1,934 U.S. soldiers have died and nearly 15,000 have been wounded in Iraq. Our military is stretched to the breaking point. Iraq has become a new haven for global terrorists, and now sits on the brink of sectarian civil war. And for this, American taxpayers will soon have paid three hundred billion dollars — $300,000,000,000.00.

Nevertheless, no alternatives to the President’s discredited “stay the course” strategy have emerged in government or among foreign policy elites. Clearly, the status quo is untenable. But implementing an immediate pull-out is neither strategically sound nor logistically possible.

Today, the Center for American Progress released a progressive exit strategy for Iraq. It will ensure the strength of our armed forces, increase chances of stability in Iraq, and culminate with the redeployment of virtually all U.S. forces out of Iraq by 2007. Some details on the plan follow: Read more

Ever since Vietnam, military strategists have agreed using enemy body counts is a useless benchmark for success.

Conrad Crane, director of the Military History Institute at the U.S. Army War College: “It was a pretty useless statistic that did more harm than good.”

Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, on attempt to quantify success in Grenada: “We need to stay away from this body count business. It caused us terrible trouble in Vietnam and it will cause us terrible trouble here.”

Gen. Tommy Franks, 3/18/02: “You know we don’t do body counts.”

Sec. Donald Rumsfeld, 11/2/03: “We don’t do body counts on other people.”

The Washington Post, however, reported last week:

Using enemy body counts as a benchmark, the U.S. military claimed gains against Abu Musab Zarqawi’s foreign-led fighters last week even as they mounted their deadliest attacks on Iraq’s capital.

Question: Why is the Pentagon now using enemy body counts as a measure of success/failure?

American Progress hosted a press roundtable with retired Marine Corps General Joseph Hoar on September 13. Hoar headed U.S. Central Command following Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, overseeing U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf after the first Iraq war.

Gen. Hoar was blistering in his assessment of the current conflict, and the failure of the Bush administration’s civilian leadership to grasp the dynamics on the ground in Iraq. Excerpts follow (or read the full transcript here):

Iraq is like our Revolutionary War, except now we’re the British:

Well, it’s true [that the two conflicts are alike], but we’re on the wrong side. We’re the Brits. This is part of the hubris of this crowd that would think that in a country where 95 percent of the population was tribal, where it had been under various colonial rules for however long – since the Caliphate I guess – that all of a sudden this thing was going to turn around overnight. By the way, I just finished reading [David] McCullough’s book, 1776. We’re in there. (Laughter.) … Yeah, but we have red coats.

Read more

Associated Press, 9/21/05:

President Bush decided Wednesday to waive any financial sanctions on Saudi Arabia…for failing to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced laborers.

Just a year ago, we were told things would be different. President Bush, 7/16/04:

Human trafficking is one of the worst offenses against human dignity. Our nation is determined to fight that crime abroad and at home.

President Bush (6/9/05):

Law enforcement officers stand between our people and great dangers, and we’re making sure you have the tools necessary to do your job.

Philadelphia is trying to improve its first responder capabilities, but the government isn’t helping out. The U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) has decided that Pocatello, Idaho (population 51,466), needs emergency communications equipment more than Philadelphia (population 1,517,550) does.

COPS denied Philadelphia $6 million to upgrade its first responder equipment so that police officers, firefighters, and paramedics could use their radio equipment underground and in tunnels, which the current equipment will not do. Read more

Bill King’s heart may be pounding harder and faster than anyone’s in the nation. For the past two years, King – the mayor of Kemah, a small town on the west side of Galveston – had been waging a campaign, “writing letters to newspapers and meeting with officials in the governor’s office, urging the creation of a mandatory evacuation law” in the event of a major hurricane.

As a result of King’s efforts, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed a bill into law giving county judges and mayors the authority to order mandatory evacuations before a hurricane strike. That power was taken advantage of today. That’s the good news. The bad news? The bill was signed in July 2005, just over 2 months ago.

Because state and local authorities have had very little time to practice their evacuation plans, three major concerns exist:

1) Galveston’s Hazardous Sites Need To Be Properly Evacuated

On May 18, 2005, the Houston Chronicle reported, “Among other concerns for coastal Texans is the plethora of industrial sites, many of which deal with hazardous chemicals. Disaster preparation experts with local industries and Galveston County held a workshop Tuesday. ‘I’ve seen some really bad things happen when people were not ready to shut it down right,’ said Lew Fincher, the vice president of Hurricane Consulting Inc., a safety and preparedness consultant.”

Read more

President Bush, 10/18/04:

“Winning the war on terror requires more than tough-sounding words repeated in the election season. America needs clear, moral purpose and leaders who will not waver, especially in the tough times. … Unlike my opponent, I understand the struggle America faces and I have a strategy to win. Our first duty in the war on terror is to protect the homeland.”

VERSUS

9/11 Commission report card, 9/14/05:

Read the full report here.

The LA Times reports today that Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda group in Iraq is growing in influence and support, primarily because it has begun attracting a large number of Iraqi nationals to its organization:

Zarqawi “is bringing more and more Iraqi fighters into his fold,” a U.S. official said, adding that Iraqis accounted for “more than half his organization.” … “They’re the best game in town, the most organized organization,” said a U.S. official, who added that Zarqawi’s network was also a “well-funded organization that is willing to pay people for their work” when many Iraqis, particularly police, have little or no income.

But the U.S. military spokesman in Iraq apparently hasn’t received the memo. From the Washington Post:

The top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, said the surge in bombings represented the kind of occasional spikes in attacks that the military has been expecting. Lynch told reporters, “Zarqawi is on the ropes.”

President Bush stacked FEMA with political hacks who badly mismanaged the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. He continues to nominate unqualified people to top posts and it’s sparking bipartisan outrage. UPI 9/15/05:

Julie Myers was nominated by President Bush to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE — the agency charged with hunting down money launderers, sanctions busters and human traffickers, and which is the sole enforcer of immigration laws inside the country. Thursday, she faced a confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.

“I’m really concerned about your management experience,” Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, told her, pointing out that ICE, with 20,000 employees, was the second-largest investigative agency in the federal government.

“I think that we ought to have a meeting with (Homeland Security Secretary) Mike Chertoff … to ask him… why he thinks you’re qualified for the job.

“Because based on your resume, I don’t think you are,” Voinovich concluded.

Bush, 9/16/07: “Julie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”

Bush said: “Yet the system, at every level of government, was not well coordinated, and was overwhelmed in the first few days.”

FACT — CRS REPORT SHOWS BLANCO DID HER JOB: A Congressional Research Service report found “that the Governor did take the steps necessary to request emergency and major disaster declarations for the State of Louisiana in anticipation of Hurricane Katrina.” [Office of Rep. John Conyers]

FACT — DHS SECRETARY FAILED TO RESPOND AS HE SHOULD HAVE: Federal documents obtained by Knight Ridder demonstrated that “even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials.” [Knight Ridder, 9/13/05]

Bush said: “I consider detailed emergency planning to be a national security priority.”

FACT — FOUR YEARS AFTER 9/11, STILL NO NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS GOALS: On August 30, “as New Orleans was drowning and DHS officials were still hours away from invoking the department’s highest crisis status for the catastrophe,” department contractors were emailed the planned “national preparedness goal.” “The checklist, called a Universal Task List, appeared to cover every eventuality in a disaster, from the need to handle evacuations to speedy urban search and rescue to circulating ‘prompt, accurate and useful’ emergency information. … But the documents were not a menu for action in the devastated Gulf Coast. They were drafts, not slated for approval and release until October, more than four years after 9/11.” [Washington Post, 9/3/05]

On the “deadliest day of violence in Baghdad since the U.S. invasion more than two years ago,” Bill O’Reilly sat down with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to examine the real issues in Iraq: It’s all about the lattes.

Watch Rice: Streaming QT

O’Reilly: The truth of the matter is our correspondents at Fox News can’t go out for a cup of coffee in Baghdad.

Rice: Bill, that’s tough. It’s tough. But what — would they have wanted to have gone out for a cup of coffee when Saddam Hussein was in power?

When asked yesterday if Americans should be worried about our government’s response to a future disaster or terrorist attack, President Bush admitted, “Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government.”

That’s interesting, considering Bush has spent the past couple years telling Americans how safe and secure his leadership has made the country:

- “Since September the 11th, we’ve followed a clear strategy to defeat the terrorists and protect our people. First, we are defending the homeland. We’ve strengthened our intelligence capabilities; we’ve trained more than 800,000 first responders; we have taken critical steps to protect our cities and borders and infrastructure.” [8/24/05]

- “We’re making progress in defending the homeland.” [8/3/05]

- “Of course, we’re doing everything we can to protect America. I wake up every day thinking about how best to protect America. That’s my job.” [10/1/04]

- “In the United States, where the war begun, we will continue our vital work to protecting American people, by protecting our ports and borders and safeguarding infrastructure, preparing for the worst. I mentioned the first responders. I can’t tell you how pleased I am with the coordination now between the federal government, the state government, and local governments for preparing our homeland.” [1/22/04]

Read more

The International Republican Institute recently released a survey of Iraqi public opinion with data taken early this summer. It received virtually no press coverage — according to Lexis, just a single brief mention in the Washington Times — but the results are fascinating and deserve some attention. A few notable points:

Significant drop in country mood. The poll shows an 18 point decline in the attitudes of Iraqis from April to July. This is surely driven by violence and a lack of progress on the political transition, but also by more mundane (yet important) issues like…

Electricity and basic services. See slide 9. A third of the public picks electricity service as one of their top three concerns personally impacting them. This finding is not surprising given the recent street protests (and in some cases violence) against local governments due to the lack of services this summer. One hundred and twenty degree heat without A/C is a serious hardship.

Scant support for the decentralized, federal structure found in the current draft Iraqi constitution. Except for the Kurdish regions, where 87 percent of the public supports giving significant powers to regional governments, there is minimal support for a decentralized structure — the highest level outside of Kurdistan is in southern Shia provinces, where it only approaches 25 percent. This matches results of earlier studies showing a fear in southern and central Iraq that decentralization would lead to a break up of the country, yet a desire among the Kurds to do more. Too bad the current draft of the constitution doesn’t reflect the will of most ordinary Iraqis on this issue – though it does help out the Kurds.

– Brian Katulis

Dick Cheney decided to stay on vacation for 72 hours in the midst of the worst natural disaster in American history.

Most Americans would probably say he came back to the job three days late.

Cheney sees the glass half full — according to U.S. News and World Report:

When asked by a reporter why he did not return from his vacation earlier than last Thursday, three days after the hurricane hit, the vice president replied: “I came back four days early.”

Tomato, tomahto.

In the aftermath of Katrina, we missed this remarkable piece on R. Alexander Acosta, who Attorney General Gonzales appointed as interim U.S. attorney for Southern Florida in June. It’s worth a second look:

When FBI supervisors in Miami met with new interim U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta last month, they wondered what the top enforcement priority for Acosta and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be.

Would it be terrorism? Organized crime? Narcotics trafficking? Immigration? Or maybe public corruption?

The agents were stunned to learn that a top prosecutorial priority of Acosta and the Department of Justice was none of the above. Instead, Acosta told them, it’s obscenity. Not pornography involving children, but pornographic material featuring consenting adults.

His own prosecutors have warned Acosta that prioritizing adult porn would reduce resources for prosecuting other crimes, including porn involving children. According to high-level sources who did not want to be identified, Acosta has assigned prosecutors porn cases over their objections. … Acosta [said] that this was Attorney General Gonzales’ mandate.

According to the article, “narcotics trafficking, public corruption, and fraud are rampant in South Florida.” It seems those problems will have to wait.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that the Pentagon has drafted plans to use nuclear weapons preemptively against countries or terrorists with suspected WMD stockpiles:

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

A few obvious questions to ask before Rumsfeld approves this doctrine: would the Bush Administration be capable of gathering accurate intelligence before launching our nuclear weapons? Would a nuclear strike do more harm than good by sending deadly chemical and biological agents into the atmosphere? And would this new policy push North Korea and Iran to develop nuclear weapons more quickly?

We’re sure Donald Rumsfeld will provide some clear, concise answers.

The AP reports today:

The National Guard is stretched so thin by simultaneous assignments in Iraq and the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast that leaders in statehouses and Congress say it is time to reconsider how the force is used. “¦ The head of the National Guard Bureau said Friday the assignment of thousands of Guard troops from Mississippi and Louisiana to Iraq delayed those states’ initial hurricane response by about a day. “Had that brigade been at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and capabilities could have been brought to bear,” said Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, the bureau’s chief.

And the Washington Post reports that civilian and military leaders say the response could have been quicker had National Guard troops from Louisiana and Mississippi been in their home states rather than Iraq:

In Louisiana and Mississippi, civilian and military leaders said the response to the hurricane was delayed by the absence of the Mississippi National Guard’s 155th Infantry Brigade and Louisiana’s 256th Infantry Brigade, each with thousands of troops in Iraq.

But the administration recognizes this obvious problem and is thinking of policy solutions to address it, right? Wrong. Bush administration officials have gone on a public relations offensive over the last week to incredulously claim that our troops aren’t stretched thin. Here’s what Rice and Rumsfeld have said:

TAVIS SMILEY: There are a lot of folk, and I know you’ve heard this, who believe and it’s been everywhere expressed that this sentiment that the money and other resources that we have been spending on Iraq put us in a situation where we didn’t have the resources available quickly enough to move into the Gulf Coast. Do you accept that?

SECRETARY RICE: No, it’s just not true. Frankly, it’s hogwash. And I’ll use that term very, very clearly. There are plenty of resources to deal with this. There are military resources to deal with it. There were National Guard resources to deal with it.

______

KMOX RADIO: Does that mean we’re stretched a little bit thin?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: No. In fact the implication that we’re stretched thin is an inaccurate one and it ought to be knocked down hard.

So once again, faced with an accountability moment, the Bush administration shucks responsibility and suggests that those who question them just don’t know what they’re talking about.

MICHAEL BROWN, Director of FEMA, 9/6/05:

People want to lash out at me, lash out at FEMA. I think that’s fine. Just lash out, because my job is to continue to save lives.

JACK NICHOLSON, starring as Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men:

I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.

Why are these helicopters being used as a backdrop for President Bush, instead of assisting the victims of Hurricane Katrina?

Why are members of the Coast Guard being used as a backdrop for Bush’s press conference? Don’t they have more important things to do?