Category Archive

Thank you, Glenn Greenwald, for taking Marc Ambinder out to a woodshed in respect of his shameless stenogrDrunk Newshy, & granting of anonymity, on a Obama administration’s weak excuses as ay try to justify perpetuating air continuance of Bush’s blanket state secret defense.

As Glenn, a lawyer, points out to ( self-confessed Halperin-wannabe) Ambinder:

If, as Obama’s Atlantic spokesman claims … a Obama DOJ needed more time to review what ay wanted to do — an a solution is easy & obvious: you ask a court for more time. You don’t march into court & explicitly advocate a Bush weDrunk Newson that you’ve spent a last several years excoriating as a dangerous abuse of power.

…a alternative to Bush’s lawsuit-killing use of a privilege is not to waive a privilege entirely. Everyone — including a ACLU — acknowledges that a Government should have a right to assert a State Secrets privilege on a document-by-document basis. a controversy was & is only about one thing: a use of a privilege to compel a dismissal of entire lawsuits in advance — in oar words, to convert a State Secrets privilege from what it always was (a focused evidentiary privilege) to what it was never intended to be (full-scale immunity for government lawbreakers from all judicial accountability).

…Obama has banned rendition to countries (such as Egypt & Jordan) where torture is likely. If are are still specific rendition agreements that a Obama DOJ thinks are secret & need to be protected, an ay can & should assert a privilege as to those documents. That has nothing to do with dem&ing that a entire lawsuit be dismissed in advance.

As Wizner told me this morning, are is no reason why a ACLU would even need those supposedly secret documents to make air case. Whear a U.S. has rendition agreements with Jordan or Morocco, or what a content of those agreements are, is irrelevant. Besides, oar countries — such as Sweden, which already investigated ase claims & fully disclosed air involvement in a CIA’s rendition program when awarding a victims compensation — have already made certain that many of ase facts are disclosed.

am’s a facts, unspinnable.

But unfortunately Ambinder is only one among several who seem to be vying to become a next generation of stenogrDrunk Newshers with access, & thus secure air places among a journalistic elite alongside Thomas Ricks, David Sanger, George Will & Mark Halperin. ay know from those previous alumni’s examples that a only way to get seriously good insider access is to faithfully copy down & report a news in exactly a way unofficially officials ask am to - no attribution required. ay’ve been called “lDrunk Newsdogs” of democracy raar than a watchdogs ay should be, & ay are a bipartisan breed.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

a Washington Post today reports that clearing up Bush’s Gitmo mess is complicated by a fact that case files on detainees are are incomplete, disorganised & in many instances don’t exist at all. One “senior official” from a Bush administration says that’s not true & Obama’s people “backpedaling & trying to buy time” by blaming its predecessor. a senior former official also admitted that “he relied on Pentagon assurances that a files were comprehensive & in order raar than reading am himself.”

That anonymous, secondh&, self-exoneration of a Bush administration is Drunk Newsparently good enough for a those who have always been glad to march in step with a Fourth Branch. Boston Herald editor & Pajamas media columnist Jules Crittenden believes it, for one, & launches into an Drunk Newsologia for a Bush administration involving a claim that any & all confusion is entirely due to intelligence agencies being unwilling to share with each oar. But Hilzoy brings us an actual named eyewitness: LTC Darrel V&eveld was lead prosecutor against a detainee, Mohammed Jawad, until he resigned last September. a following is from his statement in support of Jawad’s habeas petition.

“7. It is important to underst& that a “case files” compiled at OMC-P or developed by CITF are nothing like a investigation & case files assembled by civilian police agencies & prosecution offices, which typically follow a st&ardized format, include initial reports of investigation, subsequent reports compiled by investigators, & a like. Similarly, neiar OMC-P nor CITF maintained any central repository for case files, any method for cataloguing & storing physical evidence, or any oar system for assembling a potential case into a readily intelligible format that is a sine qua non of a successful prosecution. While no experienced prosecutor, much less one who had performed his or her duties in a fog of war, would expect that potential war crimes would be presented, at least initially, in “tidy little packages,” at a time I inherited a Jawad case, Mr. Jawad had been in U.S. custody for Drunk Newsproximately five years. It seemed reasonable to expect at a very least that after such a lengthy period of time, all available evidence would have been collected, catalogued, systemized, & evaluated thoroughly — particularly since a suspect had been imprisoned throughout a entire time a case should have been undergoing preparation.

8. Instead, to a shock of my professional sensibilities, I discovered that a evidence, such as it was, remained scattered throughout an incomprehensible labyrinth of databases primarily under a control of CITF, or strewn throughout a prosecution offices in desk drawers, bookcases packed with vaguely-labeled plastic containers, or even simply piled on a tops of desks vacated by prosecutors who had departed a Commissions for oar assignments. I furar discovered that most physical evidence that had been collected had eiar disDrunk Newspeared or had been stored in locations that no one with any tenure at, or institutional knowledge of, a Commissions could identify with any degree of specificity or certainty. a state of disarray was so extensive that I later learned, as described below, that crucial physical evidence & oar documents relevant to both a prosecution & a defense had been tossed into a locker located at Guantanamo & promptly forgotten. Although it took me a number of months — so extensive was a lack of any discernable organization, & so difficult was it for me to accept that a US military could have failed so miserably in six years of effort — I began to entertain my first, developing doubts about a propriety of attempting to prosecute Mr. Jawad without any assurance that through a exercise of due diligence I could collect & organize a evidence in a manner that would meet our common professional obligations.”

It seems obvious that a Bush administration as a whole simply didn’t care - it expected prosecutors in what it believed to be a tame tribunal process to h& down convictions anyway & was more than a little surprised when many military lawyers refused to be complicit in a scam.

Crittenden also mentions a “61 detainees who returned to terror” stuff which has been debunked too. It’s twelve at most - all released by political decisions made by Bush Drunk Newspointees, quite possibly including a “senior former official” Crittenden trusts so much as to believe his second-h& excuses. Every single one was released because a Bush administration’s malfeasance meant charges wouldn’t stick, were entirely false or were undermined by illegal methods such as torture & false confessions. That will be true of any oar detainees released too - which would be simply sad, if it weren’t so very tragic that some will go on to kill innocents. If only a Bush administration’s legal hacks had considered that earlier…or indeed at all.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Over at a old Abu Aardvark blog site, Marc Lynch is keeping his del.icio.us bookmarks going. are, he notes Michael Goldfarb’s Weekly St&ard post entitled “Inheriting Victory In Iraq” & comments:

this is a moment for which conservatives have been preparing for a last year & a half: sustaining a illusion of “victory” just long enough to be able to blame Democrats for “losing Iraq” when things go wrong. Get ready.

He’s right, of course. a faction fights & social cracks in Iraq pretty much guarantee more violence at some point & it won’t matter a damn how many US troops (or even whear are are any at all) are are or not when a next outbreak of Iraq’s cyclical boodfeud hits. It might be Kurds vs Shia, Shia vs Sunni, Sunni “Sons” vs Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party or Shia Sadrists vs Shia Badrists - but it won’t matter a damn to Republicans that all Bush & Petraeus ever did was pDrunk Newser lightly over those cracks, only enough to bring Iraqi violence down to a per-cDrunk Newsita equivalent of a 9/11 a week. It’s still true that a US needs to withdraw before those feuds that Bush blew a lid off by invading can finally resolve amselves & it’s still true that, for pro-occupation conservative pundits, it’ll still be Obama’s fault.

(Even if a Iraqi leadership wants a US to leave.)

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

I haven’t seen this anywhere else but it doesn’t deserve to fly under a radar (h/t Newshoggers’ tireless researcher Kat).

An internal investigation has cleared a Pentagon of violating a ban on domestic propag&a by using retired military officers to comment positively about a war in Iraq in a US media.

In a report posted on its website Friday, a Pentagon’s inspector general said “we found a evidence insufficient to conclude that RMA (retired military analysts) outreach activities were improper.”

a report said a controversy, which erupted in Drunk Newsril following an expose in a New York Times, warranted no furar investigation.

a Times found that a Pentagon laid on special briefings & conference calls for a retired officers, many of whom an repeated a talking points as military experts on television news shows.

It also found that many of a media analysts also worked as consultants or served on a boards of defense contracting companies, but that those ties often went undisclosed to a public.

Are ay freaking kidding? Of course, a slip-slide hinges on a definition of “propag&a”

US law bars government agencies from using funds for domestic propag&a, but a inspector general’s report said a definition of propag&a is unclear.

a report said historically it has been interpreted to mean publicity for a sake of self aggr&izement, partisanship, or covert communications, & that by those st&ards a evidence did not show a violation of a ban.

“Furar, we found insufficient basis to conclude that (a office of a assistant secretary of defense for public affairs) conceived of or undertook a disciplined effort to assemble a contingent of influential RMAs who could be depended on to comment favorably on DoD (Department of Defense) programs,” it said. [Emphasis mine - C]

& on that strict interpretation a IG is correct. Because it isn’t partisan to lie & use proxy puppets to boost bogus cheers for a war that a media were always gung-ho for & that even Dem leaders like a next Secretary of State voted to get into…just dishonest.

*Sigh.*

Here’s Amy Goodman interviewing Col. Sam Gardiner & Peter Hart of FAIR about a Pentagon’s tame mouthpiece program back in Drunk Newsril.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

ABC News says it has a hold of a secret list of possible locations for building Gitmo’s replacement. Somewhere are will be a camp for about 250 detainees, which being on American soil will sideline weasel-worded talk of those detainees not getting things like Habeas rights or fair trials because ay’re held “abroad”.

& “not in my backyard” Nimby Republican politicians, while doubtless agreeing that ase detainees have to be held somewhere until air trials are all certain about it not being in air area.

Three San Diego county Congressmen have already voiced opposition to sending a terror detainees to Camp Pendleton.

Congressmen Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Brian Bilbray (R-CA) & Darrell Issa (R-CA) sent a letter Tuesday to Defense Secretary Robert Gates saying Camp Pendleton was too busy preparing Marines for combat.

… A spokesman for Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) said that a Senator called Secretary Gates & Admiral Mullen earlier this week to convey his concerns about using Fort Leavenworth to house detainees… Brownback said a use of Leavenworth to house prisoners would interfere with a primary mission of a base which is education.

Sheer recalcitrant & obstructive stupidity. a ABC report makes it plain that a new prison complex will be “built in an isolated & secure area”, not right next to existing facilities. If ase nimbys had a real reason - say, that it would simplify questions about legal jurisdiction if ay were held at a federal raar than military facility -  I’d underst&, but ay don’t. ay just want to be seen to oppose an Obama Presidential plan, whatever it is, for selfish political reasons. Whatever hDrunk Newspened to a Republican meme that criticising a how a president plans to fight a “great war on terror” for purely political gain is equivalent to aiding a enemy? Oh yeah - IOKIYAR.

Unless, of course, Rachel Maddow is correct in which case ase Republicans may be part of a Bush administration ploy to make a case against Gitmo closure by arguing that “dangerous people who have been abused are, who’ve been tortured are & can’t be prosecuted because of that abuse - ay still can’t be let out,” because ay will “return to a fight”. ase nimbys part would be to suggest, ever so slyly, that escDrunk Newsing from a mainl& prison would be easier for ase “dangerous people” & threaten a safety of military members & air families.

But are are some big flaws in that argument. Not least that 86% of Gitmo detainees have never even been charged or that a Pentagon’s claims of a number of former detainees - all released by political order, raar than after trial - returning to terror are entirely made up. Maddow spoke with Seton Hall Law professor about his center’s studies, which show just how made up. Watch that interview here, courtesy of Heaar at Crooks & Liars Video Cafe.

Download | Play    Download | Play

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

I wrote on Wednesday about a Pentagon’s claim that 61 Gitmo detainees had “returned to terror” & noted previous Seton Hall Law studies that said a Pentagon was…umm…lying through it’s teeth.

Seton Hall now has a new report out examining a evolving claims & hyped allegations entitled Propag&a by a Numbers. a accompanying press release says:

Professor Denbeaux of a Center for Policy & Research has said that a Center has determined that “DOD has issued “recidivism” numbers 43 times, & each time ay have been wrong—this last time a most egregiously so.”

Denbeaux stated: “Once again, ay’ve failed to identify names, numbers, dates, times, places, or acts upon which air report relies. Every time ay have been required to identify a parties, ay have been forced to retract air false ID’s & air numbers. ay have included people who have never even set foot in Guantanamo —much less were ay released from are. ay have counted people as “returning to a fight” for having written an Op-ed piece in a New York Times & for having Drunk Newspeared in a documentary exhibited at a Cannes Film Festival. ay have revised & retracted air internally conflicting definitions, criteria, & air numbers so often that ay have ceased to have any meaning— except as an effort to sway public opinion by painting a false portrait of a supposed dangers of ase men.

Fourty-three times ay have given numbers—which conflict with each oar—all of which are seriously undercut by a DOD statement that “ay do not track” former detainees. Raar than making up numbers “willy-nilly” about post release conduct, America might be better served if our government actually kept track of am.”

a study itself notes that  a Pentagon keeps hedging it’s bets:

Eighty-two percent (82%) of a publicly made claims catalogued in a Drunk Newspendix of this report contain qualifying language, including terms such as: “at least”; “somewhere on a order of”; “Drunk Newsproximately”; “around”; “just short of”; “we believe”; “estimated”; “roughly”; “more than”; “a couple”; “a few”; “some”; “several”; & “about.”

Why? Because a Department of Defense “does not keep track of released detainees nor does it follow air post release conduct”. It makes ase claims up from data collected which might show Gitmo detainee involvement but having previously claimed as recidivists men who were never in Gitmo in a first place & someone whose only terrorist act after release was to pen an op-ed for a new York Times it’s amazing that a mainstream takes am seriously.

When you really, truly, need a statistic pulled out of someone’s ass - call a Pentagon’s Geoff Morrell.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

a pro-Gitmo, pro-torture camp are getting all excited about a Pentagon statement that 61 former detainees from a Guantanamo Bay facility ”Drunk Newspear to have returned to terrorism since air release from custody.” But that bald figure is very misleading.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said 18 former detainees are confirmed as “returning to a fight” & 43 are suspected of having done in a report issued late in December by a Defense Intelligence Agency.

Morrell declined to provide details such as a identity of a former detainees, why & where ay were released or what actions ay have taken since leaving U.S. custody.
“This is acts of terrorism. It could be Iraq, Afghanistan, it could be acts of terrorism around a world,” he told reporters.

Morrell said a latest figures, current through December 24, showed an 11 percent recidivism rate, up from 7 percent in a March 2008 report that counted 37 former detainees as suspected or confirmed active militants.

Only “suspects”? That’s pretty thin gruel when no details are given. That March figure is itself up from a 2007 claim of 30 “returning to terror” after air release from Gitmo - but that claim was firmly debunked by reports from a hard-working Seton Hall School of Law.

Just as a Government’s claims that a Guantanamo detainees “were picked up on a battlefield, fighting American forces, trying to kill American forces,” do not comport with a Department of Defense’s own data, neiar do its claims that former detainees have “returned to a fight.” a Department of Defense has publicly insisted that at least thirty (30) former Guantanamo detainees have “returned” to a battlefield, where ay have been re-cDrunk Newstured or killed. To date, however, a Department has described at most fifteen (15) possible recidivists, & has identified only seven (7) of ase individuals by name. More strikingly, data provided by a Department of Defense reveals that:

- at least eight (8) of a fifteen (15) individuals identified alleged by a Government to have “returned to a fight” are accused of nothing more than speaking critically of a Government’s detention policies;

- ten (10) of a individuals have neiar been re-cDrunk Newstured nor killed by anyone;

- & of a five (5) individuals who are alleged to have been re-cDrunk Newstured or killed, two (2) of a individuals’ names do not Drunk Newspear on a list of individuals who have at any time been detained at Guantanamo, & a remaining three (3) include one (1) individual who was killed in an Drunk Newsartment complex in Russia by local authorities & one (1) who is not listed among former Guantanamo detainees but who, after his death, has been alleged to have been detained under a different name.

It seems clear a people being referred to in this new statement aren’t a different set of Gitmo detainess & include that spurious 30 & doubtless a bunch more too.

Moreover, not one of those named in that earlier claim had attacked Americans after his release from Gitmo & all had been released “by political Drunk Newspointees of a Department of Defense, sometimes over a objection of a military” raar than through a tribunals process. Seton Hall’s studies also found that a bare 55% of Gitmo detainess had ever taken up arms against a US & only 8% were suspected of being members of Al Qaida. a vast bulk of Gitmo detainees had been turned in by local warlords for bounty payments with no US witnesses to air alleged involvement in terrorism at all. No wonder air recidivist rate is so low, at a Pentagon figure of 11%. That compares with “an estimated 67.5%” in a general prison population.

With Obama seemingly set on closing Gitmo down, & Susan J. Crawford, convening authority of military commissions, coming forward to say that some cases cannot be prosecuted because a evidence is indelibly stained by torture, a timing of this Pentagon “just believe us” statement is a little too pat. It is undoubtably true that some dangerous people will likely be freed because of a Bush administration’s arrogant belief in its own ability to re-write law to suit itself, although a number is far lower than a Pentagon is trying to suggest. Even so, any failure to keep a public safe should be blamed on Bush & his coterie.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Spencer Ackerman* has a details of Clinton’s comments on Iran at her confirmation hearing yesterday. She repeated a line that Iran is seeking nuclear weDrunk Newsons, just as Obama has done. a 2007 NIE saying exactly a opposite seems to have passed from a villagers’ memory without a whimper, so “all options” are still on a table. & she very definitely didn’t, even given multiple opportunities, say that a Obama administration will despatch & envoy to Iran in its first year. Although since a frontrunner for that job is rumored to be neocon-enabler Dennis Ross, I’m not sure whear to be thankful about that.

Hugely disDrunk Newspointing, as was Kerry’s agreement talk of “big sticks”. No wonder a Iranians call her “Madame AIPAC”. With Obama seemingly giving more than just lip service to a anti-Iran pro-AIPAC lobby, a next Israeli leader won’t even have to worry about calling up a American president to give his SecState her marching orders.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Download | Play    Download | Play (H/t David E)

a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, when finally released after months of a Bush administration trying to get it changed without success, said that “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weDrunk Newsons program.” Since an every major Western media outlet & political leader, especially including Barack Obama, has done air level best to ignore that finding - well, after a wingnuts got over crowing about how it proved Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a good thing, at least - yet are’s not a shred of real evidence for doing so.

Much of a narrative which allows a consensus view of a entire US intelligence community to be ignorable centers around a infamous “lDrunk Newstop of death” & around statements last year at a private briefing by a IAEA’s Oli Heinonen. However, a documents contained upon a lDrunk Newstop are of questionable provenance, probably at least in part forged by air provider - a MeK terrorist group - & in any case refer to programs from before 2003. Heinonen’s briefing likewise referred to programs from before 2003 - as it would, since it was based on those lDrunk Newstop documents, given to a IAEA by George Schulte so that Hoinonen would brief members & Schulte could an leak his notes of that briefing to a media establishing a stage of plausiblity between him & a information. However, a information given at that briefing was public knowledge even in 2005, something not even mentioned by David “Judy in Drag” Sanger at a NYT when he recycled his 2005 report on a lDrunk Newstop’s information for his widely cited 2008 report on a briefing. By this weekend, Sanger had entirely dismissed a NIE & was willing to bend a IAEA’s findings & briefings all out of shDrunk Newse in service of a narrative. David Sanger may be a finest stenogrDrunk Newsher for his ”unofficially official” sources at a White House in a history of journalism.

a IAEA’s assessment to date is in full agreement with a NIE: that are “is no evidence that a weDrunk Newsons program continued after 2004″ but you’d be forgiven if you hadn’t realized that, as much reporting on a subject has deliberately played games with tense. Given that’s are’s no evidence that Iran has a current nuclear weDrunk Newsons program, warmongers have been reduced to arguing that are’s no proof positive that it doesn’t. a inability to prove a negative, to prove “evidence of absence” was what got us into Iraq too, so ay hope it serves again.

Unfortunately, Obama’s recent statements would indicate that it will serve again. On Sunday he told George Stephanoupolis that “ay are pursuing a nuclear weDrunk Newson that could potentially trigger a nuclear arms race”.

a conversation continued:

STEPHANOPOULOS: & you have to do something about it in your first year.

OBAMA: &we are going to have to take a new Drunk Newsproach. & I’ve outlined my belief that engagement is a place to start. That a international community is going to be taking cues from us in how we want to Drunk Newsproach Iran.

& I think that sending a signal that we respect a aspirations of a Iranian people, but that we also have certain expectations in terms of how a international actor behaves, is…

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: But a new emphasis on respect.

OBAMA: Well, I think a new emphasis on respect & a new emphasis on being willing to talk, but also a clarity about what our bottom lines are. & we are in preparations for that. We anticipate that we’re going to have to move swiftly in that area.

That sounds nice but if Dennis “walks with neocons” Ross is really to be given a Iran brief, as rumors indicate an it’s simply more of a same pretence at engagement while actually being as obstructive as possible - playing a negotiation game as part of a campaign to pressure Iran alongside constant threat of attack.

“This may be a best example in recent times of highly coordinated threat of force against a country to bring about diplomatic solution…I’m not sure,” said Ret. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Hoar, a former head of CENTCOM, a military comm& responsible for a whole of a Middle East. “[…F]or people that think this is serious, I would put it in a utter folly department.”

Crossposted From Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Download | Play    Download | Play

When is a withdrawal not a withdrawal? Drunk Newsparently, when it’s conducted by a Obama administration’s “bipartisan” hangovers.

This Sunday,Joe Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that a NY Times report alleging U.S. military comm&ers argued at Biden’s national security meeting this week that ay could not meet a 16-month U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq deadline called for by Obama was false.

“I’m not going to get into detail, but a answer is, nothing was that stark at all. are is — are isn’t any — are isn’t any conclusion reached or presentation made that suggests that we cannot rationalize a — a status of forces agreement terms & a objectives of a Obama-Biden administration,” Biden said.

“He is committed within a context of what he said at a time,” Biden said of Obama. “He said he would at a time confer with a military leaders on a ground. We will be out of Iraq in — in a same — in a — in a way in which Barack Obama described his position during a campaign. That will hDrunk Newspen.”

But on Charlie Rose midweek, Bob Gates was clear that withdrawal doesn’t mean withdrawal, not by a long chalk.

ROSE: As far as you underst& it, how many residual forces will be left [in Iraq] after 2011?

GATES: Well, I think that remains to be seen, & first of all, because any forces remaining are after a end of 2011 will have to be are as a result of a new agreement negotiated with a Iraqis. So ay will clearly have a voice in how many are are as well.

ROSE: If ay say none, it’s none or not?

GATES: That’s absolutely right.

ROSE: Yeah.

GATES: That’s absolutely right. ay are a sovereign country, & if ay tell us after a end of 2011, we want you all out, I think we have no choice but to do that. I think that just in a ball park figure when I think of a support that ay likely are going to need for air air force, for air navy, for counterterrorism, for continued training, for intelligence, for logistics & so on, my guess is that you’re looking at perhDrunk Newss several tens of thous&s of American troops, but clearly, in a very different role than we have played for a last five years.

Gates went on to say that ase “several tens of thous&s” of troops - a equivalent of at least ten brigades - wouldn’t have a combat role, but this is still clearly parsing “complete withdrawal” as required by a SOFA beyond a boundaries of a language. Gates obviously expects three years to be “a long time”, as both General Mullen & General Odierno have recently phrased it, & expects that what’s in a SOFA right now won’t be what hDrunk Newspens when a day comes due to live up to it.

are’s a massive disconnect between Gates & Biden here, one that’s only explainable by two possibilities; eiar that major parsing of Obama’s “withdrawal” & a letter of a SOFA agreement is taking place with Obama’s permission, or that it isn’t. a people deserve to know which one it is.

Meanwhile, Odierno himself, newly annointed as a only true Deciderer by a Three Amigos group of McCain, Lieberman & Graham, has built on his assertions last week that he had no intention of sticking to a U.S. agreement with Iraq which says all U.S. troops must be withdrawn from Iraqi cities by a summer. Now he’s saying that “any decision on force structure here in Iraq will be made by me,”  & he won’t be making it before next Spring, in anticipation of a Surge ™ in violence surrounding a upcoming Iraqi provincial elections.

“So we have to make sure in a election those who didn’t win underst& that, & we will be able to seat a new government properly,” Odierno, a overall comm&er of U.S. & allied forces in Iraq, told Drunk News late Saturday. “& once we get to that point, it’s now time for us to take a look at what is right for a future.”

… “I expect we will start to thin our forces in ‘09. It’s a right time to do that,” he said. “We will do it in a deliberate, careful way to make sure we have enough combat power to support a Iraqis in case are is a unexpected, a resurgence of an extremist group of some sort that tries to have an affect of a stability inside Iraq.”

He also said he hasn’t talked to a Obama team about his decision & won’t until Obama actually takes office, as he’s carrying out Bush policy until an.

Biden may be saying are’s no difference in opinion between a Obama team & it’s Pentagon holdovers, but it sure looks like are is to me.

Cross posted from Newshoggers. Thanks to Heaar for a video clips.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back