According to the commander guy, this lady is going back to Iraq to help the Iraqis meet benchmarks.
OK. I know her slightly. She could encourage a lot of people to meet benchmarks.
In fact, she was one of the principal creators of the mess that is the Iraqi constitutional arrangements. she was a "biggy" during the CPA period. In charge of the "Governance Section" perhaps?
She has been running the Iraq section of the NSC staff for a couple of years and scheduled to go into the cold, hard private sector to "fend for herself."
Now, she is going back to help poor Ryan Crocker, the US Ambassador, who must need help, I guess. and to keep military people like Fallon, Petraeus and Odierno in line.
Surely, that is what this is. They actually want to negotiate with the non-jihadi insurgent enemy and our Iranian adversaries. Heavens!! Surrender monkeys!!
Well, good luck to her. It might be more difficult this time. pl
I heard today (5/31/07), that Gen. Odierno said September was too soon to evaluate the “surge”. As another great military man Gomer Pyle, USMC, once remarked–“SURPRISE, SURPRISE!”
Is she aligned with Cheney’s way of thinking? I hope Petraeus, Odeirno, Fallon, Crocker et al. don’t even give her the time of day. The path they are on now is much better than where they have been in the past. Why would the commander guy send someone back over there who was part of the problem in the first place? (Sigh)Incompetence at its best.
I’ve always heard her name bandied about, but was unclear about what she actually did–or was allowed to do. Does she have the chops to tangle with the big guys? Or is she just another Bush politico being tossed to the wolves? more explanation, please?
COL Lang:
Have you heard anything about a major battle being imminent in Diyala?
Evidently part of the Arabic press are reporting a coalition of tribes and soldiers are about to make a major push…
This just in:
US reaches out to Iraq insurgents
HE operational commander of US troops in Iraq overnight said officers are seeking local ceasefire deals with insurgents, after the deadliest month for American forces in two-and-a-half years.
Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, the number two US officer in Iraq, said that about four-fifths of the militants currently fighting American forces were thought to be ready to join Iraq’s political process.
“So we want to reach back to them,” he said.
“And we’re talking about ceasefires and maybe signing some things that say they won’t conduct operations against the government of Iraq or against coalition forces.”
As Lt-Gen Odierno was speaking by a videolink to the Pentagon in Washington, residents in west Baghdad reported that insurgents from the nationalist 1920 Brigades were fighting their former al-Qaeda allies…
<http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21830656-5003402,00.html>
Sheriff Dick Cheney has possibly hit the bureaucratic panic button. Detailing his Girl Friday factotem to Iraq — out of fear that all those generals and diplomats actually familiar with Iraq have “gone native” and want out — appears a bit desperate this late in the demise of his gargoyle regency for Deputy Dubya.
I’d give a lot to see live film coverage of this woman in a helmet and flak-jacket, running zigzag avoidance patterns between decaying sandbag bunkers in the Baghdad Green Zone Castle — just to get to the bathroom. If that bizarre spectacle doesn’t help our bad Iraqi puppets exert their “sovereignty” by caving in to our arrogant “benchmarks” (when we can’t even establish any for ourselves) then I don’t know what will.
On the other hand, this could just represent a fin-de-regime, ticket-punching, CV-padding junket for loyal flunky about to “fend for herself” out in the cold, cruel world where most people have to do productive work to earn even a modest living. I really can’t see the value in this obvious last-pay-off-before-the-‘czar’-arrives gambit, though, since the old CPA/Republican-campaign-flak boast claimed that “Anyone can go to Baghdad. Real men go to Tehran.” Given this less-than-real woman’s CPA background, then, why does she want to keep Ambassador Ryan Crocker from becoming a “real man”?
Going from “Mission Accomplished in the Battle for Iraq” four years ago to “Mission Beginning Real Soon Now in Some Baghdad Neighborhoods” sounds and looks too much like a bad remake of the old TV “F-Troop” marching backwards to its comic anthem, “Advance to the Rear.”
How can anyone, foreign or domestic, take the American government and the citizens who elected it seriously? Even over here on local Taiwan news, Cindy Sheehan gets more favorable coverage than the lunatics running America into the ground right now. While undergoing minor skin cancer surgery (on my right ear) not long ago, I thanked my skilled Chinese doctor for all that the Taiwanese people had done to assist us Americans during Hurricane Katrina. As well, I apologized for my country’s belligerent misbehavior in the Middle East of late. He kindly replied that despite all that, the people of Taiwan would not forget “the other good things America has done in the past.”
So, we haven’t lost EVERYONE yet, even though we keep giving it one hell of a try after another.
Col. Lang,
This is off topic, so do with it what you will.
I’m starting to get concerned at the level of disinformation on the internet, and who is behind it.
Now maybe I just need to go and buy a tinfoil hat, but certain websites seem to be pushing an agenda that seems to me to be extremely unhelpful to our troops in Iraq, and I think I’m seeing evidence of coordinated action.
The recent talking points involved include:
“We haven’t been brutal enough in Iraq”
“This is a war to the death between Islam and the West”
“Foriegn fighters streaming through Syria are the cause of all the trouble”
“The rules of engagement must be loosened”
All of these themes seem to me to be designed to pour gasoline on the fire, not to “win” in Iraq.
When one attempts to answer these points with facts, ones posts immediately get deleted and occasionally one receives a rude email.
For example, there is a gentleman by the name of Herschel Smith, who writes what appears to be a scholarly weblog called the Captains journal. http://www.captainsjournal.com/
It looks pretty, has footnotes and links and all, but it’s content is just plain evil, furthermore, the shear volume it’s producing makes me think I’m watching a disinformation operation.
For example, in one article (that I can no longer find) this gentleman concluded, on the flimsiest of evidence, that “foriegn jihadists” were flooding across the Iraq border from Syria and advocated bombing the Syrian side of the border with cluster bombs no less.
When I politely pointed out that his linked intelligence source for his conclusion was a third or fourth hand report (via pyjamas media or suchlike) in a quote by an Iraqi small town barber in a translation of an Iraqi newspaper (via MEMRI), and that this contradicted received State Department wisdom, and that therefore starting a war with Syria might be premature, my post was immediately deleted and I received a rude email whose langauge was considerably different from the cultured tones this guy adopts on his web persona.
I’m starting to think that some of these websites are part of an organised disinformation operation aimed at fomenting war with Iran and Syria to keep us in the middle east for generations to come.
The gentleman has also revealed, on smallwarsjournal.com, that he has “discussed” me with another notorious website – Blackfive.net that also deletes posts that don’t serve its purposes.
Am I paranoid? Should I just get over it? I think I’m witnessing a genuine disinformation operation, and it’s not pretty and rather scary.
Come to think of it, is this site for real?
regards,
Walrus.
“Surely, that is what this is. They actually want to negotiate with the non-jihadi insurgent enemy and our Iranian adversaries. Heavens!! Surrender monkeys!!”
No, Colonel, not if the administration bootlick Sean Hannity has his way. Surprisingly enough, Hannity thought this was a brilliant idea and proceeded to use it to get on to the democrats. Funny, I seem to recall he said in the past that everyone over there was al-Qaida and we would never negotiate with terrorists when callers pointed out to him that not everyone fighting our forces was al-Qaida, that some of these groups were actually nationalists. I reckon what makes this different is that this is being done by the Bush administration.
A Google search delivers sites saying she was a fashion model before becoming a policy wonk.
If true, my gut tells me it is fitting to send fashion models to Iraq even though my meager intellect hasn’t sussed out why, yet.
Col. Lang,
Nice to read that you’re a ‘lefty’. That was an entertaining moment of levity. Sorry I don’t have the cite.
As to the post: WTF?
I don’t have the privilege of knowing the lady in question, but her resume (posted at Wonkette…) isn’t doing much for me. (not a sexist thing, BTW) How’s her Arabic?
The situation seems analagous to Pulp Fiction, where it’s time to call The Wolf to mop things up and make everything alright again. I’d put my money on someone who didn’t make their bones in the CPA for starters.
Is there a strategy being spun out here? Is there and competence or capability being exercised? Other than tactical military response? Is parachuting a suit in from HQ supposed to accomplish something?
I truly hope that there’s something else going on, and she’s just the cat’s paw.
It is good that the Anbar tribes have taken after the wannabe al Qaeda, but I don’t think they then become BFF, joined at the hip to the US. Not for very long, anyway. I’d say the tribes and the Baath remnants want to consolidate their base, maneuver for position and get prepared for the next act. That’s good for the US in the short term, too.
But if there’s no more al Qaeda, then there’s far less incentive in the US public’s mind for sticking around and gluing the china shop back together.
But SCIRI and Iran have not been brought to heel. The Kurds are tweaking Turkey’s nose and continuing their absorption of Kirkuk. Muqtada’s just raised his profile, might inherit Basra when the Brit’s pull out, and is positioning to be the national unifier.
The Kurds want to secede, and no one else wants to let them. The Baath would like to run the show again, but no one will let them. Sadr’s got no time for the US, ever. And Iran’s shadow keeps getting bigger.
I’m not seeing the upside. When any of these pieces move, the US will be in the middle. Can we support a center of gravity that links Sadr with the less-Baath Sunnis, Turkomen, half the Kurds, and non religious Shia? Is that a governing majority, could it hold?
Sorry for the questions, but the circumstances astonish me. Thanks again for your effort and for sharing your insight.
i visited a website today that provided me a clearer
visualization of the conflict in iraq
http://www.obleek.com/iraq/index.html
the site is an interactive chart of us and coalition military fatalities that have occurred since the beginning of the war
the fatalities are mapped cross time and space
the animation runs 10 frames a second, one frame for each day
the chart shows the immense empty spaces where little is going on and the
highly populated river vallies where people live and conflict occurs
the mapping takes your perception beyond the province framing that the administration likes to use
ouch!
Question? Within tolerable
institutional limits is the new team in Iraq/Washington pursuing policies/tactics that are at odds with ‘the Decider’s’ wishes, if not direct orders. It sounds as though Meghan is going out in the role of an’enforcer’. Or is this just normal bureaucratic duplication?
Colonel,
so meghan is going to be a surrender monkeyette with a ball and chain that the bush disaster squad can pull on a whim. hmmm…….
There is an infamous ancestor who was also one of the principal creators of a massive failure. Over 260 years ago, Bonnie Prince Charlie depended on the advice of an O’Sullivan and was rewarded with a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Culloden.
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/culloden/culloden.jpg
From electricscotland:
“The charge of forming the Highland army in line of battle on this important occasion was intrusted to O’Sullivan, who acted in the double capacity of adjutant and Quarter-master general. This officer, in the opinion of Lord George Murray, a high authority certainly, was exceedingly unfit for such a task, and committed gross blunders on every occasion of moment. In the present instance, he did not even visit the ground where the army was to be drawn up, and he committed a “fatal error” by omitting to throw down some park walls upon the left of the English army, which were afterwards taken possession of by the Duke of Cumberland, it being found afterwards impossible to break the English lines, from the destructive flank-fire which was opened from these walls upon the right of the Highland army, as it advanced to the attack.”
From wikipedia: “Prince Charles had decided to personally command his forces and took the advice of his adjutant general, Secretary O’Sullivan, who chose to stage a defensive action at Drummossie Moor, a stretch of open moorland enclosed between the walled Culloden enclosures to the North and the walls of Culloden Park to the South. Lord George Murray “did not like the ground” and with other senior officers pointed out the unsuitability of the rough moorland terrain which was highly advantageous to the Duke with the marshy and uneven ground making the famed Highland charge somewhat more difficult while remaining open to Cumberland’s powerful artillery. They had argued for a guerrilla campaign, but the Prince refused to change his mind.”
mike
The pose of Meghan in your photo reminds me of 18th century portraits of European aristocrats. A Spanish duchess, perhaps, or an English countess painted by Gainsborough– who may had property in the Americas. Surely she won’t go wobbly.
Is this what Meghan is going to thwart or support?
US trying to open dialog with Sadr
“He has a grass-roots movement that he’s always going to have; we have to recognize that,” Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the second-ranking American commander in Iraq, told McClatchy Newspapers in an interview this week. “We’re trying to talk to him. We want to talk to him.”
In a video conference from Baghdad on Thursday, Odierno also said the U.S. was reaching out to Sunni Muslims as well as Shiite armed factions such as Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.
“We are talking about cease-fires, and maybe signing some things that say they won’t conduct operations against the government of Iraq or against coalition forces,” he said Thursday.
And what does Sadr’s folks say:
A Sadr aide confirmed that U.S. officials had approached the anti-American cleric’s supporters but said that Sadr would never begin a dialogue with what they describe as “occupation forces.”
I never worked with Meghan O’Sullivan during my time with the CPA, but I saw her from time to time, usually walking around alone and determined-looking. She certainly had a reputation for holding a great deal of sway in Bremer’s court. She was also known for reducing the stickiest issue to a tidy list of “actionable” bullet points, which, totally abstracted from reality, gave off the illusion that the issue at hand could be just as tidily solved. Think of a grocery list, where in place of “tomatoes” we write “coordinate with moderate Sunni political actors.”
(As an aside, but continuing with the analogy, the tomatoes that KBR provided for us in the CPA dining facilities were non-succulent and mysteriously pale, like a genetically-modified food experiment gone terribly wrong. The oranges were decidedly worse, as fibrous and dry as a ball of yarn.)
Like Mr. Lang, I had also understood that Meghan, who has reportedly been briefing Bush personally on the situation in Iraq, was going to be leaving her position and going into the private sector. Now she is heading back to Baghdad itself. I guess this means there really aren’t any new hands willing to help out, so we recycle what we have.
Is she going as an assistant to Ryan Crocker then? Or perhaps she is also expected to assist the new War Czar in some capacity?
Charlottesville, Virginia
1 June, 2007
Sir;
So, who and what, exactly, is this chick anyway? Another Neocon clown who happens to look good in a skirt?
Your most humble servant,
Subkommander Dred
“In a major breach of security, detailed plans for the new US embassy now under construction in Baghdad have appeared online.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/01/wembassy101.xml
The ongoing Neocon anti-Iranian propaganda would make that even harder. See: http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/rumor-of-the-century/
Cheers,
VS
“O’Sullivan had long been both dismissive of Iranian dissidents and a proponent of engaging the Islamic Republic,” Michael Rubin wrote February 12, 2005.”
This does look as if the Surrender Monkeys are in charge.
This from The Nation in late 2006
A little OT, but there is a new biography out on Gertrude Bell, I’m reading it now. Looks like it will be a good read, as the book concentrates on Bell’s volumnious correspondence; she was a very smart and witty woman.
I enclose this Review
The story behind the cover picture is hilarious. The colonial secretary, Mr. Churchill, has just been thrown from his camel, to the amusement of all, perhaps blinded by his sun glasses.
Worth reading I think.
Take Care.
Monica Goodling East. Result will be basically the same. Clusterfuck in her wake.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/washington/12osullivan.html/partner/rssnyt?ei=5070&en=bb3c8693559b4842&ex=1180843200&pagewanted=print
June 12, 2006
Adviser Has President’s Ear as She Keeps Eyes on Iraq
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
WASHINGTON, June 11 — At the end of each day, President Bush gets a three-to-four-page memo from the National Security Council staff about developments over the previous 24 hours in Iraq. The document, said to be written in the crisp, compelling style that the president prefers, can cover a range of issues — the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, new nominees for cabinet posts or the progress, or lack of it, in ending the three-year insurgency.
The person responsible for the memo is someone who is largely unknown outside the administration, but who colleagues say is instrumental in shaping Mr. Bush’s views: Meghan L. O’Sullivan, the 36-year-old deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, and the most senior official working on those nations full time at the White House.
With Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, Ms. O’Sullivan briefs the president in person on Iraq up to several times a week. Over the weekend she helped to prepare the agenda for Mr. Bush’s war cabinet meetings on Monday and Tuesday at Camp David and will be on hand throughout the sessions.
Ms. O’Sullivan, who spent more than a year in Baghdad as an aide to L. Paul Bremer III, then the top American civilian administrator in Iraq, also helps to prepare the agenda for the president’s weekly National Security Council meetings on Iraq.
She coordinates the political, security and reconstruction efforts for Iraq throughout the agencies of the government. Not least, she briefs the president before all of his phone calls and meetings with Iraqi leaders.
Although Ms. O’Sullivan does not make major decisions — the administration’s policy is run by Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Iraq, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — she is important because of her closeness to the president and her role in helping to form his thinking.
“She’s able to go to the president and say, ‘Look, here’s what’s happening,’ and distill a complex mass of developments into something more penetrable,” said Larry Diamond, a former senior adviser to Mr. Bremer.
Ms. O’Sullivan, who was crisp and wary in a recent interview in her office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, would say little more about her conversations with Mr. Bush. But people who have seen her brief the president say she has been succinct, unpretentious, full of facts and cheerful — exactly what Mr. Bush likes.
Colleagues say that Ms. O’Sullivan holds to the view, reflected in the president’s public statements, that rebuilding Iraq’s civic institutions and persuading Iraqis to accommodate one another politically is a way out of the sectarian violence. She is more optimistic about the political process than others in the administration.
In Baghdad, Ms. O’Sullivan is remembered as a pragmatic centrist who had a guarded but tenacious confidence that the United States would eventually prevail. “That doesn’t mean that I don’t see all the difficulties there on a daily basis,” she said.
The question that even her supporters raise is whether she is too close to see the landscape of problems. “I do think she is so into this that she sees it from the inside out,” Mr. Diamond said.
He added, “And I’m not sure she adequately grasps all the mistakes we have made.”
In Baghdad, American Embassy officials sometimes use the phrase, “Let’s not Meghan-ize the problem,” meaning, let’s not try to impose order on the chaos of Iraq with one of her five-point presentations. Her supporters counter that she is more aware of the reality on the ground than many others in the administration.
Ms. O’Sullivan’s point of view comes from her intense months in Baghdad, where she had one major harrowing moment. In October 2003, when she was immersed in the negotiations over Iraq’s first post-invasion constitution, a rocket hit her hotel in Baghdad. The blast jammed Ms. O’Sullivan’s door shut, and she escaped by inching along a narrow ledge outside her 10th-floor window.
She eventually made her way to the Baghdad streets and then her office at Saddam Hussein’s former palace on the banks of the Tigris. The explosion killed an American colonel and wounded 16 others.
“It was a dangerous place to live, and I was constantly reminded of that because I had Iraqi friends who were killed,” Ms. O’Sullivan said matter-of-factly. “But it’s amazing how you can function, and also how much more there is going on in Iraq besides the violence.”
For much of her time in Baghdad, Ms. O’Sullivan spent days and nights shuttling between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to help forge the deal on the interim government of June 2004.
“There’s nobody in the administration today who knows Iraq as well as she does, who knows the personalities, who knows the terrain,” said Robert D. Blackwill, the former Iraq director on the National Security Council and Ms. O’Sullivan’s onetime superior.
One of Ms. O’Sullivan’s chief responsibilities in Baghdad was keeping abreast of developments within the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or Sciri, one of the main Shiite parties. She covered herself from head to toe for meetings with Abdul Aziz Hakim, the party leader, and earned his trust.
Ms. O’Sullivan also forged such a crucial relationship with the party’s candidate for prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, now vice president, that Mr. Bremer used her as a frequent go-between. At one critical moment, Mr. Bremer recalled in a recent interview, he sent Ms. O’Sullivan to see Mr. Mahdi when he could not figure out why Mr. Mahdi was upset about the November 2003 agreement that set forth the American transfer of power to Iraq.
“She came back and very accurately conveyed to me what his problem was, and offered a way to get out of it,” Mr. Bremer said. “I called Adel in and worked on everything she had told me.”
Ms. O’Sullivan’s background shows an early curiosity about the world. Growing up in Lexington, Mass., she chose to write a second-grade report about Palestinians.
Ms. O’Sullivan went on to Georgetown University, where she majored in economics and government and modeled at local department stores for pocket money. She became a foreign policy research assistant for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat, and received her master’s and doctoral degrees from Oxford.
Ms. O’Sullivan moved back to Washington, where she became a fellow at the Brookings Institution, edited a book on economic sanctions, “Honey and Vinegar,” with Richard N. Haass, then went to work for Mr. Haass when he became director of policy planning at the State Department in Mr. Bush’s first term. Her second book, “Shrewd Sanctions: Statecraft and State Sponsors of Terrorism,” was published in 2003.
Early in 2003, Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, lent Ms. O’Sullivan to the Pentagon to be part of an early administrative team to go into postwar Iraq. She went there in March 2003 with Jay M. Garner, a retired lieutenant general who was Mr. Bremer’s predecessor, left in June 2004, and by July was working for Mr. Blackwill on the National Security Council staff. When Mr. Blackwill left in November 2004, Ms. O’Sullivan assumed many of his duties.
She lives not far from the White House, is single and tries not to work seven days a week. Her future is tied to Iraq: her colleagues say she could be national security adviser someday — or something much less.
“The reality is that if Iraq implodes, she’ll probably go nowhere,” Mr. Diamond said. “Because she will have been associated in an integral way with one of the biggest failures in the history of American foreign policy.”
Ms. O’Sullivan is undaunted. “I’m able to focus on the fact that we’re building a relationship with Iraq,” she said, “that will have benefits to Iraq and America over the long term.”
When Meghan goes to Baghdad she could take Richard Perle with her – and stay there:
“We had the very best of intentions”
Richard Perle May 30, 2007
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_perle/2007/05/it_doesnt_matter_how_we_got_he.html
“I failed to convince the Hay audience with my defence of US foreign policy.”
The always egregious war-criminal Perle attempts a weak mea-culpa in which he actually admits to some mnor mistakes, but all in a good cause, of course.
It would be farcial, if it weren’t for the near 1,000,000 dead now killed on both sides by his idiotic beliefs. The 479 comments (at time of this writing) to this horrifying misuse of the English language by Perle as he attempts to equate mendacity with “good intentions” show how few kool-aid drinkers remain.
After reading Mr. Perle’s words, I feel unclean and have to go take a shower.
Id like to point out Commander Jeff Hubers essay about the latest ideological screed from Frederick W. Kagan and William Kristol at http://zenhuber.blogspot.com. My favourite quote of the Masters of the Universe:
“Meanwhile, the State Department toys with fantasy diplomatic solutions based on overtures toward Iran and Syria. The Iranian regime has resolved to help Iraqi militants kill as many Americans as possible. The Syrian regime permits al Qaeda terrorists to move into Iraq for the same purpose every day. These actions are not the result of some sort of miscommunication that could be cleared up with a frank discussion of real interests. They represent policy decisions in Tehran and Damascus to defeat us in Iraq. Diplomatic engagement by itself is a trap, at least until we have turned the tide in Iraq and regained leverage.”
Its really scary that these people have no conception on the difference between lowscale logistical support and full on conflict. Id be interested in hearing opinions on just how much msrs Kristol & Kagan has inside the admin.
So is she Czarina to Lute’s Czar?
Martin K,
“…at least UNTIL we have turned the tide in Iraq and regained leverage.”
Reminds me of King Philip of Macedon’s famous ultimatum, “If I enter Laconia, I will level Sparta to the ground.”
“IF!” the Spartans hooted back in reply.
It’s pretty obvious from comment heretofore that Ms O’Sullivan hasn’t a fucking clue.
Better red than dead.
What is a nice, ostensibly Irish, lass doing running with a “bad crowd”? My Southern sense of Chivalry is alerted!
In a comment above by jamzo, a New York Times feature story on her is reproduced. The writer, appropriately named, for the Times at least, Elisabeth Bumiller, finds that Ms. O’Sullivan’s writing style is crisp, as is her entire being, which “was crisp” (paragraphs one and eight).
Ms. Bumiller informs us that Ms. O’Sullivan majored in economics and guvmint at Georgetown University.
Ah, my dear Watson, a clue!
I wonder whether, as a result of her economics study, the lovely Ms. Meghan is interested in the proposed Iraq Oil and Gas law?
Admittedly, the writing style of the devious lawyers who wrote the oil law is not “crisp”, but it sure is “compelling”, as it makes the notorious old “Texas Producers 88” oil and gas lease form look like a Sunday School picnic.
The N.Y. Times’ cousin, the Los Angeles Times, carries the joke further.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/
la-fg-usmaliki21may21,0,3525562,full.story?coll=la-home-world
That 21 June 2007 L.A. Times article, by Paul Richter, knows in its lead paragraph who is to blame for the Iraq mess, and it ain’t us–
“As Iraq’s government compiles a record of failure, the Bush administration is under growing pressure to intervene to rearrange Baghdad’s dysfunctional political order,or even install a new leadership.”
Please understand, I am not making this up!
The L.A. Times further tells us that “Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi, a French-trained economist and top Supreme Islamic Council official, continues to have supporters in Washington, including Meghan O’Sullivan, a senior National Security Council aide who recently resigned her post overseeing Iraq policy for the White House.”
Oh my gosh . . . paired with Ms. O’Sullivan is a (cough, cough) French-trrrained economist. And he’s the vice president of Iraq!
But don’t think for a moment that the L.A. Times is going to fail in its knowing propaganda for the Iraq Oil and Gas Law–
“The current U.S. approach is to try to pressure and cajole the Maliki government to adopt the key measures aimed at political reconciliation. U.S. objectives include one law that would divide oil revenue among the ethnic and sectarian groups . . . .”
[Skip a paragraph about U.S. vice president Dick Cheney trying to give a gangster ultimatum to “Iraqi officials”]
“So far, the U.S. strategy has yielded few results. In February, U.S. officials declared that victory was at hand on the oil law. But since then, progress has ground nearly to a halt.”
“In a recent conference call, a U.S. official in Baghdad shocked diplomats at the State Department’s Foggy Bottom headquarters in Washington with a gloomy status report on the oil law. A Washington diplomat, taken aback, blurted, ‘What do you mean? We’ve been claiming it as a success. The president’s been lauding it,’ recalled one person who was there.”
The proposed Iraq Oil and Gas law, for those who have bothered to read it, attempts to make legal one of the greatest robberies in history.
It gives the Iraqi people 12.5% of their oil, and the other 87.5%, less a few taxes, goes to foreign oil companies which — it might be guessed — will mainly be from the U.S., Britain, and Israel.
I hate to bring bad news to Ms. O’Sullivan, but when it comes to oil money, the Iraqi Arabs can count, too. Let’s not forget that the numbers we use are called Arabic numerals, even if they may have had their origin with Hindus in India.
But the New York Times feature story above pumps Meghan up bigtime–
” ‘There’s nobody in the administration today who knows Iraq as well as she does, who knows the personalities, who knows the terrain,’ said Robert D. Blackwill, the former Iraq director on the National Security Council and Ms. O’Sullivan’s onetime superior.”
Well, one does not like to disappoint a lovely lady, but there is, or rather was, a person who had more smarts and brains about Iraqi politics than all the neocons, folks at the UnAmerican Enterprise Institute, think-tankers, Paul Bremer, Henry Kissinger, Robert Blackwill, and the U.S. president and vice president combined.
That person was ready to make a deal before March 2003. But now we can’t even draw on his expertise. Saddam Hussein is gone.
Walrus wrote:
“The gentleman has also revealed, on smallwarsjournal.com, that he has “discussed” me with another notorious website – Blackfive.net that also deletes posts that don’t serve its purposes.
Am I paranoid? Should I just get over it?”
I’d say… “Yes”.
“I think I’m witnessing a genuine disinformation operation, and it’s not pretty and rather scary.”
If the Small Wars Journal was a ” genuine disinformation operation” then Bill Nagl and Dave Dilegge should be getting some very large checks from Uncle Sam.
Unfortunately for them, the Bush administration isn’t that smart.
Not on this specific topic, but related to another topic from a few weeks ago…
“In northern Iraq, a bomb heavily damaged the Sarhat Bridge, a vital link on a major road connecting Baghdad with northern Iraq, including the Kurdish cities of Irbil and Sulaimaniya, as well as Tikrit and Kirkuk, police said.
Small cars were still able to cross the bridge but the damage caused by the explosion was forcing trucks to take a more dangerous route through Sunni cities and the volatile Diyala province, police Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir said.”
Yahoo:Another Bridge
Odierno to O’Sullivan:
“You’re not an assassin. You’re a grocery clerk, sent to collect a bill.”
Perhaps Ms. O’Sullivan will try to coax members from the Al-Dawa party to forget about the `volatile’ times when Dick Cheney **ignored** Al-Maliki’s pleas for help?
Perhaps then she can get the very same Iraqis to proclaim that Israel has a right to exist and that the US and Iraq are now just like the closest of brothers?
Cheney vs Al-Maliki:
Bush warns Iraq on chemical arms U.S. fears use of weapons against rebels. Chicago Tribune. March 10, 1991 [snip]
Jawad al-Maliki of the Dawa Party said in Damascus, Syria, that mustard gas was used against protesters in al-Haleh, al-Kifil, Najaf and some
areas of Basra, in southeastern Iraq.
Precisely what is going on inside Iraq is difficult to determine since Western reporters have been expelled.
Most information is coming from refugees and opposition leaders in Iran and Syria.
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney described the situation as “volatile” but said it appears Hussein will be able to keep the unrest in check for
now.
The Iraqi leader is using his loyal Republican Guard to quell the rebellion.
Can’t tell for sure…but reasonable suspicion exists that Meghan may suffer from Lady McBeth syndrome.
Hope not.
The way to find out is to show her pictures of children who have died in Iraq and ask her if her foreign policy views and influence in the USG have helped spread a utopian world of democracy.
Sid