Dems and Repubs Want to Wait Until September for Iraq Results?

   So it would seem as if the biggest story thus far today is the article in the Washington Post stating that both the Democrats and Republicans are giving George Bush one last shot at showing improving conditions in Iraq. The deadline would be for September to have proof that his surge is actually working.

   The commanding general in Iraq,Gen. David H. Petraeus, has said that he will know by then if the troop increase has had any kind of affect on the bullshit going on over there.

Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.): "Many of my Republican colleagues have been promised they will get a straight story on the surge by September. I won't be the only Republican, or one of two Republicans, demanding a change in our disposition of troops in Iraq at that point. That is very clear to me."

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.):  "September is the key. If we don't see a light at the end of the tunnel, September is going to be a very bleak month for this administration."

   Let us not forget House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, who said: "By the time we get to September, October, members are going to want to know how well this is working, and if it isn't, what's Plan B."

"There were always two debates in the debate over timelines to end the war," said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.). "George W. Bush is hellbent on January 20, 2009, when he walks out of the door, leaving a box stamped 'Iraq' for the next president. The Republicans are hellbent on not going through the next election with Iraq tied to their ankles. All Boehner said publicly was what Republicans have been saying privately for months."       WaPo

   September is it? I think that we all know how that will go, do we not? Gen. David H. Petraeus will come out with a report that says that there is improvement in Iraq concerning the sectarian violence and the political problems and that the surge is beginning to show some results and that things should be even much better in another six months. Of course, he will also say that we could use just a few more U.S. troops in the country to maintain the current progress.

   Here is some of what our troops are doing in Baghdad on a daily basis.

 

Seems we've heard this all before. I was chuckling this AM when I read that the spineless DC Dems are putting forth legislation that gives W until September and now I read that the Repubs and MSM are talking the same stuff.

But wait. In NOVEMBER, 2006 the American voter spoke and said GET OUT NOW. Isn't it amazing that BushCo and friends (including DC Dems) have managed to string this thing out for another year. And then what? Another "new way forward"? Another two years needed to "get our troops home".

"See you in September...." a great song title but crap when it comes to Iraq.

Posted by: Sha@ Talking Points Memo
Date: May 8, 2007

 

The real question is not what events on the ground look like in September. Or benchmarks. All goals and benchmarks should revolve around getting out of Iraq. That does not seem to be a goal of this admin. Once the US military leaves there will be no one to enforce the contracts with the US oil companies. Iraq can then find new companies that will pay better. THIS IS THE REASON BUSH DOES NOT WANT TO LEAVE. Arguing other goals and events is a complete waste of time. They do not want to leave. The oil is worth trillions of dollars. Why leave? The CEOs of these companies do not have sons and daughters in the conflict dying. Comments?

Posted by: Stephen Johnson@ TPM
Date: May 8, 2007

Paul, the report's already written. Trust me. Maybe I'm clairvoyant, maybe I'm the world's biggest cynic. But I can already see the report, and it says yes, there's been "real progress". There's hope that Americas will see "real change" in the Iraqi government "in the next six months". It'll conclude that the "surge must continue, however", that "timetables for withdrawl are damaging to this progress being witnessed", and "things may get worse before they get better".

This September report will be the most disingenuous, dishonest thing this Admin has ever produced (and that's saying a lot), but the media will eat it up. And we'll locked in for another 6 months. Bank on it.

Posted by: Punchy@TPM
Date: May 8, 2007

   I would tend to agree with all of the above comments. The Democrats, when you look at them closely, are doing absolutely nothing in dealing with Iraq and getting our troops out of there. You and I put them into office to do their jobs and get our people home NOW, not in September or next year or next summer.

   I believe that the Democrats have come down with the " Bush disease " and they must be cured, NOW!

Tags: Democrats Republicans Iraq troop surge Gen. David H. Petraeus Rep. James P. Moran Jr. war

Bush's Occupation Of Iraq Is About Oil

     Here are some interesting details about the United States invasion of Iraq and its quest to control all of the oil in the country.

   This comes from Michael Schwartz at TomDispatch

Eyes Eternally on the Prize
By Michael Schwartz

The struggle over Iraqi oil has been going on for a long, long time. One could date it back to 1980 when President Jimmy Carter -- before his Habitat for Humanity days -- declared that Persian Gulf oil was "vital" to American national interests. So vital was it, he announced, that the U.S. would use "any means necessary, including military force" to sustain access to it. Soon afterwards, he announced the creation of a Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, a new military command structure that would eventually develop into United States Central Command (Centcom) and give future presidents the ability to intervene relatively quickly and massively in the region.

Or we could date it all the way back to World War II, when British officials declared Middle Eastern oil "a vital prize for any power interested in world influence or domination," and U.S. officials seconded the thought, calling it "a stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in world history."

The date when the struggle for Iraqi oil began is less critical than our ability to trace the ever growing willingness to use "any means necessary" to control such a "vital prize" into the present. We know, for example, that, before and after he ascended to the Vice-Presidency, Dick Cheney has had his eye squarely on the prize. In 1999, for example, he told the Institute of Petroleum Engineers that, when it came to satisfying the exploding demand for oil, "the Middle East, with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies." The mysterious Energy Task Force he headed on taking office in 2001 eschewed conservation or developing alternative sources as the main response to any impending energy crisis, preferring instead to make the Middle East "a primary focus of U.S. international energy policy." As part of this focus, the Task Force recommended that the administration put its energy, so to speak, into convincing Middle Eastern countries "to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment" -- in other words, into a policy of reversing 25 years of state control over the petroleum industry in the region.

The Energy Task Force set about planning how to accomplish this historic reversal. We know, for instance, that it scrutinized a detailed map of Iraq's oil fields, together with the (non-American) oil companies scheduled to develop them (once the UN sanctions still in place on Saddam Hussein's regime were lifted). It then worked jointly with the administration's national security team to find a compatible combination of military and economic policies that might inject American power into this equation. According to Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, the National Security Council directed its staff "to cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered the 'melding' of two seemingly unrelated areas of policy: 'the review of operational policies towards rogue states,' such as Iraq, and 'actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.'"                Read More Here

Tags: oil Cheney Iraq Bush ExxonMobile BP