PERRspectives: Iraq Archives

Iraq Archives

	Republicans Blasted U.S. Allies Over Iraq War While the U.S. continues its pushback against Israel's humiliating settlements announcement last week, Republicans in Congress predictably rushed to defend the Netanyahu government. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor branded the Obama administration "irresponsible" and claimed its treatment of the special relationship with Israel "jeopardizes America's national security." Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) parroted Likud Party talking points about American interference in a "zoning decision in its capital city." And for his part, John McCain blasted the "public disparagement" of Israel and... more Posted on March 16, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	Rove: No Bush War for Democracy in Iraq As millions of Iraqis braved bomb blasts and threats of violence to vote this weekend, voices across the political spectrum in the U.S. praised the democratic elections. But while President Obama announced that "Their participation demonstrates that the Iraqi people have chosen to shape their future through the political process," his conservative opponents claimed vindication for George W. Bush and his war on Saddam. Left out of their narrative, of course, is the inconvenient truth that the United States did... more Posted on March 9, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	Rove Book: No Pushback on Iraq WMD My Bad Next week, Karl Rove's memoir Courage and Consequence hits the bookshelves. But as the previews make clear, you won't have to wait until March 9th to appreciate Rove's gift for fiction. According to the AP, his revisionist history claims that "many of the controversies that weakened his presidency were falsehoods perpetuated by political opponents," including the disastrous Hurricane Katrina response he laid at the feet of Democrats Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco. But in one area, the absence of weapons... more Posted on March 3, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	On Terror, GOP Goes from Oprah to Donald Trump Witnessing the Republican reaction to the Obama administration's handling of the failed Christmas bombing is like watching reruns of The Apprentice. Like Donald Trump, each conservative talking head proclaims "You're Fired!" to members of the Obama team. Of course, when President Bush presided over the 9/11 catastrophe, Osama Bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora, the baseless claims about Saddam's WMD, the disastrous invasion of Iraq and myriad other intelligence and national security debacles, Republicans instead played the role of Oprah.... more Posted on January 8, 2010 \| Comments (3)

	Perino Forgets Bush Called His War Rhetoric a Mistake As she makes clear with alarming frequency, former Bush press secretary Dana Perino knows very little and seems to remember even less. In 2007, Perino admitted her ignorance of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then three weeks ago, she swept the bloodbath of 9/11 under the rug when she proclaimed, "we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term." Now in response to Barack Obama's 60 Minutes interview Sunday, Perino claimed that Obama's suggestion that "President... more Posted on December 16, 2009 \| Comments (5)

	McCain's Wartime Reign of Error When it comes to matters of war and peace, over the past decade no American political figure outside of Dick Cheney has been as egregiously and frequently wrong as John McCain. Yet despite his almost uninterrupted record of error on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, McCain's supposed national security expertise is taken for granted by both his party and the press. So as he leads the Republican campaign against President Obama's "exit strategy" in Afghanistan, it's worth remembering that... more Posted on December 3, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Republicans Give Thanks for Short Memories Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino's jaw-dropping statement Wednesday that "we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term" didn't merely serve to confirm President Obama's terrible judgment in appointing her to the Broadcasting Board of Governors. As it turns out, Perino's clumsy whitewashing of the 9/11 attacks is just the latest (if most pathetic) installment of the ongoing GOP project to selectively erase history. From their disaster in Iraq and neglect of Afghanistan to... more Posted on November 26, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Cheney Turns to Sgt. Schultz Defense in Plame Case During the controversy over the Bush administration's prosecutor purge in 2007, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales raised selective amnesia to an art form. In one single day of Congressional testimony, Gonzales uttered some variant of "I don't recall" 64 times, including the comical, "Senator, that I don't recall remembering." Now with the release of the notes from his 2004 interview with the FBI in the Scooter Libby case, it turns out Dick Cheney's memory is even worse. Like Gonzales, Vice... more Posted on November 3, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	KrongardGate II Among the most comically disturbing moments in the ongoing national embarrassment surrounding the mercenary firm Blackwater was the November 2007 revelation that the brother of the State Department Inspector General overseeing the company was on its board. Now, Howard "Cookie" Krongard and his hermano Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard are involved in another conflict of interest, this time in Afghanistan. As CBS reported Tuesday, the dubious dealings of the brothers Krongard may be at the heart of a coverup regarding ArmorGroup, the... more Posted on September 30, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	The Republicans' Zombie Myth of 9/11 and Iraq Among the most disturbing legacies of the horrific Al Qaeda attacks on the United States 8 years ago has been the appropriation of September 11 by Republicans as just another arrow in their quiver of partisan warfare. Former New York Governor George Pataki used the anniversary to attack the Justice Department's limited probe of CIA detainee abuse by warning, "It jeopardizes our ability to continue to effectively protect our country against those who hate us and want to attack us... more Posted on September 11, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	DOJ Confirms Cheney's Key Role in CIA Leak Case The Obama administration again this week moved to protect former Vice President Dick Cheney's 2004 interview with the FBI over the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame. But in so doing, the Justice Department's court filing only served to confirm Cheney's central role in guiding the Bush White House response to - and retaliation against - Plame's husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson. As the Washington Post reported, a list of what Cheney discussed with prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is documented in... more Posted on July 3, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Cheney: Iraq Insurgency Not in Last Throes After All President Obama on Tuesday marked the historic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq's cities by noting, "The Iraqi people are rightly treating this day as a cause for celebration." Alas, for former Vice President Dick Cheney, not so much. Cheney, who four years ago declared the insurgency in its "last throes," on Monday warned of new attacks. Of course, back in December, he praised President Bush for signing the very status of forces agreement that mandated the American pullback this... more Posted on July 1, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Cheney: "Never Any Evidence" for 9/11-Iraq Link We Made Repeatedly Former Vice President Dick Cheney's acknowledgement yesterday that there was "never any evidence" that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks on the United States was doubly surprising. The first shock was that for one of the few times during his legacy reclamation project, Cheney told the truth. And second, the leading members of Team Bush, including the President and Cheney himself, have continued to propagate the myth of the bogus Saddam-9/11 link they first introduced in 2002. Appearing on... more Posted on June 3, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Bush Finally Greeted as Liberator In the run-up to the war in Iraq, Dick Cheney infamously predicted, "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted in liberators." Just days later John McCain too declared, "There's no doubt in my mind" that "we will be welcomed as liberators." Now six years later, George W. Bush is finally doing some liberating, not in Baghdad but in New Mexico. Speaking to graduating high school students in Artesia, the ex-President revealed it was he himself who had been... more Posted on May 22, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	McChrystal Ball In replacing General David McKiernan with Stanley McChrystal as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Robert Gates didn't merely signal a change of strategy but a change in attitude. Having led the Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq from 2006 to 2008, General McChrystal is said to be among the military's new breed emphasizing counterinsurgency strategies and tactics. And as he showed in proclaiming the defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq in October 2007, he's apparently... more Posted on May 12, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Condi Rice Butchers American History. Again. Much has been made of Condoleezza Rice's use Monday of the bogus Nixon tautology in defense of torture. Falling back on Tricky Dick's infamous statement that "when the President does it, that means it's not illegal," Rice told a group of students that "by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture." But perhaps overlooked in Rice's banality of evil is her latest misuse of history. Having previously appropriated... more Posted on May 1, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Bush Team Peddles 9/11-Iraq Link Torture Failed to Produce Coming just days after the Obama administration released the OLC memos which justified the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture, a 200 page Senate Armed Services Committee report is producing a new wave of shocking revelations. As it turns out, intelligence and military officials were preparing the brutal interrogation program eight months before its approval by the Bush Justice Department. And in trying to sell the invasion of Iraq, the Bush torture team ordered the abuse of detainees to manufacture... more Posted on April 22, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Rice Denies Bush Pushed Bogus Saddam - 9/11 Link On the eve of the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war, Condoleezza Rice joined the long list of Bush White House figures taking to the airwaves to rewrite their boss' tragic legacy. "No one," she told Charlie Rose last night, "was arguing that Saddam Hussein somehow had something to do with 9/11." Of course, Rice was just one of many Bush administration officials making that claim before and after the invasion. And as it turns out, Ari Fleischer and George... more Posted on March 19, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Cheney's "Stuff Happens" Defense of Republican Failure Just days after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pooh-poohed the escalating chaos in the streets of Baghdad, saying with a shrug, "stuff happens." Now six years later, former Vice President Dick Cheney has elevated Rumsfeld's flip response to the level of theory in defending the Bush administration's eight-year record of failure. Of course, whether it was 9/11, sectarian conflict in Iraq, the rise of Hamas, the Bush recession or Hurricane Katrina, Cheney and the leading lights... more Posted on March 15, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Fleischer and Bush Still Peddling 9/11 - Saddam Link On the very day Politico detailed the concerted effort by former Bush aides to resuscitate their boss' moribund legacy, his one-time press secretary Ari Fleischer battled MSNBC's Chris Matthews on the subject of the Iraq war. But while a newly tenacious Matthews turned on a Bush White House he once praised as "good guys," Fleischer at least was consistent. Six years after the invasion of Iraq, Fleischer like President Bush continues to falsely link Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks.... more Posted on March 12, 2009 \| Comments (8)

	Obama Should Follow Canada in Honoring War Dead Canadians on Thursday gave Barack Obama a warm welcome in his foreign trip as President. But while real issues concerning trade and the future Canadian combat role in Afghanistan remain, the most difficult discussions between President Obama and Prime Minister Harper will likely wait for another time. But in one area – whether the United States should publicly welcome home its fallen soldiers - President Obama should move quickly to follow the Canadian example. The question of whether he would... more Posted on February 19, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	"Unless Otherwise Directed" in Iraq Plugging his new book The Gamble on the Iraq surge, the Washington Post's Thomas Ricks offers a jaw-dropping account of the critical decision to pay off Sunni insurgents. Contrary to George W. Bush's "decider" myth, it was David Petraeus who simply informed the President of that defining change in tactics the General implemented on his own in 2006. As it turns out, from Paul Bremer's catastrophic disbanding of the Iraqi army in 2003 to key elements of the surge itself,... more Posted on February 11, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Hoekstra Just Latest Republican to Leak Security Secrets As CQ Politics first reported yesterday, former House Intelligence Committee chairman Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) leaked word of his delegation's secret trip to Iraq. Hoekstra, who in 2006 decried "unauthorized disclosures of classified information [which] only help terrorists and our enemies - and put American lives at risk," used Twitter to inadvertently announce the presence of high-ranking American officials in Baghdad. As it turns out, Pete Hoekstra is just the latest Republican politician to reveal classified national security information in recent... more Posted on February 7, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Bush's Farewell Conflation of 9/11 and Iraq In his predictably self-absorbed farewell address to the nation, President George W. Bush grudgingly acknowledged, "There are things I would do differently if given the chance." But as he demonstrated last night, rejecting his repeated linkage of the 9/11 attacks to his war on Iraq is not among them. Even as Bush and Vice President Cheney prepare to slink off into the sunset, their duplicitous conflation of Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein is destined to outlive their... more Posted on January 16, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	George W. Bush, the "Nobody Could've Predicted" President In an interview Thursday with the AP, Vice President Cheney neatly summarized the failed Bush presidency. Comparing the financial meltdown and implosion of the American economy with the 9/11 attacks, Cheney insisted, "I don't think anybody saw it coming." As it turns out, from 9/11, sectarian conflict in Iraq and the election of Hamas to the Bush recession and the drowning of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, the leading lights of the Bush administration claimed they never saw it coming.... more Posted on January 12, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Loyal Bushie O'Beirne Protests Obama Changes at the Pentagon 10 days ago, the Obama transition team notified about 90 of the Pentagon's 250 Bush political appointees that their services would no longer be needed after Inauguration Day. But despite DoD spokesman Geoff Morrell's declaration that holdover Republican Defense Secretary Robert Gates was "absolutely satisfied" with way the transition was being handled, one loyal Bushie at the Pentagon was anything but. Jim O'Beirne - the same Jim O'Beirne who famously populated the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad with Republican campaign... more Posted on January 1, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	The "So What?" President In a final effort to rehabilitate his irredeemably sullied reputation, President Bush made surprise visits this weekend to Iraq and Afghanistan. But far from being his valedictory tour as commander-in-chief, a 24 hour span only cemented his legacy of failure. During a press conference in Baghdad Sunday, an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at Bush, the same signal of disdain directed at Saddam Hussein five years earlier. And in an interview on ABC Monday, George W. Bush encapsulated his fiasco... more Posted on December 16, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	Bagging Blagojevich or How the Right Learned to Love Patrick Fitzgerald News this morning that U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has indicted Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich predictably brought cheers from the conservative chattering classes. Blagojevich's arrest over the "pay for play" Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama and myriad other jaw-dropping corruption schemes Fitzgerald simply deemed "staggering" led the right-wing Hot Air blog among others to proclaim "Fitzmas arrives early this year." Of course, when the crime was obstruction and perjury over the outing covert CIA operative Valerie Plame as political... more Posted on December 9, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	Bush Defends Use of Bogus Saddam Link to 9/11 In the waning days of his failed presidency, George W. Bush has launched a quixotic reclamation project to salvage his irreparably tarnished reputation. Sadly, that effort stumbled out of the gate earlier this week when the President and Karl Rove couldn't get their stories straight as to whether Bush would have launched his war on Iraq had he known with certainty that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. But when it comes to his repeated use of... more Posted on December 5, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Bush, Rove Get Stories Crossed on WMD and Iraq From part-time CNN analyst and full-time Dick Cheney hagiographer Stephen Hayes comes word that Karl Rove is spearheading a "Bush legacy project." If so, Rove and Bush might start with getting their stories straight on the Iraq war and whether it was the right course for the United States in the absence of weapons of mass destruction. On Tuesday, Rove did his part in the resurrection of his former client's moribund reputation. As the Huffington Post detailed, Rove during a... more Posted on December 3, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	McCain Said It "Out Loud" in 2002: "Next Up, Baghdad!" On Saturday night Sarah Palin once again put John McCain in a tough spot, this time on the subject of Pakistan. Just hours after McCain blasted Barack Obama for saying "out loud" that the U.S. should - if necessary - unilaterally strike at Al Qaeda targets along Pakistan's western border, Palin in essence agreed with the Illinois Democrat. Of course, McCain himself never followed his rule that you don't announce possible American military action "ahead of time." As it turns... more Posted on September 28, 2008 \| Comments (4)

	There's No Debate About McCain's Reign of Error on Iraq As he shows time and again, the only thing in life as certain as death and taxes is John McCain addressing Americans as "my friends." But just as predictable during tonight's first presidential debate was McCain's recycling of his tried and untrue talking points in the face of his horrendous track record on Iraq. Almost on cue, McCain regurgitated his past sound bite that about the surge and Barack Obama that "I was right, he was wrong." Sadly, when it... more Posted on September 26, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	Bush, McCain, Rice and Romney Fail 21st Century History Test No doubt, history will not be kind to George W Bush. And to be sure, Bush is already returning the favor. Apparently stunned by the Russian assault on Georgia, President Bush forgot his invasion of "sovereign" Iraq and declared, "Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century". As it turns out, John McCain, Condoleezza Rice and Mitt Romney all failed the same test on 21st century history. While unwilling to acknowledge that he had misread Vladimir Putin's soul back... more Posted on August 24, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	Pentagon Backs Obama Again with More Troops for Afghanistan The announcement today that the United States will deploy up to 15,000 more troops to Afghanistan is just the latest signal of the Pentagon's seeming support for Barack Obama's strategy to fight Al Qaeda in the region. Following by just weeks Obama's latest call to send at least two more brigades of American troops there, the request by U.S. commanders again confirmed Obama's assertion, one denied by John McCain, that Iraq represents a "zero sum game" for scarce American military... more Posted on August 20, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	McCain Suggests Surge to Bring Safe Streets of Iraq to U.S. Cities Hoping to bolster support for the surge in Iraq, John McCain over the past year has frequently touted the safe streets of Baghdad. In April 2007, McCain boasted of neighborhoods "you and I could walk through." By March 2008, he reminded us that "there's problems in America with safe neighborhoods as we well know." And the solution to urban crime in the U.S., John McCain now tells us, is to bring the surge to the streets of America. That, at... more Posted on August 2, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	McCain's Anthrax Pretext for War with Iraq Republican presidential nominee John McCain is fond of claiming, "I know how to win wars." Apparently, he also has ideas about how to start them. In the fall of 2001, McCain suggested the recent anthrax attacks that so terrified Americans might be a perfect pretext for war with Iraq. That revelation comes via ThinkProgress in the wake of this morning's revelations about the suicide of Bruce Ivins, the Fort Detrick biodefense researcher about to be indicted for the 2001 attacks.... more Posted on August 1, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	McCain Fails McCain's Commander-in-Chief Test This weekend, John McCain launched an all-out war against Barack Obama's fitness to be commander-in-chief. In Denver on Friday, McCain claimed that in supporting the January 2007 surge in Iraq, he passed "a real-time test for a future commander-in-chief" his Democratic rival supposedly failed. That same day, McCain insisted to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "I know how to win wars." And on ABC This Week on Sunday, McCain ridiculed over and over Barack Obama's "total lack of understanding" of the realities... more Posted on July 28, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	"Respectful" McCain Campaign Calls Obama a Traitor, Genocide Enabler On Tuesday, Time columnist Joe Klein labeled as "shockingly unpresidential" John McCain's accusation that Barack Obama "would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign." But in announcing "I can't remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate," Klein spoke a day too soon. As it turns out, McCain would top himself within 24 hours, charging that Obama would not stand up to genocide - an outrage leveled as the Democrat visited the Yad Vashem... more Posted on July 23, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	Iraqi Ambassador, Petraeus Report Al Qaeda Moving to Afghanistan To John McCain's dismay, the chorus of voices bolstering Barack Obama's call for a strategic refocus from Iraq to Afganistan just keeps growing. Just one day before Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki indisputably endorsed Obama's time frame for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, General David Petraeus reported that the diminished Al Qaeda threat there was being weakened still further by the group's movement of foreign fighters to Afghanistan. Now, Samir Sumaida'ie, the Iraqi ambassador to Washington, has joined Petraeus in his... more Posted on July 23, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	McCain Between Iraq and a Hard Place on Afghanistan Neocon godfather Irving Kristol once famously said that "a neoconservative is a liberal who's been mugged by reality." By that standard, the political right will need to coin an altogether new term to describe John McCain in the wake of the beating he has taken over the past several days. In the span of just two weeks, McCain has seen Barack Obama's call for a strategic refocus from Iraq to Afghanistan validated by the Pentagon and in Baghdad. And now,... more Posted on July 19, 2008 \| Comments (4)

	"How to Win Wars for Dummies" by John McCain In response to Barack Obama's address today on Iraq and Afghanistan, Republican presidential nominee John McCain declared, "I know how to win wars." Now for the first time, the man who brought you Ahmad Chalabi and 100 years in Iraq offers all his war-winning secrets in How to Win Wars for Dummies. Insightful chapters like "How to Be Greeted as a Liberator," "Victory Will Be Rapid," "Declaring Mission Accomplished" and "Telling Shiite from Sunni" will get you up and running... more Posted on July 15, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	Obama's Winning Hand on Iraq The news that President Bush will begin drawing down U.S. troops in Iraq below pre-surge levels this fall is being greeted as an October surprise for John McCain. But even with the successes of the surge, events on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan are validating Barack Obama's call for a strategic refocus on Afghanistan. The Pentagon's admission of the urgent need to shift troops to counter the rising Al Qaeda threat along the Pakistan frontier, combined with the Iraqi... more Posted on July 13, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	John McCain's Terrible Tuesday If John McCain has many more days like Tuesday, his only chance to get to the White House will be as a tourist. On the same day he dropped jaws with his joke about killing Iranians with cigarettes, McCain amazingly slammed Social Security as "an absolute disgrace." Then even as McCain's first-term balanced budget pledge was being pilloried in the press, Americans learned that 300 economists signed a statement supporting McCain which made no mention of it. And topping it... more Posted on July 9, 2008 \| Comments (3)

	This Just In From Afghanistan: Bush Doctrine Still Dead. The steady stream of bad news about Afghanistan this week served to highlight two inescapable truths regarding the conflict against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. First, Barack Obama was right that the ongoing commitment of American forces in Iraq is preventing the United States from successfully pursuing Al Qaeda along the Pakistan frontier. Second, the Bush Doctrine - with its tenet of no safe havens for terrorists - is still dead. In Washington, President Bush acknowledged that June, which saw... more Posted on July 4, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	"Stupidest Guy" Feith Defends Rice's "Mushroom Cloud" Back in 2003, General Tommy Franks called Bush Iraq intelligence fabulist Douglas Feith "the f**king stupidest guy on the face of the earth." Two years later, Colin Powell's one-time aide Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson said of Feith "seldom in my life have I met a dumber man." Defending Condoleezza Rice's - and by extension, President Bush's - pre-war "smoking gun/mushroom cloud" Iraq talking point, Douglas Feith today once again justified his critics' low opinion of him. Writing at the National Review,... more Posted on June 23, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	5 Years Ago Today: McCain Proclaims Mission Accomplished in Iraq One day after he proclaimed that it is "not too important" when U.S. troops return from Iraq, John McCain commemorated an unfortunate five year anniversary. In the annals of McCain's dismal record of flawed forecasts and calamitous calls on Iraq, June 11, 2003 stands out. On that one day, George W. Bush's would-be Republican successor both defended his proclamation of mission accomplished while insisting that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction would surely be found. As MediaMatters documented, McCain's daily-double came... more Posted on June 11, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	Phase 2 Report Ends Roberts' Iraq Intel Stonewall Four years after Kansas Senator Pat Roberts triumphantly cleared the Bush administration of misusing pre-war Iraq intelligence, the Phase 2 report of the Senate Intelligence Committee he once chaired today reached a much different conclusion. After Roberts successfully stonewalled past the 2004 and 2006 elections the studies examining White House statements on the Iraqi threat and the role of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, his successor Jay Rockefeller today concluded: "The president and his advisers undertook a relentless public... more Posted on June 5, 2008 \| Comments (9)

	McCain and Friends Rewrite History on Iraq Aided and abetted by the conservative echo chamber, John McCain this week launched a campaign to rewrite his dismal history of faulty forecasts and disastrous predictions on Iraq. Demonstrating that experience is truly no substitute for judgment, John McCain like President Bush was sadly wrong at almost every turn in promoting the invasion and occupation of Iraq. From his predictions of a short war and claims U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators to his announcements of mission accomplished, his... more Posted on June 5, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	John McCain: Iraq's Worst Tour Guide If nothing else, John McCain is an irony producing machine. On the very day Scott McClellan described the Bush administration "propaganda" used to sell an "unnecessary war" in Iraq, talking points McCain himself regurgitated, the Arizona Senator challenged Barack Obama to join him on a Baghdad visit. More ironic still, John McCain hasn't merely been wrong at every turn about the war in Iraq; the closer he gets to the war zone itself, the more disastrously off-base he becomes. That's... more Posted on May 30, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	McClellan Knew About, Defended Bush Leak of Iraq NIE As FireDogLake, Huffington Post and others detail, former White House press secretary Scott McClellan revealed that it was President Bush himself who authorized the selective leaking of the 2002 Iraq National Intelligence Estimate. As he disclosed both in his book and during interviews today, McClellan says Bush admitted declassifying portions of the NIE to allow Scooter Libby to attack Joe Wilson and other administration critics in July 2003. Getting less attention, though, is McClellan's own critical role in defending President... more Posted on May 29, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	McCain Vows to Both Work with Moscow, Expel Russia from G8 In what was billed as a major address today on nuclear non-proliferation, John McCain offered the latest installment in the ongoing saga of strategic incoherence that passes for his foreign policy. Just months after calling for a "League of Democracies" and the expulsion of Russia from the G8, McCain today portrayed Russia as an essential partner in the global struggle to contain the spread of nuclear weapons. Over the past year in multiple speeches and in his November 2007 article... more Posted on May 27, 2008 \| Comments (6)

	Is McCain "Sick at Heart" Over His Own Iraq Mistakes? Senator John McCain used this Memorial Day to ask Americans to remember others' roles in the calamity that unfolded in Iraq. First proclaiming himself "sick at heart by the many mistakes made by civilian and military commanders" in the run up and conduct of the war, McCain then declared of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, "I cannot be complicit in it." But as his words and deeds over five years show, John McCain is not merely complicit in propelling the... more Posted on May 27, 2008 \| Comments (7)

	McCain's Broken Iraq Crystal Ball Sees Troops Home by 2013 In Columbus today, John McCain made his pitch that he, and not Barack Obama, is the candidate of hope. In a major if theoretical reversal of his commitment to a perpetual 100, a thousand or a million year American presence in Iraq, McCain declared that he "would hope to have achieved" a drawdown of most U.S. forces by the end of his first term in 2013. But given McCain's unbroken record of error of forecasting when it comes to Iraq,... more Posted on May 15, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	President Bush Sacrifices Golf to Aid War Effort Last year, First Lady Laura Bush said of the costs of the Iraq war for the American people, "no one suffers more than their President and I do." Now we know why. While U.S. troops were sacrificing life and limb in the battlefields of Baghdad, President Bush sacrificed...golf. In an interview today, George W. Bush made it clear that avoiding the links now was the least he could do after avoiding combat 40 years ago. As the Politico reported, the... more Posted on May 13, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	GOP: Baghdad Still Safer Than U.S. Cities From the outset of the Iraq war, Republican leaders and their amen corner in the right-wing media have sought to calm squeamish Americans by favorably comparing the violence there to life in U.S. cities. Now, John March, a developer planning (believe it or not) a "Disneyland-style" theme park in Baghdad, says the carnage in the Iraqi capital is no different than the "drive-bys" in Southern California. But while grotesque, the analogy is not novel: it has already been repeatedly deployed... more Posted on May 5, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	John McCain on the Mission Accomplished in Iraq About a month after President George W. Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln before a banner proclaiming, "Mission Accomplished," Fox News' Neil Cavuto asserted to Senator John McCain that, "many argue the conflict isn't over" in Iraq. McCain responded, "Well, then why was there a banner that said mission accomplished on the aircraft carrier?" Five years later, that exchange has come to encapsulate John McCain's unbroken reign of error when it comes to Iraq. From his... more Posted on May 1, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	Two New Reports Slam Bush on Iraq, Afghanistan Two new reports released Thursday offer a devastating assessment of President Bush's leadership as commander-in-chief. First, the GAO concluded that "al-Qaeda had regenerated its ability to attack the United States and had succeeded in establishing a safe haven in Pakistan's border area." Then just hours later, a study from the National Defense University proclaimed the Iraq war "a major debacle" whose outcome was "in doubt." Together, they paint a damning portrait of Bush's failures in the global war on terror.... more Posted on April 18, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	Five Questions for Petraeus and Crocker In their testimony before Congress today, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker began painting a picture of American progress in Iraq. But even as the United States faces a diminishing threat from Al Qaeda thanks in part to former Sunni insurgents the U.S. has largely co-opted, American forces find themselves increasingly engaged in an intra-sectarian Shiite conflict in which Iran is seemingly backing all sides. And with General Petraeus calling for an indefinite pause in the drawdown of U.S.... more Posted on April 8, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	McCain's Dishonest Defense of "100 Years" in Iraq On Sunday, John McCain renewed his defense of a 100 year American presence in Iraq. Just days after his campaign accused Barack Obama of "dishonesty" and "nonsense talk" over Obama's claim that McCain "willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq," the Republican nominee on Fox News again compared Iraq to Japan and South Korea. By doing so, John McCain once again showed that he fundamentally misunderstands - or worse still, willingly misrepresents - both... more Posted on April 6, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	Iran Brokers Basra Deal Events on the ground in Iraq continue to defy the Bush's administration's ongoing misrepresentation of the Iranian threat there. Just one day after Republican Senator Lindsay Graham wrongly claimed Iran was backing just one of the three Shiite forces in Basra comes word that Tehran brokered a deal aimed at halting the carnage there. As McClatchy, USA Today, the New York Times and others are reporting, Iraqi lawmakers traveled to Qom where a general of the Iranian Qods force helped... more Posted on March 31, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	Bush, Cheney Embrace Iranian-Backed Hakim in Iraq On Sunday, Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) showed once again that President Bush, John McCain and their conservative amen corner can't tell the players in Iraq even with a scorecard. Even as Graham proclaimed of the fighting in Basra, "the militias that we are fighting are backed by Iran," President Bush and Vice President Bush continue to embrace the largest Iranian-backed political force in Iraq, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Just days after John McCain erroneously... more Posted on March 30, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	Bush's Premature Iraq Elation George W. Bush is suffering from another severe case of premature Iraq elation. That's the inescapable diagnosis after a week which featured sunny statements from the President even as Baghdad and Basra descended into chaos. On last week's fifth anniversary of his invasion of Iraq, President Bush was blissfully unaware of the tumultuous three-way Shiite conflict just days in the offing. Now, Bush is portraying setbacks as proof of success and escalating violence as a sign of a healthy democracy.... more Posted on March 28, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Moqtada Al-Sadr Answers the Wall Street Journal In another unfortunate case of premature Iraq elation, the Wall Street Journal last week celebrated the decline and fall of Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada Al-Sadr. Echoing the "bring 'em on" taunt of their former boss, ex-Bush advisers Dan Senor and Roman Martinez triumphantly asked "Whatever Happened to Moqtada?" But as the renewed turmoil in Baghdad and violent chaos in Basra suggest, the answer may be, "he's back." The cease fire declared last summer by Sadr's Mahdi army militia has been... more Posted on March 25, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Fawning Media Ignore McCain's Past France-Bashing Over the past two days, the fawning American media has provided rave reviews of John McCain's visit to France. While the New York Times lauded "McCain's soothing tones," Time gushed about "McCain's Paris romance" and the transformation of Franco-American relations made possible by his warm embrace of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. But lost in these accounts is John McCain's vitriolic France-bashing in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Back in 2003, John McCain stood shoulder to shoulder with the... more Posted on March 23, 2008 \| Comments (4)

	Four Strikes and You're Out: McCain on Al Qaeda and Iran If the contest for the White House followed the rules of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," John McCain would be going home empty-handed. At last four times in the past month, George W. Bush's would-be Republican successor sounded the alarm over a non-existent Al Qaeda-Iran alliance in Iraq. But for a lifeline from Joe Lieberman, McCain would have been booted off the stage by now. As ThinkProgress detailed this morning, McCain's confusion over friend and foe began at least... more Posted on March 20, 2008 \| Comments (3)

	Abraham Lincoln Bush Over the course of its five-year fiasco in Iraq, the Bush administration in vain has tried to sell this conflict by referencing glorious American wars past. Its revisionist history has included failed parallels to the American Revolution, World War II, Korea, the Cold War and even Vietnam. Today, Vice President Cheney joined the conservative chorus comparing the calamity in Iraq to the U.S. Civil War. And in that ever-growing White House tall tale, of course, George W. Bush is Abraham... more Posted on March 19, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Wrong Again: McCain Proclaims Al Qaeda-Iran Alliance As I documented just two day ago, John McCain has been wrong from the start about virtually every aspect of the Iraq war. From Ahmed Chalabi and Saddam's WMD to the prospects of Americans troops being greeting as liberators and the certainty of a "rapid" U.S. victory in "three weeks," John McCain had it wrong at every turn. Today in Jordan, the Republican presidential nominee made a much fundamental - and shocking - mistake. Would-be commander-in-chief John McCain literally doesn't... more Posted on March 18, 2008 \| Comments (6)

	Cheney in Iraq: Back and Wronger Than Ever! Just one day after John McCain's drive-by photo op in Baghdad, Vice President Cheney too made a surprise visit to Iraq. Announcing "it's good to be back," Cheney no doubt reminded Americans that John McCain represents the third term Bush agenda on Iraq. And to be sure, Dick Cheney's latest pronouncements reminded Iraqis on one of their own, former Saddam Minister of Information Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, also known as Baghdad Bob. Wrong at almost every turn in the past, the... more Posted on March 17, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	Forever Wrong: Five Years of John McCain on Iraq Just in time for the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain made an unannounced visit to Iraq. While McCain deemed the visit a "fact-finding" mission, his secret visit to Baghdad is just part of an extended photo opportunity in the Middle East and Europe designed to highlight his national security credentials. Unfortunately for McCain, his excellent Baghdad adventure could well produce the opposite effect. After all, this week's looming anniversary highlights that at almost... more Posted on March 16, 2008 \| Comments (17)

	Bush "Envious" of U.S. Troops in Afghanistan and Iraq On Thursday, President Bush once again provided fodder for generations of psychology graduate students to come. For the second time in just six months, the same man whose dubious Air National Guard service kept him out of the jungles of Vietnam announced he was "envious" of U.S. troops now on the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sadly, Bush's textbook case of time-delayed overcompensation came on the very day eight people were killed and 35 wounded in a suicide bomb attack... more Posted on March 13, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Three Iraq Stories, More Conservative Exploding Heads The life of the American conservative is a perpetual crisis of cognitive dissonance, especially when it comes to the run-up to the Iraq war. So three new stories this week are certain to cause right-wing minds to explode, or at least to seek the safe harbor of denial. First came word of a new book from Rumsfeld aide Douglas Feith revealing that President Bush declared "war is inevitable" in December 2002, months before UN weapons inspectors produced their report on... more Posted on March 11, 2008 \| Comments (4)

	John McCain: Unfit for Command Over the past week, Democrat Hillary Clinton has proclaimed her potential Republican rival John McCain to be the gold standard of wartime presidents. But lost in Clinton's fierce barrage against Barack Obama's national security experience is the inescapable conclusion about John McCain's own suitability as Commander-in-Chief. McCain's mistake-filled record, questionable judgment, calamitous misreading of history, nonchalance about American casualties and notorious short fuse all combine to make him a dangerous choice to lead an America at war. Simply put, John... more Posted on March 10, 2008 \| Comments (7)

	Perino, Bush and the Unlearned Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis On Saturday, White House press secretary Dana Perino confessed her ignorance regarding the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and the Bay of Pigs fiasco the previous year. Of course, it should come as no surprise that the chief spokesperson for President Bush would confuse John F. Kennedy's signature national security triumph with his greatest foreign policy failure. After all, President Bush is not merely ignorant of the history, but determined that JFK's two lessons from the Bay of Pigs - taking... more Posted on December 11, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Bush Dishonors the Legacy of Pearl Harbor The anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor gives us an opportunity to remember our tragic loss that day, and reflect on the almost unimaginable sacrifices that generation of Americans made to protect the liberty of all who followed. But as I first suggested in 2005, our observance now includes a new ritual. With each passing year President Bush dishonors the memory of Pearl Harbor, misappropriating its meaning and lessons to support his partisan political purposes and his war in... more Posted on December 7, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Bush's M.C. Escher Strategy for Iraq More and more, President Bush's strategy in Iraq resembles an M.C. Escher illustration. Like the hands drawing each other or the elegant depiction of stairways that cannot possibly meet, the military progress of the U.S. surge is producing an image of a future Iraq that, while glorious to behold, can never be built. The very American alliances with Sunni tribal leaders that are reducing sectarian violence and the threat from Al Qaeda also threaten to undermine the Shiite majority government... more Posted on November 30, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Break the War Funding Deadlock: The Iraq Apology Amendment One day after the House approved an Iraq war funding bill mandating American troop withdrawals, Republicans blocked a similar measure in the Senate. With GOP intransigence and a certain veto from President Bush leading to a high-stakes showdown they seem destined to lose, Democrats need a different strategy - at least for now. One way forward is to give President Bush the money for his fiasco in Iraq with no strings attached save one: he must apologize for it. Call... more Posted on November 16, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Edited ABC Iraq Story Latest White House PR Fraud Just days after revelations of fake FEMA press conferences and the altering of a CDC report to Congress, the Bush disinformation machine is at it again. As ThinkProgress reports, the White House redistributed to reporters an edited version of an ABC story in the hopes of painting a picture of unvarnished progress in Iraq. Apparently, deleting damaging references to the stillborn political process in Iraq is all in a day's work for a White House committed to helping President Bush... more Posted on November 2, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Bush's Catch-22 on Al Qaeda in Iraq In a double-edged sword for the Bush administration, Monday's Washington Post reports that the Pentagon believes it has dealt "devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months." But with the good news surrounding Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), responsible for only a small fraction of the attacks against U.S. forces and Iraqi civilians, comes the Catch-22 for President Bush: the very dissipation of the Al Qaeda threat in Iraq removes his primary rationale for extending the... more Posted on October 15, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	The Price of Bush's Military Transformation Over just the past 24 hours, a flurry of stories have highlighted the growing and evolving burden facing the overstretched United States military. In Washington, Defense Secretary Robert Gates stressed the need to transform the American military to address the "fundamentally political nature" of its current and future conflicts. While the Marine Corps has proposed shifting its forces from Iraq to take over frontline duties in Afghanistan, the Army is offering bonuses of up to $35,000 to retain specialists from... more Posted on October 11, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	The Meaning of Blackwater In Washington today, all eyes are on the Blackwater hearings. But the relentless focus on potential atrocities committed by unaccountable, grotesquely overpaid private security firms in Iraq and Afghanistan obscures the larger issue for the United States. That is, mercenary forces simply should have no place in the national security structure of an American democracy. No doubt, mounting allegations of inappropriate use of force by Blackwater in Iraq justify the inquiry by Chairman Henry Waxman's House Committee on Oversight and... more Posted on October 2, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	GOP: No Up or Down Vote on Iraq, Torture Back in the days before Democrats regained control of the Senate, "up or down vote" was a favorite GOP talking point. Now twice in a single day, Senate Republicans resorted to the filibuster to the thwart the will of the American people. This morning, Arlen Specter, Chris Dodd and Pat Leahy failed to get the needed 60 votes to end debate on the Restore Habeas Corpus Act, a measure designed to undo the worst excesses of President Bush's draconian 2006... more Posted on September 19, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Blackwater, Habeas Corpus and the Global Muslim Backlash Seldom do disparate breakings news stories converge to paint a larger picture. Even as news of atrocities by American military contractor Blackwater rocked Baghdad, Republicans in the Senate blocked the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act, ensuring that the most draconian features of the Bush administration's detainee policies remain in place. Meanwhile, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) lamented the presence of "too many mosques in this country." It's no wonder a recent Pew Research Center poll revealed plummeting approval ratings for the United... more Posted on September 19, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	"Return on Success" Added to Official GOP Iraq Talking Points In his speech to the nation Thursday night, President Bush unveiled the latest official White House talking point on Iraq. Destined for regurgitation from reliable Republican mouthpieces is "Return on Success." That business sounding jargon from our first - and failed - MBA president is designed to reassure the American people that after our troops fight them there, they can come home here: The principle guiding my decisions on troop levels in Iraq is "return on success." The more successful... more Posted on September 14, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Beyond "Small Price": Boehner's Iraq Demagoguery Twenty four hours after his reprehensible remark about the "small price" the U.S. is paying in Iraq, House Minority Leader John Boehner appears to be paying no price himself. While DNC Chairman Howard Dean and House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) took Boehner to task, the mainstream media has remained largely silent. And far from disqualifying Boehner as a Republican mouthpiece on Iraq, diminishing the sacrifices of U.S. troops, leaking classified national security information and weeping on the floor of... more Posted on September 13, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	9/11, the Politics of Fear and the Culture of Grief On this sixth anniversary of the Al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, 9/11 has come to symbolize two uniquely American political failings. First, in ritualistic observances around the nation, Americans will come together not in common resolve for shared sacrifice, but to perpetuate a culture of grief. Worse still, secure in his Pakistani safe haven, Osama Bin Laden even at large continues to serve the political purposes of the current and prospective occupants of the... more Posted on September 11, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Required Reading for Petraeus, Crocker Testimony With the long-awaited surge progress report from General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker due beginning today, Perrspectives has updated its Iraq Document Center. The repository includes the latest news, statistics, key reports and other essential materials surrounding the Iraq war and its run-up. For more background to assess the Petraeus and Crocker testimony, the Iraq Document Center includes several recent reports concerning progress in Iraq, the state of the Iraqi security forces, and the stability of the Al Maliki... more Posted on September 10, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Bremer Letters Show Bush OK'd Disbanding Iraqi Army On Sunday, I detailed Bush biographer Robert Draper's stunning portrait of the President asleep at the switch as the disastrous May 2003 decision to dissolve the Iraqi army moved forward. As the New York Times relayed, a nonchalant Bush told Draper "The policy was to keep the army intact; didn't happen" and " Yeah, I can't remember, I'm sure I said, 'This is the policy, what happened?'" As Tuesday's New York Times now suggests, Coalition Provisional Authority viceroy L. Paul... more Posted on September 4, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	NYT: Bush Slept as Iraqi Army was Disbanded As I wrote this morning, today's New York Times offered a dismaying portrait of President Bush obsessed with his legacy - and potential financial windfall - after leaving office. But even more disturbing was the discussion of the Iraq war and the administration's calamitous 2003 move to disband the Iraqi army. When it came to perhaps the pivotal decision of the war, America's first MBA President simply acted like an absentee landlord. The American project in Iraq may well have... more Posted on September 2, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	White House: Bush Deserves "Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations" on Iraq Discussing "accountability" for education results in New Orleans yesterday, President Bush reiterated one of his favorite sound bites, "It's what I call challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations." Alas, not when it comes to the President himself and certainly not when the subject is progress in Iraq. A plea to extend the soft bigotry of low expectations to the President is exactly what the Bush White House requested today in response to the devastating assessment of Iraq progress detailed... more Posted on August 30, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Fox News Attacks Couric Trip While Single Mother Soldiers Die in Iraq As ThinkProgress reported today, Fox News attacked CBS rival and single mother Katie Couric for her upcoming trip to Iraq. But while Neil Cavuto, John Gibson and the gang at Fox grew hysterical about Couric, they remained silent about 26 year old Michelle Ring and other single mothers fighting for the United States in Iraq. The issue for Fox, of course, is that anyone else's coverage of Iraq inevitably brings the facts of Bush's Baghdad fiasco directly to American television... more Posted on August 30, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	GAO Dispels Bush's Iraq "Making Progress" Myth Back in July, President Bush in his interim Iraq surge status report claimed progress that even some of his most fervent supporters viewed as pure fantasy. Now, just two weeks before General David Petraeus delivers his White House authored report to Congress, a new analysis from the GAO confirms the assessments of Bush's July delusion. The draft report from the Government Accountability Office paints a much darker picture of the situation in Iraq. On July 12, President Bush again trumpeted... more Posted on August 30, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Bush, Giuliani Agree on Iraq-Vietnam Parallels In his address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars today, President Bush offered Americans what can only be called the "premature withdrawal" defense for his endless fiasco in Iraq. Claiming to predict Iraq's future by looking back to Vietnam's past, Bush declared the United States on the brink of victory pulled out too soon and condemned millions of Southeast Asians to the slaughter that ensued. But Bush's desperate act of revisionist history only served to confirm two basic truths. First,... more Posted on August 22, 2007 \| Comments (5)

	Surprise! Petraeus to Testify on 9/11 President Bush has never been shy about falsely linking the 9/11 attacks to his war in Iraq. Now, the Bush White House apparently is planning to reach a new low in symbolic cynicism when it comes to selling its Baghdad debacle. General David Petraeus will deliver his much anticipated Iraq surge progress report on September 11 itself. ThinkProgress describes the seeming schedule non-coincidence: The timing of Petraeus' testimony was first revealed by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) this morning in a... more Posted on August 20, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Report: Foreign Policy "Experts" Reject the Iraq Surge In the wake of the controversial O'Hanlon/Pollack op-ed endorsing the progress of the surge in Iraq, the liberal blogosphere has been awash in commentary about the mainstream media's narrow reliance on the pro-surge viewpoints of "very serious people" constituting the "foreign policy clerisy." As it turns out, not so much. A new joint report from Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress suggests America's leading foreign policy experts see President Bush's Iraq surge as a failure. Leaving aside... more Posted on August 20, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Rove, Cheney and the Death of the Bush Doctrine Among the more tragi-comic aspects of the departure of Karl Rove is the media's renewed interest in the Bush Doctrine and its three tenets of no safe havens for terrorists, preventive war and democracy promotion. Last Monday, Rove claimed that the Bush Doctrine would live on and be the President's legacy. And this morning, the Washington Post described a frustrated President Bush stymied by what it portrayed as bureaucratic stonewalling of his ailing global democracy project. Lost in this flurry... more Posted on August 20, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	White House to Author "Fill Right" Iraq Report for Petraeus Among today's least surprising and most disturbing developments is the revelation from the Los Angeles Times that the Bush White House will author the much anticipated September 15 surge progress report for General David Petraeus. Despite President Bush's frequent claims along the lines of "I'm going to wait for David to come back - David Petraeus to come back and give us the report on what he sees," the assessment will actually be written the White House. As for the... more Posted on August 15, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Fragging Rights The ever more disturbing Pat Tillman saga is predictably stirring rage across the blogosphere. Most just want to know the truth about a seeming White House cover-up that may include the horrible possibility that Tillman was "fragged," that is, purposely killed by his fellow troops in Afghanistan. But while the Tillman affair is spawning conspiracy theories on all sides, it is once again drawing attention to some conservatives' apparent comfort with fragging itself. Over at ThinkProgress, Iraq veteran and VoteVets... more Posted on July 28, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	Stephen Hayes: Cheney's Favorite Iraq-9/11 Fabulist Now Biographer Predictably, mainstream media discussion of Stephen Hayes' new biography of Vice President Dick Cheney has focused on his "unprecedented access" and salacious details. But while the Beltway is a abuzz about Cheney's decision to take the "cruddy job" of Vice President and Hayes' fanciful tale about a seemingly homophobic Cheney telling Senator Pat Leahy to "f**k yourself", little attention has been paid to Hayes himself. Which is too bad. Because as the history shows, whether the issue is non-existent Saddam-9/11... more Posted on July 24, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Up or Down Vote: Death of a GOP Talking Point On Thursday morning, July 19th, the beloved GOP talking point "up or down vote" was officially declared dead. Its demise was little noticed in the aftermath of the Senate Republicans' successful all-night filibuster to block the Reed-Levin bill seeking to begin U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq. "Up or down vote" was killed by a desperate Republican Party trying to obstruct Democratic accomplishments at any cost in advance of the 2008 elections. And so far, the GOP seems to be getting... more Posted on July 22, 2007 \| Comments (37)

	UPDATED: The Offficial Republican Iraq Talking Points For those who may have missed it, the official Bush White House /RNC approved list of Republican talking points on Iraq has gotten a bit of a make-over in the past few days. President Bush's staggeringly incoherent surge interim progress report last week returned "We're Making Progress" to GOP mouthpieces everywhere. Then, the Senate Republicans' successful filibuster of the Levin-Reed after all night debate brought the Rove stamp of approval for "Political Stunt." (This turn of events signaled the death... more Posted on July 20, 2007 \| Comments (6)

	Bush to Iraq Amputee: "We're Gonna Get Him Some New Legs" Just 10 days ago, President Bush's bizarre sense of humor seemingly reached a new low when he made a 13 year old girl cry during an event in Cleveland. Today, the compassionate conservative returned to one of his favorite past-times, making light of the disabled. This time, the victim of President Bush's childlike callousness was an Iraq veteran - and double-amputee. Surrounding by servicemen during a speech today, Bush recalled his conversation with an Iraq soldier who lost both legs... more Posted on July 20, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Petraeus and Bush's Coming Iraq Blame Game In the Washington Post today, Dan Froomkin offered readers a preview of the fate that awaits General David Petraeus at the hands of President Bush. Petraeus should prepare for his designated role as Bush's Iraq fall-guy come September because, as Froomkin noted, "he has a tendency to celebrate his generals when they're providing him political cover -- then stick a knife in their backs when they're no longer of any use to him." And as I wrote last December, outsourcing... more Posted on July 16, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Republicans Quiet on Iraqi - and Bush - Vacations Just one day after the Iraqi government received failing marks in President Bush's surge interim progress report, Americans learned that the Iraqi parliament is proceeding with its plans to take off the month of August. But while the American people may be up in arms, President Bush's amen corner is predictably silent. After all, given Bush's own record-setting penchant for vacationing during crises here at home, Republicans are understandably reticent to criticize the absentee government in Baghdad. Judging by the... more Posted on July 14, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	"We're Making Progress" - Bush's History of Iraq In Washington yesterday, George W. Bush encountered what might be deemed the "reverse Chicken Little moment" of his presidency. That is, Americans have simply stopped believing his perpetual claims of sunny skies to come in Iraq. As the President delivered the interim progress report on his Iraq surge, he was greeted with dropped jaws and incredulous stares across the political spectrum. It wasn't just anti-war stalwart Jack Murtha calling Bush "delusional." On Friday, Bill O'Reilly told his former Fox News... more Posted on July 13, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Issa Accuses Valerie Plame of Perjury Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) added another plaque to his wall of shame during House hearings today looking into President Bush's commutation of the Scooter Libby's sentence. Ever eager to defend the President and the flagging hopes of the Republican Party, Issa accused outed CIA agent Valerie Plame of perjury. Issa's previous career lowlights included his role in the firing of U.S. attorney Carol Lam and his pathetic weepy withdrawal from the 2002 California governor's race. But confronting Ambassador Joseph Wilson... more Posted on July 11, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	CIA: Resurgent Al Qaeda Now at Pre-9/11 Capability On Saturday, Americans learned that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2005 cancelled a major U.S. raid into Pakistan designed to decapitate much of Al Qaeda's senior leadership. Now, a new CIA assessment details the steep price the U.S. is paying for President Bush's failure to enforce his mantra of "no safe havens." U.S. intelligence analysts, the AP reports, have concluded Al Qaeda has "rebuilt its operating capability to a level not seen since just before the 2001 terrorist attacks." This... more Posted on July 11, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Bush Taunts Children, Disabled, Blind, African-Americans... In Cleveland on Tuesday, President Bush offered Americans yet another example of the heartwarming leadership style that has so endeared him to 26% of Americans. At his latest invitation-only event, Bush made a 13-year old girl cry. Of course, making fun of children is all in day's work for George W. Bush. After all, as his past teasing of the blind, the disabled, U.S. soldiers and blacks confirms, President Bush laughs at the expense of most Americans. ThinkProgress tells the... more Posted on July 11, 2007 \| Comments (6)

	Iraq Surge Wins Rave Reviews For the Bush administration, the marketing of the "surge" in Iraq more and more looks like an ad for a Hollywood flop. In this case, the box office numbers are in and the film is a dismal failure. And yet a small but reliable group of friendly critics continues to offer rave reviews for "Iraq: The Surge." No doubt, the tidal wave of bad news this week confirms Bush's Iraq escalation has achieved Ishtar-level disaster status. A mandated interim progress... more Posted on July 10, 2007 \| Comments (4)

	The Pakistan Raid: So Much for "No Safe Havens" Sunday's New York Times offers an explosive story of an aborted 2005 U.S. raid into Pakistan, a special forces operation designed to "snatch and grab" Ayman Al Zawahiri and other senior Al Qaeda leaders. The story, following July 2006 revelations that the CIA had previously disbanded its Bin Laden unit, gives lie to one of the central tenets of the so-called Bush Doctrine: no safe havens for terrorists. The Times piece details Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld running roughshod over then... more Posted on July 7, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	UPDATED: The Bush-GOP Scandal Document Center The Perrspectives Bush-GOP Scandal Document Library has been expanded to include the latest news, key reports, document releases and other essential materials surrounding Bush administration and GOP wrong-doing. From Plamegate and the Scooter Libby commutation, the U.S. attorneys purge and illegal NSA domestic surveillance to Iraq intelligence manipulation, torture scandals and the ongoing Jack Abramoff fall-out, it's all there: Plamegate CIA Leak Resources U.S. Attorneys Scandal Document Center Iraq Intelligence and WMD Document Center NSA Domestic Surveillance Scandal Center Tom... more Posted on July 7, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Neither Right Nor Legal: Bush Commutes Libby's Sentence As expected, President Bush chose loyalty over the rule of law and commuted the sentence of Scooter Libby. While Vice President Cheney's former chief-of-staff still must face a two year probation and a $250,000 fine, the President sent a clear but cowardly message that breaking the law in the service of his agenda is the expectation in the Bush White House: "I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive.... more Posted on July 2, 2007 \| Comments (5)

	EXPANDED: The Bush-GOP Scandal Document Center The Perrspectives Bush-GOP Scandal Document Library has been expanded to include the latest news, key reports, document releases and other essential materials surrounding Bush administration and GOP wrong-doing. From the U.S. attorneys purge, Plamegate, and illegal NSA domestic surveillance to Iraq intelligence manipulation, torture scandals and the ongoing Jack Abramoff fall-out, it's all there: U.S. Attorneys Scandal Document Center Iraq Intelligence and WMD Document Center Plamegate CIA Leak Resources NSA Domestic Surveillance Scandal Center Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff Scandal... more Posted on June 19, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	The Death of the Bush Doctrine That wheezing sound you may have heard this week amid the chaos in Gaza, the carnage in Baghdad and the conflict in Lebanon was the final gasps of the Bush Doctrine in its death throes. Just two years after the President and his neo-conservative allies basked in the glow of their self-proclaimed moment of triumph, the Bush Doctrine of no safe havens for terrorists, American preventive war and democracy promotion is discredited, discarded - and dead. The ruins of the... more Posted on June 16, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	The Libby Sentence: Burning Questions For one day at least, God is in his heaven and all is right with the world. In Washington, Judge Reggie Walton sentenced former Cheney chief-of-staff Scooter Libby to serve 30 months in prison and pay a $250,000 fine for his perjury and obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame affair. But while that issue of meting out justice to one of the perpetrators of the outing of a covert CIA operative and the selling of the Iraq war was... more Posted on June 5, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Misreading History: Bush, Korea and Endless War in Iraq Once again, President Bush confirmed he is no reader of the history books. Just days after a scathing report from the Senate Intelligence Committee detailed how the Bush administration ignored the CIA's dire warnings of sectarian strife and civil war in post-Saddam Iraq, the White House pointed to South Korea as a model for the American military presence in Iraq. The prospect of a multi-generational commitment of U.S. forces to support the government in Baghdad not only raised the specter... more Posted on June 3, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	UPDATED: Bush-GOP Scandal Document Center The Perrspectives Document Library has been expanded to include the latest news, key reports, document releases and other essential materials surrounding Bush administration and GOP wrong-doing. From the U.S. attorneys purge, Plamegate, and illegal NSA domestic surveillance to Iraq intelligence manipulation, torture scandals and the ongoing Jack Abramoff fall-out, it's all there. Some of the latest developments and additions to the Perrspectives Document Library: U.S. Attorneys Scandal Document Center Despite Alberto Gonzales' vow to "sprint to the finish line," the... more Posted on June 3, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Memorial Day: Help the Troops and Their Families One year ago today, I asked my readers to take a Memorial Day pause from the debate over the war in Iraq to reflect on the sacrifices of our servicemen and women, and to find ways to support them and their families. One year and almost 1000 U.S. dead later, I believe those Memorial Day sentiments are worth repeating: Memorial Day this year arrives at an especially painful time for Americans. Over 2,400 U.S. troops have been killed and another... more Posted on May 28, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	McCain Attacks Himself on Plan B for Iraq In the wake of the Senate vote of Iraq war funding, Arizona Senator John McCain lashed out at Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. And, as it turns out, himself. On Friday, McCain raged against his Democratic colleagues Clinton and Obama for their no votes and "waving a white flag" to Al Qaeda: "What is Senator Obama and Senator Clinton's 'Plan B' if we withdraw?" Sadly for his fading presidential hopes, McCain acknowledged that he himself lacks any Plan B of... more Posted on May 25, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	The Evil of Banality: Republicans Speak on Iraq A sure sign of the GOP desperation over Iraq is ever-increasing Republican propensity to rhetorically reduce the conflict to the realm of the normal. With casual analogies to American sports, business, shopping, and history, Republican leaders try to conflate the Iraq chaos and carnage with the commonplace and carefree. Theirs isn't the "banality of evil," but instead the evil of banality. Consider the words of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), who just this week compared the debate over war... more Posted on May 9, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	No GOP Plan B for Iraq By now, Americans should have grown accustomed to the Bush administration's opposition to Plan B. But as it turns out, the ideologues of the Republican Party not only oppose Plan B for American women. They oppose Plan B for American troops mired in the civil war in Iraq That's the message from House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH). On Sunday, Boehner stood by President Bush's surge strategy, proclaiming "We don't even have all of the 30,000 additional troops in Iraq... more Posted on May 7, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Bush Iraq Mad Libs Watching President Bush deliver his promised veto of the Iraq supplemental funding bill yesterday was akin to a bad game of Mad Libs. The President predictably demonstrated his resolve by filling-in the blanks in his speech by resorting to his repertoire of worn-out Iraq talking points, such as "surrender date" and "handcuffing the generals." Now you can play Bush Iraq Mad Libs at home. Laugh for hours with family and friends as you construct your own after-the-fact bogus war rationale,... more Posted on May 2, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Iraq Benchmarks and Bush's Double-Standard on Accountability For an administration that claims to place so value on "accountability," the Bush White House once again exempted itself and its allies. On Monday, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice announced that President Bush would reject any Iraq funding bill that included benchmarks for the Al Maliki in government in Baghdad. As it turns out, that free pass for Al Maliki not only flies in the face the President's own words from January, but contradicts the "accountability" talking point comically present... more Posted on May 1, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Mission Accomplished: 4 Years of GOP Iraq Talking Points On Tuesday May 1st, the United States will mark the fourth anniversary of President Bush's declaration of "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. But as the carnage continues and the war funding debate rages, President Bush and allies in the conservative amen corners can only offer the American people new and recycled talking points to sell his catastrophically ill-conceived war without end. Here, then, is a look back at four years of wartime marketing gone bad. What follows below is by no... more Posted on April 29, 2007 \| Comments (5)

	The Suffering of Laura Bush & Bubble Boy Among the more enduring mysteries of the current American political scene is the continued popularity of First Lady Laura Bush. For the third time in just under a year, Mrs. Bush insulted our troops and their families. Appearing on the Today Show, the First Lady offered the American people this shining nugget of detachment and tone-deafness: "No one suffers more than their President and I do." Laura Bush's shocking callousness today is hardly her first offense. As Perrspectives reported back... more Posted on April 25, 2007 \| Comments (9)

	Keith Ellison, Syria and the Coming Conservative Smear Today's announcement that a Congressional delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will meet with Syrian President Bashir Al-Assad during a four nation Middle East swing was sure to raise the ire of the White House. But because the bipartisan group includes the Muslim Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison, the predictable conservative catcalls of treason are also almost sure to follow. During the visit, the delegation will visit Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Israel, where Speaker Pelosi will address the Knesset.... more Posted on March 30, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Bush Iraq Irony Watch: "A Clean Bill Without Strings" At this point in his dismal tenure, virtually any statement emanating from President Bush is dripping with irony. Today's speech marking the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq is no exception. For even as the President lambasted Congressional Democrats about the need for "clean" Iraq war funding bill "without strings" attached, it is the Bush White House which continues to rely on such hidden provisos in its political purge of prosecutors and manipulation of the federal budget. In his... more Posted on March 19, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Corporate Treason: Halliburton, Dubai and Iran With Sunday's announcement of its headquarters relocation to Dubai, Halliburton completed its transformation from mere war-profiteer to corporate traitor. The motivations for the move are simple: death and taxes. Shifting its corporate headquarters not only allows Halliburton to shaft American taxpayers. It enables Dick Cheney's old firm to comfortably expand its large and growing business with Iran and other declared terrorist enemies of the United States. The company, which raked in $2.3 billion in profits on revenue of $22.6 billion... more Posted on March 12, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	The Last Throes of the Bush Presidency For an already embattled White House, March 6, 2007 may have officially marked the last throes of the Bush presidency. In court rooms and Congressional hearings, in Iraq and in the polls, the Bush administration was deluged with a torrent of breaking news, all of it bad. Start with Tuesday's conviction of former Cheney chief-of-staff Scooter Libby on four counts of obstruction and perjury in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. In revelation after revelation, the administration's duplicity in... more Posted on March 7, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Enter the "Sentence Scooter" Contest! The jury in the CIA leak trial of Scooter Libby has spoken. Now it's your turn. Enter Perrspectives' "Sentence Scooter Contest." You get to play judge and pronounce a fitting sentence for the incredibly guilty Mr. Libby, convicted on four counts of perjury and obstruction of justice in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. You'll not only have fun, you could also win a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate for your trouble. The rules are simple. Use the Comments Form... more Posted on March 6, 2007 \| Comments (74)

	The Beautiful Minds of the Bush Family On the Larry King show Monday, First Lady Laura Bush demonstrated that the Bush family's legendary compassion deficit is contagious, if not genetic. Even as daily attacks in Iraq climbed to an average of 230 last month, Mrs. Bush casually dismissed the suffering of American troops and Iraqi civilians alike: "Many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everybody." This shocking detachment is just the... more Posted on February 28, 2007 \| Comments (4)

	Newsweek: Off-Script on Iran Last week, Perrspectives documented the controversy and contradictions surrounding the administration's case to provide Iranian meddling in Iraq ("Fool Me Once: Bush and Iran"). Today, Newsweek provides more of the backstory in "Straying from the Script." While there is evidence of Iranian weapons and agents in Iraq, JCS Chairman Peter Pace and Centcomm commander William Fallon disagreed with military briefers claiming the "highest levels" of the Tehran regime had authorized the activities. The resulting confusion led to rhetorical gymnastics from... more Posted on February 22, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	UPDATED: CIA Leak Trial Resource Center With closing arguments underway in the trial of Scooter Libby, Perrspectives has updated its CIA Leak/PlameGate Resource Center. The PlameGate document repository features all the latest Libby trial news, legal documents, timelines and other essential materials surrounding the Bush administration's outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame and its politics of payback against Joseph Wilson. Everything you need to follow the PlameGate saga is there. The latest articles cover closing arguments and new revelations about the Libby-Cheney relationship, as well... more Posted on February 20, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Fool Me Once: Bush and Iran As the debate over Iran's involvement in attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq heats up, the Bush White House is facing a credibility gap of historic proportions. Four and a half years after mangling the old saying himself, President Bush's Iran saber-rattling is suffering from the same "Fool Me Once" syndrome he bungled in September 2002: "There's a lot of talk about Iraq on our TV screens, and there should be, because we're trying to figure out how best to... more Posted on February 13, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Boehner: The American People Embolden the Enemy The House of Representatives began its debate on Iraq today. And almost on cue, House Republican leader John Boehner offered up the "embolden the enemy" talking point, still #1 on the list of Top 10 GOP Sound Bites. As the AP reported, Boehner put on an Oscar-worthy performance: "We will embolden terrorists in every corner in the world. We will give Iran free access to the Middle East. And who doesn't believe the terrorists will just follow our troops home?"... more Posted on February 13, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Bush Denies GOP Treason Label for Democrats A chastened President Bush ventured into enemy territory on Saturday to address the annual gathering of House Democrats. Obliterated in the November elections and facing both abysmal poll numbers and open rebellion over Iraq within his own party, the formerly fierce Bush with tail between his legs feigned a spirit of bipartisan cooperation: "I welcome debate at a time of war and I hope you know that. Nor do I consider a belief that if you don't happen to agree... more Posted on February 4, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Groundhog Day: Iraq, Iran and the NIE After months and months of delays, the long-awaited National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq was delivered to Congress today. It is altogether fitting that the NIE crawled out from Langley on Groundhog Day. After all, like Bill Murray in the film Groundhog Day we've experienced this unsettling process of murky reports from the intelligence community before. And we're certainly in for at least six more weeks of conflict in Iraq. Wary of repeating George Tenet's 2002 NIE rosy portrait of American... more Posted on February 2, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Hagel and Bush's Bay of Pigs Moment With Senate debate on competing Iraq resolutions set to begin this week, Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel has emerged as the bete noire of President Bush and his remaining Republican allies in Congress. But while his ferocious opposition to the "Alice in Wonderland" surge in Iraq marks him now as a White House foe, back in 2005 Hagel offered Bush some sage advice that should have made him the President's best friend. The story of Chuck Hagel's wise counsel in June... more Posted on January 28, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Top 10 State of the Union Highlights For those who had the good fortune to miss his 2007 State of the Union address, President Bush just offered the American people a stunning profile in rhetorical obfuscation and political comeuppance. Domestically, his seeming move to the middle on energy, immigration and health care may have alienated his own base while offering some prospect for deals with the Democrats. (Jim Webb's Democratic response is available here.) But in foreign policy and the war in Iraq, President Bush's language was... more Posted on January 23, 2007 \| Comments (5)

	SOTU Preview: 10 Things to Watch Tuesday's State of the Union Address should offer Americans compelling viewing. After the GOP's electoral disaster in November and the resounding thud that greeted the "surge" in Iraq, the 2007 SOTU can be said to officially mark the last throes of the Bush presidency. In anticipation of tomorrow night's presidential flight of fantasy, here are 10 things to look for in the 2007 State of the Union: 1. An Unhealthy Vision As his Saturday radio address made clear, President Bush... more Posted on January 22, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	The Plame CIA Leak Resource Center With the CIA leak trial of one-time Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby beginning today, the Perrspectives Document Library has all the resources you need to track the investigation and court room battle. The PlameGate CIA Leak Resource Center features all the latest breaking news, key legal documents, detailed timelines and more surrounding the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame and the Bush White House effort to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson. It's all there, from Bush's infamous 16 words, the... more Posted on January 16, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Understanding the White House's Iraq Vocabulary While a fierce battle over President Bush's "new way forward" in Iraq is being joined in the halls of Congress, an even more ferocious war of words is taking place to win the hearts and minds of the American people. Among Democrats, Republicans and the media at large, a rhetorical conflict to control the marketing of the Bush message on Iraq is well underway. From almost the moment the Iraq Study Group report landed with a thud on the President's... more Posted on January 15, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Required Reading for Bush's Iraq Speech Wednesday President Bush is now scheduled to deliver his "new way forward" in Iraq in nationally televised address on Wednesday, January 9th at 9:00 EST. Ironically, Bush's coming strategy of "surge and purge" features troop increases he previously rejected, benchmarks for the Iraqis he hitherto scoffed at, cleansing the military leadership of the generals Bush once promised to listen to, and a $1 billion infusion of U.S. taxpayer funds for Iraqi jobs program. In preparation for President Bush's latest prime-time departure... more Posted on January 8, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Bush and FDR on Sacrifice Earlier today, I described President Bush's cynical and shameless plan to use the banner of "sacrifice" to market his coming call for a surge of U.S. forces in Iraq. Americans of all political stripes should view this clarion call for sacrifice as nothing less than an obscenity. Not just because the President's escalation supports no strategic military objective or because the vast majority of Americans oppose it, but because Bush's call for sacrifice comes five years too late. A quick... more Posted on January 3, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Bush's Sacrificial Sham on Iraq In one of the least surprising revelations of the New Year, the BBC on Tuesday reported that President Bush's coming new Iraq strategy will feature his ill-advised "surge" of U.S. troops as its centerpiece. What is even less surprising is Bush's cynical plan to proclaim "sacrifice" as the theme of his address to the nation. As I originally wrote in 2004 ("The War President?"), the defining trait of George W. Bush's wartime leadership since 2001 has been precisely his refusal... more Posted on January 3, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Richard Clarke's Security Challenges for 2007 In the Washington Post this New Year's Day, former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke has a compelling op-ed piece ("While You Were At War...") on the dangerous and rising opportunity costs of the Bush administration's Iraq fixation. In a nutshell, Clarke argues that while President Bush and the U.S. national security apparatus have been focused like a laser beam on "grave and deteriorating" war in Iraq, other mounting security challenges have fallen off the radar. While the emphasis may differ, Clarke's... more Posted on January 1, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Top 10 GOP Sound Bites, 2006 Final Edition As 2006 comes to a close, the Top 10 GOP Sound Bites chart has been turned upside down. In the wake of the Republicans' midterm election nightmare and the battering of the Iraq Study Group report, a bevy of GOP favorites have fallen off the list. Nowhere is the shake-up more evident than in the declining fortunes of the Republicans' Iraq Remix LP. Smash hits with a great beat you could dance to like George Bush's thumping "Stay the Course"... more Posted on December 29, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	The White House on Winning and Losing in Iraq There's an old saying it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. But as President Bush's press conference this morning shows, when its comes to saying whether or not the U.S. is winning or losing it Iraq, the White House just isn't playing the game very well. "I believe that we're going to win." President Bush, December 20, 2006. "We're not winning, we're not losing." President Bush, December 19, 2006. "Absolutely, we're winning." President... more Posted on December 20, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Surge and Purge: The Bush Strategy for Iraq While President Bush has declared that he "won't be rushed" into unveiling his new strategy for Iraq, the outlines are already clear. The twin pillars of the coming Bush approach appear to be a "surge" in U.S. force levels combined with the sacking of the generals opposed to it. Call it "Surge and Purge." Rumors of a "surge" in American forces to secure Baghdad, featuring perhaps as many as 50,000 troops, have been swirling for days. But now the AP... more Posted on December 20, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Support the Troops This Holiday Season With the nation engaged in a critical debate about the path forward in (or out of) Iraq during this holiday season, we should never lose sight of the men and women in the U.S. armed forces who serve in our name. We are immensely privileged to live in a nation where a selfless few fight and sacrifice so that we might live in freedom. And whether we back the fight in Iraq, opposed it from the beginning, want out now... more Posted on December 19, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Iraq and the 7 Habits of Highly Defective Presidents Since he first stepped into the Oval Office, much has been made about George W. Bush as America's CEO, our first MBA President. In the wake of the Iraq Study Group report, the nation has been eagerly awaiting President Bush's now-delayed new strategy with the baited breath surrounding a major new product announcement. But as is becoming increasingly clear, when it comes to Iraq, George W. Bush the MBA President is managing the war like a failed business. As a... more Posted on December 17, 2006 \| Comments (16)

	Jeane Kirkpatrick and the Death of the Bush Doctrine If a period of days can be said to mark the end of the era, this past week almost surely heralded the demise of the Bush Doctrine. On Wednesday, the Iraq Study Group dealt a death blow to the Bush foreign policy's three pillars of no safe havens, preemptive war and democracy expansion. But it is the passing on Thursday of the neo-conservative Cold Warrior Jeane Kirkpatrick that perhaps best symbolized the closing of the book on Bush's ill-conceived experiment... more Posted on December 11, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Iraq Document Library Adds Iraq Study Group Report The Perrspectives Iraq Document Library has been updated to include the findings of the Iraq Study Group. The document repository includes the ISG's final report as well as its executive summary. The Perrspectives Iraq Document Library also provides one-stop access to all the essential documents surrounding the Iraq war, pre-war intelligence and the hunt for weapons of mass destruction. This includes the WMD findings of the Iraq Survey Group, as well as the report of the Robb-Silbermann Commission. The Senate... more Posted on December 6, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	GOP Quotes of the Week, Iraq Chaos Edition Just weeks removed from their midterm calamity, the leading lights of the right continue to suffer from rhetorical destruction. The entropy in Baghdad, the looming report of the Iraq Study Group and the last throes of a rudderless Bush administration have produced yet another bumper crop of classic Conservative Quotes of the Week: "We've been in this phase [in Iraq] for a while." President Bush, November 28, 2006. "This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to... more Posted on December 1, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Bush Sinks GOP Majority Over Rumsfeld With the midterms now in the rear view mirror, history will record that President Bush committed the defining gaffe of the 2006 campaign. Try as they might, conservatives failed to turn John Kerry's clumsy "stuck in Iraq" stumble into the moment that snatched Democratic defeat from the jaws of victory. As it turns out, it was President Bush who sealed the fate of the GOP's congressional majority by offering job security for the "fantastic" Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during the... more Posted on November 15, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Sacrificial Sham: Bush Changes the Subject with Rumsfeld Sacking With Wednesday's post-election sacking of Donald Rumsfeld, President Bush showed once again that he's more concerned about managing the news cycle than America's national security. Facing the prospect of explaining away his party's "thumping" at the hands of the Democrats, Bush instead hoped to change the topic. The "blue wave" that swept the Republicans from Congress can in no small measure be attributed to Bush's failed presidency in general and the disaster in Iraq in particular. Exit polls revealed that... more Posted on November 9, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	GOP Quotes of the Week, Pre-Election Edition As election day nears, the rhetorical woes of the conservative chattering classes continue unabated. From President Bush's ill-conceived Rumsfeld endorsement to Ted Haggard's boy trouble, the Republican leadership and its amen corner are providing plenty of fodder for voters. "I am a deceiver and a liar. There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring with it all of my adult life." Ted Haggard, November 5, 2006. "We don't have to debate... more Posted on November 5, 2006 \| Comments (3)

	Documents of Mass Destruction: GOP Puts Party Before National Security with Iraq Papers Once again, the Republicans have put partisan political advantage ahead of national security. And as the New York Times reports today, they may have just given Iran the recipe for a nuclear bomb as a result. As the Times article details, back in March conservatives desperate to salvage President Bush's debunked WMD rationale for the Iraq war demanded the publication of thousands of Saddam's captured documents. As it turns out, those "Operation Iraqi Freedom" papers published on a public web... more Posted on November 3, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Kerry's Failed Joke, Bush's Sick Humor John Kerry's failed "stuck in Iraq" joke once again highlighted the Massachusetts Senator's uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But as George Bush, Dick Cheney and their amen corner try to make hay at Kerry's expense to help the GOP's flagging midterm prospects, they should take care that Americans not be reminded of the President's own sick sense of humor. After all, Bush's jokes usually come at our expense. A sense of humor has always been... more Posted on November 1, 2006 \| Comments (4)

	Cheater in Chief: Bush as the MBA President With each passing week, Americans are provided more insight into the deeply flawed character and mounting sins of their President. The latest comes in the form of a study by the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University showing that more MBA students cheat than those pursuing other professions. In what should come a surprise to few, George W. Bush, America's putative first MBA president, is the poster boy for the country's most dishonest profession. Ironically, the Duke University report... more Posted on October 30, 2006 \| Comments (2)

	Hutchison Backs Iraq Partition, Endorses Clinton Balkans Policy With the looming midterm elections and the imminent report from James Baker's Iraq Study Group facing them like a double-barreled shotgun, Congressional Republicans are beginning to cut and run on President Bush's failed Iraq strategy. In recent days, Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and John Warner (R-VA) have garnered most of the attention with their critiques of a "stay the course" policy that has left Iraq "drifting sideways." But it is Kay Bailey Hutchison from the President's home state of Texas... more Posted on October 20, 2006 \| Comments (2)

	Republican Quotes Du Jour The fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks and primary politics have helped to once again bring out the worst from the mouths of the right. Featuring fear-mongering, the politics of the pulpit and outright racism, here are the latest mantras from the leading lights of the Republican Party. "I wonder if [Democrats] they're more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people." House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), September 12, 2006. "I know Iraq is a mess... more Posted on September 13, 2006 \| Comments (6)

	Valerie Plame's Quixotic Court Case Former CIA agent Valerie Plame and her husband Ambassador Joseph Wilson publicly unveiled their lawsuit against Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby in a Washington press conference today. But while the Wilson's action offers the potential to bring President Bush's "Politics of Payback" under the microscope, its prospects for success seem remote. That seems to be the early consensus, even among those sympathetic to the view that the Bush administration outed Plame as part of full-fledged war to... more Posted on July 14, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Iraqi PM, U.S. Commander: Cut and Run Just days after President Bush and his Republican allies in Congress lambasted their Democratic opponents for supposedly wanting to "cut and run" in Iraq, the Iraqi government and American military leadership in Baghdad essentially endorsed the Democratic position to set a timeline to draw down U.S. troops. As Newsweek first reported on Saturday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki endorsed a timetable for American withdrawal as part of 28-point national reconciliation plan submitted to the Iraqi parliament today. While Maliki proposed... more Posted on June 25, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Bush's Premature Emancipation Problem This weekend, the United States launched "Operation Mountain Thrust" in Afghanistan. Featuring 10,000 U.S. troops and American aircraft targeting the peaks along the border with Pakistan, the spring offensive seeks to decimate a resurgent and emboldened Taliban. Sadly, that would be the same Taliban President Bush declared non-existent two years ago. This weekend's fighting in eastern Afghanistan may have killed 90 guerillas, but it also served to highlight President Bush's penchant for prematurely declaring victory in his wars fought on... more Posted on June 19, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Purple Heartwarming Stories The flood of revelations about the alleged U.S. war crime and cover-up at Haditha has understandably clouded the image of America's fighting men and women. Two recent but underreported stories will help restore your faith in the goodness and humanity of our troops. Just before Memorial Day, Staff Sgt. Phillip Trackey gave his Purple Heart medal to 13 year-old Fatima Faisal. Faisal, a student in Camillus, New York, had won a school contest for writing thank you letters to U.S.... more Posted on June 6, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	The Price of Folly: Reinforcements to Iraq Just 24 hours after the United States commemorated Memorial Day, the American people are being reminded once again of President Bush's folly in going to war in Iraq with too few troops. The American commander in Iraq General George Casey is dispatching up to 3,500 reinforcements from Kuwait to turbulent Anbar province in Iraq. The troops from the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division are likely headed to Ramadi, where units from the Pennsylvania National Guard and the U.S.... more Posted on May 30, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Cheney's Double Dealings on Plame, NSA Scandals Sunday's news contains a double-barrreled shotgun blast in the face courtesy of Vice President Dick Cheney. First, the New York Times detailed Cheney's post-9/11 insistence on far more invasive domestic spying by the National Security Agency. Apparently, it was only through the efforts of NSA lawyers that the Bush administration limited its illegal domestic eavesdropping program to calls involving a party outside the United States. Second, the latest filings by Patrick Fitzgerald in the Scooter LIbby case reveal that Cheney... more Posted on May 14, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Conservatives Say the Darndest Things Conservatives, to paraphrase Art Linkletter, say the darndest things. The past several days have been no exception, as the denizens of the right have served up a steady of diet of contradictory claims, egregious gaffes and downright disturbing ditties. Here, then, for your entertainment pleasure are the latest installments of "Today's Mantras." "Well, from my perspective, Heather and I already are married...The way I look at it, is we're just waiting for state and federal law to catch up with... more Posted on May 4, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Submission Accomplished On this the third anniversary of President Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, the American people have grown cynical over prospects in Iraq. A new CNN poll shows only 9% of Americans believe the mission in Iraq has been accomplished; 44% believe it never will be. Meanwhile, ThinkProgress has catalogued just what President Bush has accomplished in Iraq so far. Here, then, is a look back at the Bush speech and its aftermath. Three years later,... more Posted on May 1, 2006 \| Comments (3)

	James Baker: Bush's Mr. Fix It Goes to Iraq As surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, James Baker III reliably appears whenever George W. Bush finds himself in trouble. As the New York Times reports, the growing Iraq quagmire is no exception. Baker, the Secretary of State under the President's father, will lead a congressionally mandated team to generate new ideas for salvaging the American adventure in Iraq and with it, extricate George W. Bush from another fine mess. Baker has long... more Posted on April 24, 2006 \| Comments (3)

	General Agreement: Rumsfeld Fails the Aspin Test As the firestorm between the growing ranks of retired generals and the White House over Donald Rumsfeld continues to heat up, the Republican leadership in Congress remains largely - and predictably - silent. As I wrote back in December 2004, the Republican Party and its amen corner have decided that its 1993 "Les Aspin Standard" does not apply to Defense Secretary Rumseld and the Bush administration. That is, decisions that needlessly cost American lives in battle cost defense secretaries their... more Posted on April 15, 2006 \| Comments (7)

	Trailer Trash: Bush's Bogus Bio-Weapons Claims On May 29, 2003, President Bush proudly trumpeted the supposed discovery of mobile bio-weapons labs in Iraq, declaring, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction." As the Washington Post is now reporting, the President's claim was not only untrue, but the administration knew it was false at the time Bush uttered it. The Post piece is yet another devastating blow to the White House campaign to retroactively justify the invasion of Iraq. By May 27th, 2003, a team of... more Posted on April 11, 2006 \| Comments (4)

	The PlameGate Leak Resource Center As the scandal grows surrounding President Bush's leak of classified national security information to discredit administration critics, you can track all of the latest news, legal filings, statues, timelines and other key documents. Just visit: The Perrspectives PlameGate Scandal Resource Center.... more Posted on April 11, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Condi Rice's Faux Apology Visiting England this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice delivered a new twis on that staple of Bush administration communications, the faux apology. Speaking to an audience of British foreign policy wonks, Rice offered a seeming mea culpa for the situation in Iraq, "I know we've made tactical errors, thousands of them I'm sure." Any notion that Rice was breaking with the Bush doctrine of infallibility was extinguished with her very next sentence. "But when you look back in history,"... more Posted on April 1, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Abdul Rahman and the Death of the Bush Doctrine Neo-conservative founding father Irving Kristol once famously said, a neoconservative is "a liberal who's been mugged by reality." Now the once-preening adherents of the Bush Doctrine are being beaten and battered by events on the ground. First came the Sharia-influenced constitution and sectarian violence in Iraq and the Hamas government in Palestine. With the possible execution of Christian convert Abdul Rahman in Afghanistan, neo-conservatives' faith in democracy promotion in the Middle East is falling victim to their own much-hyped law... more Posted on March 25, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Three Years Later: Perrspectives on Iraq On this the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, I'm adding to the endless list of retrospectives. The Perrspectives Iraq Archive includes all of this site's articles, features and pieces on the planning, politics and policies surrounding the American conflict in Iraq. Among the featured pieces:... more Posted on March 19, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Poll Watch: Bush and GOP Spiral Downward The latest wave of public opinion polls shows that President Bush's downward spiral continues unabated. The Wall Street Journal reports that Bush's approval rating has plummeted to 37%, with CNN coming in at 36%, a precipitous 10% drop from January. And while a comparatively upbeat Washington Post survey from March 6th put the President at a 41% approval rating, a devastating assessment from the Pew Research Center showed Bush at only 33%, the lowest mark of his presidency. There can... more Posted on March 16, 2006 \| Comments (2)

	The Top 10 State of the Union Highlights Faced with negative polls and a pessimistic American nation, President Bush's just completed 2006 State of the Union Address naturally focused on the theme of "the Hopeful Society." But like the stillborn "Ownership Society" vision before it, Bush's 2006 SOTU will be remembered not for its policy program, but for its partisan political purposes. The top 10 highlights: 1. Demonize the Democrats The President continued Karl Rove's 2006 electoral strategy to once again run on national security and brand the... more Posted on January 31, 2006 \| Comments (6)

	Yoo Da Man Karl Rove is widely credited with being "Bush's brain." But when it comes to the administration's dangerous and unprecedented expansion of presidential war powers, John Yoo is the President's mouthpiece. Only 34, Yoo, formerly of the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel and now a professor at the University of California Boalt Hall School of Law, joins Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney as one of the preeminent if unlikely policy architects in the Bush pantheon. Wolfowitz, the former Defense Undersecretary, was... more Posted on December 23, 2005 \| Comments (3)

	Dishonoring Pearl Harbor President Bush used this 64th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to continue his faltering effort to drum up support for his Iraq policy. Only days after unveiling his supposed "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" to an incredulous American public, Bush sought once again to draw parallels with a different, "good war" against fascism: The strike on Pearl Harbor was the start of a long war for America -- a massive struggle against those who attacked us,... more Posted on December 7, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Cheney and the "Same Intelligence" Myth In "Bush Rewrites History", I argued that in attacking opponents of its uses and manipulation of pre-war intelligence, the Bush White House and its amen corner were propagating four new myths. First, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their allies claimed that Congress has access to the "same intelligence" as the White House. Second, the President and his team asserted that two investigations of the Iraq war run-up found no evidence that the President or his administration had manipulated pre-war... more Posted on November 28, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	The Avenging Angel Smites Schmidt, Woodward It's been a very busy week for the Avenging Angel, punisher of conservative miscreants. Last week, Bob Woodward, the famed Watergate reporter, confirmed that he sold his soul to the devil. First, Woodward penned two Bush hagiographies in exchange for exclusive access to the White House. Now it it turns out that Woodward, who on October 27th dismissed the CIA leak case as "gossip" and chided Patrick Fitzgerald as a "bull-dog", himself was told of Valerie Plame's identity in June... more Posted on November 22, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	Bush Rewrites History When in a hole, one of the timeless maxims of politics states, stop digging. President Bush, facing plummeting poll numbers, the festering PlameGate scandal and a growing national consensus that he misled the country into war with Iraq, has apparently decided to keep digging. In shameless and angry speeches in front of military audiences on Veterans Day and again in Alaska on Monday, the President in essence accused his critics of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. But in... more Posted on November 15, 2005 \| Comments (2)

	Roberts' Iraq Stonewall Crumbles Over the past week, Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas chose to ignore the old dictum, "when in a hole, stop digging." As I wrote last week, Roberts has been a key leader of an elaborate GOP effort to stonewall investigation into the Bush administration's uses and misuses of pre-Iraq war intelligence. Stung by the closed Senate session in which Democrats savaged his obvious obstructionist tactics, Roberts came out swinging. Now, Roberts is insisting that there is no evidence of... more Posted on November 7, 2005 \| Comments (9)

	Why the Senate Went to a Closed Session In case you were wondering, this is why Harry Reid forced the Senate into a closed session. Republican Chairman Pat Roberts on the Phase 2 Report on possible Bush White House manipulation of Iraq WMD intelligence: "I don't think there should be any doubt that we have now heard it all regarding prewar intelligence. I think that it would be a monumental waste of time to replow this ground any further." (March 31, 2005) "To go though that exercise, it... more Posted on November 2, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Fitzgerald, Iraq and the Truth About Pre-War Intelligence One of the most telling moments of special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's press conference on Friday concerned the larger context - or lack thereof - for the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. "This indictment is not about the war. This indictment's not about the propriety of the war. The indictment will not seek to prove that the war was justified or unjustified." Fitzgerald, of course, is right. Establishing the truth about the path to war in Iraq is not his... more Posted on November 1, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	Indicting an Administration Special Prosecutore Patrick Fitzgerald has announced that Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby has been indicted on five charges on obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements. (Here are PDF's of the Libby indictment text and the Fitzgerald press release text.) The false statements occurred during interviews with federal agents in 2003. The perjury charges center on two different appearances by Libby before the grand jury. In response, Libby has tendered his resignation. At this time, the status of... more Posted on October 28, 2005 \| Comments (3)

	Blowback: Bush, Plame and the Politics of Payback Washington is on pins and needles as all await word from CIA leak special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. Reuters reports that Fitzgerald may convene the grand jury as early as Tuesday to seek indictments. What began as an investigation into the outing of a covert CIA operative has grown to encompass perjury and obstruction of justice, and perhaps even cast doubt on the candor of the administration's rationale for the Iraq war. Meanwhile, the atmosphere in the Bush White House is... more Posted on October 23, 2005 \| Comments (9)

	What the President Knew and When He Knew It President Bush, as Ricky Ricardo used to say, has some 'splaining to do. Thanks to a piece in the New York Daily News, we now know the President's claims throughout the fall of 2003 that he had no knowledge of the identity of the Valerie Plame leaker are simply untrue. The article ("Bush Whacked Rove on CIA Leak") cites White House sources who describe a furious George W. Bush dressing down Rove in September 2003 for his role in the... more Posted on October 20, 2005 \| Comments (2)

	An Army of One? The recruiting woes of the American military continue unabated. The AP reported today that the U.S. Army just completed its worst recruiting year since 1979. The shortfall for the all-volunteer force was among the most dramatic, both in absolute numbers (7,000) and as a percentage of the target (80,000), since the United States ended conscription in 1973. These disconcerting results reflect the ongoing chaos and unending carnage in Iraq. In this environment, the Army understandably will miss its goal of... more Posted on September 30, 2005 \| Comments (4)

	9/11 and the Culture of Grief This fourth anniversary of the devastating September 11 Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington were marked with the usual ritualistic displays of grief and remembrance. Some, like the World Trade Center ceremony in New York were heartfelt and moving. Others, like the Bush administration�s so-called "Freedom Walk" in Washington DC appropriated (or perhaps more accurately, misappropriated) the symbols of 9/11 for partisan political ends. And some, like the Nick Lachey/Jessica Simpson pop rendition of "America the Beautiful" simulcast... more Posted on September 11, 2005 \| Comments (5)

	Intelligent Design in Iraq There are at least two things we know for certain about George W. Bush. One, he is committed to "stay the course" in Iraq, despite the clear and growing chaos on the ground. And second, Bush believes in the doctrine of intelligent design. As it turns out, the two are related for President Bush. There is no question that Iraq is, as ID advocates like to say, "irreducibly complex." The security nightmare, the economic devastation and the budding civil war... more Posted on August 28, 2005 \| Comments (3)

	What Is To Be Done: A 10-Point Plan for Iraq The debate over the American debacle in Iraq sounds more and more like the Fram oil filter ads from the 1970's. In those spots, a hard-nosed mechanic tells consumers, "you can pay me now or pay me later." The inevitable result of the current political dialogue over Iraq will be the "Fram choice" for Americans: the United States can lose now or lose later. On the right, President Bush and his fellow travelers refuse to accept accountability for selling a... more Posted on August 20, 2005 \| Comments (13)

	The Cindy Sheehan Rorschach Test The vigil of Cindy Sheehan outside President Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch has come to embody all the anger and division of the increasingly counterproductive American debate over Iraq. Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq, says she wants to meet again with President Bush to ask him, "why did you kill my son?" But while she is lionized by the left and vilified by the right, Washington fiddles and Baghdad burns. The reaction to Sheehan by the Bush White... more Posted on August 10, 2005 \| Comments (25)

	The Global War on Error In a rhetorical shift last week, the Bush administration unveiled a new name for its worldwide war against an abstraction. The old moniker "Global War on Terror" (or GWOT) has been exchanged for the new label, the "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism" (or G-SAVE). The results for America and the world, sadly, will be the same. This is not a case, as Shakespeare might have said, of a rose by any other name smelling as sweet. The United States is... more Posted on August 1, 2005 \| Comments (6)

	Chaos Theory: Bush & The Bolton Diversion As expected, President Bush Monday morning made a recess appointment of John Bolton to the post of UN ambassador for the United States. This, despite Bolton's inability to get Senate approval, his lie regarding his testimony in the Plame affair, and the possibility of his own involvement in a White House orchestrated smear campaign against the Wilsons. Bush's move, though, may be less about his famed loyalty or legendary intransigence, and more a diversion aimed at creating chaos. At this... more Posted on August 1, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Turd Blossom Tournament Ends Wednesday! This is a last reminder that Perrspectives' own Karl Rove Whack-a-Mole Contest ends on Thursday, August 3rd. While the grand jury may not issue any indictments for months, you can be Karl Rove's judge and jury today. Just sentence Rove for his outrageous crimes and you could win an Apple iPod Shuffle or other great prizes. This is one time when justice delayed doesn't have to be justice denied. Enter today!... more Posted on July 31, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	The Plot Thickens It's amazing what a difference a day makes. On Friday morning, Republicans proclaimed Karl Rove's exhonoration in the PlameGate affair, after a source close to investigation claimed that it was columnist Robert Novak who informed Karl Rove of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity, and not visa versa. But RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman's gloating notwithstanding, the mountain of evidence continues to build against Rove and the Bush White House. By Friday afternoon, a New York Times article revealed the existence of... more Posted on July 17, 2005 \| Comments (3)

	The Rove-Plame Scandal Document Library The Perrspectives Document Library has been expanded to include background articles and documents on the Karl Rove outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. The Rove documents include the original Joseph Wilson New York Times op-ed, Robert Novak's column outing Wilson's wife Valerie Plame and key 2003 White House press briefings by Scott McClellan and President Bush. The Library also features key 2003 and 2005 articles on the scandal, as well as a timeline of entire affair. For future reference, links... more Posted on July 12, 2005 \| Comments (2)

	The Rove Defense: No Controlling Legal Authority Newsweek's Michael Isikoff has just published a damning article clearly identifying Karl Rove as Time journalist Matt Cooper's source in the Valerie Plame CIA outing case. Isikoff does more than use Cooper's email threads to show that Rove was in fact Cooper's "double super secret" source. His Newsweek piece reveals the outlines of the coming Rove defense. For Democrats still smarting from Al Gore's pounding in the Buddhist temple fundraising scandal, it is a hauntingly familiar: "No Controlling Legal Authority."... more Posted on July 10, 2005 \| Comments (2)

	The Coming Draft Debate In "Getting Drafty", I argued that current and emerging American national security challenges require the reinstatement of the draft and a new "hybrid model" of national service. Developments over the just the past two weeks reflect just how rapidly the pressure is building to bolster American military force levels. London Terror Attacks and the Need for Expanded Homeland Defense. Timed to coincide with the opening of the G-8 summit in Edinburgh and only one day after London won the competition... more Posted on July 7, 2005 \| Comments (4)

	A Wink and a Nod: Bush on the Plame Scandal Now that things are heating up once again in the Valerie Plame CIA outing case, it is worth turning back the clock and remembering President Bush's take on the scandal. During his October 7, 2003 Cabinet meeting, George W. Bush, the same man who as presidential candidate who promised to "uphold the honor and dignity of the office" had this to say about the despicable act of treason committed by his White House: "Well, the investigators will ask our staff... more Posted on July 2, 2005 \| Comments (11)

	Markets, Public Goods and Military Recruiting During Thursday's hearings of the Armed Services Committee, several Republican Senators blamed the usual suspects for the shortfalls in Army and Marine recruiting. James Inhofe (R-OK) lambasted unnamed Senate colleagues, adding the potential recruits are being discouraged "because of all the negative media that's out there." Kansan Pat Roberts chimed in, "with the deluge of negative news that we get daily, it's just amazing to me that anybody would want to sign up." But while these conservative Senators predictably pointed... more Posted on June 30, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	Bush's Iraq Report Card President Bush delivered his much awaited speech on Iraq to an audience of soldiers assembled at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. As theater, the President's was a confident rhetorical performance. But if the intent was to rebuild American support for the Iraq war by showing accountability for the missteps to date, providing a plan for success and asking for needed sacrifices, George W. Bush failed miserably: Bush's half-hour address showed the same story-telling and disingenuousness that has characterized his presidency and... more Posted on June 29, 2005 \| Comments (5)

	Bush Iraq Speech Sneak Peak Yesterday, I offered a lengthy preview of tonight's nationally televised address on Iraq by President Bush. In the Perrspectives Guide to the Bush Address, I highlighted the Five Things Bush Must Do to rebuild public support for the conflict in Iraq. In that Guide, I also pointed out the rhetorical warning signs that Bush's rhetoric is unchanged, his plans unaltered and the prospects for American victory dimmed. Sadly, a preview of the Bush speech seems to contain them the most... more Posted on June 28, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	A Guide to the Bush Address on Iraq On Tuesday night, President Bush will take to the stage at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in a nationally televised address aimed at rebuilding public support for the war in Iraq. And well he should. Recent polls (from Gallup and Rasmussen, respectively) show that only 39% of Americans approve of the war in Iraq and that more people in the United States blame Bush (49%) than Saddam (44%) for the conflict. The torrent of revelations in 2002 pre-war British documents confirm... more Posted on June 27, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	Getting Drafty: The Hybrid Model of National Service Ronald Reagan once famously said that presidents should "never say never" But when it comes to the reinstatement of the military draft, recent public opinion polls seem to suggest that the American people think "never" would be a fine idea, indeed. A recent AP/Ipsos poll showed only 27% of Americans favored conscription, with a whopping 70% opposed. As the casualties mount and recruiting woes build from the Iraq crisis, both political parties continue to make this issue moot for the... more Posted on June 26, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	DC Dick and Baghdad Bob While President Bush's statements on Iraq have entered the realm of the hallucinatory, Vice President Dick Cheney's chutzpah and mendacity in the just the last few weeks hasn't gone unnoticed, either. Cheney, the same man said who instructed Senator Pat Leahy "go f**k yourself" on the Senate floor, criticized Illinois Senator Dick Durbin for his Gitmo comments. "For him to make those comparisons was one of the most egregious things I'd ever heard on the floor of the United States... more Posted on June 20, 2005 \| Comments (4)

	Bush on Iraq: That Was Then, This Is Now The Downing Street Memo and a host of new British documents are increasingly focusing national attention on the duplicity and incompetence of President Bush�s Iraq war planning. With criticism building, poll numbers plummeting and facing defections from his own party, the President used today�s weekly radio address to begin a new PR offensive to bolster support for Iraq policies. If that performance is any indication, George Bush has moved from profound deception and deep denial to outright fantasy. In one... more Posted on June 19, 2005 \| Comments (16)

	Bush's British Invasion On the heels of Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to the U.S. and the growing furor over the Downing Street Memo, a new British document promises to further highlight the Bush administration's deception and incompetence in preparing for the Iraq war. The Washington Post reports that just two days before the Downing Street meeting, a July 21, 2002 intelligence briefing ("Iraq: Conditions for Military Action") showed British officials incredulous with the lack of planning for post-war Iraq by the Bush... more Posted on June 12, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	Remember the Troops, Support Their Families Memorial Day in the United States arrives this year at a sobering time. As the violence and disorder conitnues in Iraq, American servicemen and women stand in harm's way there, in Afghanistan and around the world. Our troops and their families deserve our thanks and need our support. This is the first modern American conflict where the nation has not been called on to sacrifice. Our leaders have neither asked us to pay the cost of the conflict against Al... more Posted on May 28, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Remember the Troops, Support Their Families Memorial Day in the United States arrives this year at a sobering time. As the violence and disorder conitnues in Iraq, American servicemen and women stand in harm's way there, in Afghanistan and around the world. Our troops and their families deserve our thanks and need our support. This is the first modern American conflict where the nation has not been called on to sacrifice. Our leaders have neither asked us to pay the cost of the conflict against Al... more Posted on May 28, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Single Sorcerers The ongoing Newsweek saga has given the Bush White House and its right wing jihadists what they see as a golden opportunity. Their simple goal is to use the Newsweek case and the Rathergate episode before it to wage a full scale assault on the credibility and objectivity of "mainstream press." In its place, they seek to substitute their own manufactured, alternate reality. Central to this campaign is the assault on media reliance on anonymous, single-sources. As Scott McClellan put... more Posted on May 19, 2005 \| Comments (4)

	The Pot Calls the Kettle Irresponsible The Bush administration and their amen corner continue to rain down hellfire on Newsweek magazine for the Koran desecration flap. Scott McClellan called it "irresponsible" and Ohio Representative and Tom Delay crony Bob Ney termed it "criminal." As I cautioned yesterday, the administration would do well not to overplay its hand. The image of the United States around the Muslim world was already deeply tarnished. And American credibility, after Abu Ghraib, Iraq WMD, and too many other instances to list... more Posted on May 17, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Martin Peretz: The New Republican In the April 11th issue of The New Republic, Martin Peretz (�The Politics of Churlishness�) takes liberals to task for what he sees as their inability to show even grudging respect for President Bush�s recent successes in the Middle East. Sadly, Peretz reads too much into the supposed triumph of the Bush Doctrine, while not reading enough into the liberal critique of it. For starters, most liberals, like most Americans, are genuinely pleased with the turn of events in Iraq,... more Posted on April 8, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	Iraq WMD Commission Whitewash As expected, the President's commission on pre-war intelligence regarding Iraqi's weapons of mass destruction offers a scathing critique of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. (The full report and other commission background can be found here; other Iraq/WMD documents are also available in the Perrspectives Document Library.) Also as expected, the report essentially absolved the Bush administration of any blame for its policies. The mandate of the panel, led by Oliver North's appellate liberator Judge Lawrence Silberman, did not... more Posted on March 31, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Better Lucky Than Good Sometimes you just have to give credit where credit is due. Like Chauncey Gardner in Being There, right now everything in the Middle East seems to be coming up roses for George W. Bush - and the United States. But like Chauncey, Bush the born-again democratic idealist has a series of happy accidents to thank for his success. The combination of the death of Arafat, Viktor Yushchenko's dioxin-tainted soup, bungling Syrian intelligence agents, and an all-powerful Shi'ite cleric may have... more Posted on March 4, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	On the Wrong Side of History Once in a rare while, tectonic historical change occurs with the span of only few days. The dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall heralding the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union, was one of those watershed moments. And for many Americans, the events of the last 10 days of January, with the Rice confirmation, the Bush second inaugural, and the Iraqi elections, represent a democratic tide sweeping the Middle East, a sea change the whole world is watching. Sometimes, though,... more Posted on February 1, 2005 \| Comments (5)

	2004 State of the Union Flashback With President Bush's 2005 State of the Union approaching, my 2004 SOTU-eve critique of Bush's so-called Ownership Society still stands. State of Disunion Even with his shaky State of the Union address and dipping approval ratings, President Bush unfortunately remains in a strong position for the 2004 election. Saddam is captured, GDP is surging, and his reelection war chest has a staggering $100 million in the bank. And while his Democratic foes battle each other in primary contests across the... more Posted on January 31, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	George Bush: Making the World Safe for Democracy? In the aftermath of President Bush' second inauguration, there is a widespread consensus that taken literally, his address would commit the United States to a global campaign of democratic proselytization. American friends and foes, puppets and pawns, the wistful and the wary, all are understandably concerned. Before starting a panic over the President's apparent Wilsonian idealism on steroids, it is worth remembering that Bush has not always been the outspoken proponent of democracy, individual liberty and human freedom: "So it... more Posted on January 22, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Doing Well by Doing Good: The American Opportunity in Global Tragedy In the wake of the devastating tsunami that killed thousands and threatens hundreds of thousands more across Asia, much of the coverage and debate in the United States has centered around whether or not the initial U.S. $35 million aid package is, in the words of U.N emergency coordinator Jan Egeland, "stingy." Lost in the petty bickering and wounded American pride is a unique opportunity for the United States to change its badly weakened global image by leading and funding... more Posted on December 30, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Bush, Absolute Value and the Time "Man of the Year" Every once in a while, you realize that the apparently pointless concepts you learned back in math class were not completely without value. Or in the case of the Time selection of George W. Bush as its "2004 Man of the Year", absolute value. Bush's second crowning as Man O' Year reminds us of the notion of Absolute Value. As you'll recall, the expression \|x\| meant the positive value of x, regardless of whether x had a positive or negative... more Posted on December 21, 2004 \| Comments (1)

	Rumsfeld and the Aspin Test Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's comments to U.S. troops last week highlight once again the need for new leadership at the Pentagon. But while some Republicans are finally beginning to raise doubts about Rumsfeld, they have yet to hold him to the GOP's "Les Aspin Standard." That is, decisions that needlessly cost American lives in battle cost defense secretaries their jobs, but apparently only if Bill Clinton is president. John McCain, who sold his soul to George Bush in order to... more Posted on December 13, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Denial is not a River in Iraq Speaking of cognitive dissonance, the Bush administration continues to merrily amble forward as the situation in Iraq degrades and the stench of American abuse of prisoners grows. Earlier today, President Bush blandly stated that "free elections will proceed as planned." . At the same time he was issuing this pablum, the New York Times and The Guardian reported that a cable from the departing CIA station chief in Baghdad alerted Washington to the rapidly deteriorating situation on the ground in... more Posted on December 7, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Trifecta: Fiascos and Frauds in Iraq and Afghanistan Even in Iraq, when it rains, it pours. Examples of the Bush administration's staggering blunders and clumsy cover-ups are coming fast and furious as election day approaches. Each new revelation only serves to highlight the administration's incompetence, denial and deceit: 1. The Missed Zarqawi Opportunity As The American Prospect details, the Bush White House rejected Pentagon plans to destroy Zarqawi and his Ansar al-Islam camp in Northern Iraq in June 2002. The same people who lambasted President Clinton for merely... more Posted on October 26, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Bush Top 10 Flip Flop List Four years ago, George W. Bush accepted the Republican nomination for President, and famously set the moral tone - and expectations for his presidency: "So when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God." It has not, of course, worked out that way. As we pointed out... more Posted on October 1, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	WMD, Accountability & Cowardice In April 1961, President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation to accept full responsibility for the Bay of Pigs disaster in Cuba, an operation planned by the CIA of his GOP predecessor. Fast forward 43 years as George W. Bush and Tony Blair confront American and British reports documenting the Iraq WMD intelligence fiasco. While Blair at least acknowledged reality, Bush showed that defeat, in Kennedy's words, truly "is an orphan." Bush's political cowardice is a recurring theme running throughout... more Posted on August 20, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Five Global Challenges for a New American Internationalism That giant sucking sound you may have heard last week was the last vestiges of American unilateralism spinning down the drain. Perhaps barely noticed in the din and drumbeat of the Reagan commemoration, the short and unhappy life of President Bush�s policy of �America Alone� mercifully came to an abrupt halt. In securing passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution recognizing the new Iraqi Interim Government, the Bush administration unwittingly pronounced the death of an idea whose time had never... more Posted on June 18, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Cognitive Dissonance, Terrorism and 9/11 The Richard Clarke firestorm and the public sessions of the 9/11 commission have gripped the nation, redefined the presidential campaign, and left the American people continuing to search for the truth behind the September 11 disaster. The families of the 9/11 victims in particular are looking for answers: how did the United States fail to anticipate and prevent Al Qaeda�s September 11 attacks and who is responsible for those failures? The work of the 9/11 commission suggests that conclusive answers... more Posted on March 30, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Are We More Secure? As we mark the one-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush has made national security the foundation of his reelection effort. To no one�s surprise, the self-proclaimed �war president� is running on a theme of �steady leadership for changing times.� Given the traditional advantage the GOP has enjoyed with voters on defense and national security issues, the formula for electoral success seems straightforward: �President Bush made America safer.� Except that it�s not true. John Kerry and... more Posted on March 18, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The War President? Now there�s a surprise. President Bush is going to base his reelection on the claim of being �a war president.� (His �Ownership Society� vision, which he delivered stillborn during his State of the Union address, has apparently been put on the backburner.) As he told Tim Russert on �Meet the Press� and repeated to National Guard troops in Louisiana on February 17th: "I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war... more Posted on February 20, 2004 \| Comments (0)