Meanwhile, In Other Iraq News

This is the best article I have found yet to describe the ISG report.  Check it out:

THE profound quality of the suggestions offered by the Iraq Study Group – the panel headed by former Secretary of State James Baker that presented its report with such fanfare to the president yesterday morning – can be inferred from the following passage on page 60:

"RECOMMENDATION 19: The President and the leadership of his national security team should remain in close and frequent contact with the Iraqi leadership."

Truly, a grateful nation should fall on its knees and thank the benevolent Creator that the nine wise men and one woman who comprise the Iraq Study Group were willing to sacrifice themselves and come together so that such a recommendation could be placed before our leaders and the world.

The nation’s capital hasn’t seen such concentrated wisdom in one place since Paris Hilton dined alone at the Hooters on Connecticut Avenue.

After all, only genius approaching the level of Paris could have written this sentence: "The Support Group should consist of Iraq and all the states bordering Iraq . . . and, of course, Iraq itself."

Yes, that’s some Support Group, what with Iraq and Iraq in it together to support, um, Iraq.

Also in the Support Group: Iran and Syria. Yes, having done their best to destroy the new Iraq, these two tyrannical nations are poised to perform a very, very constructive role in helping to get the new Iraq up on its own two footsies!

And why? Because, see, it’s in their interest to do so: "Although Iran sees it in its interest to have the United States bogged down in Iraq, Iran’s interests would not be served by a failure of U.S. policy in Iraq that led to chaos and the territorial disintegration of the Iraqi state."

This is why we have commissions, you see. Regular dumb folk might look at the evidence of the past 25 years and think that the last thing Iran wants is a nice, strong and stable Iraq on its border. They might think that a strong and stable authoritarian Iraq might just attack Iran again and cause another 10-year war with deaths of millions. But here’s the ISG to set us dumb people straight.

And that’s about it in a nutshell when it comes to this report.  This thing wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.  I mean look at it.  It basically comes down to negotiating with two countries who are the leaders, the king poo-bah’s, of the terrorists.  For what?  Well according to this report they really do want a stable Iraq.  They are not afraid of Democracy next door, no sir.  They want to see it flourish you see.  But they will want something in return for their help and that comes in the form of getting rid of Israel.

That’s all we have to do.  Israel goes away and everyone is happy, skipping along, smelling the roses….it will be a happy world!

Sigh….

To think these nimrods spent months….MONTHS!  To come up with this report. 

Thankfully Bush isn’t buying:

One of the study group’s central recommendations was for the administration to reach out to Syria and Iran for help in stabilizing Iraq, a course Bush has rejected in the past.

"Countries that participate in talks must not fund terrorism, must help the young democracy survive, must help with the economics of the country," Bush said. "If people are not committed, if Syria and Iran is not committed to that concept, then they shouldn’t bother to show up."

Meanwhile, in other Iraq news, Jed Babbin writes a new article about all that was accomplished by Rumsfeld:

Mr. Rumsfeld will probably walk out of the Pentagon smiling at the thought of a job well done. His tenure has been colored by an onslaught of media attacks, but Rumsfeld knows that American history is enriched by men who suffered the same treatment at the hands of the press and were later judged to be some of our greatest leaders. Grant, Sherman, and Lincoln endured appalling media attacks throughout the Civil War (Lincoln the incompetent baboon, Grant the drunk, Sherman the crazy man) but historians were better able to judge them.

The criticisms of Rumsfeld, both fair and foul, are overshadowed by a string of lasting accomplishments ranging from bringing ballistic missile defense from theory to reality to transformation of the military from a Cold War garrison force to the flexible forces needed to fight the war we’re in. Add to that the rapid overthrow of the Taliban and Saddam regimes, positioning America to deal with the rise of China, subtract Bush’s unwillingness to take the battle to the enemy’s centers of gravity, and Rumsfeld’s record will be seen as imperfect, but one that may prove him to have been our best Secretary of Defense. History will be kinder to Rumsfeld than the daily press, just as it has been to our Civil War leaders, because it will see facts from a greater distance than those who write and broadcast every day can achieve. Some of the facts historians will place in context are these.

After 9-11, the president wanted to hit the Taliban hard, fast and decisively. But Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki insisted that almost the entire army had to be deployed to do it, and that would take several months. Rumsfeld and the other military leaders crafted a plan to take us to war – and to victory — in weeks. America attacked the Taliban in early October 2001 and the Shinseki army – except for Army Special Forces and helo forces — stayed home. By December the regime was toppled. Then began the media’s contrivance of stories – possibly in collusion with congressional Democrats – about Rumsfeld’s supposed failures that have led to everything from Usama bin Laden’s escape to the mess in Mesopotamia.

The media suffered a panic attack at the beginning of the Afghan and Iraq wars. When our forces paused in the advance toward Baghdad, the media panicked. Reports said we’re pausing, so we must be in trouble, we’re running out of ammo, food and even water. There aren’t enough troops. The war plan was wrong, and we have to stop, we’re in Vietnam, another quagmire. The media were proven so wrong so quickly and so decisively that even they were embarrassed and they’ve never forgiven Rumsfeld for it. Their revenge is in the contrivance of fables about him.

These two paragraphs in this article deserve to be highlighted:

Few know that in early 2003 – a month or more before the Iraq invasion – President Bush was presented with two plans for post-war Iraq. The first, written by CIA Director George Tenet and Secretary of State Colin Powell, provided for a long occupation of Iraq and the nation-building that the president renounced in his 2000 campaign. The second, a Pentagon plan authored by Rumsfeld’s team, provided for the establishment of a provisional government before the invasion and American withdrawal within months of Saddam’s overthrow. The president, convinced by Powell that "if you break it, you own it", chose the Powell-Tenet plan and ordered Rumsfeld to carry it out.

When Baghdad fell, after the brief tenure of Gen. Jay Garner, the president appointed L. Paul Bremer III to govern Iraq under Rumsfeld’s direction. But Bremer proved to be a loose cannon, endlessly circling around from Powell to Rice to the president to get permission to do whatever Rumsfeld didn’t agree with. One Pentagon official involved closely told me Bremer’s tenure was disastrous because of his continuing reliance on the group surrounding Adnan Pachachi, an old-time Sunni whose persuasion of Bremer to leave Sunni militants alone was one of the principal reasons the Sunni insurgency was able to gain strength. Bremer’s decisions to disband the Iraqi army and delay the outlay of reconstruction funds alienated Iraqis almost completely. At about that time, the media began contriving the myths of Rumsfeld and Iraq.

And we come back to our MSM.  Whether they are making up stories with fake police Captains or colluding with Democrats to bring down a Secretary of Defense, they always have a hand in creating fables. 

They did it in Vietnam, they are doing it now in Iraq. 

But at least one retired General is coming around and can now see what most of us have seen for years.  We cannot leave Iraq unfinished:

No military expert was more forthright in opposing the war in Iraq than Anthony Zinni.

[…]These days Zinni is delivering another provocative message: Leaving Iraq quickly would strengthen Iranian influence throughout the Middle East, create a sanctuary for terrorist groups, encourage even more sectarian strife in Iraq and risk turmoil in an oil-rich region.

"This is not Vietnam or Somalia," said Zinni, who served in both places. "It is not one of those places we can walk away from. If we just pull out we will find ourselves back in in short order."

I wonder if he wants Israel gone also?

Curt

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