After reporting to the White House and Congress last year, members of the Iraq Study Group, like all great super-groups, went their separate ways. After the president largely ignored its recommendations, the ISG pondered a reunion tour, but the White House reportedly intervened, imploring former Secretary of State James Baker not to reconvene the panel.
So, the U.S. Institute of Peace did the next best thing — it convened the experts who advised the ISG, which led to a summer-long discussion among some two dozen former U.S. officials and ambassadors, former CIA analysts, and Iraq specialists from think tanks and universities. Their recommendations are poised to be released tomorrow.
In a report to be released Sunday, a panel of experts assembled by the U.S. Institute of Peace calls for a 50 percent reduction in U.S. forces in Iraq within three years and a total withdrawal and handover of security to the Iraqi military in five years.
“The United States faces too many challenges around the world to continue its current level of effort in Iraq, or even the deployment that was in place before the surge,” the report says. ” . . . It is time to chart a clearer path forward.”
Given that Petraeus reportedly believes stability can be achieved in 10 years, and the Council on Foreign Relations’ Stephen Biddle is talking about 20 years, I suppose the USIP plan for a mere five years might look appealing by comparison.
That is, if we had any reason to think conditions would be any better in 2012 than they are now.
Two Bangor Daily News editors recuse themselves from coverage of the Maine senate race over charges of conflicts of interest.
Ted Olson a likely nominee to replace disgraced outgoing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Touching (from WaPo) …
Bush has appeared energized by the events of the past few weeks. Meeting with tribal leaders in Anbar province last Monday, the president even showed empathy when the sheiks complained about a lack of money from Baghdad, officials said. As governor of Texas, Bush said, he had asked for more federal funds from Washington — and often did not get them, either.
I get the sense that congressional Democrats are deeply worried about how best to respond to tomorrow’s testimony from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Everyone seems well aware of what we’re likely to hear in terms of their assessment, but challenging their conclusions seems trickier.
If opponents of the war treat Petraeus and Crocker with kid gloves, the administration’s public-relations offensive will have succeeded and dubious conclusions about conditions in Iraq will be largely embraced as the conventional wisdom. If war critics are overly aggressive, the right will characterize Democrats’ skepticism as some kind of anti-military animus.
So, how do Dems convince Americans that the assessment from Petraeus and Crocker is really just a continuation of the White House line? As it turns out, they don’t have to — Americans are already there.
Most Americans think this week’s report from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus will exaggerate progress in Iraq, and few expect it to result in a major shift in President Bush’s policy. […]
[T]hough the public assessment of progress in Iraq remains largely negative, most expected Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, to express a rosier view when he begins his congressional testimony tomorrow. Only about four in 10 said they expect the general to give an accurate accounting of the situation in Iraq. A majority, 53 percent, said they think his report will try to make the situation in Iraq look better than it really is.
What’s more, 66% of respondents in the Post/ABC poll said the president will “stick with his Iraq policy no matter what the Petraeus report says.”
From the AP …
Texas’ Hunt Oil Co. and Kurdistan’s regional government said Saturday they’ve signed a production-sharing contract for petroleum exploration in northern Iraq, the first such deal since the Kurds passed their own oil and gas law in August.
A Hunt subsidiary, Hunt Oil Co. of the Kurdistan Region, will begin geological survey and seismic work by the end of 2007 and hopes to drill an exploration well in 2008, the parties said in a news release. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
From Hunt’s bio: “In October 2001 and again in January 2006, Mr. Hunt was appointed by President George W. Bush to the Presidentâs Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in Washington, D.C.”
On Friday, the president was poised to tell the APEC conference in Australia that his policies in Iraq have been so successful, he was able to land at a well-guarded airport in Anbar province and visit with troops at a well-guarded base. As David Kurtz discovered, Bush realized how foolish this was, and wisely decided to leave the remarks out of his speech: “Citing the President’s brief stop in a heavily guarded U.S. encampment as proof of peace and stability in the country at large was too over the top, even for the White House.”
It was not, unfortunately, too over the top for the AP’s Anne Gearan. (thanks to reader C.E.)
Anbar has transformed from an insurgent haven partly run by al-Qaida to a chunk of Iraqi heartland safe enough for the president and his war Cabinet to spend the day.
Sigh.
On its face, it’s rather mystifying that “Meet the Press” has made David Brody a regular contributor. While progressive voices have been effectively absent from the Sunday morning shows in recent years, Tim Russert has invited the Capitol Hill correspondent for TV preacher Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network on for political analysis three times in as many months.
Perhaps, one might say, Brody’s analysis is so enlightening, it transcends his bizarre and embarrassing televangelist boss. I’m afraid that’s just not the case. Consider this exchange from this morning.
RUSSERT: Every debate, David Brody, the Republicans have, they make their point, “We understand Islamic fascism; we understand the terrorist threat; the Democrats don’t.” That is going to be their issue in 2008, just as it was in ’04 and 2000.
BRODY: There’s no doubt about it. I mean, it’s somewhat of a, on the Republican side, a testosterone convention, in essence, is what it is. Because you have John McCain following him [bin Laden] “to the gates of hell.” And you have Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney now saying Osama bin Laden is “crazy” and a little “cooky.”
They are going to push this all the time. What’s interesting though, I think, the bigger issue is on national security. You notice that the Democrats in all of these poll numbers that we see, that they trump the Republicans in many areas. When it comes to national security, it’s roughly about even now…. At the end of the day, Republicans, this issue helps the Republicans more than the Democrats because they’re going to be able to enforce this idea that Democrats want to go at this with law enforcement and Republicans don’t and I think that will be the key difference as we move forward.
What?
It’s hard to know where to begin with this kind of assessment, but the first thing that jumped out at me is the notion that Republican presidential hopefuls describing Osama bin Laden as “cooky” is evidence of “testosterone.” Maybe I’m behind on my understanding of slang, but “cooky” doesn’t strike me as a particularly aggressive insult for the terrorist responsible for 9/11.
Second, after an odd non sequitur, Brody believes Dems are going to lose support on national security because they believe intelligence gathering and law-enforcement efforts are the keys to effective counter-terrorism. But isn’t it fairly obvious by now that Dems are right about this? Indeed, just last week, German officials disrupted a dangerous terrorist plot, not by sending in an army, but through months of intelligence gathering and law-enforcement legwork.
Brody is repeating a Bush talking point from three years ago, which was suspect at the time, and nonsensical now.
Maybe bookers for “Meet the Press” can expand their Rolodex a little bit?
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), this morning:
“Americans are sad, they’re frustrated, they’re angry, and they want out. And I understand that; there were four years of failure under Rumsfeld. As you know, I spoke out early on, in November of 2003, saying that strategy was doomed to failure.”
McCain, in December 2003:
“This is a mission accomplished. They know how much influence Saddam Hussein had on the Iraqi people, how much more difficult it made to get their cooperation.”
McCain, in March 2004:
“I’m confident we’re on the right course.”
McCain, in December 2005:
“I do think that progress is being made in a lot of Iraq. Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course. If I thought we weren’t making progress, I’d be despondent.”
When war supporters like McCain wonder why they have credibility problems when it comes to Iraq policy, this might offer a hint.
If you need any more sense of what this is going to be about (from Drudge) …
Following their testimony to Congress, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will appear exclusively on FOX News Channel on Monday at 9pm EDT for a one hour live interview with Brit Hume… Developing…
So, the goods they’re bringing home are so strong they can only withstand the scrutiny of Fox News and Brit Hume. Good to see we’ve turned over a new leaf.