Bush's 'War On Terror' Confronts And Creates Violence, Death And Destruction

Jim Lobe, of Inter Press Service, rounds up the global state of conflict, for which most of the world is looking to the United States to eventually, comprehensively, solve. If only because President Bush has repeatedly stated that the storm of crises now raging are all part of the global 'War on Terror' that Bush himself launched while the imploded ruins of the Twin Towers were still burning in New York City :

Four years after the emergence of the first signs of a serious insurgency in Iraq, US President George W. Bush finds himself beset with major crises stretching from Palestine to Pakistan.

With US-backed Fatah forces routed by Hamas in Gaza this week, Bush's five-year-old vision of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict now looks more remote than ever, while a new Pentagon report in Iraq suggests that his four-month-old "surge" strategy is failing in its primary objective of reducing the violence there.

Meanwhile, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, to whom Washington has provided virtually unconditional support since al-Qaeda's 9/11 attack, faces a growing popular revolt, while much of the country's tribal border regions have come under the control of forces allied with Afghanistan's Taliban.

And Iran, which senior US officials this week accused of arming the Taliban, as well as Shi'ite militias in Iraq, has continued to defy Washington's demands that it halt its nuclear enrichment program, while Tehran's regional allies, Syria and Lebanon's Hezbollah, not to mention Hamas itself, appear to have successfully withstood intensified US-led efforts to isolate them.

This week's events in Gaza, in fact, are also likely to have dealt a heavy blow to US hopes of forging an anti-Iranian coalition consisting of Israel and the "Arab Quartet" led by Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Indeed, Saudi King Abdullah appeared to have grown disillusioned with Bush even before the US-backed dissolution by Palestine Authority President and Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas of the government of national unity whose birth was personally midwifed by Abdullah himself last March.

"There's a strongly held view among our Arab friends that we don't know what we're doing," observed ret. Amb. Daniel Kurtzer, Washington's chief envoy to Israel during Bush's first term and now a professor at Princeton University, earlier this week before Hamas' takeover of Gaza.

Al-Qaeda, which continues to enjoy the protection of its allies in Pakistan and has made the US military occupation in Iraq its primary recruiting ground, has also benefited enormously from the backlash against Washington's policies throughout the region, according to most experts here.

"al-Qaeda today is a global operation – with a well-oiled propaganda machine based in Pakistan, a secondary but independent base in Iraq, and an expanding reach in Europe," wrote Bruce Riedel, a former high-level Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst, in Foreign Affairs magazine last month.

In the article, entitled "al-Qaeda Strikes Back," Reidel, the senior director for Near East Affairs in the White House from 1997 to 2002, predicted that the group would likely set up new operations in northern Lebanon and Gaza and eventually try to provoke "all-out war" between the US and Iran as part of a "grand strategy" aimed at "bleeding" Washington in much the same way that US-backed mujahadin and their Arab allies bled the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s.

Indeed, like Jason of Greek myth, Bush has sown dragon's teeth throughout the region with a predominantly military policy, particularly his decision to unilaterally invade and occupy Iraq, even as he encouraged right-wing governments in Israel to indulge their propensity for using force to resolve problems with their neighbors.

But, unlike Jason, it looks increasingly doubtful that Bush can subdue the militant forces that have sprouted from those seeds and appear to grow stronger with each passing day.

BUSH INFURIATED BY LEAK OF TOP SECRET INTELLIGENCE REPORT ON TERRORISM

IRAQ WAR DECLARED TO BE NUMBER ONE RECRUITER OF TERRORISTS

Bush and the NeoCons were warned, repeatedly, before the War On Iraq began that attacking and killing Muslims would turn Muslims in other nations against them, and would lead to further, greater acts of terrorism.

The War On Terror creates more terrorism. It's a simple, easily proved paradigm. But BushCo. have worked hard to keep this reality out of the mainstream media and out of the minds of as many Americans as possible.

The fact that such an explosive, and classified, report has been leaked shows that the US intelligence agencies are waging their own quiet low-boil war against BushCo., if only to get the truth out to the American public.

From the Washington Times :

An angry President Bush said yesterday that a secret terrorism assessment had been leaked for "political purposes" and disputed that the classified report had concluded the Iraq war is spreading Islamic extremism across the world.

The four-page section declassified yesterday calls the Iraq war a "cause celebre" for Islamic terrorists and says that despite U.S. troops' wreaking serious damage on al Qaeda leadership, the number of terrorists is spreading in number and geographic dispersion.

"If this trend continues, threats to U.S. interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide," the document says. "The confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups."

Although the report -- completed in April and based on data collected through February -- states that the "global jihadist movement is decentralized, lacks a coherent global strategy and is becoming more diffuse," the document also says that new jihadist networks are increasingly likely to emerge and that they will be harder to track or infiltrate.

But at the White House, the president called critics who say the Iraq war was a mistake "naive."
"I think it's a mistake for people to believe that going on the offense against people that want to do harm to the American people makes us less safe," he said.

He also took issue with the conclusion that the Iraq war is responsible for creating new terrorists, saying that those who "see a rosier scenario with fewer extremists joining the radical movement" if not for the Iraq war are ignoring 20 years of history.

"We weren't in Iraq when we got attacked on September 11. We weren't in Iraq when thousands of fighters were trained in terror camps," Mr. Bush said. "We weren't in Iraq when they first attacked the World Trade Center in 1993. We weren't in Iraq when they bombed the Cole. We weren't in Iraq when they blew up our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania."

"We'll stop all the speculation, all the politics about somebody saying something about Iraq, somebody trying to confuse the American people about the nature of this enemy," Mr. Bush said. "Then everybody can draw their own conclusions about what the report says."

Although the redacted report had several bleak assertions, it also said:

•"Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight."

•"The underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities and are likely to do so for the" next five years.

•A newly increased role of Iraqis in fighting al Qaeda could lead the terror group's veteran foreign fighters to focus their efforts outside the country.

•Iran and Syria are the most active state sponsors of terror, but many other countries will be unable to prevent their resources from being exploited by terrorists.

•Four underlying factors are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement -- entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness; the Iraq war; the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations; and pervasive anti-U.S. sentiment among most Muslims.

"Exposing the religious and political straitjacket that is implied by the jihadists' propaganda would help to divide them from the audiences they seek to persuade," the report says.

From Time Magazine :

The report warns that the Iraq "jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives," and adds that fighters with experience in Iraq "are a potential source of leadership for jihadists." Its forecast about terrorism is stark: Current trends will mean "increasing attacks worldwide" over the next five years. The global terrorist network is "becoming more diffuse," and new cells "are increasingly likely to emerge" and will be "harder to find and undermine."

From the UK Guardian :

George Bush yesterday suffered a blow to his argument that the removal of Saddam Hussein had made Americans safer after he ordered the release of an intelligence report warning the war in Iraq had become a "cause celebre for jihadists".

Mr Bush's decision to declassify a small portion of a leaked National Intelligence Estimate, six weeks before the midterm elections, was seen as an attempt to get in front of Democratic critics, led by Bill Clinton, who accuse the administration of not doing enough to catch Osama bin Laden.

After five years of relative civility, the unspoken entente cordiale between the Bush and Clinton administrations to avoid assigning blame for the 9/11 attacks came to an abrupt end yesterday, with both leaders and their aides fighting for their respective legacies. But Mr Bush's "war on terror" narrative was contradicted by the report.

"The Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives; perceived jihadist success [in Iraq] would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere," it said.

"The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world. If this trend continues, threats to US interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide."

The report, reflecting a consensus of 16 intelligence agencies, acknowledged some US success in disrupting al-Qaida. But it said these gains were outweighed by other factors, fuelling al-Qaida's spread: anger at corrupt Muslim regimes, anti-US sentiment, and a decentralised leadership that made it harder to penetrate.

Also from the UK Guardian :

The Iraq war has acted as a "recruiting sergeant" for extremists in the Muslim world, according to a paper prepared for a Ministry of Defence thinktank, which also said the British government sent troops into Afghanistan "with its eyes closed".

The paper, which describes the west as being "in a fix" and includes a savage attack on Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, was written by an officer attached to the Defence Academy, according to BBC2's Newsnight programme. Its release provoked a furious response from the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, who has been touring the US.

The MoD was quick to play down the significance of the report. However, the study reflects what the MoD, military commanders, and the Foreign Office, have been saying in private. What is embarrassing is the timing of the leak, a day after Tony Blair's defence of Britain's military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. The research paper blamed the ISI for indirectly supporting terrorism and extremism.

It adds: "The war in Iraq ... has acted as a recruiting sergeant for extremists across the Muslim world ... Iraq has served to radicalise an already disillusioned youth and al-Qaida has given them the will, intent, purpose and ideology to act."

On Afghanistan, the paper said Britain went in "with its eyes closed". It claims that a secret deal to extricate UK troops from Iraq so they could focus on Afghanistan failed when British military leaders were overruled.

From the New York Times :

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — Three years ago, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote a memo to his colleagues in the Pentagon posing a critical question in the “long war’’ against terrorism: Is Washington’s strategy successfully killing or capturing terrorists faster than new enemies are being created?

Until Tuesday, the government had not publicly issued an authoritative answer. But the newly declassified National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism does exactly that, and it concludes that the administration has failed the Rumsfeld test.

Portions of the report appear to bolster President Bush’s argument that the only way to defeat the terrorists is to keep unrelenting military pressure on them. But nowhere in the assessment is any evidence to support Mr. Bush’s confident-sounding assertion this month in Atlanta that “America is winning the war on terror.’’

While the spread of self-described jihadists is hard to measure, the report says, the terrorists “are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion.”

It says that a continuation of that trend would lead “to increasing attacks worldwide’’ and that “the underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities.’’

RUMSFELD SAYS HE CAN'T MEASURE IF TERROR IS GROWING

From YahooNews.com :

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday there was no way to measure if more Islamic extremists were being created than killed in American-led operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Asked about a U.S. intelligence report that concluded the Iraq war had spread Islamic radicalism, Rumsfeld said intelligence could be faulty and sometimes "flat wrong."

Rumsfeld, who was speaking to reporters after a NATO meeting in Slovenia, would not comment on the details of the report, a portion of which was declassified by President George W. Bush.

Bush faced criticism from political foes after parts of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate leaked out, revealing intelligence experts' conclusion that Islamic extremists were "increasing in both number and geographic dispersion" due to the Iraq war.

The White House said the disclosures offered an incomplete assessment, and Rumsfeld deferred to Bush's statements.

Rumsfeld said there still was no clear way to determine if more extremists were being funded and trained than killed in current U.S. operations in Iraq and the war on terror.

"Are more terrorists being created in the world? We don't know," he said.

"The world doesn't know. There are not good metrics to determine how many people are being trained in a radical madrassa school in some country that's being funded by an extremist teaching young people to go out and kill people. There's no metric that you could gather all that information and pull it together and know what's being produced."

He said that while the impact of U.S. operations on the growth of terrorism could not be known, the numbers being killed and captured could.

"At any given day, at any given week, at any given month, is the pool going up or down?" he asked without answering.

"The implication that if you stop killing or capturing people who are trying to kill you that therefore the world will be a better place is obviously nonsensical," he said.

"Anyone who thinks that there is a single answer or a single reason or a silver bullet that can solve the problem can't be right. It's too complex. It's going to take time and it's going to take a lot of work by a lot of people who are patient and who believe in freedom," he added.

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