The second war-funding bill

Outlines and trial balloons have begun appearing as the White House -- represented by three senior aides -- and Congress begin negotiating a compromise following Tuesday's veto of the previous bill.

Democrats started out, unsurprisingly, by dropping the timetables that most irked President Bush. But other options are being considered.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) indicated that the next bill will include benchmarks for Iraq -- such as passing a law to share oil revenue, quelling religious violence and disarming sectarian militias -- to keep its government on course. Failure to meet benchmarks could cost Baghdad billions of dollars in nonmilitary aid, and the administration would be required to report to Congress every 30 days on the military and political situation in Iraq.

There's bipartisan backing for something along those lines, even among Republicans who voted against the first bill.

By the way, you've got to love the White House response: They're okay with benchmarks, as long as there are no penalties for missing them -- only rewards for meeting them. Once again, the administration demonstrates its congenital opposition to even the most rudimentary forms of accountability.

I'm all for positive reinforcement. But given that we're already pouring money and blood into Iraq, there has to be some negative reinforcement as well. Otherwise the Iraqi government can do absolutely nothing and nothing happens: They still get the money and blood.

I really wish the world worked the way Bush thinks it does. "If you run this business well and make it successful, you'll get a $10 million bonus! If you run it into the ground, you'll have to make do on your $2 million salary."

Anyway, that wish won't fly in Congress. Hard benchmarks apparently have the support of large numbers of moderates in both parties, enough to make up for the most liberal members who will oppose the new bill on the grounds that it doesn't go far enough.

Also under consideration is the proposal I predicted: a measure to fund the war through July or so, but cut off funding unless benchmarks are met. The Senate supports funding through September, but the basic idea is the same: a short-term funding bill now, and a long-term bill in the fall only if we see progress from both the surge and the Iraqi government.

It'll be interesting to see what Bush's reaction will be to either proposal. But I like the Democratic options. I'm okay with hard benchmarks, funding only through September, or a combination of the above. And I hope they keep the waivable readiness requirements for our troops. The more they make Bush face up to the damage being done by the war, and the lack of progress therein, the better.

And if Bush actually pulls this off -- the surge works, the Iraqis suddenly get serious about governing -- he can make the Democrats dance naked on hot coals while getting slapped with ostrich feathers by the D.C. madame's fantasy sex squad.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Leahy subpoenas Rove e-mails

Things are heating up in the "executive privilege" confrontation between Congress and the White House.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) issued a subpoena Wednesday for all e-mails from White House adviser Karl Rove that relate to the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.

The subpoena is actually aimed at the Justice Department, not Rove, so it only covers communications he would have had with Justice. It'll be interesting to see if that gets around privilege objections, since communications with other departments don't usually count as confidential advice to the president.

He gave the Justice Department until May 15 to comply.

Meanwhile, Gonzales is scheduled to go before the House Judiciary Committee on May 10 and get the same grilling he got from the Senate a couple of weeks ago. His appearance will come amid a Justice Department probe of Monica "I plead the Fifth" Goodling, this time examining whether she sought to place Republicans in career prosecutor spots -- a violation of both tradition and civil-service law.

Much as the White House may not savor the prospect of replacing Gonzales, can that experience really be worse that the endless drumbeat of bad news they're going to endure if they keep him?

Goodling, Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Donklephant hacked

Calling all tech types:

My other home, Donklephant, has been hacked by a brainless script kiddie. A vanilla version of the main site is available, but the admin controls are blocked, meaning none of the contributors can post.

If you've got tech skills that could help resolve the problem (WordPress knowledge would be particularly helpful, I gather), please e-mail Justin Gardner, Donklephant's maestro.

Update: Justin got it back up. Justice and humanity are safe once more.

gutless worms, politics, midtopia

McDermott loses again

Rep. James McDermott lost another round in the legal battle over his leaking an illegally obtained tape of GOP leaders 10 years ago.

In a 5-4 opinion, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that McDermott, D-Seattle, should not have given reporters access to the taped call....

The ruling upholds a previous decision ordering McDermott to pay House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, more than $700,000 for leaking the taped conversation. The figure includes $60,000 in damages and more than $600,000 in legal costs.

McDermott claims there are serious whistleblower and First Amendment issues at stake here, and I'm sympathetic to that -- as are 18 news organizations that filed briefs supporting him. We do not want to overly restrict the ability of people to expose government wrongdoing -- as the revelations of NSA eavesdropping, CIA prisons and FBI abuse of National Security Letters attest.

But whistleblower exceptions generally involve matters of great public interest. This leak, besides being based on an illegally obtained tape, involved little more than partisan advantage -- an effort to embarass Congressional Republicans and Newt Gingrich in particular. While they deserved to be embarassed -- talking about ethics in public while conniving in private is never pretty -- such petty score-settling isn't worthy of the same protection as a government worker exposing crimes and corruption.

In this case, it's hard to see how the public interest could trump the legalities of the matter.

So good for the court, and let's hope the Supreme Court declines to hear the case and brings this saga to an end. A $700,000 payout appears to be a fitting punishment for what in the end was a relatively minor offense -- as evidenced by the awarding of just $60,000 in actual damages. Political embarassment is only worth so much.

Hall of Shame has been updated.

politics, midtopia

Senate doubles over laughing at wiretap proposal

Well, okay, they didn't. But I wish they would.

At least they were skeptical.

Citing FBI abuses and the attorney general's troubles, senators peppered top Justice and intelligence officials Tuesday with skeptical questions about their proposal to revise the rules for spying on Americans.

Senate Intelligence Committee members said the Bush administration must provide more information about its earlier domestic spying before it can hope to gain additional powers for the future.

Man, I love divided government. Rubber stamps suck.

The debate revolved largely around NSA wiretapping authority. By way of confirming everyone's worst fear, the administration witnesses admitted that Bush would submit to warrants only as long as it was convenient:

"There is nothing in this bill that confines the president to work within" the surveillance act in the future, said Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif. The same issue was raised by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Russell Feingold, D-Wis., and Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

McConnell said the administration wants to work under the surveillance law now, but acknowledged "that does not mean the president would not use ... (constitutional powers) in a crisis."

I'd be interested to see how the administration defines the word "crisis." And why they think the court would be a problem in such a situation, given that in 2006 it rejected exactly one eavesdropping request -- while approving 2,176.

Congress should not let politics and suspicion get in the way of adapting legitimate surveillance methods to modern technology. But neither should they simply trust the administration, because it has proven itself manifestly unworthy of such trust. The administration bill should be a starting point, but Congress should decide for itself how to adapt to modern times -- and what restrictions to place on so doing.

Meanwhile, a court report gives a sense of the scope of non-NSA wiretapping. It's at record levels, but still pretty small: 1,839 taps were authorized in 2006. And that's entirely due to a big jump in state-authorized taps. Federal wiretaps actually have been falling since 2004, and there were fewer in 2006 than there were in 1996.

Two caveats:

1. A given wiretap can cover more than one person, and of course a wiretap subject typically talks to multiple people. The average number of people monitored under a wiretap order was 122. So a grand total of 225,000 or so Americans had police listening in on all or some of their conversations. That's a lot, but it's still just 0.07 percent of the population. NSA aside, 99.93 percent of us were not monitored.

2. The Justice Department says the drop in federal wiretaps is entirely due to several large, ongoing investigations that could not be reported in the 2006 figures. Had those taps been counted, Justice claims, there would have been no decrease in wiretaps.

Also of interest: Not a single wiretap request was denied -- and not one had anything to do with terrorism.

Fun party trivia: On average it costs $52,551 to install a wiretap.

civil liberties, terrorism, politics, midtopia

DeLay's PAC packs it in

Gradually, the last vestiges of Tom DeLay's presence in Congress are fading away.

The political action committee for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was quietly closed last week after a decade-long run as one of the most influential - and infamous - PACs run by members of Congress.

With a final $1,400 payment to the Federal Election Commission last month settling an audit dispute, Americans for a Republican Majority then filed its termination papers with the commission April 24.

Soon his Congressional committee will follow suit.

The last remnant of DeLay's political career in federal government, the Tom DeLay Congressional Committee, is just about completely empty as well, reporting just $7,015 left in its coffers as of March 31. DeLay spent almost $1 million last year from this committee defending himself. A separate legal defense fund, which folded when he left Congress, doled out an additional $1.1 million to DeLay lawyers in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

No need to start lamenting, though. He's got a blog, a book and continues to opine on politics, with a predictable take (Bush's only mistakes have been giving in. Rumsfeld shouldn't have been fired, for instance.) Those of us slightly less admiring of the Hammer (time once again to plug my hit song, "ConBoy") have his upcoming trial to look forward to -- assuming there's actually a case at the bottom of it.

I strongly hope that the rest of the body politic have taken note of the lessons of DeLay, and we shall not see his like again for a very long time.

DeLay, politics, midtopia

Bush vetoes war appropriation bill

As expected, Bush today vetoed a timetable-laden war-funding measure -- four years to the day after his infamous "Mission Accomplished" photo-op on board an aircraft carrier, where he declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq.

Here's his statement, and here's the response from Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

Bush laid it on thick. While correctly criticizing the hard October 1 deadline, he then moved briskly on to scaremongering.

It makes no sense to tell the enemy when you plan to start withdrawing. All the terrorists would have to do is mark their calendars and gather their strength -- and begin plotting how to overthrow the government and take control of the country of Iraq. I believe setting a deadline for withdrawal would demoralize the Iraqi people, would encourage killers across the broader Middle East, and send a signal that America will not keep its commitments. Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure -- and that would be irresponsible.

First, we could only wish that the insurgents would stop the attacks and sit back for six months "gathering strength." That would give us the time we need to establish actual security and rebuild infrastructure.

Second, he conflates Sunni insurgents with "terrorists", as if Al-Qaeda -- which represents a tiny and resented fragment of that insurgency -- actually stands a chance of taking over Iraq. Not even the Sunnis stand much chance of doing that. So I guess by "terrorists taking over Iraq" he means "Shiite militias backed by the Iraqi government."

He then gripes about the restrictions on U.S. troop deployment following the withdrawal:

After forcing most of our troops to withdraw, the bill would dictate the terms on which the remaining commanders and troops could engage the enemy. That means American commanders in the middle of a combat zone would have to take fighting directions from politicians 6,000 miles away in Washington, D.C.

Again, this is patent nonsense. All the bill does is something that is well within Congress' purview: define the scope of the mission it is choosing to fund. You can disagree with that definition, but painting it as micromanaging makes little sense. Congress is simply defining the mission, not dictating how to accomplish that mission.

Lastly, he (rightly) criticizes the pork larding the bill, for which Democrats should be ashamed.

He then goes on to explain why the surge deserves time to show it can work, something I again agree with him on. But in so doing he uses carefully parsed language to imply that Al-Qaeda is a major part of the threat in Iraq instead of a minor part. For instance, he said: "It's true that not everyone taking innocent life in Iraq wants to attack America here at home. But many do." This implies that most -- but not all -- of the insurgents are terrorists, which simply isn't true.

Other than that, he gave no indication of where he might be willing to compromise with Congress on a bill. Not that I really expected him to -- that will wait for the closed-door negotiations. But I would like some indication that he has abandoned the "my way or the highway" approach to negotiations that has been his hallmark for most of his presidency.

On the other side of the argument, Reid said nothing of import. I'm growing less and less impressed by him. He alternates between saying and doing very little and saying and doing stupid things, not to mention the ethical and legal questions surrounding some of his business dealings back home.

Pelosi, however, was forceful and clear.

The president vetoed the bill outright, and, frankly, misrepresented what this legislation does. This bill supports the troops. In fact, it gives the president more than he asked for for our troops -- and well they deserve it.

They have done their duties excellently. They have done everything that has been asked of them. All of this without, in some cases, the training, the equipment, and a plan for success for them.

The president wants a blank check. The Congress is not going to give it to him.

Score one for the Speaker.

Democrats, too, gave no indication of where they might compromise. Look for intense private discussions accompanied by vituperative public statements, and then a funding deal in the next week or so. Most observers agree that getting a bill passed by mid-May is the only way to prevent a major cramp in military operations. Neither side wants that to happen, and they especially don't want to be seen as the party responsible for that happening. For now I stand by my prediction that Congress will pass a "clean" but very short-term bill -- perhaps with minor and largely symbolic strings, like the waivable readiness requirement -- then revisit the matter in the fall as the results of the surge become clear.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Julie Macdonald resigns

Another day, another partisan hack is forced to resign from the Bush administration.

Julie Macdonald, a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of the Interior, resigned a week before a House committee was scheduled to look into her handling of science and staffers at the agency, as well as whether she violated the Endangered Species Act.

It also came a month after she was rebuked in a report (pdf) by her agency's inspector general, which concluded she broke federal rules for leaking internal documents to private groups.

But the final straw may have been Sen. Ron Wyden, who was holding up another Interior Department nomination until action was taken on the IG's report.

All this without even getting into how entirely unqualified she was for the position, holding a civil engineering degree while doing a job that involved overseeing and editing Endangered Species research. She was a perfect example of the Bush approach to governance: value loyalty over competence, ideology over data, and hold no one accountable.

To illustrate those points, a few choice tidbits from the IG's report:

Her politicizing the science:

The Assistant Director for External Affairs [said] MacDonald would not accept the field [office's] scientific findings and would apply science from alternative outside sources [which she would label] as "the best science" and insist field employees revise their findings to fit what she wanted.

It further notes that her meddling took up scarce time ahead of court-appointed deadlines, producing rushed, legally indefensible rulings that mired the agency in constant (and losing) litigation.

It described her approach to listing species as endangered or threatened: she would only do so when sued by environmental groups.

It describes her combative, confrontational management style.

It describes her open door policy for favored lobbyists.

It describes her sending internal documents to outside groups, notably the Pacific Legal Foundation, which exists to challenge the Endangered Species Act:

The e-mail search revealed that MacDonald had sent an FWS document ... to a PLF attorney... the [document was] nonpublic information and classified as internal DOIIEWS documents. Jones stated that these documents were for "FWS eyes only" and should not have been disseminated outside of DOI.

She also sent internal documents to a variety of other sources, including ChevronTexaco and, more amusingly, her kid and a person she had met online.

MacDonald confirmed that she also sent the Delta Smelt document to an on-line game friend through his father's e-mail account. MacDonald said she is acquainted with the on-line friend through internet role-playing games. She said she engages in these games to relieve the stress created by her job; however, she said she has not played while at work. When asked why she would e-mail an internal DO1 document to a private citizen, MacDonald replied, "I was irritated [with what was
happening regarding the subject of the document] and tried to explain my irritation over the phone; however, I sent it to him to read for a better understanding."

MacDonald could offer no explanation as to why she sent her child an e-mail containing an internal DOI/FWS document other than she feels frustrated at times and likes to have third party reviews of these documents. MacDonald opined that she sent FWS documents to the on-line game friend and her child to have another set of eyes give an unfiltered opinion of them, negative comments included.

So according to MacDonald's own words, she was seeking policy feedback from what appear to be minors. Outstanding.

I don't think she'll be much missed.

Julie McDonald, politics, midtopia

Iraq, Gitmo and terrorism

Two stories out today.

One, simply an updater on the ongoing human rights disaster known as Gitmo.

More than a fifth of the approximately 385 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been cleared for release but may have to wait months or years for their freedom because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to line up places to send them, according to Bush administration officials and defense lawyers.

Since February, the Pentagon has notified about 85 inmates or their attorneys that they are eligible to leave after being cleared by military review panels. But only a handful have gone home, including a Moroccan and an Afghan who were released Tuesday. Eighty-two remain at Guantanamo and face indefinite waits as U.S. officials struggle to figure out when and where to deport them, and under what conditions.

Jail innocents for five years, and then continue jailing them because nobody wants to take Gitmo detainees for various political reasons. And we won't grant them asylum to make up for the ongoing mistake that is robbing them of their lives. Wonderful.

The other bit of news was the annual State Department report on terrorism, which shows a 25 percent increase in attacks last year, with a 40 percent increase in deaths and 54 percent increase in injuries. That's right, more and deadlier attacks.

Some of the increase involves countries and events that have little or no bearing on us -- the various brutal conflicts in Africa, for instance. But the largest number of attacks and deaths by far occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So let's see. After four years and hundreds of billions of dollars, our war on terror is succeeding in increasing terror attacks. We respond by ignoring human rights and basic justice in our zeal to capture and imprison real and imagined terrorists.

Anyone think there's a relationship? At a minimum, it seems safe to say our current strategy isn't working if reducing terrorism was the goal.

Update: Here's the full report.

Guantanamo, Gitmo, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Transgender kids

I'm not usually a big fan of Barbara Walters -- I find her long on schmalz and short on substance.

But I dare anyone to watch this segment she did on transgender kids and come away still thinking gender identity is a "choice", or that these kids deserve anything other than loving acceptance.

Meet the girl who is biologically a boy (picture, above), who started wanting her gender changed at age 2 and told her parents at age six that she wanted to kill herself because she hated her body.

Or the boy who is biologically a girl. His parents at first put him in therapy to try to cure him. But now he is taking hormone treatments -- involving multiple, regular injections -- and plans to have breast-removal surgery before going to college.

Then meet the support group for transgender kids -- a place they can go and just be themselves, and not worry about what society thinks. These are often pre-pubescent kids -- not the sort interested in making a socially painful choice out of some sort of desire to be naughty.

And read about all the adjustments and precautions the family has to take in order to deal with the issue, and tell me that anybody would put up with this unless they felt it was necessary.

In addition, most everyone thinks this is a biological development, though the precise cause has not been proven:

Through the first eight weeks of pregnancy, all fetuses' brains look exactly the same: female, nature's default position. Only after testosterone surges in the womb do male brains start to develop differently. Some scientists suggest that a hormone imbalance during this stage of development stamped the brains of transgender children with the wrong gender imprint.

Now this is gender identity, a different issue from sexual orientation. But activists on both sides of the gay/straight divide tend to lump them together, so they suffer much of the same discrimination as gays -- all of it equally, if not more, unjustified.

But if biology can cause this, might it not easily cause homosexuality, too? And so perhaps understanding and compassion for transgenders will lead us toward a day when we start seeing gay people not as "deviants" that threaten society -- a claim for which there is scant evidence -- but simply as people with a different biological history who have as much right as any of us to live, love, marry and have kids. Is that so much to ask?

I think not. But for now, can we at least agree that transgenders should be left out of that debate? Their case, it seems to me, is open and shut: It's not a choice, and it's not their fault. Instead of sanctioning them when they come out, we should accept them instead.

Barbara Walters, gay rights, transgender, politics, midtopia

Dumb, but not THAT dumb

New Jersey Gov. John Corzine, recovering from serious injuries incurred from crashing into a guard rail while speeding without a seat belt, left the hospital today. He faces months of rehabilitation to recover from his injuries, which included 15 broken bones.

While not wearing a seatbelt was dumb, Corzine showed he can be smart in other ways, saying he would pay for his medical care himself rather than use his state health insurance coverage.

He was also contrite.

"I understand I set a very poor example for a lot of young people, a lot of people in general,'' Corzine said. "I hope the state will forgive me."

He might have to do more than hope. The state attorney general has appointed a panel to investigate the circumstances of the crash, which ought to be embarrassing if nothing else; and the township where the crash occurred is weighing whether to issue him a ticket for not wearing a seat belt. The fine: $46.

I hope he continues to recover -- and that he has learned his lesson.

Corzine, politics, midtopia

Frist cleared in stock probe

Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has been cleared of wrongdoing in an insider-trading investigation over the sale of stock in the hospital chain his family owns.

In a rare inversion of the usual rule, his meticulous e-mail log saved him.

The former Tennessee senator was able to show in copies of e-mails given to federal investigators that he began the process of selling his family's HCA stock in April 2005 - well before HCA had disappointing second-quarter earnings and publicly reported that fact July 13, two people familiar with Frist's records said Friday.

One could spin all sorts of conspiracy theories here, I suppose, because the case was being investigated by a U.S. attorney, a Bush appointee. But there's no evidence to support that, and I prefer my scandals to be backed by evidence.

So good for Frist. I'm glad he's out of politics -- for multiple reasons -- but I'm also glad he's clean.

Frist, politics, midtopia

Is Iraq a reliable ally -- for Iran?

Depending on how this turns out, we may be getting closer to actual proof of Iranian complicity in arming Iraqi militias.

The American military said Friday that it had detained four Iraqi men suspected of helping smuggle deadly homemade bombs from Iran to Iraq and taking guerrillas from Iraq to Iran for training.

The men were detained in the morning during an operation in Sadr City, a vast Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad whose residents are mostly loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

For now there are a couple of problems. They weren't caught crossing into Iraq from Iran; they were caught in Baghdad, in the Sadr City slum. And the suspects are Iraqis, not Iranians. So it's hard to say why they think they're connected to arms smuggling.

It would also indicate that if Iran is arming anyone, it's the Shiite militias -- many of whom are loyal to politicians that support the current Shiite-led Iraqi government. Which creates a whole new set of questions about the reliability of that government.

That reliability was called into question anew yesterday, when U.S. military officials complained that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office was responsible for the sacking of 16 Army and police commanders, most of them Sunni. While some of the firings appeared to be for cause, several of the fired officers were considered to be among the more able commanders. Their apparent crime: Being too aggressive in combatting Shiite militias. Among the victims:

Maj. Gen. Abdulla Mohammed Khamis al-Dafi is a Sunni who commands the 9th Iraqi Army Division, based in Baghdad, and is responsible for eastern Baghdad, home to such predominantly Shiite districts as Sadr City. On April 23, he told U.S. military officials he was determined to resign because of repeated "interference" from the prime minister's staff, according to portions of a report on the situation that was read to The Washington Post....

Another national police battalion commander, Col. Nadir Abd Al-Razaq Abud al-Jaburi, has been "known to pass accurate and actionable intelligence" about the Mahdi Army, the report said, adding that U.S. military officials describe him "as professional, non-sectarian, and focused on gaining support of the populace." Yet he was detained April 6 under an Interior Ministry warrant for allegedly supporting Sunni insurgents, the document said.

The report also outlines the case of Lt. Col. Ahmad Yousif Ibrahim Kjalil, a Sunni battalion commander in the 6th Iraqi Army Division, based in Baghdad. He was allegedly fired by Jaidri but reinstated with another general's help. "He eventually resigned after at least five attempts on his life and one attempt on his children," the report said.

Col. Ali Fadil Amran Khatab al-Abedi, a Sunni who leads the 2nd Battalion, 5th Brigade of the 6th Iraqi Army Division, was ordered arrested by the prime minister's office on April 17, the report said. Lt. Col. Emad Kahlif Abud al-Mashadani, a Sunni commander with the 1st Iraqi National Police Division, was detained April 15, the report said.

The Iraqi government denies any impropriety, but U.S. military officials see it differently.

"Their only crimes or offenses were they were successful" against the Mahdi Army, a powerful Shiite militia, said Brig. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard, commanding general of the Iraq Assistance Group, which works with Iraqi security forces. "I'm tired of seeing good Iraqi officers having to look over their shoulders when they're trying to do the right thing."

This calls into question not only where that government's interests lie, but also its commitment to hit the political and military milestones sought by Bush, much less the stricter ones demanded by Congressional Democrats. And that, in turn, raises serious questions about the viability of our whole venture there.

To be fair, al-Maliki has a difficult task. But that just means the problem is that much more intractable:

Col. Ehrich Rose, chief of the Military Transition Team with the 4th Iraqi Army Division, who has spent several years working with foreign armies, said the Iraqi officer corps is riddled with divergent loyalties to different sects, tribes and political groups.

"The Iraqi army, as far as capability goes, I'd stack them up against just about any Latin American army I've dealt with," he said. "However, the politicization of their officer corps is the worst I've ever seen."

I, for one, see little point in trying to save a country that is so mired in corruption it can't be bothered to save itself. Has Iraq reached that point? Yes, long ago. The question now is whether it can and will change its stripes.

Which is where the benchmarks come in. But Bush, allergic to anything that even hints at accountability, doesn't want to enforce them. Which makes them simply meaningless suggestions. At best they constitute indirect pressure, based on the Iraqi government's knowledge that it cannot be certain of continued U.S. support after January 2009. Which just means wasting another year and a half before we start getting serious in Iraq.

All of this helps explain why King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has declined to meet with al-Maliki.

The Saudi leader's decision reflects the growing tensions between the oil-rich regional giants, the deepening skepticism among Sunni leaders in the Middle East about Iraq's Shiite-dominated government, and Arab concern about the prospects of U.S. success in Iraq, the sources said. The Saudi snub also indicates that the Maliki government faces a creeping regional isolation unless it takes long-delayed actions, Arab officials warn.

Abdullah's apparent reasoning: Why meet with someone you suspect is well on his way to becoming an Iranian pawn? Better to send a sharp signal of your dissatisfaction than attempt to keep putting lipstick on this pig. Coupled with Abdullah's recent description of our presence in Iraq as an "illegitimate foreign occupation", the message couldn't be louder or clearer.

One can look to the election of al-Maliki as a triumph of our commitment to an independent Iraq, since we did not interfere in the election or try to undermine him afterward, despite him not doing a great job of representing our interests.

Okay, yeah; good for us. We're fabulous, idealistic and high-minded.

But having said that, we still have to look at things in Iraq from the perspective of our own national interest. And if the Iraqi government continues to tilt toward Iran and refuses to take any serious steps either to share power with Sunnis or rein in the militias and rampant corruption, why are we there? "Keeping a lid on a civil war" is part of the answer, of course, but by itself it's not a good enough one.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Ford goes down

Former Tennessee state Sen. John Ford, a Democrat and uncle of recent Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr., was convicted today of accepting bribes. He faces up to 10 years in prison.

Hall of Shame has been updated.

politics, midtopia

... and it's botched execution

In the post before this one, I discuss George Tenet's book outlining the administration's rush to invade Iraq.

As a companion piece, an Army light colonel, Paul Yingling, has an article in Armed Forces Journal that essentially accuses our generals as a group of committing incompetence in Iraq.

As far as describing history and current conditions, there's not a whole lot in the article that hasn't been said elsewhere. What makes it powerful is the person saying it and the venue he's saying it in (Go here for a military interview with him on his experiences in Iraq. The link takes you to an abstract; click "access item" to read the pdf of the interview).

For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.

These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.

On Iraq specifically, he argues that the generals failed to "transform" the military in the 1990s, as they said they would, continuing to pursue a Cold War model of interstate warfare even as they were increasingly embroiled in counterinsurgency and stability operations.

Then, having built the wrong military, they used it badly. Here Yingling echos (and actually cites) Gen. Eric Shinseki, in noting that we committed far fewer troops to the occupation than we knew were needed based on prior experience. He castigates the generals for expressing reservations about those troop levels privately but not publicly.

They then made it worse.

inept planning for postwar Iraq took the crisis caused by a lack of troops and quickly transformed it into a debacle. In 1997, the U.S. Central Command exercise "Desert Crossing" demonstrated that many postwar stabilization tasks would fall to the military. The other branches of the U.S. government lacked sufficient capability to do such work on the scale required in Iraq. Despite these results, CENTCOM accepted the assumption that the State Department would administer postwar Iraq. The military never explained to the president the magnitude of the challenges inherent in stabilizing postwar Iraq.

After failing to visualize the conditions of combat in Iraq, America's generals failed to adapt to the demands of counterinsurgency. Counterinsurgency theory prescribes providing continuous security to the population. However, for most of the war American forces in Iraq have been concentrated on large forward-operating bases, isolated from the Iraqi people and focused on capturing or killing insurgents. Counterinsurgency theory requires strengthening the capability of host-nation institutions to provide security and other essential services to the population. America's generals treated efforts to create transition teams to develop local security forces and provincial reconstruction teams to improve essential services as afterthoughts, never providing the quantity or quality of personnel necessary for success.

After going into Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for postwar stabilization, America's general officer corps did not accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public. The Iraq Study Group concluded that "there is significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq."

There's more, including outlining a process to find and promote the generals we need, not the generals we have. Read the article, and then go to the second link above to add some context. For instance, Yingling's article is merely a public example of a sharp split between younger and older officers in the military:

Many majors and lieutenant colonels have privately expressed anger and frustration with the performance of Gen. Tommy R. Franks, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno and other top commanders in the war, calling them slow to grasp the realities of the war and overly optimistic in their assessments.

Some younger officers have stated privately that more generals should have been taken to task for their handling of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, news of which broke in 2004. The young officers also note that the Army's elaborate "lessons learned" process does not criticize generals and that no generals in Iraq have been replaced for poor battlefield performance, a contrast to other U.S. wars.

Top Army officials are also worried by the number of captains and majors choosing to leave the service. "We do have attrition in those grade slots above our average," acting Army Secretary Pete Geren noted in congressional testimony this week. In order to curtail the number of captains leaving, he said, the Army is planning a $20,000 bonus for those who agree to stay in, plus choices of where to be posted and other incentives.

This is why the military cannot afford to protect generals that don't deserve it: because doing so will prompt many of their most competent officers to leave, the military equivalent of eating your seed corn.

An interesting question is whether Iraq should be blamed or thanked for exposing this schism. On the one hand, if Yingling's viewpoint is the accurate one, the war has been disastrously mismanaged. On the other hand, if the problem is structural we can be glad that we found out about it through a relatively minor entanglement like Iraq and not something more serious, giving us a chance to fix the problem before we face a truly existential test.

Me, I tend to take a sanguine view of such things. We had the same problem in World War II: an officer corps that had evolved for success in peacetime, which usually demands different skills (like, say, a talent for bureaucratic infighting) than those needed for success in wartime. In World War II, the problem was handled through a combination of cashiering incompetents and the simple math of ballooning the military from a few hundred thousand souls to multiple millions, thus diluting the influence of the desktop warriors.

While I think the modern military is more professional and combat-oriented than the pre-World War II version, it still suffers from many of the same problems. On top of that, with Iraq there was no massive expansion, so we fought the war with the existing officer corps; and it was overseen by the Bush administration, so there was no serious accountability. Plus there was no sense of urgency, as I've noted in previous screeds here and here.

Yingling's article is part of the standard learning curve for the military. We prepare for the last war, get surprised by the next one, muddle through in denial for a while, and then partway through start hammering the new reality home. It may be too late to apply the lessons to Iraq itself, but they should be heeded in order to prepare us for the war after that.

military, Yingling, Iraq, politics, midtopia

The rush to war...

Former CIA director George Tenet vents some spleen about the handling of intelligence in the runup to the Iraq invasion.

George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States.

The 549-page book, “At the Center of the Storm,” is to be published by HarperCollins on Monday. By turns accusatory, defensive, and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president’s inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war.

“There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,” Mr. Tenet writes in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for many years. Nor, he adds, “was there ever a significant discussion” about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion.

Mr. Tenet admits that he made his famous “slam dunk” remark about the evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But he argues that the quote was taken out of context and that it had little impact on President Bush’s decision to go to war. He also makes clear his bitter view that the administration made him a scapegoat for the Iraq war.

I have no idea if there's anything truly revelatory in the book or not. And, of course, one can always accuse Tenet of being self-serving.

But it does show an insider saying the administration was pretty much determined to invade Iraq, no matter what.

About his "slam dunk" comment:

He gives a detailed account of the episode, which occurred during an Oval Office meeting in December 2002 when the administration was preparing to make public its case for war against Iraq.

During the meeting, the deputy C.I.A. director, John McLaughlin, unveiled a draft of a proposed public presentation that left the group unimpressed. Mr. Tenet recalls that Mr. Bush suggested that they could “add punch” by bringing in lawyers trained to argue cases before a jury.

“I told the president that strengthening the public presentation was a ‘slam dunk,’ a phrase that was later taken completely out of context,” Mr. Tenet writes. “If I had simply said, ‘I’m sure we can do better,’ I wouldn’t be writing this chapter — or maybe even this book.”

And regarding Bush's interest in terrorism:

The book recounts C.I.A. efforts to fight Al Qaeda in the years before the Sept. 11 attacks, and Mr. Tenet’s early warnings about Osama bin Laden. He contends that the urgent appeals of the C.I.A. on terrorism received a lukewarm reception at the Bush White House through most of 2001.

That said, he describes Bush himself in a generally positive light. And he also thinks Al-Qaeda has cells in the United States planning further attacks.

(See related post)

Tenet, Iraq, politics, midtopia

MIT dean resigns over fake credentials

Her name is Marilee Jones, and she's dean of admissions. She's been there for 28 years.

“I misrepresented my academic degrees when I first applied to M.I.T. 28 years ago and did not have the courage to correct my résumé when I applied for my current job or at any time since,” Ms. Jones said in a statement posted on the institute’s Web site. “I am deeply sorry for this and for disappointing so many in the M.I.T. community and beyond who supported me, believed in me, and who have given me extraordinary opportunities.”

Ms. Jones, 55, originally from Albany, had on various occasions represented herself as having degrees from three upstate New York institutions: Albany Medical College, Union College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In fact, she had no degrees from any of those places, or anywhere else, M.I.T. officials said.

A spokesman for Rensselaer said Ms. Jones had not graduated there, though she did attend as a part-time nonmatriculated student during the 1974-75 school year. The other colleges said they had no record of her.

Okay, faking credentials is wrong. But is a mistake made as a young woman 28 years ago -- and not corrected since -- worth a resignation? A major concern in such cases is that the person is unqualified for the job, but that is clearly not the case here: Jones had been doing the job for years, and earned rave reviews for her work. She has even become a celebrity for her book and speeches on the admissions process.

It's also unclear if she was ever required to update those fake credentials, considering she has spent her entire career in the admissions office, rising steadily through the ranks. In such cases, hiring decisions are rarely based on a resume; it's based on personal knowledge of the applicant.

MIT says the issue is integrity, and I understand that. But it's a tragedy that a well-liked, highly competent employee should lose everything because of a youthful transgression that, once made, became too costly to own up to. It's a weird situation, where Jones' actions were plainly wrong, but nevertheless everyone would be better off if this had never come to light.

Maybe MIT is right, and they had to fire her. But while it might be fair, it doesn't feel like justice. Maybe there was room to find forgiveness for her based on her entire career, instead of reducing that career to the lie that began it.

ethics, Marilee Jones, MIT, politics, midtopia

Oh, well, that makes it okay, then

Mitt Romney, dogged by reports of his well-documented flip-flops on key issues in a transparent effort to appeal to the GOP's conservative base, mounts a stout defense of the practice. His argument? McCain and Guliani did it, too.

"Senator McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts. Now he's for them. He was opposed to ethanol. Now he's for it. He said he was opposed to overturning Roe v. Wade. Now he's for overturning Roe v. Wade," Romney said, adding: "that suggests that he has learned from experience."

"Mayor Giuliani has made a number of changes over his career, and there are places where I've made changes," Romney said. On his clearest flip — on abortion — Romney said: "I'm not going to apologize for saying I was wrong and now I think I'm right."

He's got a point, even though pointing to sleazy behavior by others doesn't really excuse his own opportunistic shifts. For instance, this comes on a day when Giuliani added some conservative nuance to his support for gay civil unions -- as in, he supports them unless they look too much like marriage. Another way to look at it is that Giuliani supports them only in theory, since every single civil union bill passed so far would apparently fail his new test.

It's one thing to change your mind over time, or in the face of compelling evidence. It is neither realistic or desirable to expect people never to change their minds, ever, or to fetishize ideological consistency.

But in the case of all three men, the changes in position didn't take years and didn't coincide with any major events -- except their decisions to run for president. And I'm sure it's just a remarkable coincidence that all of their shifts involve taking positions more appealing to that conservative base.

Romney can never admit that's what he's doing, though. So we'll be treated to the spectacle of suspected moderate Republicans pretending to be conservative Republicans, making both moderates and conservatives suspicious about their true leanings -- not to mention whether they have any core beliefs at all.

Like most things in politics, this is a bipartisan failing that has less to do with the particular party and a lot to do with how far the views of the party base diverge from that of the general electorate. It hit the Democrats hard in the 2004 elections, for example, when the base was mostly antiwar but the general public wasn't. This time around it's going to primarily be a Republican problem, because the base still generally supports both Bush and the war while neither is even remotely popular with the voters at large.

It's still not pretty. It's easy for me to say because I'm not a candidate, but intellectual integrity should be more important than telling people whatever they want to hear.

Giuliani, Romney, politics, midtopia

More on partial-birth abortion

Stubborn Facts has a pair of addendums to its excellent coverage of the Carhart ruling (for my own previous post, go here.)

Simon Dodd provides a seven-page analysis of the ruling. It echoes bits of SF's other coverage, particularly the important distinction between an "as applied" and "facial" challenge. The Carhart case was a facial challenge, and that is one of the hardest to prove. So to that extent, the ruling is narrow indeed. All the Supreme Court said, in essence, is that the law isn't unconstitutional in all cases but could well be unconstitutional in some. Indeed, by explicitly leaving the door open for "as applied" challenges, they seemed to indicate that such challenges might well succeed.

Further the plaintiffs never raised the question of whether Congress had the power to pass the law in the first place, which means the Court didn't address that.

On the other hand, he argues, it does undermine the long-held necessity of including a "mother's health" exception to abortion bans, by the simple expedient of Congress declaring that the procedure in question is "never medically necessary." As long as medical opinion is legitimately in dispute on that, no exception is needed: As far as the courts are concerned, Congress has the right to draw a clear, bright line where none exists in reality.

In a separate post, Dodd notes the absence of any reference to foreign law, and surmises it may have something to do with the inconvenient nature of that law when it comes to abortion.

abortion, politics, midtopia

New Hampshire approves civil unions

The legislature in New Hampshire has voted along party lines to legalize civil unions, and Gov. John Lynch says he'll sign it.

"This legislation is a matter of conscience, fairness and of preventing discrimination," said governor's spokesman Colin Manning. "It is in keeping with New Hampshire's proud tradition of preventing discrimination."

The bill will make New Hampshire the fifth state to allow either civil unions or full-blown gay marriage.

And how's this for incoherence: "We don't let blind people drive or felons vote, all for good and obvious reasons," said Sen. Robert Letourneau, arguing that the state had every interest in refusing to recognize such unions. Because, I guess, it's as self-evidently dangerous as driving blind and as fitting a self-inflicted punishment as felons losing their right to vote.

With New York considering gay marriage (though it's a long shot to pass), it appears that New England is becoming the vanguard for marital fairness -- echoing their historic role as the vanguard in other divisive social issues such as abolishing slavery, racial integration and the like. History vindicated their leadership then; it will vindicate their leadership in this case, too.

gay marriage, politics, midtopia