Uncle Sam runs out of troops

So Bush is to announce a reduction, next year, in US troops in Iraq.

But the only reason he is doing it is because the USA, bless them, have run out of troops, or will do next year if they don't radically reduce their deployments.

It's nothing to do with the Iraqi political system and its army and police force being able to take the strain. We were told that was the reason for the troops being there in the first place - to enable an orderly transition.

What a mess!

The chilling clarity (and silence) of John Bolton, US Neocon

If you missed it, it's worth listening to the interview with John Bolton, former (unconfirmed) US Ambassador to the UN, on Radio Four's PM tonight (it's about 15 minutes in).

George Bush is forever banging on about spreading democracy across the world. Indeed, one of his retirement plans is to set up a "Freedom Centre", to encourage international democracy.

It is remarkable that George Bush's enthusiasm for world democracy stops at the Pakistani border. It's as if there is a sort of force field around Pakistan that flips Bush's logic on its head, unexplained, cheerfully accepting a dictatorship.

Mr Bolton, with chilling clarity, explained why this is. Basically, Musharraf has nukes and is cracking down on Al-Qaeda. Hold onto nurse for fear of something worse.

So, democracy is fine. But where there are nukes held and terrorists to crack down on, a dictator is best.

Bolton put it as protecting "command and control". The US, therefore, prefers "command and control" under a dictator than under a democracy. In Pakistan.

It all goes back to that interview before George Bush's election when he was asked the name of the new leader of Pakistan. "General" he answered. "General who?" pressed the interviewer. "General" replied Bush with one of his frat boy smirks.

It was amusing at the time, but, upon reflection now, it reveals, perhaps, a deeper truth. I suspect that Bush didn't actually care which General was in charge. He was just happy with it being a General who was a "good man".

The PM interview had one remarkable aspect. John Bolton said that terrorist-searching efforts in Pakistan "take priority over democracy". Interviewer Eddie Mair allowed Bolton to expand on his answer by pausing.

I actually joined the interview a this point, listening on Long Wave. There was a long silence (ten seconds long in the end). I wondered whether I was about to treated to an Emergency Test Match Special ("The Batsman's Holding, the Bowler's Throat") or a Hurricane-strength Shipping Forecast. But no. It was a sort of Mexican Stand-off. As Eddie Mair says on his blog, he (Mair) "blinked first" and asked: "Why?"

John Bolton was not born yesterday.

It reminds me of the advice I have always been given for speaking with auditors:

Answer the question, then stop talking.

Vindication for Ming on Iraq - Brown is exposed as Bush's Poodle 2

I have blogged fairly regularly about Ming Campbell's strong and authoritative interventions on Iraq, which have often been backed up by his conversations with army commanders on the ground.

Last month, Ming was asking why British soldiers seemed to be lingering in Iraq simply to shore up a lame duck US President. Gordon Brown replied to Ming's letter on the matter, saying that the soldiers were in Iraq based on British interests.

Well, today comes vindication for Ming - in spades. And a major embarrassment for Brown who is exposed as Bush's Poodle 2:

LONDON (AFP) - Britain was prepared to withdraw its forces from the southern Iraqi city of Basra in April, but held off for five months after the United States asked it to stay, Britain's military commander in Iraq said in an interview published on Monday.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Brigadier James Bashall, commander of 1 Mechanised Brigade, said that he wanted to leave Britain's Basra Palace base in April, something he said would have been "the right thing to do."

"In April we could have come out and done the transition completely and that would have been the right thing to do but politics prevented that," Bashall, 44, told the paper.

"The Americans asked us to stay for longer," he said, adding the decision to stay in the city was a result of "political strategy being played out at highest level."

"Political strategy being played out at highest level" ? That's a very grand way of saying:

"Covering George W Bush's posterior"

So, if a parent has a son or daughter in Iraq and they were in Basra between April and September, they were put at risk (indeed many injured and some killed) not for "Queen and country", not even for "Uncle Sam" (given that the Congress is mostly against the "surge") but "To save George Bush's bottom".

Marvellous.

Bush: 'We're kicking ass' in Iraq

Oh well, that's alright then.

At least, I suppose, you can't accuse him of verbosity.

George Bush's priorities after office: Money and teaching people to repeat his mistakes

The New York Times reviews Robert Draper's book "Dead Certain", about George W Bush.

It gives some fascinating glimpses into the priorities of the great man.

Take his plans after leaving office. He wants to make lots of money and establish a "Freedom Institute" to tell young people how to mess up countries - like he did in Iraq:

Mr. Draper quotes him saying that he plans to build a 'Freedom Institute,' a sort of think tank where young leaders from abroad can learn about democracy. Mr. Bush, who has a net worth estimated at $8 million to $21 million, also said he would like to make some money -- 'replenish the ol’ coffers,' as he put it.""He said he could make 'ridiculous' money out on the lecture circuit: 'I don’t know what my dad gets. But it’s more than fifty, seventy-five' thousand dollars a speech."

He can make "ridiculous money", can he? Has anyone told George W that his dad actually had a brain?

Thanks to Political Wire.

A tiny tick could have brought down the world's most powerful man

Lyme disease is an appalling illness, spread by ticks, which can be prevented by simple precautions such as tucking your trousers into your socks when you go for a country walk.

President George Bush can count himself lucky that, in his case, it was spotted early on and dealt with.

Welcome British change of tack on Guantanamo detainees

It is good news that the British government has requested the release of a further five UK residents from Guantanamo Camp. This is a welcome change of direction following the change of Prime Minister.

Guantanamo camp remains one of the most disgusting acts of the US government. Tony Blair should hang his head in shame for supporting Bush in Iraq, following such a shameful abuse of human rights.

Taxpayer pays for economy class seat for George Bush's bomber jacket present to Gordon Brown

Before the Bush-Brown summit, I warned of potential cring-making arrangements in the choreography of the press conferences, or even a potential "Bomber Jacket" moment.

The Colgate moment, from the first Bush-Blair summit, was repeated in some way. Apparently toothpaste was mentioned by Bush, according to the Norfolk Blogger. I missed it.

But now it is clear that the bomber jacket moment did indeed rear its ugly head as well.

George Bush gave Gordon Brown a fur-trimmed genuine Aviator bomber jacket complete with name tag with official title (Rt Hon Gordon Brown) on the left breast and, according to the BBC's Nick Assinder: "a Camp David badge with the presidential seal on the other."

When Blair was given one of these things, he donned it when he got into the helicopter at the end of the visit.

Gordon Brown has a little more sense and taste. According to Nick Assinder:

...the item was left rather dismissively in its large, gold-papered box in an economy class seat in the prime minister's on his return trip to the UK.

So, the British taxpayer paid for a seat for Bush's flying jacket present to be cast aside "dismissively".

....Worth every penny I'd say.

Brown passes the "body language" test with Bush

The Bush and Brown Camp David "mood music" and/or "body language" is encouraging.

No silly aping the Bush ape walk from the British Prime Minister.

No silly jeans or bomber jackets.

No Colgate references.

Instead, sober suits and ties. Gordon Brown kept a stern face as Bush tried one of his "fratboy" tricks - doing a bit of a wheely in his golf buggy in front of the press. And no praise for Bush from Brown.

So far so good for Gordon Brown.

Now let's see some action.

Brown and Bush: Watch the walk

If and when Bush and Brown walk up to the cameras after their Camp David meeting, I, for one, will be focussing on small things.

Will Brown adopt that cowboy walk to mimic Bush, which Blair pathetically adopted?

Will Brown go for a leather bomber jacket?

The opportunities for a PTSA moment are endless. But I have a feeling that Brown will not embarrass himself as Blair, upon reflection, did.


*Pass the sickbag, Alice.

George Bush continues to aim at the wrong duck

George Bush said today that pulling troops out too soon "would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al-Qaeda". He just doesn't get it does he?

Even the US National Intelligence Council, the best brains available to Bush, says that the Sunni-Shiite warfare is the cause of most of the violence in Iraq - see below.

It is amazing that, with an awesome array of intelligence resources available to him, President Bush continues to aim at the wrong duck.

A McClatchy article on June 28th noted:

Bush's use of al Qaida in his speech had strong echoes of the strategy the administration had used to whip up public support for the Iraq invasion by accusing the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein of cooperating with bin Laden and implying that he'd played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks. Administration officials have since acknowledged that Saddam had no ties to bin Laden or 9-11.

A similar pattern has developed in Iraq, where the U.S. military has cited al Qaida 33 times in a barrage of news releases in the last seven days, and some news organizations have echoed the drumbeat. Last month, al Qaida was mentioned only nine times in U.S. military news releases.

U.S. intelligence agencies and military commanders say the Sunni-Shiite conflict is the greatest source of violence and insecurity in Iraq.

"Extremists -- most notably the Sunni jihadist group al Qaida in Iraq and Shia oppositionist Jaysh al-Mahdi -- continue to act as very effective accelerators for what has become a self-sustaining struggle between Shia and Sunnis," the National Intelligence Council wrote in the unclassified key judgments of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq published in January. Jaysh al Mahdi is Arabic for the Mahdi Army militia of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr.

The council comprises the top U.S. intelligence analysts, and a National Intelligence Estimate is the most comprehensive assessment it produces for the president and a small number of his senior aides. It reflects the consensus of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

The man who is pulling George Bush's strings

The Washington Post has published a major four-part investigation and assessment of Dick Cheney. Entitled "The Angler" it collates a fascinating picture of the US Vice-President.

The opening of the first part of this Barton Gellman and Jo Becker series, is stunning. It reveals that Cheney basically got Bush to sign the order for foreign terrorist suspects to be tried by military tribunal without the Secretary of State (Colin Powell) or the National Security Adviser (Condeleeza Rice) knowing anything about it. That is significant, given that several years later the first case at such a tribunal collapsed. Perhaps if more advisers had discussed the order before its approval, all those years of agony would have been avoided.

The series clearly illustrates that Cheney's role is unlike that of any previous Vice-President. Rather than agreeing to keep to a limited range of portfolios...

Cheney preferred, and Bush approved, a mandate that gave him access to "every table and every meeting," making his voice heard in "whatever area the vice president feels he wants to be active in," Joshua B Bolten (White House Chief of Staff) said.

Cheney has used that mandate with singular force of will. Other recent vice presidents have enjoyed a standing invitation to join the president at "policy time." But Cheney's interventions have also come in the president's absence, at Cabinet and sub-Cabinet levels where his predecessors were seldom seen. He found pressure points and changed the course of events by "reaching down," a phrase that recurs often in interviews with current and former aides.

It is particularly illuminating to read Cheney's role in the changing of the definition of torture by the Bush administration. This change appears to have its origins in the so-called "Torture memo", which was a documented opinion from the US Justice Department which narrowed the definition of "torture" to mean only suffering "equivalent in intensity" to the pain of "organ failure ..... or even death."

Reading this series one has to ask, again, "Who is actually the President of the United States?" It is clear that Cheney has accumulated power to an extent where it appears that Bush follows his instructions like a lamb following its mother ewe. I know none of this is new, but the Washington Post is remarkable in accumulating a vast array of evidence for this view.

Bush's surge strategy - are its days numbered?

Richard Lugar has been US Senator for Indiana for 31 years and is a former Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This week he created a major stir by being the first leading Republican to break ranks on Iraq. He warned that he might not support Bush's funding request for Iraq in September. His words were strong:

In my judgment, the costs and risks of continuing down the current path outweigh the potential benefits that might be achieved. Persisting indefinitely with the surge strategy will delay policy adjustments that have a better chance of protecting our vital interests over the long term.

George Bush reaches the heights of Norman Wisdom

Norman Wisdom is a national hero in Albania.








So is George Bush.










Mr Grimsdale!!!

Another blow for Bush - Wolfowitz to quit

Paul Wolfowitz is to quite as head of the World Bank. This is a major blow for George Bush and his neo-Con friends.

Why Blair will go down in history as a complete Numpty

Numpty is putting it mildly. I am grateful to the Scots for providing a word which can avoid accusations of over-the-top posting.

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair has succeeded into putting huge investment in the NHS and Education. He has completed a constitutional revolution in the UK. He has succeeded in the almost saint-like achievement of creating a kissfest (am I dreaming? - pinch, pinch) between Martin McGuiness and Ian Paisley in Northern Ireland.

For those achievements he ought to go down as the most successful Labour Prime Minister bar, possibly, Clement Atlee.

But he ruined it all by the most stupid, idiotic act of a Prime Minister since Eden and the Suez misadventure. ...The type of act that Harold Wilson was wise enough to avoid by refusing to give President Lyndon Johnson even the fig-leaf of an army band to help him out of the Vietnam quagmire.

I believe Blair will be forever remembered for his completely wrong-headed, insanely unquestioning and pathetically blind obedience to George Bush. (The latter of whom will go down as one of the most disastrous Presidents in the history of the United States of America.)

Both of them ought to be tried for war crimes, and I hope they are.

Their unedifying display of "sod everyone" self-congratulation in the White House Rose Garden today was blood-chilling. They are the only two people in the world who believe their own bulls**t.

Thank God Blair is going, and thank God the Democrats are starting to, at last, bring change to American foreign policy.

Bush madness on Iran

I am very grateful to the Norfolk Blogger for highlighting the US plan to bomb Iran.

I really do hope and pray that:

(a) George Bush runs out of time in office before he gets anywhere near to bombing Iran.
(b) The new Democrat majority in Congress stops this nonsense.
(c) President Ahmadinejad continues to be pressured by moderates to draw back from confrontation.

The chilling line in the BBC report is this:

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies.

Crikey. Déjà vu, or what? We seemed to have "confirmation" that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons. But, to use the US vernacular, that "confirmation" turned out to be worth little more than a "bowl of warm spit".

Bush's "Change the subject address"

If you want to know what is in George Bush's "State of the Union" speech tonight, this 26 page factsheet issued by the White House might give you some ideas.

You only have to scan it to understand why Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford has called it "Change the Subject Address". He adds that the Democrats have lined up an interesting choice to respond to Dubya:

Tonight’s State of the Union address might better be called Change the Subject. Advance word is that George W. Bush’s speech to Congress will downplay his Iraq strategy, which has Republicans tripping over each other as they race for daylight between themselves and their party’s president. Instead he will talk up energy policy, immigration and other domestic issues where he might find common ground with Democrats who now control Capitol Hill. Which means that the big news tonight could be made by newly-elected Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia. The fiercely anti-war Democratic maverick will deliver his party’s response to Bush’s address and the betting is that he might just go farther with the harsh rhetoric than some in his own party would like. If that happens, the White House would not get away with changing the subject from Iraq.