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White House Moving The Goal Posts On Escalation, Drops Demands For Iraqi Political Reconciliation
When President Bush announced the escalation on January 10, 2007, he claimed the purpose of adding more troops into Iraq’s civil war was to enable political reconciliation:When this happens, daily life will improve, Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders, and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other [...]

Congress cancels $63 million plane that couldn’t fly.
For the past 20 years, Congress has dumped $63 million into a military plane that the Pentagon “repeatedly rejected, and which never had a successful flight.” Instead, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) allocated earmarks for the plane project, which was created by one of his campaign donors. ABC’s The Blotter reports that the 2008 defense spending [...]

Is The Prospect Of Withdrawal Responsible For The Modest Security Gains In Iraq?
Yesterday, the National Intelligence Estimate reported “measurable but uneven improvements” in the security situation in Iraq. While the White House has rushed to suggest that the modest gains were the result of escalation, the improvement can more plausibly be the product of Iraqi expectations of a U.S. withdrawal. (Some gains have also resulted because large [...]

Putnam’s office deletes embarassing Wikipedia info.
On June 26, someone in Rep. Adam Putnam’s (R-FL) office edited the congressman’s Wikipedia entry, removing information about financial contributions he received from disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL). The person also deleted a comment Putnam made after the 2006 elections, in which he claimed “white rednecks” lost control of Congress for the GOP. Using [...]

Foley likely to face no charges.
Scripps Howard News Service reports that former congressman Mark Foley “is unlikely to face criminal charges for sending sexually explicit e-mails to teenage boys. … That could change if new evidence surfaces in the next week that proved Foley, 52, sent online messages to male teenagers with the intent to ’seduce, solicit, lure, entice, or [...]

Right-Wing Launches Assault Against Warner, Claims He ‘Hurts The Cause Of Freedom’
Yesterday, Sen. John Warner (R-VA), a senior and respected member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called on President Bush to begin a troop withdrawal from Iraq. Warner said Bush should announce in September that a few thousand U.S. troops will return home by the end of the year.Despite the fact that Warner’s call for [...]

The ethics of Philip Zelikow (updated).
Blogger Glenn Greenwald noted that Republican lobbyist Philip Zelikow had been making TV appearances calling for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s ouster without disclosing the fact that he was being paid by Iyad Allawi to lobby for Maliki’s removal. Today, ABC News released a statement stating the Zelikow had not informed them of his conflict [...]

Pentagon launching Iraq ‘war room.’
In advance of the September White House report, the Pentagon is launching “a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week Iraq Communications Desk that will pump out data from Baghdad — serving as what could be considered a campaign war room.” “I would not characterize it as a war room,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said. “It’s far less sinister [...]

‘Spectacular attack’ expected in Iraq in coming weeks.
Today, the Washington Post reports that despite political pressure, the Bush administration “hopes to keep in place its existing military strategy and troop levels there after the mid-September report” by the White House. Several administration officials said that they “expect the insurgents to attempt a spectacular attack in the next several weeks.” UPDATE: The NY [...]

U.S. soldiers disdainful of WH ‘happy talk’ on Iraq.
Soldiers in Iraq “are increasingly disdainful of the happy talk that they say commanders on the ground and White House officials are using in their discussions about the war” and “becoming vocal about their frustration over longer deployments and a taxing mission.” The LA Times writes: Some say two wars are being fought here: the [...]

Despite escalation, Iraqi deaths double.
The Iraqi death toll “from sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace from a year ago.” Compared to an average daily death toll of 33 in 2006, this year’s numbers indicate approximately 62 Iraqis have died war-related deaths each day this year. The AP reports that the recent bloodshed indicates the [...]

Iraq fraud whistleblowers ‘vilified.’
A new AP investigation finds that despite the “staggering mess” plaguing Iraq reconstruction, people who have attempted to blow the whistle and clean up the fraud have been shunned by the federal government: One way to blow the whistle is to file a “qui tam” lawsuit (taken from the Latin phrase “he who sues [...]

Gonzales to be replaced by Chertoff?
U.S. News reports, “The buzz among top Bushies is that beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally plans to depart and will be replaced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Why Chertoff? Officials say he’s got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served [...]

Rep. Baird’s ‘real progress’ in Iraq.
On Friday, Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), who recently returned from a trip to Iraq, wrote an op-ed in the Seattle Times arguing that withdrawal from Iraq “has the potential to turn the initial errors into an even greater problem just as success looks possible.” From the New York Times, an example of such “success“: “That’s [...]

Webb: Unlike Vietnam, Iraq War’s ‘Strategic Objective’ Was Unrelated To Reason For Invasion
In comparing the Vietnam and Iraq wars in a speech last week to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, President Bush implicitly acknowledged that the present course in Iraq bares similarities to the quagmire of Vietnam. Yet the lesson he took from Vietnam was that the United States withdrew too soon, using it as justification to [...]

Allawi paying lobbyists with funds from ‘an Iraqi person.’
In recent days, there has been some speculation in the blogosphere about where Iyad Allawi received the funds to pay for the lobbying services of Barbour Griffith & Rogers. This morning on CNN, Allawi said, “The support we got is from an Iraqi person. I cannot unfortunately divulge his name. ” He added that [...]

Claiming He Failed ‘Reporting 101,’ Wallace Attacks Moyers To Defend Rove
On Friday August 17, PBS’s Bill Moyers criticized Karl Rove for cynically invoking God and Christianity for political purposes while telling others that he is an agnostic, calling him “a skeptic, a secular manipulator.”Two days later, when Rove appeared on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked him to take on Moyers’ criticism. “I’m a [...]

National Guard troops cheer call for Iraq withdrawal.
Speaking to the National Guard Association general conference yesterday, Puerto Rico’s governor said that the Bush administration has “no new strategy and no signs of success” and called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. His comments earned him a standing ovation from the more than 4,000 current and former Air and Army National [...]

Odierno: troop reductions must begin by April ‘08.
Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, commanding general of the coalition forces in Baghdad, suggested that the current escalation could last through April 2008. Speaking on CNN’s Late Edition, Odierno said:I would say, however, though, we all know that the surge of forces was temporary in nature. And we all know that’s going to come to an [...]

Escalation Architect Bemoans Label Of ‘Armchair General,’ Claims Iraqi Deaths Are ‘Way Down’
This weekend on Washington D.C. ABC affiliate’s Capital Sunday, Center for American Progress Iraq analyst Brian Katulis debated American Enterprise Institute’s military analyst — and Iraq escalation architect — Fred Kagan.“Right now, Iraq is in civil war. It’s in fact in multiple civil wars,” Katulis said. “And I don’t think that these military tactics that [...]