Car Bombs: WMDs the Surge Can't Stop

by Mike Davis

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070416/davis

Ex-Aide Says He's Lost Faith in Bush

April 1, 2007
Ex-Aide Says He's Lost Faith in Bush
By JIM RUTENBERG
The New York Times

AUSTIN, Tex., March 29 — In 1999, Matthew Dowd became a symbol of George W. Bush's early success at positioning himself as a Republican with Democratic appeal.

A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Mr. Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush's political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president's chief campaign strategist.

Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.

In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush's leadership.

He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a "my way or the highway" mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.

"I really like him, which is probably why I'm so disappointed in things," he said. He added, "I think he's become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in."

In speaking out, Mr. Dowd became the first member of Mr. Bush's inner circle to break so publicly with him.

He said his decision to step forward had not come easily. But, he said, his disappointment in Mr. Bush's presidency is so great that he feels a sense of duty to go public given his role in helping Mr. Bush gain and keep power.

Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled "Kerry Was Right," arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.

"I'm a big believer that in part what we're called to do — to me, by God; other people call it karma — is to restore balance when things didn't turn out the way they should have," Mr. Dowd said. "Just being quiet is not an option when I was so publicly advocating an election."

Mr. Dowd's journey from true believer to critic in some ways tracks the public arc of Mr. Bush's political fortunes. But it is also an intensely personal story of a political operative who at times, by his account, suppressed his doubts about his professional role but then confronted them as he dealt with loss and sorrow in his own life.

In the last several years, as he has gradually broken his ties with the Bush camp, one of Mr. Dowd's premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic. Mr. Dowd said he had become so disillusioned with the war that he had considered joining street demonstrations against it, but that his continued personal affection for the president had kept him from joining protests whose anti-Bush fervor is so central.

Mr. Dowd, 45, said he hoped in part that by coming forward he would be able to get a message through to a presidential inner sanctum that he views as increasingly isolated. But, he said, he holds out no great hope. He acknowledges that he has not had a conversation with the president.

Dan Bartlett, the White House counselor, said Mr. Dowd's criticism is reflective of the national debate over the war.

"It's an issue that divides people," Mr. Bartlett said. "Even people that supported the president aren't immune from having their own feelings and emotions."

He said he disagreed with Mr. Dowd's description of the president as isolated and with his position on withdrawal. He said Mr. Dowd, a friend, has "sometimes expressed these sentiments" in private conversation, though "not in such detail."

During the interview with Mr. Dowd on a slightly overcast afternoon in downtown Austin, he was a far quieter man than the cigar-chomping general that he was during Mr. Bush's 2004 campaign.

Soft-spoken and somewhat melancholy, he wore jeans, a T-shirt and sandals in an office devoid of Bush memorabilia save for a campaign coffee mug and a photograph of the first couple with his oldest son, Daniel. The photograph was taken one week before the 2004 election, and one day before Daniel was to go to boot camp.

Over Mexican food at a restaurant that was only feet from the 2000 campaign headquarters, and later at his office just up the street, Mr. Dowd recounted his political and personal journey. "It's amazing," he said. "In five years, I've only traveled 300 feet, but it feels like I've gone around the world, where my head is."

Mr. Dowd said he decided to become a Republican in 1999 and joined Mr. Bush after watching him work closely with Bob Bullock, the Democratic lieutenant governor of Texas, who was a political client of Mr. Dowd and a mentor to Mr. Bush.

"It's almost like you fall in love," he said. "I was frustrated about Washington, the inability for people to get stuff done and bridge divides. And this guy's personality — he cared about education and taking a different stand on immigration."

Mr. Dowd established himself as an expert at interpreting polls, giving Karl Rove, the president's closest political adviser, and the rest of the Bush team guidance as they set out to woo voters, slash opponents and exploit divisions between Democratic-leaning states and Republican-leaning ones.

In television interviews in 2004, Mr. Dowd said that Mr. Kerry's campaign was proposing "a weak defense," and that the voters "trust this president more than they trust Senator Kerry on Iraq."

But he was starting to have his own doubts by then, he said.

He said he thought Mr. Bush handled the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks well but "missed a real opportunity to call the country to a shared sense of sacrifice."

He was dumbfounded when Mr. Bush did not fire Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld after revelations that American soldiers had tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Several associates said Mr. Dowd chafed under Mr. Rove's leadership. Mr. Dowd said he had not spoken to Mr. Rove in months but would not discuss their relationship in detail.

Mr. Dowd said, in retrospect, he was in denial.

"When you fall in love like that," he said, "and then you notice some things that don't exactly go the way you thought, what do you do? Like in a relationship, you say 'No no, no, it'll be different.' "

He said he clung to the hope that Mr. Bush would get back to his Texas style of governing if he won. But he saw no change after the 2004 victory.

He describes as further cause for doubt two events in the summer of 2005: the administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina and the president's refusal, around the same time that he was entertaining the bicyclist Lance Armstrong at his Crawford ranch, to meet with the war protester Cindy Sheehan, whose son died in Iraq.

"I had finally come to the conclusion that maybe all these things along do add up," he said. "That it's not the same, it's not the person I thought."

He said that during his work on the 2006 re-election campaign of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, which had a bipartisan appeal, he began to rethink his approach to elections.

"I think we should design campaigns that appeal not to 51 percent of the people," he said, "but bring the country together as a whole."

He said that he still believed campaigns must do what it takes to win, but that he was never comfortable with the most hard-charging tactics. He is now calling for "gentleness" in politics. He said that while he tried to keep his own conduct respectful during political combat, he wanted to "do my part in fixing fissures that I may have been part of."

His views against the war began to harden last spring when, in a personal exercise, he wrote a draft opinion article and found himself agreeing with Mr. Kerry's call for withdrawal from Iraq. He acknowledged that the expected deployment of his son Daniel was an important factor.

He said the president's announcement last fall that he was re-nominating the former United Nations ambassador John R. Bolton, whose confirmation Democrats had already refused, was further proof to him that Mr. Bush was not seeking consensus with Democrats.

He said he came to believe Mr. Bush's views were hardening, with the reinforcement of his inner circle. But, he said, the person "who is ultimately responsible is the president." And he gradually ventured out with criticism, going so far as declaring last month in a short essay in Texas Monthly magazine that Mr. Bush was losing "his gut-level bond with the American people," and breaking more fully in this week's interview.

"If the American public says they're done with something, our leaders have to understand what they want," Mr. Dowd said. "They're saying, 'Get out of Iraq.' "

Mr. Dowd's friends from Mr. Bush's orbit said they understood his need to speak out. "Everyone is going to reflect on the good and the bad, and everything in between, in their own way," said Nicolle Wallace, communications director of Mr. Bush's 2004 campaign, a post she also held at the White House until last summer. "And I certainly respect the way he's doing it — these are his true thoughts from a deeply personal place." Ms. Wallace said she continued to have "enormous gratitude" for her years with Mr. Bush.

Mr. Bartlett, the White House counselor, said he understood, too, though he said he strongly disagreed with Mr. Dowd's assessment. "Do we know our critics will try to use this to their advantage? Yes," he said. "Is that perfect? No. But you can respectfully disagree with someone who has been supportive of you."

Mr. Dowd does not seem prepared to put his views to work in 2008. The only candidate who appeals to him, he said, is Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, because of what Mr. Dowd called his message of unity. But, he said, "I wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't walking around in Africa or South America doing something that was like mission work."

He added, "I do feel a calling of trying to re-establish a level of gentleness in the world."

Kissinger: Military victory in Iraq impossible

Even the Devil himself is saying Bush can't achieve victory in Iraq. He is, however, persisting in supporting the losing occupation. (Don't question the Devil's logic).

Kiss says we can't win unless we involve neighboring states in negotiations. Unfortunately, we've spent the past 6 years calling those states "evil."

The Bush Administration has talked itself into a corner, diplomatically. And militarily, it can only tread water.

It's becoming more & more obvious that the Iraq war can be ended only with a Democrat clean sweep in 2008.

AP Exclusive: Kissinger says military victory not possible in Iraq
April 1, 2007 | Associated Press

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who helped engineer the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, said Sunday the problems in Iraq are more complex than that conflict, and military victory is no longer possible.

He also said he sympathizes with the troubles facing U.S. President George W. Bush.

"A 'military victory' in the sense of total control over the whole territory, imposed on the entire population, is not possible," Kissinger told The Associated Press in Tokyo, where he received an honorary degree from Waseda University.

The faceless, ubiquitous nature of Iraq's insurgency, as well as the religious divide between Shiite and Sunni rivals, makes negotiating peace more complex, he said.

"It is a more complicated problem," Kissinger said. "The Vietnam War involved states, and you could negotiate with leaders who controlled a defined area."

But Kissinger, an architect of the Vietnam War who has also advised Bush on Iraq, warned that a sudden pullout of U.S. troops or loss of influence could unleash chaos.

"I am basically sympathetic to President Bush," he said. "I am partly sympathetic to it because I have seen comparable situations."

During his tenure under President Richard Nixon, first as national security adviser and then as secretary of state, Kissinger faced a similar challenge in formulating policy for a Vietnam War that was increasingly unpopular at home.

He oversaw a gradual U.S. pullout from Vietnam through a strategy also planned for Iraq, where U.S. troops are training their Iraqi counterparts to take fuller control of security. He also negotiated directly with North Vietnamese leaders on ending the conflict.

Kissinger said the best way forward is to reconcile the differences between Iraq's warring sects with help from other countries. He applauded efforts to host an international conference bringing together the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Iraq's neighbors — including Iran, Washington's longtime rival in the region.

"That is the sort of framework out of which it is conceivable that an agreement should emerge," Kissinger said. "One needs to be prepared to negotiate with adversaries."

Kissinger said that fighting in Iraq is likely to continue for years, and that America's national interest requires an end to partisan bickering at home over war policy.

"The role of America in the world cannot be defined by our internal partisan quarrels," he said. "All the leaders, both Republican and Democratic, have to remember that it will go on for several more years and find some basis for common action."

[You're wrong, Kiss. It won't go on for years. The American people won't let it. – J]

Dems try to revive labor movement

Office workers of the world, unite!


Comeback attempt for the labor movement

By Robert Kuttner | March 31, 2007

THE NEW York Times recently reported that the earnings gap is now the widest since 1928, with the richest 1 percent of Americans having captured most of the economy's 2005 growth, and the bottom 90 percent getting nothing. Between 1979 and 2005, according to MIT professor Thomas Kochan, productivity of American manufacturing rose by about 70 percent, but the real wages of production workers remained flat.

This economic pummeling of ordinary Americans has many causes, including deregulation of industries that once paid decent wages, the weakening of tacit social compacts in which bosses were ashamed to pay themselves hundreds of times the earnings of workers, the erosion of the minimum wage, and increased off shoring. But one of the big reasons is industry's relentless assault on unions, an attack abetted or tolerated by most US administrations for three decades. Unions not only raise wages for members; they work for a fairer wage structure generally, both in their spillover influence on wider patterns of pay and in their political work for a fairer brand of capitalism.

Supposedly, the "new economy" doesn't lend itself to unions, and most workers no longer want them. But according to the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics, surveys show that 53 percent of US workers would join a union if they could. And recent union growth is mostly in service-sector work -- the essence of the new economy.

In truth, academic studies going back to the work of Richard Freeman and James Medoff document the principal reason unions have declined, from more than 30 percent after World War II to fewer than 8 percent of private sector workers today. It is mainly the result of business making clear that workers who support union drives risk losing their jobs.

Wal-Mart and other anti union companies take a more direct approach. In the rare case when local employees manage to organize a union, Wal-Mart simply closes the store. Fully 49 percent of employers threaten to move or close the worksite during the course of a union organizing campaign, according to a study by Chirag Mehta and Nik Theodore of the University of Illinois.

Punishing workers who opt for unions is illegal under the 1935 Wagner Act. But the federal government has stopped meaningfully enforcing the Wagner Act's guarantee that employees may form unions free from harassment or retaliation. Generally, fired workers who do win reinstatement orders have to wait for years, and punishments against offending companies are minor slaps on the wrist.

Now the labor movement and its allies in Congress are making an all-out push to put some teeth back in the Wagner Act, with legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act. The main provision would allow a union to be certified once a majority of workers at the factory or office or store signed union cards. The bill also increases penalties for harassing pro-union workers, and makes it harder for employers to stall union recognition or contract negotiations.

Under current rules, a two-stage process requires a majority first to sign cards, followed by a protracted period leading up to an election. It's during this interim phase that employers threaten rank and file workers, and fire their leaders -- sending a powerful signal to other workers not to get cozy with unions.

The bill passed the House March 1 with the support of 243 members, including 13 Republicans. The Senate took it up this week. Republicans have threatened a filibuster, President Bush would veto it if the measure passed, and the US business elite is treating the prospect of a resurgent labor movement as the end of civilization.

Interestingly, as the European Union was celebrating its 50th birthday this past week, the spotlight was on Germany, whose dynamic economy is enjoying an impressive recovery, with plummeting unemployment. The German Federal Republic incurred massive costs when it absorbed the former communist East Germany. Many blamed its slump on strong unions and high wages. But it turns out that this same social model produces the world's most productive workforce. Germany enjoys a large trade surplus despite an expensive currency, and much greater income equality.

Unions as partners can be good, not just for worker pay, but for the economy. In our country, unions have never been able to make that case by gentle persuasion. They make it in the old-fashioned way, organizing one worker and one legislator at a time.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and a senior fellow at Demos. His column appears regularly in the Globe.

Surge in US, Iraqi deaths since the 'surge'

You can't simply look at the casualty statistics immediately before & after the "surge" in Iraq and make some kind of conclusions about how well it's going. To have a really informed opinion, you have to ask our commanders on the ground; and they've already told us that they won't know how well the "surge" is going for several more months. So, basically, enjoy your spring, and ignore all news from Iraq until our trusty commanders (who recently replaced our former trusty commanders) come back and inform us just how quickly & decisively we're going to win this thing.

Anyway, logic tells us that we have to KILL people to SAVE people. So, if more U.S. troops and Iraqis are dying, it's only because the surge is doing what it's supposed to do: Kill more bad guys. Sure, sometimes civilians get caught in the crossfire, as do our troops, but that's war. It's messy. The Iraqis who survive will thank us later. 

("By the way, I was being sarcastic." -- Homer Simpson).

Iraq death toll jumps 15 percent in March
April 1, 2007 | AFP

At least 2,078 people died in Iraq last month, 15 percent more than in February despite a massive security crackdown in Baghdad, the epicentre of violence, a security official said on Sunday.

On average, 67 people died across the country every day in March, compared to 64 in February.

A significant increase in Iraqi civilian, army and police deaths was evident last month, the official said, based on detailed statistics collected by the defence, interior and health ministries.

Civilian deaths topped the toll with 1,869 Iraqis killed in insurgency and sectarian bloodletting in March, compared to 1,646 in February.

Another 2,719 civilians were wounded last month, compared to 2,701 in February.

In March, 165 Iraqi policemen were killed against 131 the previous month, while 44 Iraqi soldiers died compared to 29 in February, the official said.

In March, 277 Iraqi policemen and 51 soldiers were wounded against 147 and 47, respectively during February.

The official said the death toll among militants had fallen to 481 in March compared to 586 killed the previous month.

But those arrested surged to 5,664 in March against 1,921, reflective of the massive Iraqi-US security operation launched on February 14 in which 80,000 troops have been deployed in and around the capital to root out insurgents.

The US military also lost 85 personnel in March, taking to 3,244 an AFP tally based on Pentagon statistics as of April 1, compared to 3,159 on February 28.

The US military losses, heavily outweighing the deaths of Iraqi soldiers if not Iraqi policemen, come despite Washington's claim that Iraqi forces are leading the security crackdown in the capital.