The assertion of an Iranian role in supplying the device to Shiite militias reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies, although officials acknowledge that the picture is not entirely complete.
A few months ago, I intended to start a new series of posts called "Coffee with Tim," which would be a reaction to Meet the Press each week, or as many weeks as I could. I never got around to it but am hoping to start now. MTP is the one Sunday morning show that I watch.
And this week is a great week to start. MTP featured Senator John McCain, a key supporter of the Bush-McCain-Lieberman escalation, and Senator Edward Kennedy, who voted against the Iraq war at the start and now opposes the escalation.
Senator McCain's arguments in favor of the escalation are based on a few assumptions that I just don't buy. First, he believes that more troops means more security. I don't buy it. We've been at 150,000 troops before, and we all saw how well that worked. More troops might actually make things worse.
Bush's friend McCain also believes that a U.S. withdrawal will lead to chaos. That is a distinct possibility. But it's not guaranteed. It's important to remember that a U.S. withdrawal does not mean that one day there are 130,000 troops in Iraq and the next day there are zero. President Bush has long said that as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. In fact, we can turn that around. We stand down, and the Iraqis will then recognize that it is time to stand up.
It seemed that Senator McCain has picked up the Rove-Limbaugh-Hannity tactic of spreading a flat-out lie. McCain stated several times that the American people did not support the Gulf War at the start. That is just flat wrong.
Most Americans agreed with the President's decision to go to war. For example, the Washington Post/ABC News Poll on January 16, 1991, found that 76 percent of Americans approved of the U.S. going to war with Iraq and 22 percent disapproved.
I'm considering going to Washington on Saturday for the march against the war. I hope those of you who come across this post will consider doing the same.
In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve
And there's no one more deserving right now than the 51% of voting Americans who chose George W. Bush in 2004.
The escalation of the war in Iraq will begin shortly. The President believes that American soldiers going door-to-door, neighborhood-to-neighborhood, is going to quell the violence in the shattered country.
As I heard a public official say this week (can't remember who, but I think it was Senator Chuck Hagel), there's an assumption in the president's plan that more troops equals more security. I don't buy that premise. More troops could mean less security. When you add heat to a simmering pot of water, it gets hotter and boils.
There's no indication from the Iraqi government that they want to crack down on al-Sadr and other Shiites who are wreaking havoc. As long as armed Shiites have the backing of the government, the violence will not stop, and no level of U.S. escalation will stop it.
That doesn't mean the alternative- a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops- is a picnic. Iraq might not get much better as we leave, but at least one element that inspires the mayhem- the occupiers of the United States- will be subtracted from the equation.
This whole thing led me to think about something I read by Thich Nhat Hanh recently about the elimination of nuclear arms. Thay said that the United States could lead the way in abolishing nukes by unilaterally destroying x-number of arms. If more countries follow suit in the months that follow, the U.S. could destroy more, and so on.
Maybe if the U.S. partially backs away, they will lead the way to peace. Why not try it? Nothing else Bush has tried has worked.
The Administration's planning for a military attack on Iran was made far more complicated earlier this fall by a highly classified draft assessment by the C.I.A. challenging the White House's assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb. The C.I.A. found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency. .... A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the C.I.A. analysis, and told me that the White House had been hostile to it. The White House's dismissal of the C.I.A. findings on Iran is widely known in the intelligence community. Cheney and his aides discounted the assessment, the former senior intelligence official said.
Honestly, how can anyone support this Administration anymore? Maybe I'm cranky because it's late, but you really have to be dumber than a box of rocks to continue to support George W. Bush.
