Sun Apr 22, 2007 @8:35 AM ET
Congress set to defy Bush on Iraq war
By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A fight between the U.S. Congress and President George W. Bush over the Iraq war is set to come to a head this week when Democrats are expected to send him $100 billion to pay for continuing combat while setting timetables for withdrawing troops.
Bush has promised to veto any bill setting dates for removing U.S. combat soldiers from the Iraq war, now in its fifth year.
But when a Democratic-controlled panel of Senate and House of Representatives members meets on Monday to iron out differences between their respective bills, the product is expected to contain 2008 withdrawal dates.
Many lawmakers have been speculating those dates might be nonbinding, as sketched out by a Senate-passed bill.
"The longer we continue down the president's path, the further we will be from responsibly ending this war," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), who on Thursday said the war in Iraq was "lost."
The Nevada Democrat, who called for a change of course in Iraq, made his remarks during a week in which he and Bush traded barbs and as violence and killings in Iraq again spiked.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel (news, bio, voting record) of Illinois, who holds a Democratic leadership position in the House, said final touches on the Iraq war language ought to be finished by this weekend. That will be the basis for Monday's work session on the bill.
Last month, the House approved a bill setting a September 1, 2008, deadline for all U.S. combat troops to leave Iraq. The Senate's softer approach calls for some troop withdrawals this year leading to a nonbinding goal of having most of the 146,000 soldiers leave Iraq by March 31, 2008.
Nearly all Republicans in Congress voted against the deadlines.
In recent days, however, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said Congress' debate on deadlines was helpful. In Baghdad on Thursday, he also told Iraqi leaders that the United States cannot indefinitely commit troops.
The full House could vote on Wednesday on the controversial war-funding bill, the same day Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, is due to brief senators in a closed session.
Democrats say they are uncertain what will happen after Bush vetoes their war money bill. They know they will have to produce another bill to fund the troops in the war zone but they are split over what conditions they can attach and still win Bush's signature.
Liberal Democrats, who want a quick withdrawal from Iraq, hope their leaders will keep the pressure on Bush by giving him only enough money to conduct the war for another two months or so, instead of for the next six months.
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (news, bio, voting record), a California Democrat, said "in two months it might be really clear" that Bush's 30,000-troop increase was not succeeding in quelling sectarian violence.
She said her hope was that subsequent Iraq funding bills "could be used to bring the troops home."
But that view is opposed by more moderate Democrats, who at least for now do not want Congress meddling too much in Bush's handling of the war.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4/22/2007 4:00:00 PM GMT
U.S. devalues Iraqi lives
By Ahmed Abdullah
On November 19, 2005, more than 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians were shot dead by U.S. occupation forces in the western Iraqi city of Haditha. The massacre, denounced by some U.S. politicians as worse than the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, shattered the U.S. image abroad and triggered worldwide condemnation, but the findings of the army's investigation into the killings were more shocking.
Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell who investigated the horrific crime submitted his report in 2006, but it wasn't made public until yesterday. In it, the general concluded that the U.S. Marines Corps in Iraq "fostered a climate that devalued the lives of innocent Iraqi civilians" to the point that American troops considered their deaths insignificant.
The report, obtained by the Washington Post, also found that U.S. commanders ignored "obvious" signs of "serious misconduct" in the killings, indicting the whole chain of command, from the general in charge to the marines who murdered the 24 men, women and children in Haditha.
"All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result of insurgent tactics," the Post quoted Gen Bargwell as saying.
Moreover, the report said statements taken from those involved suggested the marines thought "Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the marines need to get 'the job done' no matter what it takes".
The U.S. army initially claimed that some civilians died in a roadside bomb that killed one marine in Haditha, and that the rest of the victims were killed in an exchange of fire that followed the initial explosion.
But witnesses said the Americans went on a rampage, asserting that there were no clashes between fighters and U.S. soldiers, and that the bullets were only fired from the marines to retaliate for the death of their comrade.
A local journalist also took video footage showing men, women and children shot in their homes. Local residents also said some of the victims were shot dead in their car as they approached the scene.
The U.S. army later confirmed that 24 Iraqi civilians had died, none of them killed by a roadside bomb.
Gen Bargewell's report doesn't focus on the specifics of the killings, which are the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation, rather it tackles the command structure and investigation procedure.
According to the report, the officers involved tried to protect themselves and their troops by deliberately ignoring reports of civilian deaths. The marines hadn't identified targets properly, there was no interest in investigating reports of a massacre, and all the signs indicating that the incident was significant were ignored.
A separate investigation into whether the marines tried to cover up the Haditha killings concluded that top military commanders failed to follow up on "red flags" that should've indicated inaccuracies in early accounts of the deaths. It also questioned why top military leaders in western Iraq failed to further investigate what happened in Haditha when they learned that civilians have been killed, confirming Gen Bargewell's findings that U.S. troops considered the deaths of Iraqi civilians insignificant.
Despite the shocking findings, the U.S. Marine Corps dropped all charges against one of eight marines accused in the Haditha massacre in exchange for his testimony. Three other marines remain charged with murder and four with dereliction of duty for failing to report and investigate the shootings.
A military judge has yet to decide if there is enough evidence against the seven accused marines to convene a court martial. If found guilty, the three marines charged with murder could face life imprisonment.
Detaining these marines will not bring the dead Iraqi civilians to life. But it might make foreign troops value the lives of civilians. It could also help in the investigations into many other cases in which U.S. occupation forces have been accused of unlawfully killing innocent Iraqis.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Higher U.S. troop levels in Iraq likely beyond summer
By Andrew Gray
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Remarks by senior U.S. commanders and officials and a change in Army deployment plans all suggest the higher level of American troops now building in Iraq is likely to remain for months beyond the summer.
The Bush administration has avoided predicting how long it will keep the beefed-up force of about 160,000 troops ordered by the president in January.
It has said only that it will review progress in the late summer, a stance stressed last week by Defense Secretary Robert Gates when he visited Iraq. The implication is that troops could then start to be withdrawn but that appears improbable.
Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said during Gates' visit that the buildup of some 28,000 extra troops would not even be complete for another two months.
"It'll be in mid-June or so when all of the forces will be in place and we can see the effects of the real surge and even then it will take some time, we think, before you can actually develop what that capability will provide you," he said.
U.S. commanders have said that the latest security crackdown, launched to coincide with the buildup of troops, has yielded mixed results so far, with a drop in sectarian murders but a rise in high-casualty car bomb attacks.
Petraeus has cautioned that achieving success with the extra troops will take months, which suggests maintaining the higher level for more than just the 10 weeks or so between reaching full strength and an initial progress review.
Bush administration officials have stressed that the new military approach goes hand in hand with an increased effort to boost reconstruction and economic development.
But provincial reconstruction teams of U.S. experts assigned to help strengthen Iraqi institutions -- a key element of the plan -- are not due to reach full strength until the end of this year, said Rick Olson, provincial reconstruction team coordinator.
"My sense is that this civilian surge and the duration thereof will be tied to the military surge," Olson, a retired major general, told reporters traveling with Gates.
"We take Gen. Petraeus at his word that this is not something that's going to be done overnight. This is going to be a longer-term effort," he said.
"I would say that from my vantage point we will see however many brigades Gen. Petraeus has asked for. We'll see that many brigades here in December."
The current troop increase approved by Petraeus will put 20 U.S. combat brigades in Iraq.
TOURS EXTENDED
The Pentagon has also extended the tours of duty of U.S. soldiers in Iraq from a year to 15 months, a measure Gates said would allow the United States to maintain the higher troop level in Iraq until next spring.
But any mention of a specific end-date for the increased force level is politically sensitive.
President George W. Bush's Republican administration is under unrelenting pressure from Democrats, who won control of Congress last November largely due to voter anger over the war and believe they have a mandate to push for withdrawal.
Any suggestion that the buildup that began in January may last until the year's end or beyond risks fueling domestic opposition to a war in which more than 3,300 American soldiers and at least tens of thousands of Iraqis have died.
Even so, military commanders are unwilling to telegraph a date when higher force levels will be reduced as they believe that would encourage their enemies to wait them out and then resume violence.
Gates' visit to Iraq showed Washington hopes to use uncertainty about the end-date to push Iraq's Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds to adopt reconciliation measures quickly.
Gates said the troop increase was meant to buy Iraqi leaders time to reconcile and their record on that front would be a factor in his review of force levels in the late summer.
But he acknowledged the plan was not expected to provide instant success. "We do need some time to try and make this work," he said.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Probe finds Marine Corps ignored 'serious misconduct'
Sat Apr 21, 2007 @11:49 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US Army general in charge of an investigation into the killings in the Iraqi town of Haditha has concluded that the Marine Corps had ignored "obvious" signs of "serious misconduct" by its troops.
The Washington Post said Major General Eldon Bargewell's report on Haditha is scathing in its criticism of the Marines' actions, from the enlisted men who were involved in the shootings on November 19, 2005, to the two-star general who commanded the 2nd Marine Division in Iraq at the time.
Twenty-four Iraqi civilians were killed in the town after the marines went on a shooting spree, targeting unarmed men, women and children after a comrade, Miguel Terrazaz, was killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol.
Bargewell's previously undisclosed report obtained by The Post found that officers may have willfully ignored reports of the civilian deaths to protect themselves and their units from blame, the paper said.
Though Bargewell found no specific coverup, he concluded that there also was no interest at any level in investigating allegations of a massacre, the report said.
"All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result of insurgent tactics," the paper quotes Bargewell as writing.
He condemned that approach because it could desensitize Marines to the welfare of noncombatants.
"Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as US lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get 'the job done' no matter what it takes," the general pointed out.
Though Bargewell completed his secret report in June 2006, it has not been publicly released because of ongoing criminal investigations of three marines on murder allegations and four marine officers who allegedly failed to look into the case, The Post said.
Bargewell's report focuses on the reporting of the incident and the training and command climate within the Marine Corps leadership and does not address the actual incident in detail, according to the paper.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
April 21, 2007
Iraq Massacre Report Alleges 'Serious Misconduct'
Forthcoming Report on Haditha Massacre Casts Blame Far Up the U.S. Military Chain of Command
The massacre at Haditha, Iraq, has been called the worst alleged atrocity by U.S. forces in the Iraq war. Three marines are charged with murder, but ABC News has confirmed that a still unreleased report casts blame far up the chain of command.
The report accuses marine commanders of ignoring "obvious" evidence of "serious misconduct" in the deaths of two dozen Iraqi civilians in 2005.
In the scathing 104-page report, Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell concludes that commanders behaved as though, "Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the marines need to get 'the job done' no matter what it takes."
Retired Gen. Jack Keane told ABC News that's a message that dehumanizes Iraqi civilians.
"That's very dangerous in combat," he said.
The killings occurred Nov. 19, 2005, after a roadside bomb killed one marine and injured two others. Military prosecutors say the surviving marines went on a rampage, executing five unarmed men on the street then raiding nearby houses, shooting men, women and small children, some still in their beds.
Bargewell faults 2nd Marine Division commander Maj. Gen. Richard Huck for dismissing the reports of a massacre as insurgent propaganda.
The military did not begin a thorough investigation until months later, when news organizations obtained photos of the aftermath.
Seven marines have been granted immunity to testify in the case.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Originally posted: April 20, 2007
Is the Iraq war 'lost' as Reid said?
Posted by Frank James at 11:10 am CDT
Is the Iraq War really lost?
The question was given fresh currency by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid statement yesterday during a press conference in which he said as much.
"Now, I believe myself that the secretary of State, the secretary of Defense -- and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows -- that this war is lost and that the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday."
Reid added he told President Bush at a White House meeting Wednesday the war was lost and compared Bush's surge of troops into Baghdad to President Lyndon B. Johnson's escalation of the Vietnam War because he didn't want to lose a war that, it turned out, was already lost.
But Reid apparently might've wanted to ask Gates his views before adducing him as evidence to support his claim. In Baghdad today, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked about Reid's remark according to the Associated Press:
"He rejected Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's assessment that the war was already lost and the troop buildup was not stemming violence in Iraq. "I respectfully disagree," Gates said when asked by a reporter about Reid's Thursday remarks."
It's also worth considering the latest analysis from Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security analyst who is one of the most respected thinkers about the U.S. military efforts in Iraq.
He doesn't appear to have reached Reid's conclusion either. And that despite Cordesman having been one of the harshest critics of how the war has been conducted.
Cordesman specifically examines the new U.S. military tactic of building walls in Baghdad to separate Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods. While the challenges facing the new approach are substantial, he clearly still believes it's too early to declare the surge and current tactics have failed.
"None of these issues mean the current effort will not be much more successful over time in providing local security in Baghdad than the past approaches. Gated areas do, however, consist of an experiment that will take time to implement, will be a far from perfect answer, and may fail. It is critically dependent on improvements in the effectiveness of both the Iraqi police and governance, and local support.
"Like most of the surge, it will probably be early 2008 before the full implications and effectiveness of such efforts can be judged. This makes Congressional (and Presidential) patience critical. Demanding instant success is a recipe for instant failure. The concept must be given time and patience to see what can be done, and the US and Iraqi forces must be given the opportunity to learn from any early failures and adapt."
So even Cordesman, one of the Bush Administration's most caustic critics in Washington's think tank community, isn't calling the war lost and saying pull the plug. Far from it. That's not to say Cordesman is right. But his view is much respected in Washington, especially among senior uniformed military who believe he gets it.
The political fallout from Reid's comments could be expected He's being called a "surrender monkey" and "traitor," everything but a child of God, on conservative blogs.
This from Human Events blog, one of the tamer reactions.
Harry Reid, Loser
by Jed Babbin (More by this author)
Posted: 04/20/2007
The Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, believes the war in Iraq is lost. There is nothing about that conclusion that bothers Reid: He is as blasé as he is certain, as resolute in pursuit of defeat as Churchill was in pursuit of victory. Last November, the Democrats seized control of Congress on the pretense that they wanted to change our policy to Iraq but not -- as they, to a man (and a woman) insisted -- to merely cut and run. We knew they weren't being truthful then, but too many people were taken in. Now all pretense is dispensed with: we can see the man behind the curtain.
The reaction on liberal blogs ranges from supportive to ambivalent to angry, like this from a Daily Kos thread.
I am Furious with Reed for saying flat out 'we are losing this war' with 150,000+ American troops on the ground in Iraq, and I am as opposed to Bush and this war as much, if not more than, any other person here.
And wouldn't you know it's the Big Headline over at Faux News this evening too. Living down to the 'defeatocrat' label isn't the way to win this debate.
by phoenixdreamz on Thu Apr 19, 2007 at 04:10:42 PM PDT
That Daily Kos poster's fears were validated by the Republican anti-Reid, anti-Democrat offensive spurred by Reid's statement. It provided another opportunity for Republicans to attempt to outflank Democrats on the national security issue, with the charge that Congress's majority party fails to support the troops.
Here's a statement from House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) that reflected some of the blistering Republican reaction to Reid's comment.
"When a top Democrat tells reporters he believes the war is lost, he is not simply talking to the media - he is telling American troops they have failed. And he is telling our enemies they have won. While Mr. Reid may be willing to throw in the towel and declare this a lost cause, I am certain that American troops are not; they are committed to achieving victory in the War on Terror. Mr. Reid's comments are demoralizing to our troops, and just plain wrong."
Reid's comment opens up a Democratic presidential candidates to attacks by Republicans and questions from reporters that will prove nettlesome. They will be asked if they agree with him or not and whichever way they answer will leave some vulnerability.
If they agree, they too will be accused of demoralizing the troops, not a comfortable spot for someone aspiring to be commander-in-chief. If they disagree, they will anger the party's liberal base that wants U.S. troops out now.
Reid's office has announced that the Senate majority leader will be on the Senate floor today to react to the president's war on terror speech today.
His office has also announced that Reid is scheduled to give a speech Monday on the Iraq War at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars here in Washington.
Reporters will be watching to see if he attempts backs away from his "lost war" comment by watering it down or stands firmly by it.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/2007/01/daily-war-news-for-tuesday_116958405484536658.html
No comments:
Post a Comment