Democracy for Vancouver

Too much truthiness in the news this morning. First, from the WaPo, Experts Doubt Drop in Violence in Iraq:

The U.S. military’s claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends.
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Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. “If a bullet went through the back of the head, it’s sectarian,” the official said. “If it went through the front, it’s criminal.”

“Depending on which numbers you pick,” he said, “you get a different outcome.” Analysts found “trend lines . . . going in different directions” compared with previous years, when numbers in different categories varied widely but trended in the same direction. “It began to look like spaghetti.”

From Salon, Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction:

CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers…

On April 23, 2006, CBS’s “60 Minutes” interviewed Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe, who disclosed that the agency had received documentary intelligence from Naji Sabri, Saddam’s foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD. “We continued to validate him the whole way through,” said Drumheller. “The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy.”

Now two former senior CIA officers have confirmed Drumheller’s account to me and provided the background to the story of how the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it. They described what Tenet said to Bush about the lack of WMD, and how Bush responded, and noted that Tenet never shared Sabri’s intelligence with then Secretary of State Colin Powell. According to the former officers, the intelligence was also never shared with the senior military planning the invasion, which required U.S. soldiers to receive medical shots against the ill effects of WMD and to wear protective uniforms in the desert.

From AFP, Iraq security forces cannot stand alone: US Report:

Iraq’s military is at least 12-18 months away from assuming combat duties from US soldiers, while its police force is so corrupt that it should be abolished, an independent report said Thursday.

A 20-member commission led by retired Marine General James Jones, the former top US commander in Europe, said Iraqi forces were improving, “but not at a rate sufficient to meet their essential security responsibilities.”

The congressionally mandated assessment also delivered a scathing indictment of Iraq’s police force, saying it was crippled by sectarianism, and said the force’s overarching Ministry of Interior was “a ministry in name only.”
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For some time to come, Iraq’s military will continue to rely on the US-led coalition for combat duties, logistical support and training, the report said.

“The commission assesses that in the next 12 to 18 months there will be continued improvement in their readiness and capability, but not the ability to operate independently,” it said.
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The commission concluded that the 26,000-strong police force needs to be purged of corrupt officers and Shiite militants suspected of complicity in sectarian killings, and reshaped into a smaller, more elite organization.
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“Sectarianism in its units undermines its ability to provide security; the force is not viable in its current form. The National Police should be disbanded and reorganized.”

I think we can safely assume that Petraeus will tell Bush everything is hunky-dory, the surge is working, GO TEAM GO!

At this point I can’t decide which should come first: Impeachment or getting the hell out of Iraq. Impeachment would certainly lead to a pullout, but I’m not sure a pullout would lead to impeachment (because the Dems would, as in the case of Abu Gonzales, lose any enthusiasm for investigation of the lies that gave us the war once the war was over).

But the Dems have to get off their asses and do something. We are living in a banana republic that can’t manage to keep track of its nukes, with an economy and military and health care system that are falling apart all around us. If the Dems don’t show some leadership, the country is in such disarray that a strong Daddy and an attack on evildoers in Iran might start to look like a good idea to the sheep who just want to be taken care of.

Are you listening, Harry Reid? Speaker Pelosi?