See previous: 2007.04.29 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup   

Below the fold (newest items at the top):

• Ledeen Responds To Tenet
• Broder Sticks To His Guns
• The Consequences Of The Democrats' Iraq Policy
• A Loser's History
• Democrats’ Blood II
• Bush Plans to Veto Iraq War Spending Bill on Tuesday
• Former CIA Boss Out of Loop on Parts of His New Book
• But I won't question his patriotism
• Video: Tenet says Iraq wouldn’t have had nukes until 2007 or 2009
• Tenet Does 60 Minutes
• Afghan Infant Deaths Fall 40,000 Per Year After Eviction of Taliban
• A basic tenet of public life, part 2

Who Won Harry? 
J D Pendry, CSM, USA (Ret.)

You don't mind if I call you Harry do you? I'm just an Average American and since you preface every statement you make by portending what I want, I thought we would be comfortable using first names. I could call you Senator if you like, but understand that I get a searing pain in my right temple each time I think about that. As you know me so well and seem so concerned about my desires, I'm sure that you don't wish me any discomfort. My faith tells me I should not succumb to fits of rage, but I have simmered a bit about this one Harry. I'll try to be civil, but I may need to ask forgiveness afterwards.

So, if we have lost this war, who won it? You haven't exactly explained that for me or the rest of the Average Americans out here. As the twitch returns above my right temple, allow me to speculate:

"Iraq is, in fact, the central front of al Qaeda's global campaign and we devote considerable resources to the fight against al Qaeda Iraq.

They [Qazali network responsible for the deaths of five Soldiers in Karbala] were provided substantial funding, training on Iranian soil, advanced explosive munitions and technologies as well as run of the mill arms and ammunition, in some cases advice and in some cases even a degree of direction. ...

And there's no question, again, that Iranian financing is taking place through the Quds force of the Iranian Republican Guards Corps. ..."  -- General David Petraeus

Does that clear if up for you Harry?

Harry, I think you are a loser and what's more, real Americans don't care for losers -- losers at anything much less war. You see in war, I do not recall there being a second place trophy. ...

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Ledeen Responds To Tenet
Ed Morrissey

Michael Ledeen found himself in the middle of a controversy regarding the new book by former CIA chief George Tenet, and unexpectedly so. According to Ledeen, he had not been contacted by Tenet or his co-author for the book for his input. Nevertheless, Ledeen found Tenet's scorn for him and his efforts to assist the intel community on Iran on the front page of the New York Times this past weekend. Now Ledeen responds at National Review Online, and he accuses Tenet of misrepresenting Ledeen's efforts:

In December, 2001, I participated in discussions between two Pentagon officials and Iranians who claimed knowledge of Iranian-sponsored efforts to kill Americans in Afghanistan. We met in Rome, Italy over several days. The discussions were approved by Stephen Hadley, the deputy national-security adviser, and the two Defense department officials’ travel was approved by their superiors. The American ambassador in Rome was fully informed in advance, and fully briefed afterwards. The conversations produced detailed information about the identities, locations, and plans of Iranian-trained terrorists in Afghanistan. This was passed on to the proper authorities at the DoD, and I was later told by military officers that the information likely saved American lives.

Now comes the former director of central intelligence, George Tenet, with several pages about the meeting in his new book. He does not mention that American lives were saved, nor does he seem at all interested to learn that there were well-informed sources who were willing to help the American government. Nor, for that matter, is he much interested in the facts at all.  ...

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Broder Sticks To His Guns
Ed Morrissey

David Broder took Democrats to task for allowing an incompetent like Harry Reid to rise to party leadership, pointing out several of the Senator's foolish foibles as examples. This column sent the netroots into a tizzy, with many of them declaring Broder as irrelevant and past his expiration date. The Senate Democratic caucus even sent him a letter, signed by all 50 members, extolling the virtues of Reid and lauding his "straight talk" -- apparently all endorsing the notion that we have lost the war in Iraq.

Today, Editor & Publisher caught up Broder, who has no intention of retracting his remarks:

David Broder said he wouldn't change anything in his April 26 column, which angered many readers and caused 50 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus to write a letter criticizing Broder in Friday's Washington Post. ...

"I still think the Democrats can do better, and should do better," said Broder, when reached today by E&P. ... Broder told E&P that he was "astonished and delighted" that 50 Democratic senators "spontaneously" came up with the letter (adding that he was being "tongue-in-cheek").

The letter was something of a non-sequitur. His criticism wasn't that Reid spoke his mind, but that he put his foot in his mouth when he did. Declaring a war "lost" while American troops are still fighting -- and making progress -- reveals a hysterical streak that doesn't reflect well on leadership. As Broder pointed out in the column, not even the people who signed the letter would defend what Reid said, instead trying to use Clintonian word parsing to make it appear that Harry Reid had not just capitulated to terrorists in Anbar and Baghdad. Calling the President a "loser" may make the netroots swoon with delight, but it hardly makes for a professional atmosphere between Congress and the White House.

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The Consequences Of The Democrats' Iraq Policy
John Hawkins (H/T: Lorie Byrd)

I detest a lot of things about the way that Democrats argue about the war in Iraq...

* The dishonest way that so many of them voted for the war when it was popular and turned on it when public opinion went the other way.

* The way they criticize Bush, but have never offered up a plan for victory.

* The fact that they've encouraged the terrorists to murder our soldiers and the Iraqi civilians by convincing them that all they have to do is hold out a little longer and the Democrats will hand them victory.

* Their claim that "Bush lied" about weapons of mass destruction when countless Democrats looked at the same evidence and came to the same conclusions that Bush did.

You could go on and on with these examples. But, here's what I really dislike the most about the way the Democrats argue about the war: the fact that they are, for political reasons, advocating that we leave Iraq before the Iraqi military can defend the country while studiously avoiding a discussion of the horrific consequences that may result from that action.

Some of those consequences could be, but are not limited to...

* The end of democracy in Iraq.
* Millions of Iraqis killed in a real "civil war."
* The invasion of Iraq by Iran and/or Turkey.
* Iraq becoming a satellite state of Iran.
* A regional Shia on Sunni civil war that could begin as all sides pour in money and weapons.
* A terrorist "state within a state" controlled by Al-Qaeda.
* Al-Qaeda switching its focus from Iraq to the United States which could lead to more attacks here.
* A massive surge in recruiting by terrorist groups bolstered by Al-Qaeda's "victory" over the US.
* A massive spike in worldwide oil prices if all the oil from Iraq is cut off in the fighting.

We don't see Democrats in Congress or liberal bloggers saying, "Sure, those are things that could happen, but we think that's a fair trade off if we can leave right now." Instead, if you listened to the anti-war crowd, you'd think that there were no consequences to THE DEMOCRATIC DESIRE -- not, Bush's desire -- to leave Iraq before its military is ready to defend the country. ...

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A Loser's History
George Tenet's sniveling, self-justifying new book is a disgrace.
By Christopher Hitchens (H/T: Michelle Malkin)

It's difficult to see why George Tenet would be so incautious as to write his own self-justifying apologia, let alone give it the portentous title At the Center of the Storm. There is already a perfectly good pro-Tenet book written by a man who knows how to employ the overworked term storm. Bob Woodward's 2002 effort, Bush at War, was, in many of its aspects, almost dictated by George Tenet. How do we know this? Well, Tenet is described on the opening page as "a hefty, outgoing son of Greek immigrants," which means that he talked to Woodward on background. Further compliments are showered upon him. We discover that his main protector on Capitol Hill, Sen. David Boren, who represented Oklahoma until 1994, had implored President-elect Bush to retain this Clinton-era head of the CIA and if he had any doubts, to "ask your father":

When the younger Bush did, the former President George H.W. Bush said: "From what I hear, he's a good fellow," one of the highest accolades in the Bush family lexicon. Tenet … later led the effort to rename CIA headquarters for Bush, himself a former DCI.

No need to draw a very complex picture here: Tenet knows how the kiss-up and kiss-down game is played. And, for a rather mediocre man, he did well enough out of the arrangement while it lasted.

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Democrats’ Blood II
A J Strata

The Democrats better stop playing games and get the money and material flowing to our troops. Their partisan greed has already sent signals to al Qaeda and others to ramp up the killings - which they gleefully did. But now protective vehicles are being held up ONLY because the money is not flowing.

[...]

Addendum: The hypocrisy of the Surrendercrats is stunning. Check out this statement from Dorgan (D-ND):

Senators pressed for more. “We’re buying far too few of them,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat. “If we have that capability, why would we not do everything to mobilize, to move as many of them into the field as is possible?

Why Senator? Because, you fool, you did not give Bush the funds he needed? Even when you knew a veto was imminent you took politics over lives? How many will die because of your crass partisanship?

I left out part of A J's post that duplicates my related post here.

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Bush Plans to Veto Iraq War Spending Bill on Tuesday

WASHINGTON  —  President Bush plans to veto legislation to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on Tuesday, but vowed to work with Democrats on the next step to craft a compromise supplemental spending bill that would be free of an Iraq pullout timetable.

"I made my position very clear, the Congress chose to ignore it, so I will veto the bill," Bush said in a press conference in the White House Rose Garden on Monday. "That's not to say that I'm not interested in their opinions — I am. I look forward to working with members of both parties to get a bill that doesn’t set artificial timetables and doesn't micromanage and get some money to our troops."

Senior White House officials told FOX News that Bush will veto the bill late Tuesday after he returns from a trip to Tampa, Fla., to visit the United States Central Command. The schedule is based on Congress delivering the legislation to his desk by then. The veto will not take place in a ceremony, but the president will make short remarks or release a statement.

Bush has repeatedly signaled his opposition to setting a timetable to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and the veto comes as no surprise to Democratic lawmakers and others who want to pull out of Iraq. ...

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Former CIA Boss Out of Loop on Parts of His New Book
Scott Ott

(2007-04-30) — Former CIA Director George Tenet said today that he was not included in discussions about key portions of his book that have been called into question by eyewitnesses to the events recounted.

“There was no serious debate at the publisher’s office, at least none that included me, about whether to retain certain questionable assertions in my book,” Mr. Tenet told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley. “And yet, as usual, it looks like I’m going to take the heat for what appears in those pages just because I happen to be the author.” ...

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But I won't question his patriotism
By Jay Tea

Yesterday, Kim had a good piece on John Murtha's latest stroke of genius: to use the impeachment process as "leverage" against President Bush over the Iraq war. This may come as no great surprise to people, but I think that is a very, very bad idea.

I will not question Murtha's patriotism.

I will question his integrity. In the now-legendary Abscam sting, Murtha was not indicted. He met with the bogus Arabs, discussed how their bribe money could best be used in his district, but deferred actually accepting cash "for now."

But I will not question his patriotism.

I will question his intelligence. Murtha, it is worth noting, was a proponent of of pulling US forces out of Iraq and redeploying them to Okinawa, where they could quickly return to the region if necessary. Murtha didn't bother to mention that 1) the Japanese are growing more and more dissatisfied with our presence there, and wouldn't exactly embrace a massive infusion of new forces, and B) Okinawa is practically next door to Iraq only on a celestial scale -- to everyone else, it's a third of the globe away, with China and Russia being in the way of direct transit.

But I will not question his patriotism.

I will question his judgment. ...

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Video: Tenet says Iraq wouldn’t have had nukes until 2007 or 2009
Ian Schwartz (H/T: Lorie Byrd)

Well, I guess we should have waited to invade until last year:

Transcript:

SCOTT PELLEY, CBS’ “60 MINUTES”: January ‘03, the President, again: “imagine those 19 hijackers this time armed by Saddam’s Hussein,” is that what you’re telling the President?

GEORGE TENET: No.

[narrating voice]

The Vice President up the ante, claiming Saddam had nuclear weapons when the CIA was saying he didn’t.

PELLEY: What’s happening here?

TENET: I don’t know what’s happening here. The intelligence community’s judgemnet is he will not have a nuclear weapon until the year 2007, 2009.

PELLEY: That’s not what the Vice President is saying.

TENET: Well I can’t explain it.

Lorie comments:

Here is the problem I have with those who say the administration lied because they cherry picked information, or faulting them for acting on information indicating the earliest estimates of the threat. If you are being told that the guy next door is building a bomb and he is going to blow you and your family up, and you have lots of differing opinions about how long it is going to take to build the bomb, do you take all the different assessments and choose to believe the ones that say it will take a year, rather than the ones that say it will take a month? Or do you take all the estimates and average them? Or do you, right after 9/11 caught you by surprise, decide that you will no longer give a terrorist the benefit of the doubt and decide to act on the information that says he could have the bomb built in the least amount of time, out of an over abundance of caution? If you and your family were in the house next door, what would you hope would be done? I realize that is an oversimplification, but when looking at the decision to invade Iraq it is necessary to look at what was known at the time, and that the President was deeply impacted by 9/11 and vowed we would never again ignore or treat lightly the terrorist threat. The fact that some in the intelligence community believed Saddam was a loveable little fuzzball, does not make it okay for the President to ignore those in the intelligence community who believed (as Tenet said in the 60 Minutes interview) that he would have nukes today.

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Tenet Does 60 Minutes
No wonder we’re in dire straits.
By Andrew C. McCarthy (H/T: Michelle Malkin)

Hawking his new book, At the Eye of the Storm, former CIA Director George Tenet bared his soul Sunday night to Scott Pelley of the CBS news magazine, 60 Minutes. Some preliminary thoughts about his jaw-dropping performance are in order.

1. Tenet met every morning with President Bush. Indeed, he was the point person at the national-security briefing — the daily session Bush, from the beginning of his presidency, has made a point of taking more seriously than his predecessor did. Tenet now claims that in the summer of 2001, he was convinced al Qaeda was on the verge of launching a spectacular, multiple-site attack against the United States. He was convinced the United States should take action against the terror network in its Afghanistan safe haven. But, he maintains he shared this information only with (then) National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, not the president.

Why, day after day after day, didn’t he advise the president of his suspicions? “Because,” Tenet says, “the United States government doesn’t work that way. The president is not the action officer. You bring the action to the national-security adviser and people who set the table for the president to decide on policies they’re gonna implement.”

Sure, Mr. Director. Just one question: What the hell goes on at the daily briefings?

2. Immediately after 9/11, ...

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Afghan Infant Deaths Fall 40,000 Per Year After Eviction of Taliban
Ace of Spades (H/T: Lorie Byrd)

Did America buy itself a big, verifiable pile of Collateral Damage Offsets?

INFANT mortality in Afghanistan has fallen dramatically since the demise of the Taleban, according to a new study, with 40,000 fewer babies dying every year.

Improvements in women's access to medical care since the Taleban were ousted from power five years ago was cited as the main reason for the death rate becoming significantly lower.

Grim infant and maternal mortality rates have been regularly cited as evidence of Afghanistan's backwardness after decades of war.

They were also seen as a sign of the slow progress of the internationally funded reconstruction effort. ...

It's a point that seems glib but isn't -- how do 40,000 fewer infant deaths per year factor into the left's "war never solved anything" and "war is bad for the health of puppies and flowers and other living things" slogans?

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A basic tenet of public life, part 2
Scott Johnson

Bill Kristol notes George Tenet's imaginary encounter with the "neocon" for all seasons:

SCOTT SHANE REPORTED in Saturday's New York Times that former CIA chief George Tenet's dramatic description in his book, At the Center of the Storm, of an August 2002 presentation at the CIA by defense undersecretary Douglas Feith and his staff, is at the very least misleading. In order to suggest that Feith's staff was utterly out of its depth, Tenet characterized the main briefer, Tina Shelton, as a "naval reservist." In fact, she had been a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst for almost two decades. Tenet also claimed that Shelton said in her presentation of Iraq-al Qaeda contacts, "It is an open-and-shut case." Shelton and Feith both deny she said that. One person who served in government with Shelton told THE WEEKLY STANDARD today he finds it "inconceivable" that Shelton, an experienced analyst, would have made such an unequivocal assertion.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has now learned of a second, more stunning error in Tenet's book (which is due to appear in bookstores tomorrow). According to Michiko Kakutani's review in Saturday's Times,

On the day after 9/11, he [Tenet] adds, he ran into Richard Perle, a leading neoconservative and the head of the Defense Policy Board, coming out of the White House. He says Mr. Perle turned to him and said: "Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. They bear responsibility."

Here's the problem: Richard Perle was in France on that day, unable to fly back after September 11. In fact Perle did not return to the United State until September 15. Did Tenet perhaps merely get the date of this encounter wrong? Well, the quote Tenet ascribes to Perle hinges on the encounter taking place September 12: "Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday." And Perle in any case categorically denies to THE WEEKLY STANDARD ever having said any such thing to Tenet, while coming out of the White House or anywhere else. ...