Unsurprises from the Administration

From Talking Points Memo has a few classic moments of Bush administration leadership and guidance this year.



In the realm of oversight, the administration:

Even when Congress was in Republican hands, Justice Department officials advised other government departments on how to stonewall congressional review. These efforts now appear to be ramping up.

...

The Justice Department Legal Counsel's office recently held meetings with lawyers of other departments to discuss strategy for responding to congressional requests for documents and hearing appearances.

...

they were tipped off to this by someone in the Justice Department worried about this new program.

Don't look for Open Government here. Even if you want to know how many paperclips the Department of Energy orders, you'll probably get stonewalled.

Not that this bothered the Republican Congress. They seemed quite happy to make speeches and NOT govern.

It would be nice if the MSM took notice and made as much a stink as they do about rumors and innuendo.


On to the "Surge".

Fewer than 20% of the additional Iraqi and American troops have arrived so far. And the roughly 5,000 that have arrived have yet to make a visible impact in this sprawling city of 6 million people, where thousands of paramilitary gunmen patrol the streets.

U.S. officials are trying to manage expectations both domestically and in Iraq, continually asserting that the new forces will slowly take up positions in the capital over the coming months.

...

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has said he is investigating whether he can speed the pace of the troop buildup. But a senior Pentagon official said this week that it was unlikely that U.S. troops could be sent to Baghdad any faster than planned. The five brigades going to the capital are due to arrive one per month, with the last coming in May.

You know what we are talking about here, right?

A bottleneck. In any system, a place that limits, usually very severely, change (moving/production/etc). This is a bottleneck. Can we move in a large force to the area fast? No.

What does this say about are ability to take and use forces through the region, or through the world? Nothing good.

What a wonderful job this administration has done. And do we have any reason to think they are going to be changing?

No.



And then their is AMERICAblog's look at the related topic of Iran.

Just yesterday, we learned from the Pentagon's Inspector General that the intelligence from the Defense Department linking Iraq to Al Qaeda was "dubious." But, the fake intel worked to get us in to one war, so Team Bush is using it again. For months, the Bush Administration is ratcheting up the rhetoric on Iran. They're getting ready to accuse Iran of cooperating with Al Qaeda -- but it might not be true this time either according to a report in today's Washington Post...

The Post:

Last week, the CIA sent an urgent report to President Bush's National Security Council: Iranian authorities had arrested two al-Qaeda operatives traveling through Iran on their way from Pakistan to Iraq. The suspects were caught along a well-worn, if little-noticed, route for militants determined to fight U.S. troops on Iraqi soil, according to a senior intelligence official. The arrests were presented to Bush's senior policy advisers as evidence that Iran appears committed to stopping al-Qaeda foot traffic across its borders, the intelligence official said. That assessment comes at a time when the Bush administration, in an effort to push for further U.N. sanctions on the Islamic republic, is preparing to publicly accuse Tehran of cooperating with and harboring al-Qaeda suspects.

So the trouble here is that the administration is trotting out the same lines that were once shone to be lies. Going to intel sources not all that different to the ones that gave us the patently false information on Iraq.


So if things are really so iffy, why get excited about al-Qaeda. Especially with so little interest yesterday. What's different today? The urge to handle Iran.

And that becomes the most terrifying thing about al-Qaeda. It acts as a motivator for us to do the worst of things. It gives this administration a place to grab hold a pull us all to some very dark places.



As a whole, not the most comforting series of events to contemplate.