As Al Jazeera reported today:

Iraq's prime minister has threatened to disarm Shia militias and Sunni fighters by force if they refuse to lay down their weapons.

The tough talk from Nuri al-Maliki, who launched a crackdown on Shia groups last month, came as at least 13 people died on Wednesday in the latest clashes in Baghdad's Sadr City.

Al-Maliki said that the al-Mahdi army of Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shia leader, along with groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq must be dissolved.

He demanded that they hand over their weapons, stop interfering in state affairs, give up wanted men and stop running their own courts.

"The alternative is the continuation of force and clashes until we reach the end, to get rid of the weapons and the gangs who are carrying weapons," he said.

"We can't build a state along with militias."

Well, well, give up willingly or we'll continue to hunt you down...
As Badger points out...

Prime Minister Maliki gave his response on Wednesday to the cross-party group of legislators that conducted a sit-in in Sadr City on Sunday and demanded and end to the fighting and an investigation of human rights abuses. Maliki told them the attacks in Sadr City will continue until the Mahdi Army is disarmed and dissolved (this is the first time Maliki has openly said that is the aim); he associated the Mahdi Army with AlQaeda and others as groups to be terminated; he said nothing about the Badr organization which is his own party's militia; he told the legislators it is they who are are responsible for the prolongation of the fighting; and in not-so-thinly veiled terms he threatened the legislators, telling them that if they continue to object, they could be charged with inciting to violence and fitna.

You're either with him, or you're against him...! Can you believe the audacity? Is Maliki determined to have every bloc turn against him? Apparently... (also from Badger's translation)

...Maliki threatened the voices of those within the system who criticize the government's military operations against armed groups, and he accused them of being instigators stirring up the state, adding: "These people--whether they are members of parliament or members of political blocs or parties, or [even] members of the government, who are not hesitant about stirring up fitna--these people will bear the responsibility". The Prime Minister said: "I say to them: Be patient because the affair will come to an end, and the judiciary is available, because it is you who are pouring oil on the fires and fanning the flames of fitna."

Got that? It's their fault they're in that mess, it wasn't Maliki's assault on Basra and Sadr City...! So what does Sec. Gates have to say...

US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates admitted on Tuesday that the reduction in US troop casualties in recent months had ended in the past few weeks, because of the fighting in Sadr City in the capital. Over 40 US troops have been killed in April. Gates also brandished a second aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf at Iran, which the US accuses of supplying the Mahdi Army with arms that are used against US troops.

Juan Cole further points out the flaw in Maliki's grand scheme...

Professor Juan Cole, an expert on Iraq from the University of Michigan, told Al Jazeera that efforts to tackle al-Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni group, had to some extent succeeded.

"Now Maliki and the American are turning their sights on the other major armed group outside the government," he said.

"There will be a lot of violence if Maliki attempts to eliminate the al-Mahdi army."

"The Sadr movement is a very large social movement, the Mahdi army is to some extent street gangs and young men with guns and you can't crush a thing like that very easily, its organic."

"You can't take a social movement out and shoot it."

Clashes between fighters and US and Iraqi security forces in the predominantly Shia neighbourhood of Sadr City have killed more than 900 people, according to Iraqi officials.

"There were 925 martyrs in Sadr City and 2,605 others have been wounded," Tehseen Sheikhly, spokesman for the government's Baghdad security plan, said.

Wow, that's a lot of Militia men killed and wounded, if there were no innocents killed or wounded as the US always claims... This is a sorry situation and it looks like there's no end in sight!

Each and every day, when I scan the news for events in Iraq, I constantly see headlines screaming things like; "US Forces say kill 34 militants"," "38 militants killed in fierce fighting in Baghdad," and, "US Military: 28 Militants Killed in Fresh Clashes in Baghdad." That's just some headlines from the past 24 hours. What really pisses me off is the fact that the Pentagon always portrays the slain as 'Militants' or even outlaws on occasion, granted, I'm sure some of those casualties were the 'bad guys', but, all 28, 34, or, even 38 were the enemy...? Honestly, how do we truly know?

Which brings me to a point I'd like to make, in that, while we're engaging the enemy in MOUT operations in the slums of Sadr City, how many innocents are caught in the crossfire? Is this counter insurgency fight really achieving the intended result? Has it produced any tangible results? I'd say we're actually losing ground, rather than gaining ground! For every militant we slay, two more are made with the loss of a family member caught in the crossfire!

Let's be clear about one constant refrain I hear about the bad guys cowardly hiding behind the skirts of innocents... For instance; "Why are they putting their families and friends and neighbors in danger," he asked me. "Why are they shooting from rooftops of civilian buildings?" Okay, how about the fact it's their home they're defending and we're the aggressor along with Maliki's Badr Brigades infested Iraqi Army... Do you expect them to mass in one designated area and be mown down by Artillery strikes or Hellfire missiles alongside Apaches...? Let's get real here, folks!

Let's take a look at what we're doing:

“The U.S. shelling in sectors 10 and 11 in Sadr City from 11:00 am until 6:00 pm on Tuesday left 24 dead and 60 wounded, most of them women and children,” the source, who asked for anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI). Sadr City, a stronghold of Sadr's Mahdi Army militias, has been witnessing armed clashes since Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced last month the commencement of a security operation codenamed Saulat al-Forsan (Knights' Assault) in the port city of Basra, Iraq's second largest province and an oil-hub, 590 km south of Baghdad, which he said targeted "outlaws."

Here's an up close snap shot:

In this photo 2 year old Ali Hussein is seen being pulled from the rubble of his family’s home in Sadr City Tuesday, April 29, 2008.

Ali’s home was one of four destroyed by U.S. missiles.

Ali died in hospital a few hours later.

Now, let's look at what many Iraqis are now demanding...

Cross-party group called for a human-rights investigation into the Sadr City attacks
There has been unusually blatant mis-representation of the parliamentary sit-in in Sadr City yesterday in the corporate media and elsewhere, the gist of the media strategy being to leave out three key points.

(1) The group included members of every major parliamentary political party except for the Supreme Council, and the Dawa Party, which are the main Shiite parties supporting the Maliki administration.

(2) The delegation, in its final statement, called not only for an end to the military operations against Sadr City, and a lifting of the blockade. It also called for an investigation into the human-rights violations that Sadr City residents have been subjected to.

(3) The delegation said the government should coordinate with the Sadrist organization in any arrest operations it wants to carry out in Sadr City, rather than attacking them.

Interesting, everybody but, Maliki and Betrayus wants us to lift the siege... Very interesting... They want al-Sadr to have his 60,000 strong militia to lay down their arms before they will allow the Sadrists to participate in the political process, how far will that go...? Here's a good synopsis...

Al Sadr has, over the past year, been taught several lessons:

* Unilaterally declaring a ceasefire does not protect you from being attacked;
* Participating in the political process does not protect you from being attacked;
* Allowing Tehran to broker a ceasefire in Basra does not protect you from being attacked in Baghdad;
* If you have a political perspective (unified state, rapid U.S. troop withdrawal) that puts you at odds with other power centers, you are at risk.

Would you disarm...? Sounds like a rock and a hard spot... Gawd, I hate this war and this Maladministration...!

Don't ya just love it when our Congress Critters takes our best interests to heart? Better body armor? No! An improved GI Bill? No! Longer breaks between tours of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan? Sadly, No! What are they so concerned about now, that they need to pass a law for?

Rep. Broun(R) has introduced H.R. 5821, also known as the Military Honor and Decency Act, which would close what he calls a loophole that allows the continued distribution of pornography to soldiers, to their moral detriment, with the help of taxpayer funds.

Pornography? Are ya kidding? Nope! As Broun states...

"As a Marine, I am deeply concerned for the welfare of our troops and their mission," Broun said on April 17. "Allowing the sale of pornography on military bases has harmed military men and women by: escalating the number of violent, sexual crimes; feeding a base addiction; eroding the family as the primary building block of society; and denigrating the moral standing of our troops both here and abroad. Our troops should not see their honor sullied so that the moguls behind magazines like Playboy and Penthouse can profit. The ‘Military Honor and Decency Act’ will right a bureaucratic--and moral--wrong."

There are 15 co-sponsors to the bill, all Goopers... Here's a thought, how about addressing the real reason there's an escalation in violent, sexual crimes and spousal abuse and suicides and... ad nauseum! Let's get out of Iraq, adequately fund detection and treatment programs for PTSD, Depression, Suicides, etc...

What're we fighting for...? Seriously, how can anyone defend the Repugnants, which party truly cares about the troops? So much for the separation of Church and State, and the First Amendment... As the USA Today reports...

Dozens of religious and anti-pornography groups have complained to Congress and Defense Secretary Robert Gates that a Pentagon board set up to review magazines and films is allowing sales of material that Congress intended to ban.

"They're saying 'we're not selling stuff that's sexually explicit' … and we say it's pornography," says Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association, a Christian anti-pornography group. A letter-writing campaign launched Friday by opponents of the policy aims to convince Congress to "get the Pentagon to obey the law," he adds.

Puh-lease! Butt out! Pick up a weapon and join us in the trenches! Here's a nice retort...

Nadine Strossen, a New York Law School professor who heads the American Civil Liberties Union, says the law effectively censors what troops get to read in remote areas or combat zones. "We're asking these people to risk their lives to defend our Constitution's principles … and they're being denied their own First Amendment rights to choose what they read," she said.

Let's hear it for the ACLU...! Hoo-ah!!!

Today, Sunday, an amazing scene unfolded in Sadr City. Over 50 members of parliament, representing members from all parties in the Iraqi parliament, except, most notably members of Maliki's own Sciri party and Dawa... As the NY Times reports...

...members of Parliament from across the political spectrum — with the exception of the Shiite parties that are part of the government — appeared to be trying to transcend the fight for power and focus on the terrible conditions for residents of Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite slum in the capital, where fighting has gone on for more than a month. “What is different about this delegation is that it is composed of all kinds of Iraqis,” said Azzad Barbani, a Parliament member from the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of 40 members who participated in the protest Sunday.

“The situation is so bad,” he said, adding, “But from a political point of view, the solution is dialogue, without getting rid of any bloc in Parliament.”

“We want to solve the problem peacefully,” said Dr. Mustafa al-Heeti, a Sunni member of Parliament from Anbar province who led the delegation on Sunday.

The residents of Sadr City “are Iraqis,” he said. “They are very poor people with very few services, and the military action has caused so much loss of life.”

The NY Times only mentions 40 MPs, but, Voices of Iraq (VOI) reports...

More than 50 lawmakers representing different blocs staged on Sunday a sit-in demanding the blockade imposed on the eastern Baghdad district of Sadr City for three weeks now be lifted and for military operations to cease, a legislator from the Sadrist bloc, or Iraqis loyal to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, said.

Shanshal said that the sit-in was attended by Safiya al-Suhail, an independent member of parliament, Ahmed Radi, an MP from the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF), Samira al-Musawi, an MP from the Shiite Unified Iraqi Coalition (UIC) and Mustafa al-Lahiti, a lawmaker from the Arab Bloc for National Dialogue.

Meanwhile as they're staging this Sit-In, nearby, the US launches a 'vicious attack' in Sadr City... As GG reports...

The Americans launched a “reckless” assault on Sadr city during the sit-in by GZ parliamentarians:

Aswat al-Iraq quote the MP from the Sadrist bloc Maha Adel as saying in a telephone conversation with their reporter that:

“U.S. aircraft and armoured vehicles launched a reckless attack against Sadr City”

that the American attack had been “vicious” and that they had seen a person killed by sniper fire.

Vicious would be an understatement if they used clusterbombs...

Deputy says there is proof the US is using cluster bombs in Sadr City
A member of the health and environment committee of the Iraqi legislature, Liqaa Al-Yassin (Sadrist) says Iraqi authorities have medical and forensic proof that the Americans have been using cluster bombs in their air-strikes on Sadr City, the proof being in the form of the type of marks these weapons leave on the bodies of the dead and wounded.

Honestly, this madness needs to stop ASAP! Their blood is on our hands, folks...!

In today's NY Times, I was left with some questions about what really do we know about Iran's actions, and, who are they supposedly training and arming? Further along, as Sen. Feinstein states: “This is not a new thing,” she said of Iran’s involvement. “Why all of a sudden do the sabers start to rattle?” A very good question!

Some intelligence and administration officials said Iran seemed to have carefully calibrated its involvement in Iraq over the last year, in contrast to what President Bush and other American officials have publicly portrayed as an intensified Iranian role.

It remains difficult to draw firm conclusions about the ebb and flow of Iranian arms into Iraq, and the Bush administration has not produced its most recent evidence.

But interviews with more than two dozen military, intelligence and administration officials showed that while shipments of arms had continued in recent months despite an official Iranian pledge to stop the weapons flow, they had not necessarily increased.

So what's the deal? As the article claims repeatedly, Iran's Quds forces is training and arming Shiite militias, what it fails to do is say which militias they're training... Is it Dawa, Sciri's Badr Brigades, or Sadr's JAM/Mahdi Army, amongst several others?

Iran seems to have focused instead on training Iraqi Shiite fighters inside Iran, though the exact number remains unclear. Some officials said only handfuls of fighters at a time had recently trained in Iran. At the same time, Iran has sought to retain political and economic influence over a variety of Shiite factions, not just the most extremist militias, known as “special groups.”

“They don’t want to be identified with activities that might be seen by the international community as illegitimate,” a senior official familiar with the intelligence about Iran said in an interview.

Iran has sought to spread its influence inside Iraq not only by its support to militias, officials said, but also through legitimate economic assistance, in particular across the oil-rich Shiite south.

The Iranians also support a number of Shiite parties and militias — including providing weapons to militias fighting the Shiite-led government in Baghdad as well as to militias supporting that government.

Rather generic and inconclusive in my book... Where's the beef? Or rather, the Dossier...

At the White House, the Pentagon, the intelligence agencies and the military headquarters in Baghdad, officials declined to detail publicly the extent of Iran’s support for fighters in Iraq, referring instead only in broad terms to training, equipping and financing Shiite militias.

But in the wake of his briefings to Congress on April 8 and 9, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior commander, ordered his subordinates to prepare a public dossier on Iranian involvement as part of the administration’s efforts to expose Iran’s covert activities and sustain support for the war, which is increasingly unpopular at home.

Publication of the dossier — which includes pages of charts and photographs of seized Iranian-made weapons — has been widely expected but has now been delayed while the government of Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, confronts Iran diplomatically with new evidence of Iranian assistance to Shiite militias, one of the officials said.

The administration’s focus on Iran has raised alarms among the war’s staunchest critics, who accuse the White House of overstating the threat and laying the groundwork for military action against Iran.

I definitely concur with the overstating part... The last thing we need to do is bomb Iran...

Here's another look at what is in play with Basra and the tangled web created by Maliki, the US, and Iran...

Ultimately, the Basra battle has multiple political dimensions in addition to the oil dimension. These include the conflict between the Shiite parties in the south (Supreme Council, Sader's Movement, al-Fadeela Party, and al-Da'wa Party and its different branches), the powerful militias engaged in stealing and smuggling oil, and the disagreement over whether or not the Basra province will support the proposal made by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim's Supreme Council to form a southern district that includes the province of Basra (a proposal vehemently rejected by other Shiite parties) and other southern and central provinces. Moreover, the battle represents a significant confrontation between the US and Iran which has been expanding its influence in Basra through its multiple intelligence agencies. This battle is therefore part of the struggle between Washington and Tehran in the Middle East as the case is in Lebanon and Gaza.

The Sadr Movement claims that the timing of the battle of Basra was determined by its decision to participate in the upcoming provincial elections and the attempt to prevent its candidates from winning them. It is worth mentioning that the Sad Movement had previously boycotted these elections allowed the candidates of the Supreme Council and Al-Fadeela Party to win those elections.

What a tangled web, indeed...

Early this morning, Erdla from GG left me this interesting tidbit on al-Sadr...

Al-Sadr is reportedly going to end the Mahdi Army standdown. According to the report in al-Khaleej linked to above an anonymous “high ranking” GZG security told al-Khaleej that he had received intelligence information that al-Sadr would lift the freeze on Mahdi army activity today and that he expected them to be active starting tomorrow.

The report also quotes al-Sadr’s spokesman in Najaf, Sheikh Salah al-Obaidi, as having told al-Khaleej that al-Sadr would make an important statement about the situation in Basrah and Sadr City in Baghdad, in response to the green zone government’s intensification of its operations against the his followers. He added that he could not say more until after Friday prayers."

So, as I was skimming the headlines today for any news on Iraq, and, looking for specific references to al-Sadr and the message, I ran across this! My jaw dropped... I could not believe my eyes! Is McCain really that deluded...?

Here is a decent translation of al-Sadr's message...

A statement by Moqtada alSadr was read out at a mosque in Sadr City on Friday April 25, explaining the meaning of the "open war until liberation" that he warned of in a statement last Saturday.

"This is in fact the aim of the honorable resistance, which should be our pride and that of all Iraqis--indeed of all Muslims and of all free people throughout the world. And we will not permit the resistance which targets the occupation, without [targeting] Iraqis, to become criminal*, in the way that the destroyer turned pilgrims of the Imam Husayn to crime ...--which god forbid--because jihad is until victory.

You, brothers in the Iraqi army and police, and you, brothers in the Army of the Imam Mahdi: Enough of spilling of [each others'] blood. Concentrate on the infiltrators and the defamed [occupier]. And let us become a single hand for the implementation of justice, and security, and the good, and support for the resistance in all its types, so that Iraq can become a secure and confident Iraq, with respect to its land, with respect to its people, and with respect to its neighbors."

Well, al-Sadr is taking off the gloves and calling off the ceasefire!
Let me refresh your memory on what this entails... This site offers some history and probable outcomes...

Fast forward to August 2007. The surge is in full bloom and Sadr declares a "freeze" on JAM's armed activities. His goals were many: avoid another 2004-style clash with the Americans; rehabilitate JAM's increasingly criminal reputation; and allow coalition forces to purge his ranks of the worst Iranian-backed factions, thereby enhancing his command-and-control. The effects of the freeze were profound. Go back and look at all those MNF-I slides from the September and March Petraeus testimonies. The steepest decline in violence occurred once the JAM ceasefire took hold

Recent events in Iraq have now put this in jeopardy. In the wake of Maliki's ongoing offensive in Basra, the JAM ceasefire has teetered on the brink of total collapse. True, there has been some apparent political benefits. Da'wa, ISCI, the Kurds, and the Suni IIP have all rallied around the Prime Minister against JAM. As Ambassador Crocker recently noted: "The prime minister, the Iraqi government and the broad political leadership, since the Basra and Baghdad events that began last month, have been unified in their view that the time has come for an end to militia presence." Condi Rice went so far as to claim that "we've seen the coalescing of a center" in Iraqi politics. "The Sunni leadership, the Kurdish leadership and elements of the Shia are working together better than at any time."

But the danger in cornering Sadr/JAM is profound. If this is not handled in the right way, the ceasefire may completely shatter. And, if this happens, Iraq is screwed.

This is why we have to watch events in Sadr City very carefully. The fighting has been brutal over the past month, with hundreds of civilians caught in the crossfire. Efforts to restore basic service in the sprawling Shia slum have also lagged, undermining efforts to win over local residents.

Okay, so it's gonna get ugly... Now what did McCain have to say about the turn of events...?

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is happy with the outcome. In a blogger conference call today, he said the results in Basra and southern Iraq were a “pleasant turn of events” in his view. Sadr, McCain says, is now marginalized. The bloggers reported on McCain’s responses:

Hot Air: It’s a “pleasant turn of events.” We’ve been pressing Maliki for action, and he persevered through some setbacks to success. Basra now is under Maliki’s control, and it has united the central government. Sadr is marginalized. “Overall, I’m rather pleased.”

Commentary: He described the outcome as a “pleasant turn of events” and said that Prime Minister Maliki “surprised us all.” McCain conceded that there were setbacks at first, but said that with limited American support the Iraqi army has wrested control of Basra from the Sadrites.

Are you f*cking kidding me, McInsane...? Do you really think it's a pleasant turn of events...? Sometimes, I'm just left mind-numbingly speechless...! sometimes...!

Today, Gorilla's Guides reported that... "U.S. kills 800 in 3 weeks in Sadr City."

U.S. occupation forces have killed more than 800 people, most of them innocent civilians, in their three-week long military campaign to subdue the Mahdi Army in Sadr City, the leader of Sadr movement in Baghdad said.

Sheikh Salaman al-fariji said the troops have also injured more than 1,800 people and caused large-scale destruction of private property and the city’s rickety infrastructure

U.S. troops have imposed a tight embargo on the city and bombing by war planes and helicopter gun ships in the densely populated Baghdad neighborhood continued...

Interestingly, not only have we walled them off, and, are hitting them daily from the air, we're also sniping at them

Civilians caught up in the crossfire during raging street battles between Shiite militiamen and security forces in Baghdad's Shiite bastion Sadr City are blaming an unseen danger – US military snipers.

At least 321 people have been killed in Sadr City since March 25 and hundreds more wounded, many of them brought to hospitals with wounds that doctors say appear to be caused by high-powered rifles and "American bullets."

Medics at Al-Sadr Hospital say some bullet wounds are difficult to explain as being caused by random fire.

"Random shots usually hit anywhere, but these people have wounds on specific parts of the body ... like their stomachs and legs," said Doctor Ala Haider.

That is not the way to win the hearts and minds...

Both, GG and Badger mentioned this...

Meanwhile, a parliamentary delegation visited Sadr City to view the damage, and most blocs were represented, except for the conspicuous absence of any representative of the Supreme Council (political counterpart of the Badr Organization). The Kurdish representative said the government should be more careful about the humanitarian situation. The Iraqi List person said the government is resorting to collective punishment, and this is a very dangerous thing to do because of the repercussions. The delegation recommended lifting the siege on Sadr City. The government replied that there is no siege.

No Siege? WTF is this...

“Almost a month after the outbreak of armed clashes pitting Coalition and Iraqi forces against the Mehdi Army, the situation in Sadr City, in eastern Baghdad, is putting further strain on the civilian population,” says Patrick Youssef, head of the sub-delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Baghdad. “The clashes that began on 25 March did not let up until they eased briefly on 12 April. However, the lull in the fighting did not give the population enough time to stock up on food and water or to seek appropriate medical care.”

Al Jamila market, one of the largest in Sadr City, was severely damaged by the fighting. The market used to provide enough supplies to cover everyday needs in Sadr City. People are now short of food, especially as prices of fresh vegetables have increased considerably.

According to ICRC staff in Baghdad, who are in permanent contact with hospitals and health officials, several hospitals have exhausted their stocks of medical supplies as a result of the ongoing fighting.

The ICRC has had difficulty transporting food and medicines where they are needed because of the ongoing fighting.

BTW, you can donate to the Red Cross/Crescent here...

Here's an excellent article that describes what Sadr City represents to us and our failed policy...

1. Yes, the war has morphed into the US military's worst Iraq nightmare: Few now remember, but before George W. Bush launched the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, top administration and Pentagon officials had a single overriding nightmare -- not chemical, but urban, warfare. Saddam Hussein, they feared, would lure American forces into "Fortress Baghdad," as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld labeled it. There, they would find themselves fighting block by block, especially in the warren of streets that make up the Iraqi capital's poorest districts.

When American forces actually entered Baghdad in early April 2003, however, even Saddam's vaunted Republican Guard units had put away their weapons and gone home. It took five years but, as of now, American troops are indeed fighting in the warren of streets in Sadr City, the Shiite slum of two and a half million in eastern Baghdad largely controlled by Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. The US military, in fact, recently experienced its worst week of 2008 in terms of casualties, mainly in and around Baghdad. So, Mission Accomplished -- the worst fear of 2003 has now been realized.

You should read that entire article: "Unraveling Iraq" with this subtitle; "12 Answers to Questions No One Is Bothering to Ask about Iraq." I personally didn't agree with all of it, but, it did raise some very valid questions and answers... Foremost among them, Civil War will not 'breakout' because we leave... We Need To Get Out Now!

Military.com carried a follow up report today, on the CBS News report released on Monday. I was astounded at what the VA attorneys were asserting at the federal court hearing in San Francisco.

To wit...

Lawyers for the government disagreed strongly with the veterans, claiming that the VA runs a "world-class health care system." Multiple times during his opening statement, Justice Department lawyer Richard Lepley portrayed the veterans' groups as "special interests" and argued the changes the groups seek in their lawsuit -- better and faster mental health care, and more rights for veterans appealing denials of benefits -- are beyond the judge's authority.

"You have no standards to judge," Lepley told (judge)Conti. "This court shouldn't be trying to be a substitute for what the medical professionals at the VA decide."

Damn! World class system and the VA knows what's best for the vets... I'm speechless...
Let's look at what the 'Special Interests' are arguing...

"The suicide problem is out of control," said Gordon Erspamer, an attorney representing the groups Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth in a class action lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs. "Our veterans deserve better."

"The system is in crisis, and unfortunately the VA is in denial," Erspamer told the court, urging U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti to appoint a special master to oversee the troubled agency. The veterans groups are also seeking a judge's order forbidding the VA from turning away any veteran who shows up at a facility seeking mental health care.

In a number of high-profile cases, Iraq war veterans have killed themselves after being turned away from the VA.

The 'smoking gun' was the 'Shh' e-mail...

An e-mail made public during the trial revealed that the head of the VA's Mental Health division, Dr. Ira Katz, advised a media representative not to tell reporters that 1,000 veterans receiving care at the VA try to kill themselves every month.

"Shh!" the e-mail begins.

"Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?"

Stumbles on it?, Aargh...! WTF? Dr. Katz followed up later with...

In an e-mail late Monday to CBS News, Katz wrote that the reason the numbers were not released was due to questions about the consistency and reliability of the findings - and that there was no public cover up involved.

Sure there was no cover up involved... And there were WMD's in Iraq...! The F*ckers have no remorse!

Update: My Senator and Chair of the Senate Veteran's Affairs Committee is demanding the immediate resignation of Katz...

I am writing to request the resignation of Dr. Ira Katz, Deputy Chief Patient Care Services Officer for Mental Health.

Dr. Katz's personal conduct and professional judgment have been called into question by his response to the mental health needs of veterans, and in particular to veteran suicides. I believe veterans, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, would be best served by his immediate resignation.

Originally, I was going to severely thrash the VA in today's post when I saw this CBS News Investigative report...

VA Hid Suicide Risk, Internal E-Mails Show Follow-Up Reporting On Exclusive Investigation Reveals Officials Hid Numbers

But, I decided to concentrate more on this NY Times report instead... "Talking Veterans Down From Despair"

CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. — Nancy Nosewicz was busy fielding calls at the new national veterans hot line on a recent afternoon when someone from the Department of Veterans Affairs in Topeka, Kan., phoned. He had a 55-year-old Army veteran from the Northwest on the line who had called to complain about his benefits, but now the guy, drunk and crying, was talking about not wanting to live. Could Ms. Nosewicz pick up? In a slurred voice, heavy from weeping, the veteran, named Robert, told her that he was homeless and wanted to “just lay down in the river and never get up.”

Ms. Nosewicz, a social worker, listened. Then in a voice firm and comforting like a big sister, she said: “We don’t want you to either. Today we’re not thinking about the alcohol or the housing, Robert. Today it’s about keeping you safe.”

She gave an assistant Robert’s phone number to find his address and alert local police to stand by. The chain of care resembled a relay race, with one runner trying not let go of the baton until the next runner had it in hand.

The veterans hot line is part of a specialized effort by the Department of Veterans Affairs to reduce suicide by enabling counselors, for the first time, to instantly check a veteran’s medical records and then combine emergency response with local follow-up services. It comes after years of criticism that the department has been neglecting tens of thousands of wounded service men and women who have returned from war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Finally, they're actually doing something to stem the rising tide in suicides...

Yet whatever larger failings may exist, the staff of social workers, addiction specialists and nurses who keep the hot line running — 24 hours a day, seven days a week — can count at least some victories by the end of each shift.

Unique about this hot line, said Janet Kemp, the national suicide prevention coordinator with the department, is that now the counselors have medical information at their fingertips, which they use to connect vets with counseling near their homes. The model evolved from a new research program on suicide prevention paid for by the department.

“For years people thought that asking questions about suicide put the thought in people’s mind, but now we know that’s not true,” said Dr. Kemp, who travels throughout the country training V.A. staff.

The department is spending about $3 million to start and operate the hot line during its first year, said a spokesman, Daniel Ryan, and another $2.9 million on a mental health research center at the sprawling red-brick V.A. Medical Center in Canandaigua. Referring to the hot line’s relay model, Kerry Knox, the director of the new research center, said, “You don’t want them to fall through the cracks.”

It is available to all Vets...

Sometimes veterans have a lot of trouble asking for help, said Jacalyn O’Loughlin, a counselor. “They keep saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ ” Ms. O’Loughlin said. “Especially marines. They feel they’re weak if they reach out.”

Mr. Ryan said about half the calls to the hot line — 1-800-273-TALK (8255) — were from veterans, split fairly evenly between Vietnam and Iraq. Family members and friends also frequently call. About 30 percent of the veterans are women.

Please call them if you're contemplating it, folks... You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by calling them! It might actually get you a positive response out of VA... A veritable kick in the arse... 8-)

I swear you just can't make this shit up...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers.

Rice, in the Iraqi capital to tout security gains and what she calls an emerging political consensus, said al-Sadr is content to issue threats and edicts from the safety of Iran, where he is studying.

Okay, Sadr is a coward because he's supposedly in Iran, Where's Shrub and Darth issueing their threats and edicts from...?

"I know he's sitting in Iran," Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr's latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. "I guess it's all-out war for anybody but him," Rice said. "I guess that's the message; his followers can go too their deaths and he's in Iran."

"Some of the violence is a byproduct of a good decision," to take on militias and consolidate military power, Rice told reporters following a few hours of meetings and lunch with Iraqi leaders.

"That, I think, is what has given the sense to the Iraqis that they have a new opportunity, a window of opportunity," Rice said. "I don't think you would have seen this kind of unity," before.

Uh, It was a good decision and there's unity...! Excuse me...?

With the top U.S. ground commander, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker looking on, al-Maliki told Rice that security has improved. She nodded agreement. After lunch with President Jalal Talabani, Rice smiled as the Kurd told her Iraq is enjoying a "political spring." Rice also met with a relatively new decision-making council representing Iraq's major sectarian and ethnic groups.

At the time it seemed "as if the Green Zone itself has been under attack," Rice told employees, but the effort is worthwhile. "It's been a long five years, there's no doubt about it."

How safe was it...?

Warning sirens sounded at least twice while Rice was inside the temporary embassy, housed in a beat-up Saddam-era palace. She did not visit the site of a new fortified U.S. Embassy set to open in a few weeks.

She just can't keep her mouth shut...

Ms. Rice said that she was not sure how to interpret a statement on Saturday by the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army fighters have been battling Iraqi and American forces in Sadr City and in the south, that he would declare “war until liberation” if the fighting against his militia forces continued.

“I don’t know whether to take him seriously or not,” Ms. Rice said.

But she said that American and Iraqi forces were not trying to block the Sadrist movement from Iraq’s political process. “I didn’t hear anybody say” that the Sadrists “shouldn’t try again to get the votes of the Iraqi people, as long as they are not armed,” Ms. Rice said.

This encapsulates the whole Alice-in-Wonderland logic...

Earlier this month, Iraq’s national security council issued a statement saying that all political parties must disband their militias if they wished to participate in provincial elections scheduled for October.

Some political analysts have said that what underlies the Iraqi government’s move against the Mahdi Army is a rivalry between two armed Shiite political groups, Mr. Sadr’s and the Badrists, the armed wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a large Shiite political bloc that supports Mr. Maliki. Many members of the Badr organization joined the government’s security forces early in the Iraq conflict, and they have been battling the Sadr-led forces.

But Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, who joined Ms. Rice at the news conference, drew a distinction between Mr. Sadr’s supporters and the Badr group. “The Badr organization, made the choice a while back that they were going to step away from a militia identity and move into politics,” Mr. Crocker said. “That’s the choice now in front of the Sadr movement.”

Mr. Crocker cast the Iraqi government’s initiative in Basra and Baghdad as “a defining event,” and said it represented “the state asserting itself against those who would attack the state.”

Did ya catch that? The Mehdi Army must disarm to join the political process, meanwhile, the Badr Brigades who are incorporated into the IA are waging war against the Sadrists in the name of the state... What a mess, we need to get out now!

Update: Voices of Iraq reports: "Govt. making up crisis with Sadrists to pass security deal with U.S. – spokesman"

To wit:

"There were parties that signed (the agreement) on behalf of the prime minister (Nouri al-Maliki) and he has to respect this agreement to guarantee citizenship rights for Iraqis in general and the Sadrists in particular," Sheikh Salah al-Ubaydi told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).

"The Iraqi government's campaigns against the Sadrist bloc are politically motivated with the aim of making gains from in the forthcoming provincial elections and passing an economic-security deal with the Americans," Ubaydi said.

"If the Iraqi people remained preoccupied, the government could pass this agreement with all its weaknesses that grant the U.S. side privileges at the expense of Iraq," Ubaydi indicated. Sadr had on Saturday threatened "open war" with the government unless it chose what he called the "path of peace". "I'm giving the last warning and the last word to the Iraqi government -- either it comes to its senses and takes the path of peace ... or it will be the same as the previous government," Sadr said, referring to Saddam Hussein's fallen regime but without elaborating. The cleric added: "If they don't come to their senses and curb the infiltrated militias, then we will declare an open war until liberation." Sadr's movement accuses other Shi'ite parties of infiltrating their militias into the Iraqi security forces.

When we practice to deceive... This is astonishing, and, an excellent follow up to my two prior posts... The New York Times reports today that the "U.S. and Iran Find Common Ground in Iraq’s Shiite Conflict."

Huh?

The United States says that Iran has backed thousands of attacks on American troops in Iraq, bitterly opposes its nuclear program and has not ruled out bombing Iran if Iranian policies do not change. Meanwhile, at the level of senior officials at least, Iran takes quite seriously its depiction of the United States as the planet’s Great Satan.

Yet...

In the Iraqi government’s fight to subdue the Shiite militia of Moktada al-Sadr in the southern city of Basra, perhaps nothing reveals the complexities of the Iraq conflict more starkly than this: Iran and the United States find themselves on the same side.

The causes of this convergence boil down to the logic of self-interest, although it is logic in a place where even the most basic reasoning refuses to go in a straight line. In essence, though, the calculation by the United States is that it must back the government it helped to create and take the steps needed to protect American troops and civilian officials.

Iranian motivations appear to hinge on the possibility that Mr. Sadr’s political and military followers could gain power in provincial elections this fall, and disrupt the creation of a semiautonomous region in the south that the Iranians see as beneficial.

The party that Iran and the United States are backing, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, is a bitter rival of Mr. Sadr’s political movement and has managed to play to the interests of both countries. Under Iraq’s Constitution, provinces can form regions with considerable independence from Baghdad. The Supreme Council advocates a large, semiautonomous region in the south, similar to Kurdistan in the north, made up of the nine southern provinces. And because many of the council’s leaders lived in exile in Iran during the rule of Saddam Hussein, Iran has political ties to the group.

Coupled with Iran’s shared Shiite heritage, such a region would amplify Iran’s influence over the oil-rich area.

Let's see... The US dislikes Sadr because he wants to unify all of Iraq and wants Iraqi oil to remain in Iraqi hands... Iran also wants to see a fractured Iraq and also desires the oil rich Basra... Hmmm... Imagine that!

The Americans have treated the Supreme Council as an ally from the beginning of the fight against Mr. Hussein. Its members were guaranteed safe passage when they returned from Iran and were made charter members of Iraq’s first governing body after the American-led invasion toppled Mr. Hussein’s regime. Since then, the United States has backed the Iraqi government, which in turn relies on the Supreme Council to stay in power in the country’s parliamentary system.

But this position could have damaging unintended consequences. It could push the United States further into the vortex of an intra-Shiite political struggle and could lead to the creation of a large, Iranian-influenced region in southern Iraq.

But the political calculus that has landed the Americans and Iranians on the same side of the Shiite conflict in southern Iraq breaks down in the capital. The foremost example is Sadr City, the dusty, impoverished enclave of more than two million Shiites in northeastern Baghdad where Mr. Sadr has his base of power.

But there is at least one crucial difference from Basra: in Sadr City, American troops are playing a much bigger role in the battle. For the Iranians, who have consistently opposed the American presence here, that difference comes with consequences.

Iran stridently opposes the operation against the Mahdi Army in Sadr City.

What is the central theme of this charade? OIL! Pure and simple! I am sick and tired of this BS!

Today, I read some disheartening news. In that, "Cleric Sadr threatens 'open war' on Iraq government." I would like to address why I tend to support Sadr over Maliki in many of my posts. I've read numerous articles and reports, in both the foreign and American press, over the past five years we've been mired in Iraq. I'm often disappointed with the lack of true reporting from the American media, I'm always left with the distinct impression that they merely regurgitate the propaganda issued by Betrayus and Baghdad Bergner and their predecessors. Generally, the foreign press does a far better job of ferreting out the truth and talking to actual Iraqis to get the true consensus of what is occurring on the ground. It is out of that critical analysis of what is reported, I've leaned towards Sadr's side rather than our puppet Government established under Maliki.

First, I don't consider Sadr a saint by any stretch of the imagination, but, as I allude to in my title, I consider him to be the lesser of two evils...

Sadr's movement accuses other Shi'ite parties of getting their militias into the Iraqi security forces, especially in southern Shi'ite Iraq where various factions are competing for influence in a region home to most of Iraq's oil output.

Sadr launched two uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004.

His movement then entered politics and backed Maliki's rise to power in 2006. But the youthful Sadr split with Maliki, a fellow Shi'ite, a year ago when the prime minister refused to set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

"Do you want a third uprising?" Sadr said, adding that he wanted Iraq's Shi'ite clerical establishment to set a date for the departure of American troops.

Why is he concerned about the installation of SCIRI or Dawa militias in the Iraqi Army...ME Online

It is widely believed in Iraq that parties who call for unity are using the issue to get public support against federalism, seen to be supported by the US and Iranian backed parties such as the SIIC and Maliki's Dawa Party. Many in Iraq see federalism as the break-up of the country.

Division has broken out also within tribes; many have now come to back Sadr, not because they like him, but because they hate the Badr militia of Hakeem's SIIC and Maliki's Dawa party.

"Our problem in the southern parts of Iraq and other Shia dominated areas is that all options are bad," the chief of a major tribe in Basra who fled for Baghdad, told IPS on condition of anonymity. "Iranian controlled militias killed so many chiefs of tribes because they refused to support these division projects concealed under the flag of federalism."

Basically, Maliki is seen as a puppet of the Americans and his Badr Brigades have terrorized many Shi'a and Sunni communities in Basra and north to Baghdad.

Many Iraqis have come to believe that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is just as much a dictator as Saddam Hussein was.

"Al-Maliki is a dictator who must be removed by all means," 35-year-old Abdul-Riza Hussein, a Mehdi Army member from Sadr City in Baghdad told IPS. "He is a worse dictator than Saddam; he has killed in less than two years more than Saddam killed in 10 years."

Following the failed attempt by the US-backed al-Maliki to crack down on the Mehdi Army militia of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the situation in Iraq has become much worse. Iraq appears to be splintering more widely under this rule than under Saddam's.

Juan Cole presents a compelling case of what's going on...

My reading is that the US faced a dilemma in Iraq. It needed to have new provincial elections in an attempt to mollify the Sunni Arabs, especially in Sunni-majority provinces like Diyala, which has nevertheless been ruled by the Shiite Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. But if they have provincial elections, their chief ally, the Islamic Supreme Council, might well lose southern provinces to the Sadr Movement. In turn, the Sadrists are demanding a timetable for US withdrawal, whereas ISCI wants US troops to remain. So the setting of October, 2008, as the date for provincial elections provoked this crisis. I think Cheney probably told ISCI and Prime Minister al-Maliki that the way to fix this problem and forestall the Sadrists coming to power in Iraq, was to destroy the Mahdi Army, the Sadrists' paramilitary. Without that coercive power, the Sadrists might not remain so important, is probably their thinking. I believe them to be wrong, and suspect that if the elections are fair, the Sadrists will sweep to power and may even get a sympathy vote.

As Cole alludes to, Maliki is a tool of Darth's and advocates for a long term presence and the soft partitioning of Iraq... Which is not in the best interests of Iraq, nor our troops...

As the NY Times reports among other outlets; "U.S. Begins Erecting Wall in Sadr City." To wit...

The construction, which began Tuesday night, is intended to turn the southern quarter of Sadr City near the international Green Zone into a protected enclave, secured by Iraqi and American forces, where the Iraqi government can undertake reconstruction efforts.

“You can’t really repair anything that is broken until you establish security,” said Lt. Col. Dan Barnett, commander of the First Squadron, Second Stryker Cavalry Regiment. “A wall that isolates those who would continue to attack the Iraqi Army and coalition forces can create security conditions that they can go in and rebuild.”

Hmmm... A wall to isolate those who would attack the GZG... That is a crock of shit! As the Iraqis complain...

Followers of anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr denounced the American military's construction of a concrete wall through their Sadr City stronghold in Baghdad, the scene of renewed clashes Friday between his militiamen and U.S. and Iraqi troops.

Hazim al-Araji, a senior aide to al-Sadr in Baghdad, said the wall would turn "the residents to prisoners and the city to a big jail. All Sadr City residents reject this kind of siege on their city."

Walls can be effective in the short term...

Such walls have gone up in many other Baghdad neighborhoods and have been effective in cutting violence as the movement of insurgents was curtailed. But they have also raised some complaints from residents over difficulties in moving in and out through checkpoints.

But, the long term effects are not worth the short term success. It doesn't win the hearts and minds, look at the Warsaw Ghetto or the Berlin Wall. The Israeli Wall is not producing any tangible results either...

What we need to truly embrace is the notion of unifying the separate entities involved. We need to foster relations between the Shi'a, Sunni, and Kurdish populations as opposed to walling them off and arming each side to wage war amongst themselves and against us...

Here is an excellent analysis of what our Maladministration has wrought...

The tactics that Washington is pursuing in Iraq appear to be exacerbating several long-term trends that risk destabilizing Iraq even further and may well also undermine U.S. influence.

Washington’s militant intervention into intra-Shi’ite factional politics is pouring gasoline on that dispute, fomenting civil war between the two most powerful Shi’ite militias in Iraq by encouraging (or ordering?) Maliki to suppress Moqtada’s Mahdi Army. Washington is simultaneously laying the groundwork for a civil war between Iraqi Shi’a and Sunni by funding the organization of numerous local Sunni military units (e.g., the Awakening groups), which could evolve rapidly into a Sunni militia that would challenge the Shi’a since these units are gaining power without a commensurate move toward satisfaction of Sunni grievances. Washington is also fighting Iran’s war in Iraq by intervening in Shi’ite factional disputes on the side of the pro-Iranian Badr faction that constitutes Maliki’s main support. And finally, since Moqtada represents the poor urban Shi’ite underclass beyond the reach of government services, Washington is making war on the poor, a bad foundation indeed for building democracy.

A policy of marginalizing the poor by emphasizing the use of force to suppress their representatives, not to mention collective punishment against the poor themselves through both neglecting to provide services and turning Sadr City into a blockaded ghetto, sets up society for a long period of conflict. (For parallels, check out the impact of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which provoked the formation of Hezbollah; the half century-long civil war against the rural poor in Colombia; and of course the endless sad saga of the mistreatment of the population of Gaza.)

We need to tear down walls, not build them! Sadly, we fail to learn from history...

A new Rand Report was released today describing the rates of PTSD from returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. Some very sobering findings were highlighted by them. Key among them were the fear of service members in seeking help, the woeful treatment they receive when they do seek it, and, the sheer cost in dollars when failing to address PTSD...

Researchers found about 19 percent of returning service members report that they experienced a possible traumatic brain injury while deployed, with 7 percent reporting both a probable brain injury and current PTSD or major depression.

Many service members said they do not seek treatment for psychological illnesses because they fear it will harm their careers. But even among those who do seek help for PTSD or major depression, only about half receive treatment that researchers consider "minimally adequate" for their illnesses.

In the first analysis of its kind, researchers estimate that PTSD and depression among returning service members will cost the nation as much as $6.2 billion in the two years following deployment — an amount that includes both direct medical care and costs for lost productivity and suicide. Investing in more high-quality treatment could save close to $2 billion within two years by substantially reducing those indirect costs, the 500-page study concludes.

The individuals most likely to be impacted were...

Rates of PTSD and major depression were highest among Army soldiers and Marines, and among service members who were no longer on active duty (people in the reserves and those who had been discharged or retired from the military). Women, Hispanics and enlisted personnel all were more likely to report symptoms of PTSD and major depressions, but the single best predictor of PTSD and depression was exposure to combat trauma while deployed.

Researchers found many treatment gaps exist for those with PTSD and depression. Just 53 percent of service members with PTSD or depression sought help from a provider over the past year, and of those who sought care, roughly half got minimally adequate treatment.

Some of the effects of PTSD left untreated were...

"Drug use, suicide, marital problems and unemployment are some of the consequences. There will be a bigger societal impact if these service members go untreated. The consequences are not good for the individuals or society in general."

Some of their recommendations...

"We need to remove the institutional cultural barriers that discourage soldiers from seeking care," Tanielian said. "Just because someone is getting mental health care does not mean that they are not able to do their job. Seeking mental health treatment should be seen as a sign of strength and interest in getting better, not a weakness. People need to get help as early as possible, not only once their symptoms become severe and disabling."

Researchers suggest special training programs are needed to instruct mental health providers in the military, veterans and civilian health systems about the type of evidence-based treatments needed by service members. Only providers with such training should be eligible to treat service members and payment programs should be retooled to reward providers who use science-based treatments.

"It's going to take system-level changes — not a series of small band-aids — to improve treatments for these illnesses," Tanielian said.

Failure to address it head on is staggering...

The RAND study estimates the societal costs of PTSD and major depression for two years after deployment range from about $6,000 to more than $25,000 per case. Depending whether the economic cost of suicide is included, the RAND study estimates the total society costs of the conditions for two years range from $4 billion to $6.2 billion.

For even 'mild' traumatic Brain Injuries incurred is just as costly...

One-year estimates of the societal cost associated with treated cases of mild traumatic brain injury range up to $32,000 per case, while estimates for treated moderate to severe cases range from $268,000 to more than $408,000. Estimates of the total one-year societal cost of the roughly 2,700 cases of traumatic brain injury identified to date range from $591 million to $910 million.

This is something that needs to be addressed fully and funded to the hilt. Failure to do so will cost far more than not acting on it. We need to press our congress critters and VA officials to embrace the report and act on their recommendations, NOW! Of course, it would help if we got of of Iraq, too...

The Guardian is reporting a lucrative "non-military" aid package to Pakistan. Sen. Biden is one of the principal agents behind the deal.

The aid package, being put together by the Democratic senator Joseph Biden, will mark a decisive break in US policy on Pakistan, which for much of the past nine years focused on President Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistani military as Washington's primary partners in the "war on terror". Officials in Washington said yesterday that the shift had already been made.

"Senator Biden wants to show the relationship is much broader than a military one, and that we are willing to sustain it over time," one of the senator's senior aides said yesterday.

A US administration official said: "Each day Musharraf's influence becomes less and less. Civilians are in control. People aren't meeting with Musharraf any more ... we are very pleased with the new civilian government."

I certainly like the shift in strategy, most of the monies will be earmarked for civilian purposes...

The New Deal

· $1.5bn a year in civilian aid for at least five years

· $1bn "democracy dividend" as a reward for holding elections and forming a coalition government

· Counter-terrorism aid will be performance-based

· The Pakistani government will be consulted before any further air strikes against militants on Pakistani soil by US unmanned "Predator" aircraft

· More counter-terrorism assistance will be given to civilian law-enforcement and intelligence organisations

Interestingly, The Pakistanis want us to curb our Predator drone usage...

Pakistani officials say they have been given assurances by Washington that there will be close consultation with the civilian government, not with Musharraf, before any future strikes.

However, the use of Predators is held as a closely guarded secret and US intelligence is reluctant to share information about targets, and there is some scepticism in Islamabad over whether the deal will stick.

"We'll have to take them at their word, won't we," said the new information minister, Sherry Rahman, in an interview in Islamabad. She added that Washington's previous emphasis on ties to Musharraf and the Pakistani military "hasn't provided the results that were supposed to happen on the ground".

We definitely hadn't gotten anything from the previous $10 Billion, maybe this new approach will accomplish something... In a side note, the article described the results of the $25 Million reward for Osama Bin Forgotten and AQ..

Furthermore, much of the money being used for counter-terrorism is being misspent, both Pakistan and US government officials say. As an example they say that Musharraf distributed the $25m reward money for capturing or killing "high value" al-Qaida targets in the form of an "inverted pyramid".

"A few thousand would go to the police constable on the ground who actually spotted the guy, but the millions go to the generals up the chain," a Pakistani official said. No wonder, he added, that the tip-offs stopped coming in and the number of high-profile arrests dropped.

OT- Where were these when we were pounding pickets for miles...!

Aaah, I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning...! I was scanning the news out of Iraq and two articles leapt out at me this morn. First this one jumped out at me with this headline: "US presses Iraq neighbours at security meeting." I said to myself that's interesting and notable that we're at least talking to them and I read it. I admired this particular snippet...

In a final communique, the participants "welcomed the positive cooperation between Iraq and its neighbours in the fight against terrorism," noting that such cooperation had already led to "an improvement in security".

"Control of the borders is the responsibility of Iraq and its neighbours," it said.

Apart from the US, the meeting drew diplomats from Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, as well as representatives from Russia, France, China, the UN and Arab League.

Okay, that's cool and so I continued along and lo and behold this one screamed at me! With this headline: "Iran says U.S. aids rebels at its borders." How could I pass that up? So I read it and some very interesting tidbits of info popped up, such as:

Analysts say the anti-Iranian groups are tempting assets for the U.S. They say it would be a surprise if the groups were not receiving U.S. funding, but that the strategy would probably not work.

"It will give more encouragement to Iran's hard-liners to step up their own efforts to assist anti-American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst now at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

Among the most active groups is the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, known by its Kurdish acronym, PEJAK. It has hundreds of well-trained fighters along with camps in northern Iraq.

Hmmm... Who is PEJAK?

PEJAK emerged this decade as an Iranian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, an armed group formed to fight a separatist war against the Turkish government.

Former members say PEJAK was meant to circumvent Western restrictions on contacts with the PKK, which has been labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department and the European Union.

"The PKK wanted to have a relationship with America, so it formed and used PEJAK," said Mamand Rozhe, a former commander who defected from the group four years ago.

Wow, we're subsidizing a known terrorist organization, but wait, there's more...

The secretive Mujahedin Khalq, also regarded by the U.S. and EU as a terrorist organization, may have little support among Iranians, but its networks extend deep into Iranian territory, and it is credited with exposing Iran's nuclear program in 2002.

Other groups include Jundollah, which operates out of the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan, and Arab groups in Iran's southwest.

The leftist Komala Party of Iran hasn't staged any military operations inside Iran since 1992, but several hundred or so fighters continue to train at their base camp in Zergwe in the autonomous Kurdish northern region of Iraq.

Abdullah Mohtadi, a leader of one of two Komala factions, said he met with White House and State Department officials in 2005 and 2006 to discuss Iran.

Imagine that! We're aiding and abetting terrorist organizations against Iran in the region! What was Washington demanding at that Security meeting... Oh yeah...

Washington urges Iraq’s neighbours to show strong commitment in halting flow of terrorists, weapons to country.

The participants also noted...

"Terrorist facilitation networks operating throughout the region continue to be a significant threat to the stability of Iraq, and by extension, the entire region," the statement said.

"The influx of foreign-made weapons used by and seized from the criminal militia elements involved in fighting Iraqi Security Forces, which was thrown into stark relief during the recent flare-up of violence in Basra, the southern provinces, and Baghdad, is another serious threat which this group should address," it said.

There they go again, saying it's criminal elements, lets reflect back on those 'criminal elements'...

We have been repeatedly "informed" of highly questionable assumptions. Most prominent amongst them is that the "firebrand" and "radical" Moqtada Al-Sadr -- leader of the millions-strong Shia Sadr Movement -- led a group of "renegades", "thugs" and "criminals" to terrorise the strategically important city(Basra).

So as Crock o'shit says this...

US ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker has framed Iranian activities in Iraq as a "proxy war" with the Americans, even as administration officials have hailed the retreat of Al-Qaeda due to increasing involvement by Sunni tribal chiefs.

Crocker on Friday foresaw a similar reaction in Iraq, saying that Iran's support for militias fighting the Iraqi government may cause a Shiite "backlash."

Yet the Bush administration has launched "an interagency assessment of what is known about Iranian activities and intentions, how to combat them and how to capitalize on them," the Washington Post reported Saturday.

This is an excellent summation of the world of shit we're in...

Brookings Institution expert Suzanne Maloney said that "disastrous Bush policies fostered a sectarian Iraq that has helped empower Iranian hardliners.

"Rather than serving as an anchor for a new era of stability and American preeminence in the Persian Gulf, the new Iraq represents a strategic black hole, bleeding Washington of military resources and political influence while extending Iran's primacy among its neighbors."

Mission Accomplished, Shrub!

It is staggering to see this continuing on and on... No, not the war in Iraq and its' spiraling costs in blood and treasure, rather, the complete inability of the Pentagon to account for its' own expenditures. Today, another critical article was published.

For the first three quarters of 2007, $1.1 trillion in Army accounting entries hadn't been properly reviewed and substantiated, according to the Department of Defense's inspector general. In 2006, $258.2 billion of recorded withdrawals and payments from the Army's main account were unsupported. It's as if the Army had submitted multibillion-dollar expense reports without any receipts.

What can $1.1 Trillion buy? To put it in perspective, consider that this unaccounted for sum would buy the following:

· nearly 14 million accounting degrees from any four-year state college, estimating the cost at $20,000 per year;

· · · 36 million automobiles at an estimated cost of $30,000 each; and

· · · about 8 million single-family houses costing $140,000 per home.

Also, consider this:

· Assuming the average working life is 30 years, the average annual income is $34,000 and the average federal tax on that income is $6,830, nearly 5.5 million Americans will work their entire lives to pay $1.1 trillion in taxes.

"In the Defense Department, what you have now are material weaknesses that are in every single area, in every part of the department, so deep and so wide you do not really have any way of figuring out where money is being spent," says Linda Bilmes, a federal budget expert at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Every year, the Pentagon tries to justify its budget request to Congress by submitting three years of financial data: "actual" performance for the past fiscal year plus projections for the current year and the next. But because of the lack of reliable accounting, these totals are largely fictional. That, in turn, raises major questions about whether the government will be able to meet skyrocketing commitments for future spending on ships, planes, and high-tech ground weapons, especially given the expected growth in spending on Social Security and Medicare, and the impact of tax cuts.

Interestingly, despite numerous Billion dollar patches and countless legislation passed to require fiscal responsibility we're still screwed!

In 1990, Congress enacted legislation requiring all federal agencies to pass independent audits. Every year, the Defense inspector general dispatched dozens of auditors to the military's financial and accounting centers. Every year, they reported back that the job couldn't be done. Defense Department records were in such disarray and were so lacking in documentation that any attempt would be futile. In 2000, the inspector general told Congress that his auditors stopped counting after finding $2.3 trillion in unsupported entries made to force financial data to agree.

In 2002, Congress relented. Until the Pentagon can get its records in order, no comprehensive audit is required. Instead, the department writes each year to the inspector general certifying that "material amounts" in its financial reports can't be substantiated.

That it can't be audited "goes to the heart of the department's credibility," says Dov Zakheim, who was Defense Department chief financial officer and comptroller under Rumsfeld. "Nobody would trust even a half-million-dollar enterprise if its books weren't clean."

The Pentagon has repeatedly assured Congress that it is working toward an audit. Yet the projected date continues to slip further away. In 1995, Pentagon officials testified that it could be audited by 2000. In 2006, an audit wasn't envisioned until 2016.

At the heart of this BS is the institutional rivalry between the services and the antiquated equipment utilized.

The dysfunction stems in part from the traditional independence of the military branches. Over several decades, they have cobbled together separate processes for identical functions, resulting in the uncontrolled growth of more than 4,000 accounting, financial, and inventory systems. Their names form an acronym soup: CAPS, Stanfins, IAPS, Somards, Samms, Mocas, HQARS, Stars. The department's primary system for handling weapons contracts and payments dates from 1958; a costly attempt to replace it was abandoned in 2002 as a failure. The Army's notoriously inaccurate main accounting system was created in 1966. They run on old-style I.B.M. mainframes and rely on Cobol, the ancient Sumerian of computer languages. "This was a bunch of systems patched together," says Greg Bitz, a former director of the center. "I never went home at night without worrying about one of them crashing." Bitz predicts a crisis as older programmers retire. "Try to find somebody today who knows Cobol," he says.

Nevertheless, the four military services still can't be audited, and Jonas declines to predict when the entire Defense Department will finally pass an audit. "We don't know what we don't know," she says.

Astonishing, in this day and age! We deserve better!

Today, I'm heeding a call to arms that was sounded by Booman. As ABC News reported on Friday:

President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to an exclusive interview with ABC News Friday. "Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people." Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."

Excuse me? You knew about it and approved it? It wasn't rogue elements in the CIA, nor rotten apples at Abu Ghraib? As Jack Balkin writes:

So now the plot thickens. John Ashcroft, it appears, repeatedly signed off on the legality of the techniques but was squeamish about going into details, arguing "that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations." "According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: `Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.'"

Moreover, the committee's approvals, it appears, continued even after Jack Goldsmith disavowed the Yoo torture memos:

[T]he CIA had captured a new al Qaeda suspect in Asia. Sources said CIA officials that summer returned to the Principals Committee for approval to continue using certain "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Then-National Security Advisor Rice, sources said, was decisive. Despite growing policy concerns -- shared by Powell -- that the program was harming the image of the United States abroad, sources say she did not back down, telling the CIA: "This is your baby. Go do it."

Apparently, Ashcroft didn't heed his own advice, as the WaPo reports:

The Post reported that the attendees at one or more of these sessions included then-presidential counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, then-Defense Department general counsel William J. Haynes II, then-National Security Council legal adviser John B. Bellinger III, CIA counsel John A. Rizzo, and David S. Addington, then-counsel to Cheney.

The Post reported that the methods discussed included open-handed slapping, the threat of live burial and waterboarding. The threat of live burial was rejected, according to an official familiar with the meetings.

State Department officials and military lawyers were intentionally excluded from these deliberations, officials said.

Where is the follow up by the AP, UPI, McClatchy, CBS, NBC,... Why are we hearing nothing but crickets? Even ABC and the WaPo aren't following up on these serious allegations! As Booman wrote:

It is hard to believe that just ten years ago this nation impeached a president for lying about his sex life in a civil deposition in a case that was eventually tossed for lack of merit. Ten years ago the media could not grant enough coverage to the crimes of the president, but now even confessed felonies are covered over in favor of silly campaign coverage.

Bush and Cheney will be leaving office in nine months, and the easiest thing to do is to just run out the clock. But that isn't the right thing to do. And it will not absolve us of our responsibility to punish injustice and vindicate our nation's commitment to human rights and the rule of law. Just look at how the world views us. Are we to let this stand?

And, yet, what can we do? With Clinton and Obama distracted by the primaries and the domestic press in the bag and with Republican complicity and administration obstruction, there seems to be no leadership and no path to a solution.

That leaves the responsibility on citizen activists...people like you and me. If the media won't cover it, we will. And we will hope that shame compels the media to recognize our shame and agony, and our commitment to our country and its reputation in the world.

Write your Congress Critters and ask them to heed the ACLU's call for a Special Prosecutor to investigate.

“No one in the executive branch of government can be trusted to fairly investigate or prosecute any crimes since the head of every relevant department, along with the president and vice president, either knew or participated in the planning and approval of illegal acts,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Congress cannot look the other way; it must demand an independent investigation and independent prosecutor.”

Investigate, Indict, and, Impeach these Bastards...!

In today's post I want to take a look at the current situation in Iraq. I've been distracted of late from covering the events on the ground, particularly by the dog and pony show happening in DC. Well, to start off with US Troops Suffer Worst Week This Year

The U.S. military said the American soldier was killed in a blast Saturday morning in northwestern Baghdad but did not say whether Shiite militiamen were responsible.

The death raised to at least 19 the number of American troopers killed in Iraq since last Sunday.

American casualties have risen with an outbreak of fighting in Baghdad between U.S. and Iraqi forces and the largest Shiite militia — the Mahdi Army of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Speaking of al-Sadr, he responds to Gates:

In his statement on Saturday, Moqtada Sadr said: "I heard the statement of the terrorist American defence minister and I feel compelled to give a decent response to such a terrorist. I have no enemy but you. You are the occupier." At the Pentagon on Friday, Mr Gates referred to Mr Sadr as a "a significant political figure"."Those who are prepared to work within the political process in Iraq, and peacefully, are not enemies of the United States," Mr Gates said.

"[Mr Sadr] has a large following. And I think it's important that he become a part of the process if he isn't already."

But Mr Sadr asked: "Which political process do you want to involve me in when you are occupying my land?"

From the same article...

Saturday's fighting in Sadr City was some of the worst there since Iraqi forces launched an offensive a week ago, residents said. US forces used both tanks and air support.

In Najaf, a curfew remained in place after the murder Mr Nuri.

Hundreds of people have died in clashes between Iraqi forces and militias, mainly in Baghdad and in Basra in the south, since Prime Minister Nouri Maliki ordered his crackdown on armed gangs.

Speaking of Maliki...

An $833 million Iraqi arms deal secretly negotiated with Serbia has underscored Iraq’s continuing problems equipping its armed forces, a process that has long been plagued by corruption and inefficiency. The deal was struck in September without competitive bidding and it sidestepped anticorruption safeguards, including the approval of senior uniformed Iraqi Army officers and an Iraqi contract approval committee. Instead, it was negotiated by a delegation of 22 high-ranking Iraqi officials, without the knowledge of American commanders or many senior Iraqi leaders. -snip- Such weaknesses mean that five years after the American invasion, the 170,000-strong Iraqi military remains under-equipped, spottily supplied and largely reliant on the United States for such basics as communications equipment, weapons and ammunition, raising fresh questions about the Iraqi military’s ability to stand on its own. Iraq’s defense minister, Abdul Qadir, defended the arms deal, saying he had followed proper contracting protocols and had informed Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki every step of the way.

Here's an unvarnished take on the MSM and our Maladministration's errant tactics...

The US's major quandary is that Sadr reflects the views of most Iraqis. His possible victory in the south in fair elections could position him as the new nationalist leader, and a unifying force for Iraqis, says Ramzy Baroud.

Baroud makes several excellent observations...

First, Al-Maliki was blamed for acting alone without consulting with the US government. Even presidential candidate John McCain jumped at the opportunity to chastise Bush's man in Iraq for supposedly acting on his own behest. US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker was quoted in the April 3 New York Times as saying, "the sense we had was that this would be a long-term effort: increased pressure gradually squeezing the Special Groups." Really? Would the US allow Al-Maliki to execute a "long-term effort" -- which is costly financially, politically and militarily -- without its full consent, if not orders?

Second, blame was shifted onto Iran. The media parroted these accusations again with palpable omissions. It is true that Sadr is backed by Iran. It is partly true that he is serving an Iranian agenda. But what is conveniently forgotten is that Iran's strongest ally in Iraq is Al-Hakim's SCIRI, and that the central government in Baghdad considers Tehran a friend and ally. Indeed, it was pressure from the latter that weakened Al-Maliki's resolve in a matter of days. On March 24, Al-Maliki announced his "fight to the end", and on April 4 he ordered a halt to the fighting and compensation for the families of the "martyrs". What took place during this short window of time is an Iran-brokered agreement.

Some more inconvenient facts overlooked:

Even thorough journalists seemed oblivious to the known facts: that the Iraqi army largely consists of Shia militias affiliated with a major US ally in Iraq, Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim and his Supreme Islamic Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI); that the SCIRI's Al-Badr militias have rained terror on the Iraqi people -- mostly Sunnis, but increasingly Shias as well -- for years; that the Sadr movement and SCIRI are in fierce contest for control of Iraq's southern provinces, and that the US allies are losing ground quickly to the Sadr Movement, which might cost them the upcoming provincial elections scheduled for October 1, 2008; that the US wanted to see the defeat and demise of Sadr supporters before that crucial date because a victory for Sadr is tantamount to the collapse of the entire American project predicated on the need to privatise Iraqi oil and bring about a "soft" partitioning of the country.

What we are rarely told is that Al-Maliki, although prime minister, is helpless without the validation of Al-Hakim. The latter's SCIRI is the main party in the ruling bloc in the Iraqi parliament. Al-Maliki's own Daawa Party is smaller and much less popular. In order for the coalition to survive another term, Sadr needed to suffer a major and humiliating defeat. Indeed, it was a "defining moment", but the "criminal gangs" of Basra -- and Najaf, Karbala, Diwaniyah, Kut and Hillah -- have proven much stronger than the seemingly legitimate Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and their Al-Badr militias. Even the atrocious US bombardment of Basra proved of little value, despite many civilian deaths. More, the additional thousands of recruits shoved into the battlefield -- tribal gunmen lured by promises of money and power by Al-Maliki -- also made little difference. News analysts concluded that the strength of the "criminal gangs" was underestimated, thus someone had to be blamed.

I'm certainly sick and tired of this madness... SNAFU! Is it 20 Jan 09 yet?

Wasn't it just last week that Shrub and Gates vowed to reduce the length of the tours of duty? Well, surprise! As Reuters reports; "Bush to halt Iraq troop cuts!" After the 5 'surge' brigades leave in July the remainder will be put on a 45 day hiatus.

Bush endorsed a recommendation by his commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, to complete a limited withdrawal of combat troops by July, but then impose a 45-day freeze of the total at about 140,000 troops before considering more possible cuts.

"I've told him he'll have all the time he needs," Bush said in Washington.

Sure, screw'em some more too, take on Iran too...

In his speech, Bush stepped up his criticism of Iran, accusing it of backing militants behind attacks in Iraq, and said failure in Iraq would embolden both Iran and al Qaeda.

"Iraq is the convergence point for two of the greatest threats to America in this new century: al Qaeda and Iran," Bush said, although he reassured a weary public that the war will end.
"While this war is difficult, it is not endless," he said of the conflict, now in its sixth year.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates held out the prospect of more troop withdrawals this autumn. "I would emphasize that the hope, depending on conditions on the ground, is to reduce our presence further this fall," he told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.

Nice fantasy, Gates! Enough of this BS already!

Gawd, can't ya just feel the love... Our VA Secretary says that registering voters, which would be primarily disabled vets, in VA facilities is a "partisan" distraction! How big of him! His reasoning, you might ask?

"VA remains opposed to becoming a voter registration agency pursuant to the National Voter Registration Act, as this designation would divert substantial resources from our primary mission," Peake said in an April 8th letter to Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and John Kerry (D-MA). He was referring to a 1993 federal law that allows government agencies to host voter registration efforts.

What? They'd be forced to divert precious funds from the wonderful upkeep of Walter Reed? Or from the staff's payroll that just so happens to audit each and every application for VA benefits, as opposed to the IRS standard of auditing a mere 6% of filers... This is merely another outrage, atop an already extensive list, but, it needs to be highlighted! Yep, Shrub and the Goopers really has the best interests of our brothers-in-arms at heart! If you get a chance, send an email to either Kerry or Feinstein for applying some pressure to VA...

"The Department of Veterans Affairs should provide voter materials to veterans," Feinstein said. "I believe the cost of providing these voter materials is minimal. It's a small price to pay for the sacrifice these men and women have made in fighting for our nation's freedom. I am disappointed."

"You'd think that when so many people give speeches about keeping faith with our veterans, the least the government would do is protect their right to vote, after they volunteered to go thousands of miles from home to fight and give that right to others," Kerry said. "And yet we've seen the government itself block veterans from registering to vote in VA facilities, without any legal basis or rational explanation.

"I will keep fighting with Sen. Feinstein to ensure that veterans aren't facing unnecessary hurdles just to exercise their voting rights."

Fed Up? Register to vote if you're not already, and Vote!

Yesterday, I linked to Betrayus and Crock o'shit's Charts(12 charts)(pdf). Well the WaPo took a look at them and called them out on their BS and their blatant manipulation of the facts...

Looking at the critical "Iraqi Combat Battalion Generation" chart (#11)

WHAT IT SHOWS: The number of Iraqi combat battalions, particularly those "capable of taking the lead," has steadily grown.

ANALYSIS: This chart uses imprecise language to suggest an improvement in the capability of Iraqi forces when there may well be little or no improvement.

Only a small sliver of the battalions, perhaps 10 or 12, are rated at the top category of operational readiness (green in the chart). But the diagram reaches part of the way into the group of third-level readiness battalions (orange in the chart) to achieve its total of "112 battalions in the lead." By definition, none of those battalions should be capable -- and in his testimony, Petraeus acknowledged that even the best of these troops still need logistical assistance from the United States.

Moving on to the "Ethno-Sectarian Violence" chart(#4)...

WHAT IT SHOWS: This chart combines maps of Baghdad's ethnic neighborhoods with density plots of ethno-sectarian killings to show that violence has declined significantly from December 2006 to last month.

ANALYSIS: Hidden beneath many of the density plots are colors that show a major reshaping of Baghdad, from an ethnically mixed city to a patchwork of rival ethnic and religious enclaves whose residents rarely intersect outside their gated communities.

Many analysts, including in the U.S. government, believe that this de facto division of Baghdad -- as opposed to brilliant U.S. counterinsurgency work -- is largely responsible for the decline in violence.

"The polarization of communities is most evident in Baghdad, where the Shia are a clear majority in more than half of all neighborhoods and Sunni areas have become surrounded by predominately Shia districts," said the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq last year. "Where population displacements have led to significant sectarian separation, conflict levels have diminished to some extent."

On the Iraqi Security Forces Expenditures(#12)

WHAT IT SHOWS: This chart, showing steadily rising Iraqi security expenditures and lower U.S. expenditures, suggests that the Iraqis are beginning to pick up much of the tab for their own security.

ANALYSIS: The lines on this chart through 2008 closely track the Iraqi budget and previous testimony by U.S. officials. The figures for 2009 appear to be based on guesswork, and Petraeus's office declined to provide supporting information. But all the data are so oddly defined that the comparison is not meaningful.

The Iraqi expenditures reflect the budget for running the Interior and Defense ministries, meaning that at least half of the amount is salaries for soldiers and police. The numbers have increased because the personnel in those ministries has skyrocketed in recent years.

The U.S. expenditures are just for the Iraq Security Forces Fund, which provides for the training and equipping of Iraqi forces; the line on the chart does not include the billions of dollars spent on the salaries of U.S. troops assisting the Iraqis and the cost of the extensive logistics that the U.S. military provides to Iraqi forces.

When the Government Accountability Office last year asked for the total-cost figure, the Defense Department said it could not provide an estimate.

Don't you love it when the truth comes out! There is one House critter that caught my eye today, Rep. Robert Wexler...

WEXLER: Please tell us, General, what is winning?

PETRAEUS: Well, first of all -- first of all, Congress, let me tell you that what we are fighting for is national interest. It is interest that, as I stated, have to do with Al Qaida, a sworn enemy of the United States and the free world; it has to do with the possible spread of sectarian conflict in Iraq, conflict that had engulfed that country and had it on the bring of civil war; it has to do with region stability of a region that is of critical importance to the global economy; and it has to do with, certainly, the influence of Iran, another, obviously, very important element in that region.

In terms of what it is that we are trying to achieve, I think, simply, it is a country that is at piece with itself and its neighbors. It is a country that can defend itself, that has a government that is reasonably representative and broadly responsive to its citizens, and a country that is involved in, engaged in, again, the global economy.
Ambassador Crocker and I, for what it's worth, have typically seen ourselves as minimalists. We're not after the Holy Grail in Iraq, we're not after Jeffersonian democracy; we're after conditions that would allow our soldiers to disengage, and that is, in fact, what we are doing as we achieve progress, as we have with the surge, and that is what is indeed allowing us to withdraw the surge forces -- again, well over one-quarter of our ground combat power, five of 20 brigade combat teams, plus two Marine battalions and the Marine Expeditionary Unit by the end of July.

Ambassador Crocker and I, for what it's worth, have typically seen ourselves as minimalists. We're not after the Holy Grail in Iraq, we're not after Jeffersonian democracy; we're after conditions that would allow our soldiers to disengage, and that is, in fact, what we are doing as we achieve progress, as we have with the surge, and that is what is indeed allowing us to withdraw the surge forces -- again, well over one-quarter of our ground combat power, five of 20 brigade combat teams, plus two Marine battalions and the Marine Expeditionary Unit by the end of July.

Okay, no Holy Grail, no Jeffersonian Democracy, no Saddam, no WMD... WTF?

Well, Betrayus and Crock o'shit wrapped up Day One's testimony! I did relish Sen. Biden's parting remark to P&C, at the closing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing; "Your physical stamina is greater than your good judgement!" That, in a nutshell, sums up the utter cow paddies they left all over the Senate Hearing Rooms' floors. All three prez candidates asked questions. Obama asked the best Q's, with Hill doing an admirable job on asking about the Secret Agreement.

CLINTON: Do you anticipate that the Iraqi government would submit such an agreement to the Iraqi Parliament for ratification?

CROCKER: The Iraqi government has indicated it will bring the agreement to the Council of Representatives. At this point, it is not clear, at least to me, whether that will be for a formal vote or whether they will repeat the process they used in November with the Declaration of Principles in which it was simply read to the members of the Parliament.

CLINTON: Does the administration plan to submit this agreement to our Congress?

CROCKER: At this point, senator, we do not anticipate the agreements will have within them any elements would require the advice and consent procedure. We intend to negotiate this as an executive agreement.

Sigh, McCain still can't seem to get it right...

MCCAIN: Do you still view al Qaeda in Iraq as a major threat?

PETRAEUS: It is still a major threat, though it is certainly not as major a threat as it was say 15 months ago.

MCCAIN: Certainly not an obscure sect of the Shi’ites overall?

PETREAUS: No.

MCCAIN: Or Sunnis or anybody else.

As a Mccain spokesman said later; "He merely stumbled." How many 'stumbles' has it been to date? Five, six...? Repeat after me: AQI is Sunni, AQI is Sunni...

Personally, I think the worst opening statement and suck up honors have to go to Sen Lieberman:

You've been very frank about some of the problems that we still face. I say -- what I'm about to say with respect to my colleagues who have consistently opposed our presence in Iraq, as I hear the questions and the statements today, it seems to me that there's a kind of "hear no progress in Iraq, see no progress in Iraq" and most of all "speak of no progress in Iraq." The fact is there has been progress in Iraq, thanks to extraordinary effort by the two of you and all those who serve under you on our behalf. I wish we could come to a point where we could have an agreement on the facts that you are presenting to us, the charts you've shown, the military progress, the extraordinary drop in ethnosectarian violence, the drop in civilian deaths, the drop in American deaths, the -- the very impressive political progress in Iraq since last September. Hey, let's be honest about this. The Iraqi political leadership has achieved a lot more political reconciliation and progress since September than the American political leadership has. So we've got to give some credit for that.

Here's the pdf file of the Dog and Pony Show that was distributed to our Congress Critters.

Here's a brief synopsis of Obama's statement and Q's:

"If, on the other hand, our criteria is a messy, sloppy status quo but there's not huge outbreaks of violence, there's still corruption, but the country is struggling along, but it's not a threat to its neighbors and it's not an al-Qaida base, that seems to me an achievable goal within a measurable timeframe," he said.

Obama said Bush's troop increase reduce the violence, but the "breathing room" it created has not been