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| The Washington battlefield |
| 2003-05-04 |
| For liberalhawk... Lightly EFL The second battleground of the Iraq war is Washington where the conflict sparked a succession of factional power struggles. In 21st century Washington, promising careers are crushed, reputations die, but not people, They stay alive to fight the next battle, and to sabotage one another. Take the recent flap over who will be top honcho in the running and reconstruction of newly liberated Iraq. According to the State Department, the new boss will be Paul Bremer, a former chief of the State Department's Counter-Terrorism Bureau. According to the Pentagon, however, the man in charge is still former Lt. Gen. Jay Garner. Wasn't Bremer supposed to be appointed last week? On his flight to Damascus, Secretary of State Colin Powell would not comment on the stories about Bremer. But coincidentally also in a plane returning from Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld lavished praise on the work Garner was doing, but did not mention Bremer. News of Bremer's appointment was first leaked late last week. The resulting flap is the latest skirmish in the ongoing battle inside the National Security Council where the Pentagon's civilian leaders have fought tooth and nail for control over everything from which Iraqis get invited to town hall meetings (and which do not), to the broadcasters the U.S. government plans to hire for Iraq's new state run media. Both sides routinely accuse the other of supporting ex-Baathists. In the past two weeks, senior Pentagon leaders have whispered to reporters and lawmakers that the intelligence from the CIA was atrocious during Operation Iraqi Freedom. They mention the two apparently failed strikes against Saddam Hussein, and the failure to find the missing leader, who is still believed to be alive and somewhere in his country. Tasting raisins with Osama, I'd say. Meanwhile, the CIA has trashed the Pentagon's favorite Iraqi exile leader, Ahmad Chalabi, for being financially corrupt, too close to the Iranian government and unpopular in Iraq itself. Recent NY Sun had an interesting editorial on this case--seems Chalabi was prosecuted in a court never before used against anyone else, and in fact only set up days before handing down his conviction. The 2004 budget for the Pentagon requests full funding for a new undersecretary of defense to analyze intelligence, a position that would likely formalize the independent analysis the Pentagon provided to the president in the policy debates leading up to new Iraq war. All of which is part of a larger picture of incoherence in the Bush administration's Middle East policy. When President George W. Bush called for "new and different leadership" for the Palestinian Authority, the Pentagon took this as a cue to cultivate leaders with no connections at all to Yasser Arafat. You mean Arafat hasn't killed them all? The State Department, on the other hand, seized the opportunity to recruit Arafat's deputy in the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Abu Mazen. While Abu Mazen has distanced himself from Arafat, the hawks in the administration felt the diplomats had betrayed the president. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said publicly on April 22 what so many hawks had said privately, when he called the new peace plan published this week a "deliberate and systematic effort to undermine the president's policies procedurally." Such statements are dangerously close to alleging treason. But the State Department did not shy away from the rhetorical battle. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Beth Jones called Gingrich "an idiot," while another senior State Department official suggested Gingrich may have forgotten to take his medications. Of course, they could all be right. This nastiness reflects an administration that has yet to settle basic internal debates on vital questions of U.S. national security. For example, there is no consensus on who the enemy is. Senior hawks like Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz would contend America is at war with all states that sponsor terrorist organizations and pursue weapons of mass destruction. Uh, yeah, that's what Bush said. Therefore, America's foreign policy goals should lead eventually to ending these regimes. Powell and the CIA believe such states can be coopted to do America's dirty work against an enemy that is distinct from states, the global terrorist organization. This group would agree with former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot when he said shortly after September 11, 2001: "Al-Qaida is the ultimate NGO." Whether America's diplomats should work with bad states to crack down on worse actors, or work to undermine those states, needs to be resolved. If it is not, expect to see more bickering and even less coherence. First one, then the other. Simple, huh? |
| Posted by:someone |
| #6 Absolultlly agree if a State harbors,protects,suports terrorist then it is a terrorist state,is our enemy and should be treated accordingly. Velvet glove-iron fist |
| Posted by: raptor 2003-05-05 05:46:25 |
| #5 RG117 is right we can no longer overlook the 'unintended consequences' of supporting states that rule in an evil manner. ANyway, as seen in Iraq, you can both smash the evil states and the evil NGO terrorist Islamofascist groups at the SAME TIME creating a better world all round and the new free states will help in keeping it that way. |
| Posted by: Anon1 2003-05-04 20:53:22 |
| #4 All of which is part of a larger picture of incoherence in the Bush administration's Middle East policy. Typical UPI blather. QUESTION: How do the available facts surrounding this sentence lead one to the conclusion that this sentence is a true statement ANSWER: They don't. Sometimes I wonder if their isn't a person at the news Agencies whose job it is to go around inserting statements just like this one, after the piece is complete. Just sticks 'em in anywhere he can. Some guy with a whip who walks around with a little can full of sentences that all authors are obligated to insert somewhere into their stories before they are allowed out on the wire, like: "Bush is stupid and has big ears", "quagmire", "America's incompetent cowboy attitude", "European smart and cultured attitudes", Americans ineptitude and bumbling", "Republican's and Bush are pooh-pooh faces, Democrat's and Clinton are rocking cool". This piece is a perfect example of an over-zealous sentence-adder who really didn't bother to really finess in his anti-Bush statement. |
| Posted by: Becky 2003-05-04 20:41:26 |
| #3 "Senior hawks .... would contend America is at war with all states that sponsor terrorist organizations and pursue weapons of mass destruction" "Powell ..... believe such states can be coopted to do America's dirty work against an enemy that is distinct from states" I'd have to go with the Hawks here. If we are to learn a lesson from history we need to remember that Saddam, Osama, Pakland ISI were all at one point doing the US's / CIA's dirty work and were great friends. In the short term it always looks like a great idea but in the long term they always come back to kick you in the nuts, It's just Karma. You can't go around the world preaching the virtues of freedom and democracy whilst at the same time you're in bed with states that deny that same freedom and democracy. |
| Posted by: rg117 2003-05-04 19:21:14 |
| #2 When President George W. Bush called for "new and different leadership" for the Palestinian Authority, the Pentagon took this as a cue to cultivate leaders with no connections at all to Yasser Arafat. The State Department, on the other hand, seized the opportunity to recruit Arafat's deputy in the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Abu Mazen. I think I've finally figured it out: The Defense department has no qualms in believing that the President is Commander in Chief, but the State Department thinks it knows better than the President. Time to crack the whip and put a few extra crevices into some Foggy Bottoms... |
| Posted by: Ptah 2003-05-04 19:06:10 |
| #1 Sorry, probably should have chopped more. Couldn't find a preview button though! |
| Posted by: someone 2003-05-04 18:51:34 |