Fred Kaplan raises an fascinating point in his new article about the disbanding of the Saddam-era Iraqi Army. We know Paul Bremer didn’t come up with the idea. But who did? I’m not sure I realized this. But I guess we actually don’t know. And with the near universal belief that it was the biggest blunder of the occupation, it does not seem likely that anyone will be coming forward any time soon.

Since the idea read so much from the pre-war AEI-Iraq Regime Change playbook, I think I’d just been assuming it had come out of the crew around Wolfowitz at the Pentagon. But Kaplan makes an admittedly circumstantial and speculative but in the end I think rather convincing argument that the idea came from Dick Cheney. And Cheney probably got the idea from Ahmed Chalabi — one of the great charlatans and hucksters in the annals of American foreign policy history.

We’re told that it’s wrong too dwell too long on what’s in the past when it comes to Iraq. And this is good advice in as much as the hard work of figuring out, conceptually and politically, how to end the nightmare in Iraq shouldn’t be shunted aside for the comparative ease of cataloguing and knocking out of park all the lame-brained ideas and catastrophic screw ups going back to 2002.

That said, though, there’s so much left to talk about. There is such a long list of misdeeds and crimes for which we have neither answers nor accountability. This is just one among many, though it is no doubt one of the most consequential.

Earlier this week, former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said it’s not too late for Fred Thompson to compete for the GOP nomination, but to make up for lost time, the former senator must demonstrate “a command over policy issues.” Fleischer added, “He’s got to knock the policy questions out of the park.”

So much for that idea.

Freshly minted GOP White House hopeful Fred Thompson puzzled Iowans yesterday by insisting an Al Qaeda smoking ban was one reason freedom-loving Iraqis bolted to the U.S. side.

“They said, ‘You gotta quit smoking,'” Thompson explained to a questioner asking about progress in Iraq during a town hall-style meeting. […]

Thompson’s tale of a smokers’ revolt baffled some in the audience of about 150 who came to decide whether the former Tennessee senator is ready for prime time.

“I don’t know what that was about,” said Jim Moran, 72, who had driven from nearby McCook Lake, S.D.

Thompson’s been getting a lot of that lately.

In just the last couple of days, Thompson has had trouble explaining his position on Social Security; dismissed the significance of Osama bin Laden, describing him as “more symbolism than anything else”; said he believes “we better figure out a way” to combat al Qaeda (not that he necessarily knows how), and proposed a bizarre constitutional amendment on gay marriage, arguing that “zero” state legislatures “have affirmatively approved gay marriage,” a claim that happens to be wrong.

No wonder this guy is ducking debates; he’s nowhere near ready for prime time.

Here’s an exercise for the day. Compare Karen DeYoung’s September 6th Post article on the Iraq numbers with today’s by Michael Gordon in the Times.

We’ve already discussed DeYoung’s article here. While Gordon discusses conflicting opinions about what the military’s numbers mean, he really never questions the numbers themselves.

One mild exception comes in this graf …

Critics of the White House have pointed to the Government Accountability Office report released on Tuesday, which asserted that it was unclear whether sectarian violence had decreased. The report cited data on daily, nationwide attacks that had been assembled by Gen. David H. Petraeus’s command. But American military officials note that the G.A.O. assessment did not take account of August, when the most significant gains in reducing violence materialized not only in Baghdad, but also across Iraq.

Gordon himself might have noted that the statistics compiled by the Associated Press showed, on the contrary, a marked increase in civilian deaths in August.

I’d recommend reading both articles and making your own comparison. I think it’s hard to come to any other judgment but that Gordon’s is a remarkably credulous account. And while it notes some points of disagreement it treats them in the manner one would expect of a relatively evenhanded advocate on behalf of the numbers coming out of the Baghdad command. I cannot see any rationale or excuse for why the problems raised in DeYoung’s report find no place in Gordon’s.

This is another example of how the Post, as big a train wreck as it’s been on the editorial side, has consistently been the superior paper on intelligence, military and foreign reporting (at least in the Middle East) during the Bush presidency.

I think it’s safe to assume the right will be less than pleased with Rudy Giuliani’s interview with Glenn Beck yesterday:

GLENN: [I]sn’t illegal immigration a crime in and of itself?

GIULIANI: No.

GLENN: Aren’t you saying —

GIULIANI: Glenn —

GLENN: You’re protecting criminals by saying that being treated as a criminal is unfair.

GIULIANI: Glenn, it’s not a crime. I know that’s very hard for people to understand, but it’s not a federal crime.

GLENN: It’s a misdemeanor but if you’ve been nailed, it is a crime. If you’ve been nailed, ship back and come back, it is a crime.

GIULIANI: Glenn, being an illegal immigrant, the 400,000 were not prosecuted for crimes by the federal government, nor could they be…. In fact, when you throw an immigrant out of the country, it’s not a criminal proceeding. It’s a civil proceeding.

Beck followed up by asking if illegal immigration should be a crime, prompting Giuliani to argue, “No, it shouldn’t be because the government wouldn’t be able to prosecute it.”

Now, Giuliani isn’t wrong. Illegal immigrants aren’t imprisoned for being in the country; they’re deported. There’s simply no practical way to incarcerate every single person who enters the U.S. illegally.

But as far as the Republican base is concerned, the former NYC mayor, whose record on immigration was far too liberal for GOP tastes anyway, has given far-right activists just another reason to question his conservative bona fides.

I guess war supporters have settled on their new assessment of conditions in Iraq. Upon arriving in Australia a few days ago, the president insisted that “we’re kicking ass” in Iraq.

In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was apparently on the same page.

“My last visit convinced me more than anything else that the biggest benefit of the surge is to take the men and women on the front lines and change their attitude about their mission. They’ve gone from going around, waiting to be shot, to feeling like they’re kicking their ass.”

Kicking whose ass? Graham didn’t say.

This need not be complicated. This week, the GAO documented the fact that Iraq has successfully completed three of the administration’s 18 benchmarks. This hardly qualifies as “kicking ass.”

Both Graham and Bush have been struggling with reality for quite a while, but it seems as if they’ve decided the cautious optimism no longer works, at least as far as public relations goes. Dems keep pointing to reality, and highlighting the fact that the policy isn’t working. If Bush, Graham, and other war supporters concede publicly that the strategy is struggling, it would be perceived as a sign of weakness.

So, they swing for the fences. Don’t believe your lying eyes — the Iraq policy isn’t just working; it’s actually “kicking ass.”

The AEI audience seemed to appreciate Graham’s comments, and I don’t doubt the GOP base and congressional Republicans got to pump their fists in the air a bit after hearing the president’s remarks. There may even be some Americans who hear about this and think, “Well, if things were really going poorly, the president and his allies wouldn’t seem so confident.”

But that doesn’t make it so.

In March, in one of the year’s strangest political moments, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) called a “major” press conference to discuss his future political plans. The event, which most assumed would be a presidential announcement, drew much of the political press corps and live television coverage. “I’m here today to announce that my family and I will make a decision on my political future later this year,” Hagel said, effectively making an announcement to let people know he’ll make an announcement some other time.

“Later this year” has apparently arrived and Hagel’s decided to call it quits. Election Central has all the details.

I’d just add, however, that this is not at all what the Republican leadership wanted to hear. Sure, Hagel has been a thorn in the party’s side by breaking ranks on Iraq policy, but 2008 was poised to be a difficult cycle anyway for the party — the GOP has 22 seats to defend next year, the Dems have 12. With an unpopular war, an unpopular incumbent president, and an unpopular party in general, Republicans need to keep retirements to a minimum in order to conserve campaign resources.

And yet, they’re exiting stage right. Hagel joins Warner (Va.) and Craig (Idaho) among the GOP incumbents who’ve already announced their retirement plans.

Oddly enough, this was one of the more talked-about news items of the day yesterday among conservative bloggers.

Are you still fans of Matt Hasselbeck and Mack Strong after they visited President Bush last week in Bellevue? Or have their political leanings turned you against them?

The [Seattle] Seahawks quarterback and fullback gave the 43rd president a No. 43 jersey with his name on it at a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser for Rep. Dave Reichert [R] at the Hyatt.

At the time, Hasselbeck called it a thrill and said it was a win-win, this opportunity to meet the president and get out of a team meeting. But as soon as he saw the picture of the two players with Bush, Gary Wright, the team’s vice president of administration, said he was concerned about negative reaction.

Maybe in really red Republican states, it would not have been a big deal. But Washington is a blue state, and deep, deep Democratic blue in King County. So objections were raised, and Hasselbeck heard them and read them. He got nasty voice mails, e-mails and text messages.

Now, sports teams routinely meet with presidents at the White House after a championship, but this was a little different. Two Seahawks players attended a GOP fundraiser, where they decided, on their own, to honor the president.

Apparently, Bush isn’t particularly popular in Seattle, where fans told Hasselbeck and Strong how offended they were with the gesture towards Bush. Then, conservative bloggers argued yesterday how offended they were by Seahawks’ fans.

Apparently, the right’s argument seems to be that entertainers like football players should be able to express political preferences without hearing vitriolic reactions from fans. It’s a free country; going to a GOP fundraiser and applauding the president isn’t a crime. Sounds reasonable enough to me.

But I am curious about those making the argument. If football players should be able to express their support for Bush, should the Dixie Chicks be able to express criticism of Bush? If Democrats in Seattle who are bothered by Hasselbeck and Strong are crazy, are conservatives who crushed the Dixie Chicks’ CDs with steamrollers expressing mature political opposition?

Just asking.

Of all of Bush’s misstatements from the 2000 presidential election, one of the most obviously-false attacks was on military readiness. Indeed, then-Gov. Bush blamed Clinton and Gore directly for “hollowing out” the military. “If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report, ‘Not ready for duty, sir.'” BC00 campaign aides later acknowledged it was a bogus charge, but that didn’t stop Bush from repeating it. A lot.

And now, seven years later, the next batch of Republican presidential hopefuls are doing the same thing.

“So much time was spent on other stuff in Clinton’s years, good and bad, that the biggest mistake he ever made doesn’t get the focus it deserves – and that is gutting our military,” [Rudy Giuliani] said, not mentioning that the post-Cold War reduction in military spending started under the first President George Bush and continued under Clinton with bipartisan congressional support.

Fred Thompson made the same argument a couple of weeks ago, arguing that the U.S. must rebuild its military to fight global terrorism because leaders “took a holiday” in the 1990s.

I realize the GOP is in a bind. Bush has stretched the military to the breaking point, and Republican presidential candidates want to emphasize rebuilding the Armed Forces as part of their platforms. But to acknowledge the incredible strains on the current military is to implicitly hold the president to account for his irresponsible policies.

What to do? Blame Clinton, of course.

Nonsensical rhetoric notwithstanding, Giuliani and Thompson have identified the correct problem, but they’re blaming the wrong president.

Four years after the invasion of Iraq, the high and growing demand for U.S. troops there and in Afghanistan has left ground forces in the United States short of the training, personnel and equipment that would be vital to fight a major ground conflict elsewhere, senior U.S. military and government officials acknowledge.

More troubling, the officials say, is that it will take years for the Army and Marine Corps to recover from what some officials privately have called a “death spiral,” in which the ever more rapid pace of war-zone rotations has consumed 40 percent of their total gear, wearied troops and left no time to train to fight anything other than the insurgencies now at hand.

The risk to the nation is serious and deepening, senior officers warn, because the U.S. military now lacks a large strategic reserve of ground troops ready to respond quickly and decisively to potential foreign crises…. An immediate concern is that critical Army overseas equipment stocks for use in another conflict have been depleted by the recent troop increases in Iraq, they said.

I’d just add that Clinton fought two wars — and won them both. What’s more, when Bush sent troops into Afghanistan to rout the Taliban, he did so with the military Clinton left for him.

In light of the controversy surrounding the Pentagon’s Iraq numbers, hilzoy explained the larger dynamic nicely:

Here are some of the things we know about these statistics: they don’t include Sunni-on-Sunni violence, or Shi’a-on-Shi’a violence. They don’t include car bombings. There are unexplained changes in the figures from one report to the next. They don’t seem to take seasonality into account. […]

[T]here is an easy way to resolve these issues. If the government were to release its figures, and explain the methodology behind them, then it would be clear whether they had been cherry-picked or not…. Explaining the methodology behind their numbers is obviously the best way for the administration either to put these sorts of doubts to rest once and for all, or else to prove that they are well-founded.

It’s an idea that’s making the rounds.

Members of Congress urged the Pentagon yesterday to declassify its data on sectarian killings, just days before General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, is expected to report a dramatic decrease in the level of violence between the Sunni and Shi’ite sects.

Does anyone seriously believe that if the internal data pointed to legitimate progress in Iraq, the administration wouldn’t release it?

Yesterday, after the latest Osama bin Laden video was released, David Kurtz noted that both sides of the political divide “may be tempted to use bin Laden’s words to some perverse advantage,” but suggested everyone show some restraint. David explained, “Bin Laden is a crazy, evil man. No one should take any pleasure in trying to exploit his rantings for their own partisan purposes.” Arguing the same point, I suggested, “Might we be better off not trying to make use of the rambling tirade of a monster who killed 3,000 Americans?”

No such luck.

Last night on PBS’ The NewsHour, New York Times columnist David Brooks compared 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden’s latest video message to “lefty blogs,” saying the al Qaeda head is like “one of these childish people posting rants at the bottom of the page.”

Brooks, supposedly one of the media’s favorite “serious” grown-ups, is playing the same offensive game far-right activists have been playing for years: tying the 9/11 architect to the left. It’s insulting and ridiculous, but Brooks’ sentiment was echoed, aggressively, by the usual suspects.

I suppose this is all fairly predictable, and not worth getting too worked up over. Things haven’t gone too well for the right when it comes to the military (stretched to the breaking point), counter-terrorism (increased terrorist attacks around the globe every year since 9/11), combating al Qaeda (which has used Iraq as a successful recruiting and fundraising tool), or U.S. foreign policy (our international standing has reached its lowest ebb in a generation), so I guess it makes them feel better to argue that fundamentalist terrorists and secular liberals share some kind of ideology. Whatever.

Having said that, it’s probably worth noting, from time to time, that if Osama bin Laden were to sit down and write a gameplan for what he’d like to see the United States do since 2001, it would look eerily similar to the approach taken by the Bush administration over the last six years.

In this sense, Brooks’ comments, and those from other far-right voices, are part of a classic Rovian strategy — identify your rival’s strength, and go after it vociferously. Indeed, the strident rhetoric and the nonsensical finger-pointing reeks of desperation, as if the president’s political supporters hope that if they scream “OBL (hearts) Democrats” loud enough, no one will notice that Bush’s presidency has been everything al Qaeda could have hoped for, and more.

It’s kind of sad, when you think about it.