Informed Comment

Tenet on the Staircase with the Neocons

My column in response to George Tenet’s “60 Minutes” interview is available at Salon.com.

Excerpt:

The French call it “the spirit of the staircase” (l’esprit d’escalier), the clever reply to someone that comes to you on your way up to the bedroom after a cocktail party. In his new book, released Monday, former CIA Director George Tenet has delivered himself of hundreds of pages on the staircase, imagining what he should have said or could have said to Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and the other neoconservatives who marched the country to war in Iraq using the pretext of Sept. 11. In his April 29 interview with “60 Minutes” touting the book, Tenet came across as a spectacularly tragic Walter Mitty, daydreaming about how things would have been different if only he had spoken up, if he’d only been a James Bond-style spymaster instead of a timid, fawning bureaucrat. But of course, when it really mattered, at the critical juncture of his seven-year tenure as CIA chief, Tenet said nothing.

Read the whole thing.

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Rice: Bush didn’t Want War

Condi Rice on Sunday denied allegations by former CIA director George Tenet that Bush came into office determined to have a war against Iraq. This is the interview by Wolf Blitzer of CNN:

QUESTION: Because you remember Paul O’Neill, the first Treasury Secretary, where he wrote in his first book, The Price of Loyalty with Ron Suskind, and what Ron Suskind later wrote in his own book, The One Percent Solution, that the Bush Administration came in with a mindset to deal with what they called unfinished business with Saddam Hussein.

SECRETARY RICE: That is simply not true. The President came in looking at a variety of threats. We then had the September 11th events. The September 11th events led to a kind of reassessment of what the threats were. But in the entire period after the President became President, he was trying to put together an international coalition that could deal with Iraq, first by smart sanctions, smarter no-fly zones, then by challenging Saddam Hussein before the Security Council to meet the just demands of the Security Council, and ultimately by having to use military force. But this was an evolution of policy over a long period of time. Of course the President came in concerned about Iraq. President Clinton had used military force against Iraq in 1998. We had gone to war against Iraq in 1991. But the idea that the President had made up his mind when he came to office that he was going to go to war against Iraq is just flat wrong. ‘

But here is what Bush’s ghost writer Mickey Herskowitz reports Bush saying during an interview when Bush was still governor of Texas in the late 1990s:

‘ “He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.” ‘

So that was 1999.

Then we have this account from May, 2000, by journalist Osama Siblani, who met with Bush in Troy, Michigan when he was campaigning for the Republican nomination:

‘ OSAMA SIBLANI: I met with the President, and he wanted to go to Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, and he considered the regime an imminent and gathering threat against the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: You met with the President of the United States?

OSAMA SIBLANI: Yes, when he was running for election in May of 2000 when he was a governor. He told me just straight to my face, among 12 or maybe 13 republicans at that time here in Michigan at the hotel. I think it was on May 17, 2000, even before he became the nominee for the Republicans. He told me that he was going to take him out, when we talked about Saddam Hussein in Iraq. . .

And then he said, ‘We have to talk about it later.’ But at that time he was not privy to any intelligence, and the democrats had occupied the White House for the previous eight years. So, he was not privy to any intelligence whatsoever. He was not the official nominee of the Republican Party, so he didn’t know what kind of situation the weapons of mass destruction was at that time. ‘

Then let us come to January, 2001, when the Supreme Court had installed Bush in power. Former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill wrote in his memoirs of the very first Bush cabinet meeting:

‘”The hour almost up, Bush had assignments for everyone … Rumsfeld and [Joint Chiefs chair Gen. H. Hugh] Shelton, he said, ‘should examine our military options.’ That included rebuilding the military coalition from the 1991 Gulf War, examining ‘how it might look’ to use U.S. ground forces in the north and the south of Iraq … Ten days in, and it was about Iraq.”

O’Neill specifically said that Bush instructed Rumsfeld to look at military options and how it might look to use US ground forces in the north and the south of Iraq.

How much clearer could it be that Tenet is absolutely right that there was never any serious debate about the merits of ‘taking out Saddam’ in Bush’s inner circle?

For more evidence that the fix was in with regard to Bush and action against Iraq, see my “The Lies that Led to War” in Salon.com.

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25 Killed in Basra Blast;
Political Crisis in Basra as Governor is Unseated ;
Iran will Attend Sharm El Sheikh Meet

On Sunday evening, militiamen set off a bomb that killed 25 and wounded dozens in the poor Hayaniya district in the southern Shiite port city of Basra. Early reports put suspicion on the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr.

Militiamen in Basra killed another British soldier on Sunday, bringing the total military fatalities for the UK in April to 12 and making it the worst month of the war in that regard.

Al-Hayat , writing in Arabic, alleges that on Sunday night, the elected Governing Council of Basra decided to fire provincial governor Muhammad Misbah al-Wa’ili, the leader in that region of the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila). The move came in the wake of a campaign waged by the rival Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq against him after the Virtue Party withdrew from the Shiite party coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance. Al-Hayat’s sources maintained that British forces escorted al-Wa’ili to the airport, from which he left for parts unknown.

Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that the GC vote of no confidence against al-Wa’ili carried by 27 votes. There are 41 seats on the council. Al-Wa’ili was initially elected by a slim margin of 21 to 20, with the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq having the 20. But the Virtue Party only had 15 seats, and was kept in power by 6 independents that voted with it. Obviously, all six have now defected to SCIRI, along with one Virtue member. The Virtue Party is denying the legitimacy of the vote and insisting that al-Wa’ili remains in office. Its spokesman says that 2/3s of 41 is 28, and that that is the number of votes necessary for a vote of no confidence. He implied that SCIRI is trying to monopolize Basra’s oil wealth. All of Iraq’s oil exports go through Basra these days, since the Kirkuk pipeline keeps getting hit. Iraq export on the order of 1.6 million barrels a day of petroleum through Basra, with up to 500,000 barrels of that being stolen and smuggled out. Political parties and militias are among the major petroleum smugglers in Basra. This article says that anxiety has seized the people of Basra over the conflict. Since all the parties are armed to the teeth, if there really were a constitutional crisis in the province, it could turn really, really bloody.

There are still over 6,000 British troops in the province, and Prince Harry is being sent there. A recently returned British private spoke out over the weekend, maintaining that “Basra is lost, they are in control now. It’s a full-scale riot and the Government are just trying to save face.”

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that a source close to nationalist Shiite cleric says that he has sent representatives to Arab countries “to lay the foundation for a Sunni-Shiite alliance.” The source said, “Sadr commissioned Aws al-Khafaji and Ahmad al-Shaybani to make a tour of Arab, regional and Islamic states in order to unite Sunnis and Shiites.” He added, “The tour will end in the next few days, and will include meetings with Sunni clergymen in the Islamic world, along with political and Islamic personalities in the regional and Arab environs– to explain the dimensions of the suspicious efforts to provoke conflict between the sects.” (The subtext is that al-Sadr’s emissaries will try to convince Sunnis that the US is actually behind the death squads killing Sunnis in places like Baghdad. As much as the US presence in Iraq is disliked by those Muslim states, I don’t think many responsible people will buy Muqtada’s line. For Sunnis, he has real credibility problems. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia won’t even meet with PM Nuri al-Maliki these days.)

Iran may have helped the US capture an al-Qaeda operative, Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, late last year. If so, the two US raids on Iranian personnel in Iraq in early 2007 were particularly rude.

Kucinich’s introduction of articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney, which the corporate media has dismissed as Quixotic, got support from the California Democratic Party meeting in San Diego. The the party called on Congress to investigate misconduct by Bush and Cheney and take all appropriate steps, up to and including impeachment. It also called for a withdrawal from Iraq.

Guerrillas in the refinery town of Baiji kidnapped the drivers of 15 fuel trucks about to set out for al-Anbar province to the west, and then set fire to or stole the trucks. (Al-Zaman says they were stolen).

Reuters reports that:

BAGHDAD – A roadside bomb killed three people and wounded eight others in the southern Baghdad Zaafaraniya district, police said.

BAGHDAD – At least seven Katyusha rockets landed near a Sunni mosque in the northern Baghdad Adhamiya district, killing two guards and wounding seven others on Saturday, police said.

Edmund Sanders of the LAT gives us a thoughtful, sensitive, informed account of the meaning for Iraqis of the assassination attempt Sunday on beloved broadcaster Amal al-Mudarris. A Shiite from south Iraq whose family suffered at Saddam’s hands, she has long been a natural target for the Baathists who have been acting as spoilers in the new Iraq. Gunmen shot her in al-Khadra district of Baghdad as she was leaving her home, wounding her seriously in the head. Aljazeera showed her in her dingy hospital bed, the bandaging on her cheek looking amateurishly applied to me. It brought home how badly the medical facilities have deteriorated. Dozens of journalists have been killed in the course of the Iraq War.

Al-Zaman writing in Arabic says that 1 soldier died and 20 were sickened by poisoning at the Iraqi military camp at Kut. Last October, dozens of soldiers were sickened at the same facility.

The US military says that it captured 4 Shiite extremists who had been part of a network importing explosively formed projectiles into Iraq.

Iran has decided to attend the 2-day conference of foreign ministers of Iraq’s neighbors in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt that will begin on Tuesday. Iranian FM Manouchehr Mottaki will lead the delegation. In his interview with Charlie Rose last week, Bush said of the possibility that US Secretary of State Condi Rice and Mottaki would have direct bilateral talks, “They could, they could.”

Iraqi National Security adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie welcomed Iran’s participation. He said, “It’s very important for Iraq to get the United States and Iran talking to each other.”

Remember all those painted schools that the Administration and its supporters endlessly crowed about? It turns out that 7 of 8 major reconstruction projects in Iraq are in danger of failing.

Indonesia, the world’s fourth largest country and the largest Muslim country, called for an immediate US withdrawal from Iraq at the Inter-Parliamentary Union. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono seems to envision a United Nations command succeeding the US forces there. Indonesian Speaker of the House Agung Laksono added, “It is a good momentum for the IPU to urge the United States to leave Iraq immediately, because it is immoral if a sovereign state like Iraq is still controled by Washington.”

US Senator Dick Durbin says that the Senate Intelligence Committee received information in 2002 that was the polar opposite of Bush administration public pronouncements on Iraq. He says he remained quiet because the briefings of the Intelligence Committee were classified. Well, that is still true, so why is he talking now? And, I have just two words for the good Senator: Daniel Ellsburg.

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Al-Safi: Al-Maliki Must be PM for All Iraqis

The USG Open Source Center summarizes broadcasts of Friday prayers sermons in Iraq last Friday. Note that a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani upbraided Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of the Da’wa Party for his tendency to speak mainly of the welfare of the Shiites, urging himm to be prime minister of all Iraqis. In contrast, he praises Adil Abdul Mahdi, the Shiite vice president, who comes from the rival Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. It is a remarkable and telling rebuke, and I think a sign of Sistani’s growing impatience with the narrow concerns of the more sectarian leaders of the United Iraqi Alliance.

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9 US Troops Killed;
60 Killed, 170 Wounded in Karbala;
Over 60 Bodies Found;
Sadr Admonishes Bush

Iraqi guerrillas killed 9 US GIs on Friday and Saturday. Five of them died in active fighting in al-Anbar Province, which doesn’t actually seem to have been turned around yet, unlike what is alleged in some quarters. A truck bomb attack had killed 10 Iraqis in the city of Hit on Friday.

Guerrillas blew up a market near the shrine of Abu al-Fadl Abbas in the holy city of Karbala on Saturday, killing a reported 80 persons and wounding 170. [Figures from Aljazeera early Sunday morning.] The sacred character of Karbala makes this sort of attack especially likely to provoke Shiite-Sunni tensions and violence. Wire services report:

‘ Television images showed a man running down a smoke-filled street holding a lifeless baby above his head. Smoke was rising off the baby. Ambulances had rushed to the blast scene in Kerbala, 100 km southwest of Baghdad. ‘

Reuters reports on political violence in Iraq on Saturday, revealing that “the war of the corpses” is heating up around the country. Some 17 bodies were found in the streets of Baghdad, victims of sectarian death squads. In the mixed city of Baqubah, 60 miles northeast of the capital, police found 27 bodies. In the northern Sunni Arab city of Mosul, police found 16 bodies. Other important attacks:

BAGHDAD – A roadside bomb hit an Iraqi army patrol, wounding two soldiers in al-Qahira district in northern Baghdad, police said. . .

BAGHDAD – Three mortar rounds landed in al-Resala district in southwestern Baghdad killing three civilians and wounding 10 others, including two children, police said.

BAGHDAD – A roadside bomb killed one civilian and wounded three others in Kadhimiya district in northwestern Baghdad, police said. . .

BAGHDAD – A roadside bomb targeting a group of day labourers killed one and wounded eight in the Zaafaraniya district in southern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD – Gunmen killed five civilians and wounded one when they opened fire on their vehicle in Bayaa district in southwestern Baghdad. . .

Young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on Bush to acquiesce in the desire of the Iraqi people that the US set a timetable for withdrawal of its troops from Iraq.

In Islamic lore the Mahdi or promised one will return at the end of time to restore the world to justice. He will be opposed by an evil one-eyed figure, the Dajjal, which is usually translated the “anti-Christ” by analogy with apocalyptic Christian beliefs. Muqtada called Bush the Dajjal.

Muqtada’s letter about Bush was read out in parliament by Liqa’ Al-Yasin, female MP from the Sadrist bloc. The Shiite cleric called Bush “a great evil,” adding, “Bush ignores all the calls asking for withdrawal or for the setting of a timetable for withdrawal, despite the demonstrations that the Iraqi people staged in Najaf and in every spot around the globe.”

Muqtada addressed Bush, claiming that the UN had asked for a US withdrawal (not true). He denied that a US withdrawal would throw Iraq into greater chaos:
“What chaos can be greater from what we face in Iraq, in which blood runs every moment, without let-up . . ?” He asked if Bush had just traded Saddam’s dictatorship for one of Shiite-hating Sunnis (nawasib) and excommunicators (takfiris). He asked what had become of Bush’s debaathification, since he was now asking that Baathists be reinstated in the government. He taunted Bush for having announced an intention to disarm Iraq, complaining that Bush had filled “our beloved Iraq” with weapons. He asked, “How have you fought sectarianism, when you are reinforcing it by building walls and instituting partitions on a sectarian, political basis– not on a national, Iraqi, Arab or Islamic basis.

Referring to the Democratic Party’s dissent from Bush’s policies in Iraq, Muqtada asked, “Do you want us to follow your mistakes and your plan, when you have yourselves turned against it? . . . What kind of democracy is this that you desire? Thousands go out to vote, then you go back to national reconciliation with Baathists and terrorists?

Addressing Bush, he said, “While you once predicted that your picture would hang in Iraqis’ homes, now it is under their feet . . . You have destroyed the reputation of the West among Easterners generally.” He accused Bush of having US troops put their feet on the necks of Iraqis, and desecrating the Qur’an.

He accused Bush of turning Iraq into an arena of contention. He said, “Bush, you wanted to make America more secure, but you have set it ablaze . . .”

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, speaking to a US congressional delegation, rejected US pressure and said that Washington’s interference in domestic Iraqi political affairs was a “red line,” the crossing of which he could not accept. The main issue that seems to have exercised him is US pressure on his government to change the “de-Baathification” process and to rehabilitate former Baathists (most of them Sunni Arabs) as public persons who can hold high government posts.

The oil investment law passed by al-Maliki’s cabinet is also still getting a hard ride.

The LA Times reports on how security is deteriorating in Basra under the pressure of political and militia rivalries, leading to an increase in attacks on British troops.

Retired Lt. Gen. William Odom called on Bush to sign the bill specifying a US troop withdrawal from Iraq. Money quote:

‘ “The challenge we face today is not how to win in Iraq; it is how to recover from a strategic mistake: invading Iraq in the first place,” he said.

“The president has let [the Iraq war] proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued. He lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies.” ‘

Hmmm. I don’t think Odom can be accused by the Republicans of being unpatriotic. He’s not just some civilian politician. He isn’t even a Democrat. He’s a man of substantial military and intelligence experience. Certainly his credentials to speak on the impact of the war on the US military are impeccable.

In a video posted to the internet, an important al-Qaeda leader complained that the Shiites are not joining in the fight against the US but on the contrary are fighting al-Qaeda alongside the US. An anti-Shiite program is common among radical Salafis in Iraq, but had earlier been questioned by al-Qaeda leaders in the east.

Iraq’s deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, will visit Iran in May.

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