The Iraq / war on terror thread

[McGann]

I certainly don't give a fuck. 
Kofi and his clique may do a fair-to-poor job of redistributing wealth/food while making sure no dictator is offended (God forbid), but the UN as a whole knows less than my dog about enforcing its own laws and taking action against criminals,
Nobel Peace Prize.  What a fucking joke.

Can't we all just get along?
Well, no, we can't.  Not everyone is willing to try.

Want a fresh perspective?  Check out www.freemuslims.org.

/Mike

[C0ma]

I certainly don't give a fuck.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

When the decision to go to War was made, regardless of what we now know to be true, there was (however small) evidence that there were WMD in Iraq. Which we did find, just not in the stock piles that were initially stated. In my estimation even one loose warhead filled with a chemical agent that got into the hands of a terror group is one to many.

We were attacked just over a year before the call to arms was made, it was in the interest of our country's security, and I'll be damned if our national security plan is going to be dictated to us by an international group. Even funnier than them trying to tell us how to wage our war on terror is the fact that some people think that they should have some involvment in the upcomming election.

[SLCPUNK]

I certainly don't give a fuck.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

When the decision to go to War was made, regardless of what we now know to be true, there was (however small) evidence that there were WMD in Iraq. Which we did find, just not in the stock piles that were initially stated. In my estimation even one loose warhead filled with a chemical agent that got into the hands of a terror group is one to many.

Wrong. We had bad intelligence.

But I guess with you guys, laws be damned!

We're goin' in!

We're America damnit!!!

Don't come crying on this board after our next 9-11 though......

Why not go after Pakistan next?

Or Iran?

Sudan?

N Korea?

I have been explained to me that those countries are all different than Iraq....

Even standing in front of the truth as we know it today. You all still deny it. Truly SAD.

[C0ma]

I agree we had bad intelligence, but at the time I don't think George W. pulled a Dan Rather. I truely believe what George Bush was shown (regardless of how botched) was believed to be accurate.

As far as Iran, N. Korea, Sudan............... (shockingly) I think we should go after all of them, IF they are proven to pose an immediate threat. I am sure that this administration will be a little bit more carefull with their *intelligence* this time around.

*= oxymoron when ever used in politics

[Prometheus]

Imn sorry if IM the only one that sees that N. Korea was a more immediate threat then Iraq. im all about attacking if in danger if that attack will save the lives of people on both sides of the conflict. but if im wrong, in Iraq all that we are seeing is tonnes of civillians still getting killed every week. Oh i knoe the majority is being killed by the insurgents. however they are still geting killed. more so then if the war never even happened.

legal charges will not be laid in this issue. as the US would not sign on to the world court resolution that was passed within the UN, as the US would be in court for years with every nation charging them with something. im not sure if the UK did sign on, i think they did, but who knows. a world court that cannot bring charges down on the "only super power" has no power at all. if everyone cannot agree then nothing cannot be done. besides if the UN did press charges, what are they going to do send in troops to capture Bush?

[Prometheus]

blast my new avatar is not working

[GnRNightrain]

Imn sorry if IM the only one that sees that N. Korea was a more immediate threat then Iraq.

Well then maybe one of the many others countries in the world can deal with it.? We dealt with a bad one right now, amybe some other countries can get off their ass and do something instead of criticize the US for acting here or not acting there.

legal charges will not be laid in this issue. as the US would not sign on to the world court resolution that was passed within the UN, as the US would be in court for years with every nation charging them with something. im not sure if the UK did sign on, i think they did, but who knows. a world court that cannot bring charges down on the "only super power" has no power at all. if everyone cannot agree then nothing cannot be done. besides if the UN did press charges, what are they going to do send in troops to capture Bush?

Exactly why we didnt sign the criminal court.? Because there are many (including SLC in our own country http://www.heretodaygonetohell.com/board/index.php?topic=15291.0) that actually believe that Bush and the US are equivilant to Hitler and Nazis.? Yah, that would be really smart for us to sign that.

[SLCPUNK]

Well then maybe one of the many others countries in the world can deal with it.  We dealt with a bad one right now, amybe some other countries can get off their ass and do something instead of criticize the US for acting here or not acting there.


Yea, the rest of the world is just lounging around in a lawn chair being lazy.

N Korea is much more of a threat than Saddam every was. But according to you, they need to be dealt with "differently", whatever that means.

In Bush world we define things differently on a daily basis.

[sandman]

this might shed some light as to why France and Russia didn't want to get rid of Saddam, despite several resolutions requiring him to disarm, and despite the obvious threat Saddam posed to the world.



Washington Times

THE U.N. OIL FOR FOOD SCANDAL
First of two parts.
    Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry complains that President Bush pursued a unilateralist foreign policy that gave short shrift to the concerns of the United Nations and our allies when it came to taking military action against Saddam Hussein. But the mounting evidence of scandal that has been uncovered in the U.N. Oil For Food program suggests that there was never a serious possibility of getting Security Council support for military action because influential people in Russia and France were getting paid off by Saddam. After the fall of Baghdad last spring, France and Russia tried to delay the lifting of sanctions against Iraq and continue the Oil for Food program. That's because France and Russia profited from it: The Times of London calculated that French and Russian companies received $11 billion worth of business from Oil for Food between 1996 and 2003.

    Most disturbing are Iraqi records that suggest Benon Sevan, the executive director of the Oil for Food office, received a voucher for 11.5 million barrels of oil from Saddam's manipulation of the program ? enough to yield a profit of between $575,000 and $3.5 million.

    In a series of articles published earlier this year, the Iraqi independent newspaper al Mada reported on a list of several hundred individuals, corporations and political parties that benefited from Saddam's oil vouchers and explained how the system worked. The intent of the program was to sell Iraqi oil to pay for food and medicine for the Iraqi people, who were suffering due to sanctions. Instead, vouchers were doled out as gifts or as payment for goods imported into the country in violation of U.N. sanctions. The recipient would then turn the voucher over to one of a number of firms operating in the United Arab Emirates, in exchange for commissions ranging anywhere from 5 cents to 30 cents per barrel, depending on market conditions. (This translates into a profit of $50,000 on the low end and $300,000 on the high end for every 1 million barrels worth of oil vouchers.)

     The beneficiary list (found in the archives of the Iraqi Oil Ministry and translated into English by the Middle East Media Research Institute) should be deeply embarrassing to many prominent people. In the United States, those listed include Iraqi American businessman Shaker Al-Khaffaji, who put up $400,000 to produce a film by ex-U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, which aimed to discredit weapons inspections in Iraq. Also, British Labor MP George Galloway, a strident foe of taking action against Saddam, is listed as a recipient or co-recipient of 19.5 million barrels.

    Other recipients include: former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua (12 million barrels); Patrick Maugein, CEO of the oil company Soco International and financial backer of French President Jacques Chirac (25 million); former French Ambassador to the United Nations Jean-Bernard Merimee (11 million); Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri (10 million); and Syrian businessman Farras Mustafa Tlass, the son of longtime Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass (6 million). Leith Shbeilat, chairman of the anti-corruption committee of the Jordanian Parliament, received 15.5 million.

    Right now, Claude Hankes-Drielsma, a British investigator, is auditing the program on behalf of the Iraqi government. His findings, and the records reported on in the Iraqi press, deserve serious scrutiny. If it turns out that prominent politicians and businessmen profiteered while Iraqis were deprived of basic necessities that the Oil for Food program was supposed to pay for, there should be serious consequences, up to and including criminal prosecution.

[jarmo]

Again I see the word Europe and it only lists two European countries.

That's like saying Idaho and Nebraska equals USA...... 


Are you saying France and Russia didn't support USA because of this or are you saying the majority of European countries were in this thing together with those two?

You failed to mention that more than two European countries were with USA in that war. Basically you could say "Europe supported the war" if you wanted. 




/jarmo

[SLCPUNK]

this might shed some light as to why France and Russia didn't want to get rid of Saddam, despite several resolutions requiring him to disarm, and despite the obvious threat Saddam posed to the world.

We didn't want to get rid of Saddam for a long time.

Not until we could not find Osama......

It's also apparent now (more than ever) that Saddam was not an "obvious" threat to the world.

Regardless of the wrong doings of other countries, the facts to take our country to war were sketchy at best.

[sandman]

Again I see the word Europe and it only lists two European countries.

That's like saying Idaho and Nebraska equals USA......?


Are you saying France and Russia didn't support USA because of this or are you saying the majority of European countries were in this thing together with those two?

You failed to mention that more than two European countries were with USA in that war. Basically you could say "Europe supported the war" if you wanted.?




/jarmo

you always worry about the semantics.

support from Europe was weak overall. that is a fact. more specifically, there was no support from france, germany and russia.

let's see.....are other smaller EU countries gonna want to stay on France's and Germany's good side? i think so. 

is there a chance other nations were benefiting from this scandal? yes, it's possible, but i'd hate to assume.

i wanted to get rid of saddam for years. he was an obvious threat to many nations across the world. that's why clinton bombed him in 1998. bush and all the leaders in the US government realized this, and that is why it was approved almost unanimously by congress.

[Will]

i wanted to get rid of saddam for years. he was an obvious threat to many nations across the world.

Were you mad at Bush Sr. when he didn't ask his generals to execute/ capture Hussein although he had the chance, back in 1991?

The scandal in which France is involved is awful but doesn't change my point of view about this "war". Chirac is an asshole anyway, he's my President but I still think he's not a good one, and we should elect someone else next time. He and his political party are involved very deeply in internal corruption affairs too.

[axls_locomotive]

most of these guys were in it for themselves, the amounts of money involved are minimal wrt making such massive and expensive decisions to go to war...

come on, you mention mp george galloway and he certainly was in it for himself and very few supported his views...

and its pretty well known that the populous in most of these countries didnt want to go to war...

[Jessica]

This is politics sandman.

France and russia profited from it ? course they did. And france profited from it since 1916 when they booted the english out of irak and were thanked by irakis with exploitable oil pits.

Now, who is going to profit from irak ? Do you think the USA just went to " save the world'" ?

Gimme a break ! 

[Mattman]

Semi-related to this thread, but I found this great (and I mean great) article in the Toronto Star today that really sheds a lot of light on the somewhat underlooked issue of the importance of oil in the motives for the Bush administration invading Iraq.

- - - - - ?- - - - - - - - ?- - - - - - - ?- - - - - ?- ?- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ?-

Sep. 19, 2004. 04:32 PM

CRUDE DUDES

`U.S. oil companies just happened to have billions of dollars they wanted to invest in undeveloped oil reserves

LINDA MCQUAIG

From his corner office in the heart of New York's financial district, Fadel Gheit keeps close tabs on what goes on inside the boardrooms of the big oil companies. An oil analyst at the prestigious Wall Street firm Oppenheimer & Co., the fit, distinguished-looking Gheit has been watching the oil industry closely for more than 25 years.

Selling the modern world's most indispensable commodity has never been a bad business to be in ? particularly for the small group of companies that straddle the top of this privileged world. But never more so than now.

"Profit-wise, things could not have been better," says Gheit, "In the last three years, they died and went to heaven .... They are all sitting on the largest piles of cash in their history."

But to stay rich they have to keep finding new reserves, and that's getting tougher. Increasingly it means cutting through permafrost or drilling deep underwater, at tremendous cost. "The cheap oil has already been found and developed and produced and consumed," says Gheit. "The low-hanging fruit has already been picked."

Well, not all the low-hanging fruit has been picked.

Nestled into the heart of the area of heaviest oil concentration in the world is Iraq, overflowing with low-hanging fruit. No permafrost, no deep water. Just giant pools of oil, right beneath the warm ground. This is fruit sagging so low, as it were, that it practically touches the ground under the weight of its ripeness.

Not only does Iraq have vast quantities of easily accessible oil, but its oil is almost untouched. "Think of Iraq as virgin territory .... This is bigger than anything Exxon is involved in currently .... It is the superstar of the future," says Gheit, "That's why Iraq becomes the most sought-after real estate on the face of the earth."

Gheit just smiles at the notion that oil wasn't a factor in the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He compares Iraq to Russia, which also has large undeveloped oil reserves. But Russia has nuclear weapons. "We can't just go over and ... occupy (Russian) oil fields," says Gheit. "It's a different ballgame." Iraq, however, was defenceless, utterly lacking, ironically, in weapons of mass destruction. And its location, nestled in between Saudi Arabia and Iran, made it an ideal place for an ongoing military presence, from which the U.S. would be able to control the entire Gulf region. Gheit smiles again: "Think of Iraq as a military base with a very large oil reserve underneath .... You can't ask for better than that."

There's something almost obscene about a map that was studied by senior Bush administration officials and a select group of oil company executives meeting in secret in the spring of 2001. It doesn't show the kind of detail normally shown on maps ? cities, towns, regions. Rather its detail is all about Iraq's oil.

The southwest is neatly divided, for instance, into nine "Exploration Blocks." Stripped of political trappings, this map shows a naked Iraq, with only its ample natural assets in view. It's like a supermarket meat chart, which identifies the various parts of a slab of beef so customers can see the most desirable cuts .... Block 1 might be the striploin, Block 2 and Block 3 are perhaps some juicy tenderloin, but Block 8 ? ahh, that could be the filet mignon.

The map might seem crass, but it was never meant for public consumption. It was one of the documents studied by the ultra-secretive task force on energy, headed by U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, and it was only released under court order after a long legal battle waged by the public interest group Judicial Watch.

Another interesting task force document, also released under court order over the opposition of the Bush administration, was a two-page chart titled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfields." It identifies 63 oil companies from 30 countries and specifies which Iraqi oil fields each company is interested in and the status of the company's negotiations with Saddam Hussein's regime. Among the companies are Royal Dutch/Shell of the Netherlands, Russia's Lukoil and France's Total Elf Aquitaine, which was identified as being interested in the fabulous, 25-billion-barrrel Majnoon oil field. Baghdad had "agreed in principle" to the French company's plans to develop this succulent slab of Iraq. There goes the filet mignon into the mouths of the French!

The documents have attracted surprisingly little attention, despite their possible relevance to the question of Washington's motives for its invasion of Iraq ? in many ways the defining event of the post-9/11 world but one whose purpose remains shrouded in mystery. Even after the supposed motives for the invasion ? weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda ? have been thoroughly discredited, talk of oil as a motive is still greeted with derision. Certainly any suggestion that private oil interests were in any way involved is hooted down with charges of conspiracy theory.

Yet the documents suggest that those who took part in the Cheney task force ? including senior oil company executives ? were very interested in Iraq's oil and specifically in the danger of it falling into the hands of eager foreign oil companies, rather than into the rightful hands of eager U.S. oil companies.

As the documents show, prior to the U.S. invasion, foreign oil companies were nicely positioned for future involvement in Iraq, while the major U.S. oil companies, after years of U.S.-Iraqi hostilities, were largely out of the picture. Indeed, the U.S. majors would have been the big losers if U.N. sanctions against Iraq had simply been lifted. "The U.S. majors stand to lose if Saddam makes a deal with the U.N. (on lifting sanctions)," noted a report by Germany's Deutsche Bank in October 2002.

The disadvantaged position of U.S. oil companies in Saddam Hussein's Iraq would have presumably been on the minds of senior oil company executives when they met secretly with Cheney and his task force in early 2001. The administration refuses to divulge exactly who met with the task force, and continues to fight legal challenges to force disclosure. However a 2003 report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that the task force relied on advice from the oil industry, whose close ties to the Bush administration are legendary. (George W. Bush received more money from the oil and gas industry in 1999 and 2000 than any other U.S. federal candidate received over the previous decade.)

The Cheney task force has been widely criticized for recommending bigger subsidies for the energy industry, but there's been little focus on its possible role as a venue for consultations between Big Oil and the administration about Iraq. One intriguing piece of evidence pointing in this direction was a National Security Council directive, dated February 2001, instructing NSC staff to co-operate fully with the task force. The NSC document, reported in The New Yorker magazine, noted that the task force would be considering the "melding" of two policy areas: "the review of operational policies towards rogue states" and "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields." This certainly implies that the Cheney task force was considering geopolitical questions about actions related to the capture of oil and gas reserves in "rogue" states, including presumably Iraq.

It seems likely then that Big Oil, through the Cheney task force, was involved in discussions with the administration about getting control of oil in Iraq. Since Big Oil has sought to distance itself from the administration's decision to invade Iraq, this apparent involvement helps explain the otherwise baffling level of secrecy surrounding the task force.

It's interesting to note that the Cheney task force deliberations took place in the first few months after the Bush administration came to office ? the same time period during which the new administration was secretly formulating plans for toppling Saddam. Those early plans were not publicly disclosed, but we know about them now due to the publication of several insider accounts, including that of former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill. So, months before the attacks of 9/11, the Bush White House was already considering toppling Saddam, and at the same time it was also keenly studying Iraq's oil fields and assessing how far along foreign companies were in their negotiations with Saddam for a piece of Iraq's oil.

It's also noteworthy that one person ? Dick Cheney ? was pivotal both in advancing the administration's plans for regime change in Iraq and in formulating U.S. energy policy.

As CEO of oil services giant Halliburton Company, Cheney had been alert to the problem of securing new sources of oil. Speaking to the London Petroleum Institute in 1999, while still heading Halliburton, Cheney had focused on the difficulty of finding the 50 million extra barrels of oil per day that he said the world would need by 2010. "Where is it going to come from?" he asked, and then noted that "the Middle East with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

[Mattman]

Cheney's focus on the Middle East and its oil continued after he became Bush's powerful vice-president. Within weeks of the new administration taking office, Cheney was pushing forward plans for regime change in Iraq and also devising a new energy policy which included getting control of oil reserves in rogue states. His central role in these two apparently urgent initiatives is certainly suggestive of a possible connection between the U.S. invasion of Iraq and a desire for the country's ample oil reserves ? the very thing that is vehemently denied.

One reason that regime change in Iraq was seen as offering significant benefits for Big Oil was that it promised to open up a treasure chest which had long been sealed ? private ownership of Middle Eastern oil. A small group of major international oil companies once privately owned the oil industries of the Middle East. But that changed in the 1970s when most Middle Eastern countries (and some elsewhere) nationalized their oil industries. Today, state-owned companies control the vast majority of the world's oil resources. The major international oil companies control a mere 4 per cent.

The majors have clearly prospered in the new era, as developers rather than owners, but there's little doubt that they'd prefer to regain ownership of the oil world's Garden of Eden. "(O)ne of the goals of the oil companies and the Western powers is to weaken and/or privatize the world's state oil companies," observes New York-based economist Michael Tanzer, who advises Third World governments on energy issues.

The possibility of Iraq's oil being reopened to private ownership ? with the promise of astonishing profits ? attracted considerable interest in the run-up to the U.S. invasion. In February 2003, as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell held the world's attention with his dramatic efforts to make the case that Saddam posed an imminent threat to international peace, other parts of the U.S. government were secretly developing plans to privatize Iraq's oil (among other assets). A confidential 100-page contracting document, drawn up by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Treasury Department, laid out a wide-ranging plan for a "Mass Privatization Program ... especially in the oil and supporting industries."

The Pentagon was also working on plans to open up Iraq's oil sector. In the fall of 2002, months before the invasion, the Pentagon retained Philip Carroll, a former CEO of Shell Oil Co. in Texas, to draft a strategy for developing Iraqi oil. Carroll's plans apparently became the basis of a proposed scheme, which became public shortly after the war, to redesign Iraq's oil industry along the lines of a U.S. corporation, with a chairman, chief executive and a 15-member board of international advisers. Carroll was chosen by Washington to serve as chairman, but the plans were shelved after they encountered stiff opposition inside Iraq.

Still, the prospect of privatizing Iraq's oil remained of great interest to U.S. oil companies, according to Robert Ebel, from the influential Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Ebel, former vice-president of a Dallas-based oil exploration company, retains close ties to the industry. In an interview in his Washington office, Ebel said it was up to Iraq to make its own decisions, but he made clear that U.S. oil companies would prefer Iraq abandon its nationalization. "We'd rather not work with national oil companies," Ebel said bluntly, noting that the major oil companies are prepared to invest the $35 to $40 billion to develop Iraq's reserves in the coming years. "We're looking for places to invest around the world. You know, along comes Iraq, and I think a lot of oil companies would be disappointed if Iraq were to say `we're going to do it ourselves' "

Along comes Iraq?

How fortuitous. U.S. oil companies just happened to have billions of dollars that they wanted to invest in undeveloped oil reserves when Iraq presented itself, ready for invasion.

Along comes Iraq, indeed.

In the past 14 decades, we've used up roughly half of all the oil that the planet has to offer. No, we're not about to run out of oil. But long before the oil runs out, it reaches its production peak. After that, extracting the remaining oil becomes considerably more difficult and expensive.

This notion that oil production has a "peak" was first conceived in 1956 by geophysicist M. King Hubbert. He predicted that U.S. oil production would peak about 1970 ? a notion that was scoffed at at the time. As it turned out, Hubbert was dead on; U.S. oil production peaked in 1970, and has been declining ever since. Hubbert's once-radical notion is now generally accepted.

For the world as a whole, the peak is fast approaching. Colin Campbell, one of the world's leading geologists, estimates the world's peak will come as soon as 2005 ? next year. "There is only so much crude oil in the world," Campbell said in a telephone interview from his home in Ireland, "and the industry has found about 90 per cent of it."

All this would be less serious if the world's appetite for oil were declining in tandem. But even as the discovery of new oil fields slows down, the world's consumption speeds up ? a dilemma Cheney highlighted in his speech to the London Petroleum Institute in 1999. For every new barrel of oil we find, we are consuming four already-discovered barrels, according to Campbell. The arithmetic is not on our side.

Particularly worrisome is the arithmetic as it applies to the U.S. With its oil production already long past peak, and yet its oil consumption rising, the U.S. will inevitably become more reliant on foreign oil. This is significant not just for Americans, but for the world, since the U.S. has long characterized its access to energy as a matter of "national security." With its unrivalled military power, the U.S. will insist on meeting its own voracious energy needs ? and it will be up to the rest of the world to co-operate with this quest. Period.

Canada plays a greater role in this "keep-the-U.S.-energy-beast-fed" scenario than many Canadians may realize. A three-volume report prepared by a bipartisan Congressional team and CSIS, the Washington think tank, highlights how important Canada is in the U.S. energy picture of the future. The report, The Geopolitics of Energy into the 21st Century, notes that Canada is "the single largest provider of energy to the United States," and that "Canada is poised to expand sharply its exports of oil to the United States in the coming years."

Fine ? as long as Canada doesn't want to change its mind about this. Well, in fact, Canada can't change its mind about this ? a point celebrated in the report. When Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993, we gave up our right to cut back the amount of oil we export to the U.S. (unless we cut our own consumption the same amount). Interestingly, Mexico, also a party to NAFTA, refused to agree to this section, and was granted an exemption.

The U.S. report points out that that, under NAFTA, Canada is not allowed to reduce its exports of oil (or other energy) to the U.S. in order to redirect them to Canadian consumers. Redirecting Canadian oil to Canadians isn't permitted ? regardless of how great the Canadian need may be Some outside observers, like Colin Campbell over in Ireland, find the situation striking. "You poor Canadians are going to be left freezing in the dark while they're running hair dryers in the U.S.," says Campbell. It's a situation that comforts the U.S. senators, congressmen and think-tank analysts who wrote the report. With obvious satisfaction, they conclude: "There can be no more secure supplier to the United States than Canada."

Alas, for the U.S., not every part of the world is as pliant as Canada. Most of the world's oil is in the Middle East. And while different oil regions will reach their production peaks at different times, the Middle East will peak last, underlying Cheney's point that the region is where "the prize ultimately lies." Whoever controls the big oil reserves of the Middle East will then be positioned to, pretty much, control the world.

But we're supposed to believe that, as the Bush administration assessed its options just before invading Iraq in the spring of 2003, the advantages of securing vast, untapped oil fields ? in order to guarantee U.S. energy security in a world of dwindling reserves and to enable U.S. oil companies to reap untold riches ? were far from mind. What really mattered to those in the White House, we're told, was liberating the people of Iraq.

[SLCPUNK]

You wanna talk about people on the take....haha, how about Chenney's buddies at Haliburton? This war is all about money (among other things), not the mirage named "war on terror."

I was scanning through the channels today and low and behold there was this same story running. What channel was it on? What had dedicated at least a half an hour to this? Well FOX news of course.

It struck me as I sat on my couch watching this what it really was: Another form to distract the American public from the subject at hand. Hey, there is no doubt in my mind that money can cause great conflict between right and wrong. But that applies to everybody here. Also because two countries were supposively on the take, has nothing to do with this war. NONE.

It is smokes and mirror time all the way here.

This story is pushed into the media to say "Hey look over here and look how bad these guys are." So you won't look at the 'war' in Iraq and what a miserable failure it has become. Point the finger elsewhere and see how these bad guys didn't support us in our bullshit war 'on terror'.

What a joke.

And you guys claim the media is liberal.

[SLCPUNK]

Could this be that these men are actually putting their country before their careers? God bless them for it!



Republican Senators Criticize Bush's Iraq Policy
Arizona Sen. John McCain Says U.S. Made 'Serious Mistakes' After Invasion
By Randall Mikkelsen, Reuters

WASHINGTON (Sept. 19) - Leading members of President Bush's Republican Party on Sunday criticized mistakes and "incompetence" in his Iraq policy and called for an urgent ground offensive to retake insurgent sanctuaries.

In appearances on news talk shows, Republican senators also urged Bush to be more open with the American public after the disclosure of a classified CIA report that gave a gloomy outlook for Iraq and raised the possibility of civil war.

"The fact is, we're in deep trouble in Iraq ... and I think we're going to have to look at some recalibration of policy," Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"We made serious mistakes," said Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who has campaigned at Bush's side this year after patching up a bitter rivalry.

McCain, speaking on "Fox News Sunday," cited as mistakes the toleration of looting after the successful U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and failures to secure Iraq's borders or prevent insurgents from establishing strongholds within the country.

He said a ground offensive was urgently needed to retake areas held by insurgents, but a leading Democrat accused the administration of stalling for fear of hurting Bush's reelection chances.

The criticisms came as Bush prepared this week to host Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and focus strongly on Iraq after stepped up attacks from Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry.

After the CIA report was disclosed on Thursday, Kerry accused the president of living in a "fantasy world of spin" about Iraq and of not telling the truth about the growing chaos.

McCain said Bush had been "perhaps not as straight as maybe we'd like to see."

"I think the president is being clear. I would like to see him more clear," McCain said. He said Congress was expected to hold hearings on Iraq soon.

Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also criticized the administration's handling of Iraq's reconstruction.

Only $1 billion of $18.4 billion allocated by Congress for the task has been spent, Lugar said. "This is the incompetence in the administration," he said on ABC's "This Week."

GROUND OFFENSIVE

A ground offensive was essential to clearing insurgents out of strongholds such as Falluja, McCain said. He joined other lawmakers from both parties who said Iraqi elections scheduled for January would be impossible unless this were done.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that the U.S. military intended to retake Falluja by the end of the year.

"We've got to take out the sanctuaries. We're going to have to sustain, tragically, some more casualties. Airstrikes don't do it; artillery doesn't do it. Boots on the ground do it," McCain said.

"And the longer we delay ...the more difficult the challenge is going to be and the more casualties we will incur," he said.

Sen. John Kyl, like McCain an Arizona Republican, said, "Allowing the Iraqis to make the decisions not to go into some of these sanctuaries, I think, turns out to have not been a good decision, which we're going to have to correct now by going in with our Marines and Army divisions."

Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, speaking on ABC, accused the administration of delaying an offensive out of concern it would hurt Bush's bid to win reelection on Nov. 2.

"The only thing I can figure as to why they're not doing it with a sense of urgency is that they don't want to do it before the election and they want to make it seem like everything is status quo," Biden said.

But Kyl said on CBS that time was also needed to train Iraqi troops to help secure areas recaptured from insurgents, and he disputed accusations Bush had not been open about the difficulties in Iraq.

McCain also called for enlarging the U.S. Army by 70,000 soldiers and the Marines by 20,000 to 25,000.

Kerry and other Democrats have said Bush plans to call up more part-time National Guard and Reserve troops after the November election to compensate for thinning ranks in the full-time military due to Iraq. The Bush campaign denied this.

Biden said disappointment with Bush's policies was bipartisan. "Dick Lugar, Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel, John McCain -- we are all on the same page. It is us and the administration. This has been incompetence so far," he said. (additional reporting by Sue Pleming)

[Mattman]

And you guys claim the media is liberal.

Actually, I find that every liberal will say there's a conservative bias and every conservative will say there's a liberal bias.  But if you're watching Fox News...well, that's a channel that doesn't even try to be "fair and balanced".