When asked to judge the Bush administration this morning during an interview with Fox News’s Chris Wallace, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said “history will judge that” but then immediately began making an attempt to distance himself from President Bush. One area of “disagreement” McCain cited was torture:

McCAIN: I obviously don’t want to torture any prisoners. There’s a long list of areas that we were in disagreement on –

WALLACE: You’re not suggesting he did want to torture prisoners.

McCAIN: Well, waterboarding to me is torture, OK? And waterboarding was advocated by the administration and, according to published reports, was used. But the point is, we’ve had our disagreements.

Watch it:

McCain seems to forget that he voted against a bill that would have banned the CIA from using waterboarding. In fact, when the bill passed, McCain urged Bush to veto it, which he did. Thus, McCain’s claim that he “obviously doesn’t want to torture prisoners” rings hollow. Indeed, because of Bush’s veto, the CIA retains the option of waterboarding prisoners:

Still, waterboarding remains in the CIA’s tool kit. The technique can be used, but it requires the consent of the attorney general and president on a case-by-case basis. Bush wants to keep that option open.

“I cannot sign into law a bill that would prevent me, and future presidents, from authorizing the CIA to conduct a separate, lawful intelligence program, and from taking all lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack,” Bush said in a statement.

McCain also said he differed from Bush on climate change, yet he plans to run on the GOP’s election platform, which is “loaded with caveats about the uncertainty of science and the need to ‘resist no-growth radicalism’ in taking on climate change.”

“I’ve been called a quote maverick,” McCain told Wallace, arguing his point. Yet McCain and his conservative allies have yet to indicate how his administration would be anything but a third Bush term.

Transcript: Read more

This summer, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and his surrogates spent weeks assaulting Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) for traveling to Iraq just once while a senator. “Sen. Obama has been to Iraq once,” McCain said, “this is about leadership and learning.” “Why is it that Senator Obama wants to sit down with the President of Iran, but hasn’t yet sat down with General Petraeus?” he charged in May.

It seems that new VP pick Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) isn’t receiving the same scrutiny for her thin foreign policy resume. On CNN yesterday, Wolf Blitzer asked Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) about Palin’s foreign policy background, particularly where she has traveled abroad. Graham didn’t know the answer but said it didn’t matter:

Q: Has she met with world leaders like you have, like Biden has? Has she really gone around the world and done any of those things?

GRAHAM: I don’t know where she’s traveled to…But it’s not meeting people that matters. You know, President Bush met President Putin. And I don’t think it matters just meeting people. You look at people’s judgment.

Watch it:

As ThinkProgress noted, Palin has never been to Iraq, failing a central component of McCain’s commander in chief test. Speaking with Time Magazine earlier this month, Palin expressed little substantive knowledge about Iraq policy, admitting that she does not know “what the plan is to ever end the war.” “Let’s make sure we have a plan here,” she pressed:

[My son] is 19, he’ll be gone for a year, and thats quite tough too, kind of on a personal level when I talk about, hmmm, the plan for the war? You know, lets make sure we have a plan here? And respecting McCain’s position on that too though.

In the interview with Blitzer, Graham said Palin’s experience in Alaska is sufficient for her to tackle the world’s largest country. “Gov. Palin took on Ted Stevens. If she can take him on, she can take on the Russians. Heh,” he said.

Chris Hayes reports that Sarah Palin was a supporter of Pat Buchanan’s 2000 presidential bid. Quoting from a 1999 AP story:

Pat Buchanan brought his conservative message of a smaller government and an America First foreign policy to Fairbanks and Wasilla on Friday as he continued a campaign swing through Alaska. Buchanan’s strong message championing states rights resonated with the roughly 85 people gathered for an Interior Republican luncheon in Fairbanks. … Among those sporting Buchanan buttons were Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin and state Sen. Jerry Ward, R-Anchorage.

This opens up a whole cornucopeia of policy questions for Palin to answer, such as:

- Where does Gov. Palin stand on Buchanan’s strident opposition to American military interventionism, especially given John McCain’s promise of “other wars” in America’s immediate future?

- Does Gov. Palin still agree with Buchanan that “the ideology of free trade is [an] alien import, an invention of European academics and scribblers”?

- Does Gov. Palin still agree with Buchanan that Capitol Hill is “Israeli-occupied territory“?

- Does Gov. Palin still agree with Buchanan that “there is a religious war going on in our country…a cultural war as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as the Cold War itself”? Or, like John McCain, does she just see culture war issues as things to be exploited in order to get elected?

Americans want to know!

UPDATE: On Morning Joe today, Mika Brzezinski noted that Palin was Buchanan’s Alaska state director. Watch it:

Looking at OnTheIssues.org, here’s what we find on the national security positions of John McCain’s choice for vice-president:

Sarah Palin on Foreign Policy:

No issue stance yet recorded by OnTheIssues.org.

Sarah Palin on War and Peace:

No issue stance yet recorded by OnTheIssues.org.

Sarah Palin on Homeland Security:

Promote from within, in Alaska’s National Guard. (Nov 2006)

In an attempt to bind himself to the extreme social conservative base of his party and make news with an unknown, stunt VP pick, McCain has shortchanged the issue which he himself insists is the most important — national security.

Remember — seems like years ago now, way back before the entire Iraqi government endorsed Barack Obama’s plan for Iraq — when John McCain and his flunkies were attacking Obama for having been to Iraq only once? Though she did visit Alaska National Guard troops stationed in Kuwait in 2007, Sarah Palin has apparently been to Iraq…never.

We’d like to perform Wonk Room’s mission and examine Gov. Palin’s views on foreign policy, but no record of such views appears to exist. While we appreciate that Gov. Palin’s son is preparing to deploy to Iraq, and we recognize her accomplishments in defending Alaska from Russian colonization and polar bear attacks over the last year and a half, there is as yet no evidence on the question of Palin’s approach to America’s national security.

Yesterday evening, ThinkProgress spoke with Lieut. Gen, Harry Soyster and Ret. Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, at a Human Rights First reception honoring retired generals who have spoken out against President Bush’s torture policies. Soyster criticized Bush’s veto of a bill banning the CIA from waterboarding — a veto Sen. John McCain supported. Soyster said one clear standard on torture was needed:

SOYSTER: Our position is, all of us, that we need one standard for the United Sates. And because the Central Intelligence Agency has authorized torture, then Americans are torturing. It doesn’t matter where your paycheck comes from.

Taguba reiterated Soyster’s critique of Bush’s torture policies, and also slammed the Pentagon’s military analyst program, which the New York Times revealed in April. He said he found it “incredible” that generals would agree to be the Pentagon’s spokesmen, and said military “experts” should do their own research:

TAGUBA: You can probably provide an expert opinion, but you always have to preface that by saying, ‘Nobody told me to say these things.’

TP: What if someone did tell you to say those things? Then you shouldn’t be saying them?

TAGUBA: You shouldn’t be saying them. We should take bold measures to provide our own perspective through your own research. That’s why they call you an expert. They don’t call you an expert because they fed you information. That means you’re just a talking head. You don’t want to be a talking head. Do your own research.

In fact, the participants in the Pentagon program were explicitly prohibited from following Taguba’s urging: to say explicitly whether they were repeating someone else’s facts. As the Times report revealed, “The access came with a condition. Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon.”

In an interview with Time magazine this week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) declared that Iraq “is a peaceful and stable country now.” ThinkProgress spoke with Reps. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Robert Wexler (D-FL) at the Democratic National Convention today, and asked them their response to McCain’s assertion. Wexler was incredulous, declaring, “He’s just dead wrong”:

WEXLER: Sen McCain’s judgment unfortunately has become so mistaken on so many things, and this is yet another example of his apparently not understanding the facts on the ground whatsoever. There still is a totally unacceptable level of killing in Iraq. There has been in effect ethnic cleansing in Iraq where religious groups are totally separated from one another. How he can call Iraq — what did you say he called it?

TP: A peaceful and stable country.

WEXLER: It is the furthest thing from a peaceful and stable country. And I guess if in fact he’s right then why do we have 150,000 troops there? We ought to bring them all home as quickly as possible even under his logic. He’s just dead wrong.

Ellison agreed, calling McCain’s assessment “ridiculous.” He noted that “the people of Iraq probably would not agree with that”:

ELLISON: I’d say the people of Iraq probably would not agree with that. Besides the ongoing warfare, death, destruction, people dying every single day…there still is no system of clean sewage, water, electricity. People are still living in dire circumstances. People are still suffering every day. … That’s ridiculous. It just goes to prove that this guy does not get it.

McCain’s rosy view — which comes in the same week that suicide bombs killed at least 65 Iraqis — is dangerously inaccurate.

In a recent TIME interview, McCain defended his support for the war by declaring “I can only imagine what Saddam Hussein would be doing with the wealth he would acquire with oil at $110 and $120 a barrel.”

The key word here is “imagine,” because if the U.S. hadn’t invaded Iraq, it’s very likely that oil wouldn’t be anywhere near $120 a barrel. According to a leading oil economist, the Iraq war “tripled the price of oil…costing the world a staggering $6 trillion in higher energy prices alone”:

Dr Mamdouh Salameh, who advises both the World Bank and the UN Industrial Development Organisation (Unido), told The Independent…that the price of oil would now be no more than $40 a barrel, less than a third of the record $135 a barrel reached last week, if it had not been for the Iraq war.

As I wrote a few weeks ago when Christopher Hitchens first trotted out this crude ex post facto casus belli, it is patently ridiculous to defend the Iraq war on the grounds that it prevented Saddam Hussein from profiting from the skyrocketing oil prices that have resulted from the war to remove Saddam Hussein.

Our guest blogger is Maggie Fick, Special Assistant at the ENOUGH Project.

Early on Monday morning, some 60 vehicles filled with Sudanese forces, reportedly in search of smuggled weapons, surrounded the Kalma camp for internally displaced persons in South Darfur. When the camp residents tried to block the Sudanese forces from entering, government forces opened fire. Against a wall of gunfire, some civilians tried to defend themselves with ‘sticks, knives, and spears.’

Kalma is home to more than 90,000 people, making it one of the largest camps for internally displaced people in the world. The Sudanese military’s attack left some 64 people dead and more than 115 wounded. Victims ranged from 11 to 60 years old, and the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders treated 65 patients with gunshot wounds in the camp. Joint United Nations-African Union (UNAMID) peacekeepers stationed near the camp did not intervene, and, with Sudanese forces still surrounding the camp, the threat of further atrocities is acute.

In the wake of this attack, the U.S. Department of State expressed its “concern [over] indiscriminate weapons fire” on civilians by Sudanese government forces and preposterously called on the Government of Sudan to “thoroughly investigate this incident and ensure that such actions are not repeated.” The United States has accused Sudan of genocide. Would the Justice Department, I wonder, call on a serial killer to investigate his own crimes?

The fecklessness of the State Department’s response to the Sudanese government’s latest atrocities is all the more conspicuous in the context of the administration’s forceful condemnation of Russia’s aggression in Georgia. President Bush and other cabinet officials have, on numerous occasions since the conflict began on August 7, “deplored” Russia’s actions in Georgia and threatened “consequences” for Russian aggression. Yes, the Russia-Georgia conflict has major geopolitical ramifications, and so the Bush administration has adopted a tough tone in its response. The question, then, is why the State Department puts on kid gloves in response to atrocities, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Sudan.

While the State Department’s limp rhetoric is deplorable, the world’s failure to protect civilians in Darfur remains indefensible. Activists have spent much of the past four years lobbying for a United Nations peacekeeping mission with a mandate to protect civilians in Darfur, and nearly 10,000 of a planned 26,000 peacekeepers are on the ground. Where were the peacekeepers while Kalma was under siege? The reasons are not entirely clear, but UN forces stationed just kilometers away did not get to Kalma until hours after the attack. UNAMID reported that their team was “delayed by a checkpoint and protracted negotiations with Sudanese security authorities.”

Although UN forces certainly could have acted more boldly in response to the attack on Kalma, the finger of blame for the UN’s deficiencies in Darfur rests squarely with UN member states, as troop contributing countries have deployed a force with no deterrent capabilities. No matter how brave, peacekeepers armed with AK-47s, riding in a Toyota pick-up, and lacking air support are no match for a national army with armored personnel carriers and the latest heavy weapons from China. While diplomats come up with excuses why not to send troops and equipment to bolster UNAMID’s strength, how many more Kalmas before they stand up and say “enough is enough”?

Yesterday, Sen. John McCain promoted his veterans private health care “plastic card” in a speech to the American Legion. Though he insisted the “card is not intended to either replace the VA or privatize veterans’ health care,” veterans groups aren’t buying it. AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars all argue McCain’s scheme may undermine the VA.

Today ThinkProgress spoke to Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director and Founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, at the Democratic National Convention. When we asked him what he thought of McCain’s private health card plan, Rieckhoff slammed McCain for blocking funding for the VA:

Basically every major veterans group is opposed to it so far, so I think that pretty much says it all. We’ve got to come up with a comprehensive solution to VA health care, and that starts with VA funding. Sen. McCain has consistently voted against expansion of VA funding. So if he says the VA’s not working, it’s in part because he hasn’t funded it properly. … A lot of vets groups are going to push back against the card because it may be on the path toward privatization. So we’ve got to really make the VA as strong as it can be, and that should be our priority.

Despite his repeated claims to the contrary, McCain’s record on veterans health funding is disappointing to say the least:

– Voted AGAINST providing $430 million to the VA for outpatient care “and treatment for veterans,” one of only 13 senators to do so. [4/26/06]

– Voted AGAINST increasing VA funding by $1.5 billion by closing corporate loopholes. [3/14/06]

– Voted AGAINST increasing VA funding by $1.8 billion by ending “abusive tax loopholes.” [3/10/04]

McCain can try to convince veterans groups that he opposes privatization, but considering his disdain for government-sponsored health care, it’s no surprise he wants to put veterans health into the hands of private business.

In the wake of John McCain’s latest tacit admission that he’s got nothing to offer Americans other than fear itself — last month it was Iran, last week it was Russia, today it’s Iran again — it’s worth pointing out that John McCain and his foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann have a longstanding relationship with an Iranian collaborator.

I’m referring of course to Ahmad Chalabi, the notorious Iraqi former exile who was the source of much of the bad WMD intelligence used by the Bush administration to justify the Iraq war. Chalabi has now been effectively disavowed by the administration because of his connections to Iranian regime, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, who the U.S. has designated a “foreign terrorist organization.”

McCain and Scheunemann were early supporters of Chalabi. In 1998, on the basis of an erroneous WMD report which Scheunemann had leaked to Chalabi — and which Chalabi then leaked to the press — McCain led the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act. The act made regime change in Iraq the official policy of the U.S government, and authorized the release millions of U.S. dollars to Chalabi’s organization, the Iraqi National Congress, much of which remains unaccounted for.

Scheunemann was a major player in the neoconservative faction that saw an Iraq war as a necessary first step in reordering the security architecture of the Middle East, and who saw the 9/11 attacks as an opportunity to realize that goal. Scheunemann served as president of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), a front organization founded in 2002 in collaboration with members of the Bush administration to lobby for an Iraq invasion. CLI worked closely with Chalabi’s INC, and McCain served as an honorary co-chair of CLI.

In June 2004, the New York Times reported that, according to U.S. intelligence officials, Chalabi had “disclosed to an Iranian official that the United States had broken the secret communications code of Iran’s intelligence service, betraying one of Washington’s most valuable sources of information about Iran.”

In his book on Chalabi, investigative reporter Aram Roston quoted CIA analyst Whitley Bruner, who believes Chalabi to have been an “agent of influence” of Iran:

It became a question to me: what were his long-term objectives, and where, other than himself, are there allegiances? I think when he thinks big, Iran plays a major role. I guess I come belatedly to the idea that there was a very close sense of identity with Chalabi in terms of Iran, and a very emotional tie. Whereas the Americans were always just a means to an end. We were much more of an instrument. The Iranian role was long-term.

Newsday’s Knute Royce reported that “The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that a U.S.-funded arm of Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress has been used for years by Iranian intelligence…to pass disinformation to the United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets.”

Ahmad Chalabi viewed the United States, and the men and women of the American military, as mere instruments for the achieving of his goals. This is the man who John McCain defended as “a patriot.” An INC representative recently described Scheunemann and Chalabi as “close friends.”

In a sane world, McCain and Scheunemann’s longstanding relationship with a man whose betrayal of U.S. secrets very likely got American soldiers killed would disqualify both of them from any position related to U.S national security. But because of McCain’s special relationship with the press, he’ll probably be given another pass over the fact that he and Randy got played.

The telecommunications giant AT&T is “virtually everywhere” at the Democratic convention this week, “wining and feeding delegates and members of Congress with a relentless schedule of luncheons and evening celebrations.” The Texas-based company threw a special party outside the Mile High Station for its biggest supporters:

On Monday, AT&T threw an exclusive party for the Blue Dogs, the House’s moderate and conservative Democrats, at the historic Mile High Station in downtown Denver. Among the guests was House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who in June led Blue Dogs in crafting a compromise bill that shielded telecommunications companies from lawsuits arising from the government’s terrorism-era warrantless eavesdropping.

Hoyer spokeswoman Stacey Bernards said Hoyer was not aware of any connection between the party and his work on the legislation.

“I’m sure Mr. Hoyer didn’t even know who the sponsor was,” she said.

Leading the Blue Dog Democrats, Hoyer was “the point man” in negotiations over the new FISA law that Congress passed and Bush signed last month. He helped secure retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies (including AT&T), thereby condoning their participation in Bush’s illegal spying program.

The president paid “special tribute” to Hoyer for his work in passing the legislation. While Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) called the legislation “one of the greatest assaults on the Constitution…in the history of our country,” Hoyer heralded it as a “significant victory.” And he has earned the telecommunication companies’ special thanks this week at the DNC convention.

AT&T is also a major donor to the Republican convention next week, where it will also host a series of events.

Update

,Matt Stoller flagged this notice on Sunday:

In an interview with former NBA star Charles Barkley today, CNN host Wolf Blitzer discussed the respective tax plans being offered by Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain. This is the on-screen graphic that CNN displayed during the interview, which the network represented as the “average tax bill change”:

The graphic above only displays the “average tax change” on incomes above $161,000 – the top five percent of income earners in the nation. The graphic is therefore deceptive and misleading, as it suggests that McCain’s tax plan offers a greater benefit than Obama’s. In reality, for most Americans, Obama’s tax plan would offer three times the benefit.

Here’s the impact of McCain and Obama’s tax plan on incomes below $161,000 – the part that CNN left out:

Using his deceptive chart, Blizter tried – but failed – to get Barkley to voice his opposition to an increase in taxes on the wealthiest Americans to pay for national priorities:

BLITZER: If Obama has his way, you would spend another $701,885 in taxes. $700,000 above and beyond – you pay a lot of taxes right now if you’re making millions of dollars a year as you are. How do you feel about that?

BARKLEY: Well, I think that if you’re rich — I thank God I’ve been very successful — if you’re rich, you’re always going to be rich. If we pay more in taxes, I got no problem with that. If you’re making that kind of money, a couple hundred thousand dollars here or there are not going to change your life.

Let’s be realistic. I’ve been very fortunate and blessed. I did a great job of saving my money. But I got no problem if I’m making that type of money, paying more in taxes to be honest with you.

Watch it: Read more

There are a number of questions one could ask about Michael Rubin’s Washington Post op-ed this morning attacking Senator Joe Biden’s past judgment on Iran. Such as: Given that Biden has, for five of the last seven years, been a member of the minority in the Senate, how dumb is it to blame him for the fact that President Bush has no coherent Iran policy? Monumentally dumb? Or just profoundly dumb? And given that Rubin, who formerly worked in the Office of Special Plans and now works out of the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, is up to his ears in the Iraq debacle, and thus is himself an accessory to the spread of Iran’s influence throughout the region, should one really ever assume that Rubin argues in good faith?

While mulling those questions, consider what Rubin writes here:

Between 2000 and 2005, in an effort to engage Iran, European Union trade with that country nearly tripled. Yet far from assuming a moderate posture, “the elected representatives in Iran” allocated nearly 70 percent of the hard currency windfall into military and nuclear programs.

What could have happened between 2000 and 2005 that might have undermined Iranian moderates, strengthened Iran’s own neoconservatives, and convinced the regime that a greater investment in its military and nuclear program was prudent? Well, there was President Bush’s casting of Iran as a member of the “axis of evil,” which came three months after Iran had aided the U.S. against their mutual enemy the Taliban in Afghanistan. According to Ismail Gerami-Moghaddam, a member of Iran’s moderate Reformist Party, “Including Iran in the ‘axis of evil’ led the Iranian people to grow increasingly skeptical of American slogans”:

Our political rivals … attacked us. They said sympathizing with a country that puts us in the “axis of evil” will take you down a dead-end road, and they were actually correct.

And then later, of course, there was that thing where the U.S. invaded and occupied Iran’s neighbor Iraq.

But getting back to counter-productive rhetoric, Rubin writes:

In the Dec. 7, 2007, official sermon, Ayatollah Mohammad Kashani speaking on behalf of Iran’s supreme leader, declared, “This Senator [Biden] correctly says Israel could not suppress Hizbullah in Lebanon, so how can the U.S. stand face-to-face with a nation of 70 million? This is the blessing of the Guardianship of the Jurists [the theocracy] . . . which plants such thoughts in the hearts of U.S. senators and forces them to make such confessions.” The crowd met his statement with refrains of “Death to America.”

As Ilan Goldenberg notes, Rubin is basically suggesting that American politicians should avoid criticizing policies they disagree with, because of the possibility that that criticism may be used as enemy propaganda. (What do you think the odds are on Rubin following his own advice under a Democratic administration?)

Here’s what Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, speaking for himself, said this past June:

Look at behavior of the US president and members of his team, their words are like those of the mentally ill… Sometimes they threaten, sometimes they order assassinations … and sometimes they ask for help – it’s like mad people staggering to and fro.

Devastatingly for Rubin’s thesis, Khamenei criticized the Bush administration without any signaling whatsoever from Joe Biden.

Finishing off the article with a touch of class, Rubin labels Biden “Tehran’s favorite senator.” Given that AEI’s various goofy schemes for reordering the Middle East have thus far succeeded only in extending Iran’s influence in the region, it’s not hard to guess which is Tehran’s favorite think tank.

Yesterday, CAP’s Brian Katulis appeared on CSPAN’s Washington Journal to discuss recent developments in Iraq with John Nagl of the Center for a New American Security. Here, Katulis suggests an explanation for why declining violence has not led to political progress among Iraq’s leaders:

Transcript:

KATULIS: The notion of the surge, that if we decrease violence and make people feel more secure, would lead to political transition and progress on that front, I think we should question it. Because if you look at key fundamentals, if you look at what the surge has actually done, it may have in fact frozen into place a very fractured and fragmented country.

A key feature of the surge, for instance, was providing support to the Sons of Iraq — an independent security force, largely Sunni, but with some Shiites involved. I worry that the story of Iraq since 2003 has been a story of a country that has fractured and fragmented, and what happened during the surge, in a sense, [was that] rather than creating greater incentives for the different Iraqi factions to come together on the key issues that still remain unresolved — Kirkuk, Article 140, the oil law, the budget, a whole host of issues — rather than achieving progress, we may have actually impeded it by freezing into place a very divided society.

Recent reports of the Iraqi government’s military offensive against leaders of the Sunni Awakenings underlines Katulis’s point about the downside of the surge strategy. By empowering these Sunni militias, many of whom were former insurgents and allies of Al Qaeda, the U.S. created alternative, competing bases of power to the Shia-dominated Iraqi central government. Whether this strategy would translate into stable Iraqi state hinged on the question of whether the government of Nouri al-Maliki would be willing to accommodate these militias, either by incorporating them into the Iraqi security services, or providing them other jobs. The offensive against the Awakenings indicates that the the answer to that question is “No”: Read more

Last Thursday, the U.S. endorsed a draft agreement that would remove “combat troops from Iraqi cities by next June and from the rest of the country by the end of 2011.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe both told reporters that the 2011 date was an “aspirational timeline.”

But Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki doesn’t view it as “aspirational.” In a speech to tribal leaders today, Maliki said that the U.S. and Iraq have reached an agreement on “a fixed date” for withdrawal:

Iraqi Prime Minister Prime Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday that an agreement had been reached in negotiations on a security pact with the United States to end any foreign military presence in Iraq by the end of 2011.

“There is an agreement actually reached, reached between the two parties on a fixed date which is the end of 2011 to end any foreign presence on Iraqi soil,” Maliki said in a speech to tribal leaders in the Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.

As ThinkProgress has previously noted, the Bush administration has spent years demonizing the concept of a timetable for withdrawing troops. In fact, Bush has bashed the very language that Maliki is now using:

“Earlier this week, I vetoed the bill Congress sent me because it set a fixed date to begin to pull out of Iraq, imposed unworkable conditions on our military commanders, and included billions of dollars in spending unrelated to the war.” [Bush, 5/5/07]

“Here is what Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently told Congress: Setting a fixed date to withdraw would ‘essentially tell [the enemy] how long they would have to wait until we’re gone.’ [Bush, 3/17/07]

“If we were to listen to the Democrats in Washington, D.C. who say, let’s have a fixed date of withdrawal — by the way, that’s code word for saying, leave before the job is done — we would turn over this important country to radicals and extremists who would plot and plan and attack.” [Bush, 10/26/06]

As they have lurched closer to accepting a fixed timetable for withdrawal, the Bush administration has bent over backwards to avoid describing it as such. First, they claimed they were only discussing a “general time horizon.” Now, it’s “aspirational timelines.” What euphemism will they come up with next?

Yesterday, the U.S. agreed to remove combat troops from Iraqi cities by next June and from the country by the end of 2011. According to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the two countries agreed on forming “aspirational timetables” for withdrawal:

We have agreed that some goals, some aspirational timetables for how that might unfold, are well worth having in such an agreement.

Although the 2011 target is “prospective,” the embrace of a timetable is a significant development for an administration that has for five years disparaged those advocating any fixed schedule or date for withdrawal.

It is unclear, however, where Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) will stand, as he has marched in lockstep with Bush in railing against any use of “timetables.” In January, for example, McCain said of Mitt Romney’s advocacy of a timeline, “Timetables was the buzzword for those that wanted to get out.” McCain has demagogued the issue, hammering anyone who advocates any form of timetables:

– “If you pass a resolution…that dictates withdrawal and a time for withdrawal, all you’re doing is telling the enemy, ‘hang on, we’re leaving.’” [March 2007]

– “If you set a date for withdrawal, then the consequences of failure are catastrophic.” [8/20/07]

– “An artificial timetable based on political expediency would have led to disaster and could still turn success into defeat.” [7/19/08]

– “They’ll come home with honor. And it won’t be just at a set timetable.” [7/22/08]

In July, after McCain said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s 16-month withdrawal timeline was a “pretty good timetable,” he quickly distanced himself from the “buzzword,” telling ABC two days later, “I didn’t use the word timetable.”

Iraqi and U.S. leaders seem to be agree on the idea of a timetable for reducing the U.S. presence. Will McCain smear the compromise as advocating “defeat” and “surrender” in Iraq?

Digg It!

Our guest bloggers are Lawrence Korb, Senior Fellow, and Laura Conley, Special Assistant for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

In his two terms in office, President Bush has managed to turn a budget surplus of $236 billion in 2000 into a projected deficit of $482 billion in 2009. Last month, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, senior economic adviser to Senator John McCain (R-AZ), submitted the presumptive Republican nominee’s budget proposal to the Washington Post editorial board. In it, McCain proposes to balance the federal budget by 2013, in part by curbing defense expenditures. While there is certainly a need to cut wasteful and unnecessary spending in the Pentagon budget, this proposal is a tepid effort at best.

Holtz-Eakin suggests that McCain will achieve $470 billion in savings in the entire federal budget in 2013. He proposes to save $150 billion by reducing deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan by as much as half and another $160 billion from “slower discretionary spending in non-defense and Pentagon procurements.” While he indicates that a number of defense procurements can be terminated, he specifies only three: the C-17 Globemaster, the Airborne Laser (ABL), and the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS). Unfortunately for McCain, these three programs provide nowhere near enough savings to meet his proposed $160 billion reduction.

- The C-17 Globemaster, which provides the U.S. military with intercontinental airlift capabilities, should be a target for budget cuts. The Department of Defense (DOD) noted in its FY2009 budget justification that “There are sufficient C-17s to support our nation’s military airlift requirements as determined by the 2005 Mobility Capabilities Study.” Despite continued efforts by politicians and members of the Air Force to continue C-17 production, the DOD requested only $935 million in funding for support and equipment for the planes in the FY2009 budget. There is currently no money allocated in the DODs’ regular budget for FY2010 – 2013 for new aircraft, so terminating the program would yield zero savings.

- The Airborne Laser (ABL) program offers an opportunity for genuine but minimal savings. The ABL is designed to give the U.S. military the capability to destroy ballistic missiles soon after launch using a plane-mounted laser system. In FY2008, the DOD projected $970 million in spending on this program for FY2013, plus $57 million in program support funding. Thus, if McCain terminated this program in 2013, he could expect to save slightly more than $1 billion.

- The Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) offers the greatest potential for budget savings. FCS consists of a group of fourteen high technology manned and unmanned vehicles and systems designed to support the transition of the army to a more flexible, easily deployable force. Although completion of the FCS could consume substantial funding in the long-term, terminating funding for the project in 2013 would yield $8.1 billion in savings. This includes about $6.8 billion in saved procurement costs and approximately $1.3 billion from research and development funding in FY2013.

McCain’s plan offers unrealistic expectations for the amount that could be saved from the ABL, Globemaster, and FCS. Together, the cancellation of these initiatives would net approximately $9.1 billion dollars in FY2013. If McCain hopes to cut $160 billion in government procurement, he will have to offer to cut many more and larger defense programs, such as the National Missile Defense Program or the Joint Strike Fighter, or make more than $150 billion in reductions in non-defense discretionary programs.

Also dubious is McCain’s proposal to save $150 billion through reduced deployments of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to CBO projections, about $82 billion could be saved in FY2013 if the U.S. dropped the number of troops in both countries from 200,000 to 75,000 by FY2013. This represents slightly more than half of McCain’s target savings. However, the candidate’s own policies call into question his ability to deliver these cuts. As long as McCain refuses to commit to a timetable for the withdrawal of the 140,000 U.S. troops from Iraq, it is disingenuous for him or his advisers to project any savings, much less an unjustifiable $150 billion, from their safe return home, especially since he also wants to send at least 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

After years of budget deficits driven by poor economic choices and failed security policies in the Middle East, the presidential candidates must address seriously how they intend to deal with America’s growing budget deficits. McCain’s proposal barely scratches the surface.

Yesterday, the McCain campaign held a press call trying to make an issue of former U.S. ambassador to Israel/current Barack Obama adviser Daniel Kurtzer’s attending a legal conference in Damascus. McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann and Ru9y Giul1an1 both did their best to spin Kurtzer’s presence in Syria in the most sinister way possible, but unfortunately for Team McCain, the only traction the story has gotten thus far has focused on reporter Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency being cut off when he confronted Scheunemann and Giuliani on their history of lobbying for various foreign interests.

The McCain campaign’s own incompetence appears for the moment to have thrown a wrench into their attempt to throw dirt on the reputation and judgment of a respected former ambassador to Israel. Scheunemann and Giuliani strongly implied that Kurtzer was involved in “covert” negotiations with the Syrian regime on Obama’s behalf, when in fact all Kurtzer appears to have done was voice his support for continuing Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations. Joe Klein writes that “the McCain campaign and its neoconservative allies have expanded their foolish bellicosity to Syria and are now criticizing a sometime Obama adviser for…saying that it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the next U.S. President to promote an Israel-Syrian peace accord”:

In this case McCain and the neocons–with their extremely warped view of Israel’s best interests–are considerably to their right of the Israeli government, which has been negotiating with the Syrians under Turkish auspices.

Heather Hurlburt adds:

When the McCain campaign goes after an Orthodox Jew, former dean of Yeshiva U., career diplomat who was the Bush Administration’s ambassador to Israel on 9-11, was caricatured in anti-Semitic cartoons in the Cairo press during his tenure as Ambassador to Egypt, where he bravely was a public face of Orthodoxy, and is the Commissioner of the Israeli Baseball League (you can’t make this stuff up), for doing something the Israeli government is already doing (talking to Syrians), will someone please tell me exactly how this country is supposed to have a diplomatic establishment?

As Steve Benen and Max Bergmann both note, John McCain was for engagement with Syria before he was against it. Currently, the only sort of US-Syria relationship that John McCain supports involves rendering CIA detainees to Syria to be tortured.

Our guest blogger is Colin Cookman, Special Assistant for National Security at American Progress.

In the deadliest ground combat exchange between international forces and Afghanistan insurgents since the 2001 U.S. invasion, 10 members of an elite French paratroop unit were ambushed and killed in fighting with over a hundred Taliban fighters. Another 21 French soldiers were wounded in the battle, which took place only 30 miles east of Kabul. The French casualties coincided with another sustained Taliban attack, as a group of Taliban fighters launched waves of mortar and rocket attacks on Forward Operating Base Salerno, in eastern Khost province, as cover for attempted suicide bomb attacks by between 10 and 15 militants. On Monday, Afghanistan’s independence day, a suicide car bomber attempted to breach Salerno’s gates, killing at least a dozen Afghan laborers near the entrance.

The sophistication and scale of these attacks are another sign that the security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating badly. This deterioration has been borne out in public opinion: a new CBS News/New York Times poll found that 58% of those surveyed believe the conflict in Afghanistan is going badly, compared to 28% who perceived it to be going well. Contrast that with the situation in 2003, when only 14% believed things were going badly and 76% thought they were going well, and it’s apparent how much has changed in the five years since the Bush administration diverted its attention to Iraq. 2008 is on track to surpass 2007 as the deadliest year in Afghanistan since military operations began there in 2001, and international coalition death tolls there have surpassed those in Iraq for the past two months, a trend likely to continue through August. Read more