(BBC) Last Updated: Friday, 6 January 2006, 19:15 GMT

Eleven US troops were killed in a series of attacks throughout Iraq on Thursday, the US military has said. The latest deaths took the number of US military fatalities to 2,192, according to figures from the Pentagon.

The number of American fatalities was the highest in a single day since the same number were killed on 1 December.

In a wave of violence, two suicide bombers killed more than 120 people in the central Iraqi cities of Karbala and Ramadi on Thursday.

The deaths came just one day after US President George Bush said the US plan in Iraq was succeeding.

President Bush said the US would aim to put more Iraqi territory under the control of Iraqi security forces during 2006 if Iraqis made good progress.

But he refused to outline a timetable for withdrawal, saying conditions on the ground, not pressure from political opponents, would inform decisions.

Wave of violence

Five US soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol south of Karbala.

Another roadside bomb struck a US army vehicle north of Baghdad and killed two soldiers.

Elsewhere, two marines were shot dead by gunmen while conducting combat operations in the central Iraqi town of Falluja.

The suicide bomb attack on a police recruitment centre in Ramadi killed one marine and one soldier. The explosion killed around 60 people queuing outside the centre and injured some 60 others.

But no US troops were killed by the blast near the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala that killed at least 60 people and injuring more than 100.

End of report.

Our economy has a "full head of steam", too.

A couple of fairly recent documentaries that I found really thought provoling and well produced are "The Fog of War", dramatic and poignant reflections of Viet Nam era Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, and "Control Room", an inside look at the American led invasion of Iraq as experienced and reported by the men and women of Al Jazeera, the Arab equivalent of CNN.

Good luck.

Shouldn't this be titled, "We're losing the war in Iraq and other lies"?

Seriously, what would you consider a win? No deaths at all? The terrorists (aka insurgents) just surrendering?

Besides, calling it a war at this point isn't really accurate since we did win the war a couple of years ago. We're now trying to stabilize the country, much like we're doing in Bosnia and Kosovo. There's no timetable for withdrawal from those countries either, but since soldiers aren't dying in those locations, no one cares how long we're there. However, being deployed still sucks, whether someone is shooting at you or not, you're still missing your live back in the States. When I was in Bosnia 1999, basic feeling was we'd have to be there for a generation in order to keep the peace long enough for the old-timers to die off and allow the children to grow up in peace, hopefully causing the grudges of the past to die will the old and prevent new violence from infecting the young.

In Iraq's case, we seem to be a in lot better position since we're actually training the Iraqis to take care of themselves and they seem to be able to work across ethnical lines a lot better than the Bosnians. Iraq is getting a lot more attention as well when in comes to developing the country and projects receiving funding.

And I agree, we can't say we're going to leave June 5th or anything like that. Otherwise the foreign "insurgents" will launch an attack against the government June 6th (or try to kill more Americans before they leave).

@ Rabban: How did we win this war a couple years ago? According to George Bush in the beginning of the fighting, the purpose of this war was to find and destroy WMD's in Iraq. Nothing about "liberating the Iraqi people". Since there are no WMD's, we cannot win this war, because the goal is not attainable (you can't find something that isn't there :P).

As for the insurgency, there is no way "staying the course" wil defeat this insurgency. This war is fueling the hatred for America, thus giving them an almost endless supply of recruits. Whereas here nobody really wants to join the army right now.

How can we be winning this war right now? A majority of our country is against it first of all. Is a democracy not about what the people think? This conflict is also eating away at our resources, especially money, that we really could use right now in the wake of this year of disasters. We should be using our resources to help the needy of this country instead of using it for one selfish man who refuses to admit he was wrong.

Finally, of course a war is about who is dying. This may sound stupid and simple, but think about it for a bit: a war is groups of people trying to kill each other for whatever reason. That's the basic nature of war.

At this point, Rab, I wouldn't consider anything a win. Anything that reduces the perpetuation of suffering on all sides is the most I would hope for. To the families of the dead, the damage is irreversible.

The fall of Bagdhad and the conclusion of major combat operations may have induced an enthusiastic "Mission accomplished", but it didn't stop the killing; The capture of Saddam seven months later didn't stop the killing. Revelations that the claim of an immediate and present danger to the security of the United States because of Iraq's wmd's was based on fictitious intelligence has neither stopped the killing nor hastened a withdrawal. I accept the general notion of old paradigms dying when old believers die, and maybe in the case of Bosnia that's more than just wishful thinking.

But, I respectfully disagree with some of your assessment. Regardless of what the DOD calls it, (Operation insert happy-sounding-good-guy phrase here), the people who are willing to kill and die, I think they consider it a war. Our continued presence, and each new episode of "oops, we didn't mean to bomb that civilian house or torture those prisoners" is fuel to the flames of hate, and defeats the potential for Peace that real steps towards assisting others to live in a democratic and free society might otherwise achieve.

Change the channel
- Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt's advice to Iraqis who see TV images of innocent civilians killed by coalition troops.

Last edited: Friday, January 06, 2006 at 10:01:07 PM

More people die from snake bites so lets just go kill all snakes... 8o

Snakebite is something that cannot be prevented. War is. It seems that W. Is very trigger-happy.

Green Day: Don't want to be an American idiot...
Bushies: Stop! You're disheartening the troops!

No it can.

Nobody wins in war... There are always death.

Lol a mod deleted my post! :P

^ probably for good reason. I wouldn't know.

What we are doing in Iraq may be "Good" or "Just", but that doesn't stop it from being stupid. Badly thoght out, horrible coillition, and horibly equipped troops. Ill equipped, and questioning why the hell they are over there. We are fighting a war. War is death, death is war, war is stupid in itself. Now, I am a huge bit of a hypocrite, as I am currently designing my own army. I am not perfect. Personally though, I think that I would rather have the lives of the soldiers back, rather than having everything being torn apart and sewn back together in the middle east. If it was done correctly, with proper tactics and strategy, maybe, then, we could have managed. But this is just madness.

How about this lie-

And then... Spying on US citizens in direct contradiction to the Constitution... Very noice... :S

@LGM during times of "war", certain rights have been known to be limited. Happened in the world wars and yes folks it still happens now. He's trying to prevent another terrorist act (like the ones in London and NYC)...so unless you really want to take the risk of being blown to smithereens, give the guy a break. What would you do instead to find this information? Go to random people's homes and ask them if they've had contact with Al Qaeda?

Fair enough, but law requires that a court approve those exceptional uses of surveillance. Bush felt that wasn't necessary, but the law required it. He circumvented the due process. Way to preserve the legal protections that the Constitution provides.

GW blew it. By how much doesn't matter. The safeguards are important, and needed to prevent facism from breaking out. And, as far as

Honestly, I'll take that risk. I'd much rather risk being blown up by a terrorist than losing my freedom. "Give me liberty, or give me death..."

I don't need some power hungry politico trying to scare me into giving up my civil rights. No sale.

Last edited: Saturday, January 07, 2006 at 6:34:27 AM

I will state my position again. Perhaps it will impact a few people here.

First, I am, and always have been, uncertain as to the reasons we invaded.
Second, that does not change the FACT, that we did invade, and we did tear down their government.
Third, I believe it is our DUTY to help them rebuild into a stable government of their own choice. We are not the old Stalinists who put in a puppet government - we're letting them design it. It doesn't really look much like our government at all.
Fourth, if we pull out now, before the new government is ready, it is practically guaranteed to turn into a civil war. Currently we (the entire coalition) and the government-loyal Iraqi troops are all that is preventing it. If we leave I don't think the Iraqi's are ready to support it on their own yet. Granted, there is still the chance it will go to civil war anyways, but any chance of avoiding it is better than no chance at all.

Regardless of whether or not you think we should have invaded, we DID invade. We put them in this position, and it's OUR RESPONSIBILITY to help them get out of it. Yes, people are dying over there, because there are people who want to embarrass the US. If we leave before Iraq can sustain itself, they will have won, and they will turn all of Iraq into a cesspool of anti-US fervor. Basically it would become another Afghanistan (just like we helped create the old Afghanistan at the end of the Cold War).

While I would have preferred to never have invaded, now that we have I think we need to stay the course and fix the mess we made. Otherwise we will be no better than a bully. We'll come over to your house, trash the place and walk out.

R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y

I applied for a job in Baghdad at the Embassy a couple of years ago, and will probably do so again later this year.

I apologize if this is a little hard to follow - it's after midnight and I'm partially asleep. ;)

I think I used too many UPPERCASE... XD

TMO, that makes total sense to me. Our actions require we put things in order. Unfortunately, we were sold a bag of goods that don't look so good anymore. That does not mean we get to walk away. It does mean that we have a responsibility, as you put it so well.

Ya know, that's terrorism in itself. Bush is one of the very people he is fighting against.
Think about it.

Good point.

I'm a teacher, and GW's little "No Child Left Behind" fiasco is important to me...

Let me offer a link here

Another bit of honesty from King George...

@ TMO: err, isn't there already a sort of civil war going on there? We have two groups of Iraqis that hate each other and are killing each other. There is not a lot of open fighting, but still killing. Now I agree that pulling out immediately would aprobably create a lot of problems. But can Bush at least admit he was wrong and apologize to the families of the soldiers he inadvertantly killed?

TMO sums things up nicely, so no need to add to that.

However, there is a little thing about all debate about the war in Iraq that bothers me. People like to bring up there were no WMDs and we were misled and so on. The thing is, you can only say that now as a result of the war. When the decision to go to war was made, we didn't have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. I think our leadership (that's Republicans AND Democrats) made the best decision they could at the time based on the information they had and the urgency under which they felt they had to act. If the opposition would stay true to that, then I think the debate might be a little more meaningful, but right now I think its more politically motivated then a quest for what's right.

Bulls#*t!!!!

That's a republican talking point...not reality. Go do a little homework on the run up to war. The intelligence was cherry picked to align with a pre-determined objective. Try your best not to reply with comments about other countries' intelligence and Clinton, and this might get interesting.

@Player36 - there is not a civil war in Iraq at this time. The majority of the terrorists are not Iraqis - they're recruited, trained, and shipped in from other Middle Eastern countries. Syria is a major route in, but Iran is shuttling it's fair share in as well. I've read that there's some suspicion that Iran is doing it more to sow chaos in it's old enemy rather than risk having a strong state next door.

Yes, there is quite a lot of friction between the three main ethnic/religious sects - Kurds, Sunnis and Shi'ites. There are Christian Iraqis as well, but it's a small proportion, and they don't get a lot of press. A lot of the friction is totally understandable; you have a minority that's been in totalian power for the last 30+ years, and suddenly the society is shifted around drastically to a more representative form. The Sunni's have not only lost the influence they're used to having over the country, but they're also afraid of reprisals or over-compensation from those that used to be on bottom. And then you've got the fiasco of their boycotting the first vote, giving them almost NO say whatsoever in how the constitution was written. Fortunately that little lesson seems to have been beat into their head with a solid gold sledgehammer. ;) A representative say in government is better than no say at all.

And, of course, we have the Shi'ites that make up the majority of the population (about 60% IIRC), who suddenly have power after all these years of oppression. Between not having any experience at governmental affairs and an understandable desire for some sort of getting-even, the fact that they DID try to allow for the Sunni's in the constitution despite the boycott is a near-miracle.

And then there's the Kurds. They've been trying to secede from Iraq from decades, going so far as revolting under Saddam. Don't know if you're old enough to remember, but he gassed them. Chemical warfare. WMDs. Don't forget that Saddam had a history of using WMDs.

And then there's the geo-economics of the country. The Kurds predominantly live in the north, the Shi'ites mostly in the south, and the Sunni's in the center (around Baghdad). Now, let's look and see where the oil reserves are... North... And South. Hmmmmm....

I'm going to stop here as we're approaching the limits of what I'm confident enough to speak about. Please remember that I am NOT an expert on Middle East society, history, politics or religion. I don't have any special insights into the region due to having lived in Saudi back in the 80's - the arabs and the foreigners each kept to themselves. I just try to read the news and filter out any biases, pro or con. I also have access to some first-hand impressions as my father-in-law lived and worked in Baghdad for 15 months after the war, and is still in and out of the country occasionally.

Yes there had benn conflict between these groups before, but we certainly stirred up a lot more. We messed with something we should not have messed with, which was a country's society and way of life.

Now of course Saddam did kill some of his people, but does that give us the right to screw up their country and kill many more innocent civilians than Saddam ever killed? I'm sure Americans would be a little upset (understatement of the week) if North Korea invaded the United States on the grounds that Bush was a terrible leader, has lied to us, and has been careless with the lives of his own citizens (all true). There are a few wrong ways to run a country, but there is not a single right way to run a country. Democracy is a good idea but I'm sure the founding fathers of this coutry would be infuriated that we are using military force to change other country's governments. This is exactly what they wanted to avoid. We can't go invading other countries and killing other people because in our minds we are superior.

Oh, and this is Bush's excuse for invading Iraq right now. Originally it was about WMD's but I won't get started on that.

Player - I have never tried to defend WHY we invaded. If you'll read my original post you'll see I say that I wish we hadn't. My point is "since we have invaded, and we did upset their society and government, we have a responsibility to help set it right" . End of point. IMHO, it's simple, basic, civilization. We broke it, we need to help fix it.

If you want to argue over why we invaded and how evil Bush is, that's well and fine. But when you start arguing that we need to get our troops out of Iraq immediately because it's none of our business, that's where I disagree with you very strongly. When we invaded and overthrew Saddam, it BECAME our business. Our fault, our responsibility, to the people of Iraq.

It's a better situation than when I last said this, but it still is a precarious balance. If we withdraw our troops now, before the Iraqi government is secure, then the chances are VERY good that a civil war will result. With our troops present there is still a chance of that happening, but it's a much smaller chance, and every day that goes by without it happening is a Win. As long as civil war does not break out, we are still winning in Iraq.

All, IMHO, of course. I doubt I'll change anybody's mind out there, but perhaps there are a few more who might agree with me if I keep repeating myself often enough. ;)

_{"Yes! Yes! Whatever you say TMO! Just shut up!!! "}

Last edited: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 at 5:10:28 AM

Thanks TMO! God, help us.

@ 44 Go to the lesbian thread! %)

44 may be right about the intel situation prior to the invasion. Or Rabban might be. I'm not so concerned over that issue that I follow it religiously in the news. I'll let the Dems handle it. If they can come up with enough evidence to prove it, good for them. I'm pretty a-political, and don't see any ultimate difference to either party being in charge. After all, they're all politicians. (oops - is swearing like that against the policy of the board?)

My main interest in this thread is just the discussion on troop withdrawal. I try to make sure that everybody sees the potential consequences of such an action.

Senate approves Iraq war resolution aka our leadership making the best decision they could considering the information they had and the feeling of urgency they were under.

Was that a decision to go to war? Who provided the senate with the rationale and information for their votes?

Your administration decided to invade Iraq. Your administration provided misleading rationale to the American people and Congress. Argue otherwise and stop trying to share the blame.

THE CONGRESS approved going to war. The troops ARE winning. Al Zarquari sp? Has been unable to stop the drafting of a new Iraqi constitution AND elections. Most of the fighting over there is by tribal "gangs" just like here at home. My cousin was over there with th Marines and he said there is far more good than bad going on. You just don't hear it in the media. I'm all for troops coming home myself, but we have to make sure Iraq is ready for democracy.

Imagine... Democracy in Iraq AND Afganistan? WOAH! Who will be next, Iran? Heck prettty soon the whole middle east will be lining up.

Where is Osama bin Laden? Fish food/ worm food me thinks. Hasn't been heard from in quite a while. Rumor has it he has died from kidney failure ( I hope it was slow and painful).

Think about it. As someone mentioned in an earlier thread, " do you want to swat misquitos or get rid of the swamp", The swamp is currently in the Iraq region with all the misquitos lining up to die. Better there than here.

By the way, who would of thought four plus years ago after 9/11 that we wouldn't get smacked by the terrorists again right away. I sure thought something would have happend by now. WE ARE LOSING THE WAR?!?! GIVE ME A F#$KING BREAK ;)

@ Nylar: PS the BBC stands for British Broadcasting for Communists. XD Keep in mind I am not tied to any political party, but am sick of all the crappy news we've been getting.

Last edited: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 at 7:43:14 PM

No wonder Gore Vidal refers to us (US) as "The United States of Amnesia".

In the summer of '03 a group of retired career Intelligence Professionals, (Retired Intelligence Professionals for Sanity), issued an open letter to the president, asking for the resignation of Vice President Dick Cheney and denouncing the aggressive policy direction of this administration and its deliberate abuses, distortions and politicization of intelligence. This wasn't a strategic political contrivance like the swift boat opponents to John Kerry; this is a group of retired full-time professional Intelligence analysts and operations officers who care deeply about their coleagues, their agencies and their country.

The substance of their criticism of the VP is best articulated in a single line from the text of the letter: "This was no case of petty corruption of the kind that forced Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation. This was a matter of war and peace. Thousands have died. There is no end in sight."

To the many young readers who did not live through the frightening, destabilizing uncertainties of Watergate, and who have not been touched personally by the irreversible loses of this unnecessary military action, following is their memorandum as published on 14 July, 2003:

Time to End the Dodginess
Intelligence Unglued

By VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Intelligence Unglued

The glue that holds the Intelligence Community together is melting under the hot lights of an awakened press. If you do not act quickly, your intelligence capability will fall apart--with grave consequences for the nation.

The Forgery Flap

By now you are all too familiar with the play-by-play. The Iraq-seeking-uranium-in-Niger forgery is a microcosm of a mischievous nexus of overarching problems. Instead of addressing these problems, your senior staff are alternately covering up for one another and gently stabbing one another in the back. CIA Director George Tenet's extracted, unapologetic apology on July 11 was classic--I confess; she did it.

It is now dawning on our until-now somnolent press that your national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, shepherds the foreign affairs sections of your state-of-the-union address and that she, not Tenet, is responsible for the forged information getting into the speech. But the disingenuousness persists. Surely Dr. Rice cannot persist in her insistence that she learned only on June 8, 2003 about former ambassador Joseph Wilson's mission to Niger in February 2002, when he determined that the Iraq-Niger report was a con-job. Wilson's findings were duly reported to all concerned in early March 2002. And, if she somehow missed that report, the New York Times' Nicholas Kristoff on May 6 recounted chapter and verse on Wilson's mission, and the story remained the talk of the town in the weeks that followed.

Rice's denials are reminiscent of her claim in spring 2002 that there was no reporting suggesting that terrorists were planning to hijack planes and slam them into buildings. In September, the joint congressional committee on 9/11 came up with a dozen such reports.

Secretary of State Colin Powell's credibility, too, has taken serious hits as continued non-discoveries of weapons in Iraq heap doubt on his confident assertions to the UN. Although he was undoubtedly trying to be helpful in trying to contain the Iraq-Niger forgery affair, his recent description of your state-of-the-union words as "not totally outrageous" was faint praise indeed. And his explanations as to why he made a point to avoid using the forgery in the way you did was equally unhelpful.

Whatever Rice's or Powell's credibility, it is yours that matters. And, in our view, the credibility of the intelligence community is an inseparably close second. Attempts to dismiss or cover up the cynical use to which the known forgery was put have been--well, incredible. The British have a word for it: "dodgy." You need to put a quick end to the dodginess, if the country is to have a functioning intelligence community.

The Vice President's Role

Attempts at cover up could easily be seen as comical, were the issue not so serious. Highly revealing were Ari Fleisher's remarks early last week, which set the tone for what followed. When asked about the forgery, he noted tellingly--as if drawing on well memorized talking points--that the Vice President was not guilty of anything. The disingenuousness was capped on Friday, when George Tenet did his awkward best to absolve the Vice President from responsibility.

To those of us who experienced Watergate these comments had an eerie ring. That affair and others since have proven that cover-up can assume proportions overshadowing the crime itself. All the more reason to take early action to get the truth up and out.

There is just too much evidence that Ambassador Wilson was sent to Niger at the behest of Vice President Cheney's office, and that Wilson's findings were duly reported not only to that office but to others as well.

Equally important, it was Cheney who launched (in a major speech on August 26, 2002) the concerted campaign to persuade Congress and the American people that Saddam Hussein was about to get his hands on nuclear weapons--a campaign that mushroomed, literally, in early October with you and your senior advisers raising the specter of a "mushroom cloud" being the first "smoking gun" we might observe.

That this campaign was based largely on information known to be forged and that the campaign was used successfully to frighten our elected representatives in Congress into voting for war is clear from the bitter protestations of Rep. Henry Waxman and others. The politically aware recognize that the same information was used, also successfully, in the campaign leading up to the mid-term elections--a reality that breeds a cynicism highly corrosive to our political process.

The fact that the forgery also crept into your state-of-the-union address pales in significance in comparison with how it was used to deceive Congress into voting on October 11 to authorize you to make war on Iraq.

It was a deep insult to the integrity of the intelligence process that, after the Vice President declared on August 26, 2002 that "we know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons," the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) produced during the critical month of September featured a fraudulent conclusion that "most analysts" agreed with Cheney's assertion. This may help explain the anomaly of Cheney's unprecedented "multiple visits" to CIA headquarters at the time, as well as the many reports that CIA and other intelligence analysts were feeling extraordinarily great pressure, accompanied by all manner of intimidation tactics, to concur in that conclusion. As a coda to his nuclear argument, Cheney told NBC's Meet the Press three days before US/UK forces invaded Iraq: "we believe he (Saddam Hussein) has reconstituted nuclear weapons."

Mr. Russert: the International Atomic Energy Agency said he does not have a nuclear program; we disagree?

Vice President Cheney: I disagree, yes. And you'll find the CIA, for example, and other key parts of the intelligence community disagree. We know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei (Director of the IAEA) frankly is wrong.

Contrary to what Cheney and the NIE said, the most knowledgeable analysts--those who know Iraq and nuclear weapons--judged that the evidence did not support that conclusion. They now have been proven right.

Adding insult to injury, those chairing the NIE succumbed to the pressure to adduce the known forgery as evidence to support the Cheney line, and relegated the strong dissent of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (and the nuclear engineers in the Department of Energy) to an inconspicuous footnote.

It is a curious turn of events. The drafters of the offending sentence on the forgery in president's state-of-the-union speech say they were working from the NIE. In ordinary circumstances an NIE would be the preeminently authoritative source to rely upon; but in this case the NIE itself had already been cooked to the recipe of high policy.

Joseph Wilson, the former US ambassador who visited Niger at Cheney's request, enjoys wide respect (including, like several VIPS members, warm encomia from your father). He is the consummate diplomat. So highly disturbed is he, however, at the chicanery he has witnessed that he allowed himself a very undiplomatic comment to a reporter last week, wondering aloud "what else they are lying about." Clearly, Wilson has concluded that the time for diplomatic language has passed. It is clear that lies were told. Sad to say, it is equally clear that your vice president led this campaign of deceit.

This was no case of petty corruption of the kind that forced Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation. This was a matter of war and peace. Thousands have died. There is no end in sight.

Recommendation #1

We recommend that you call an abrupt halt to attempts to prove Vice President Cheney "not guilty." His role has been so transparent that such attempts will only erode further your own credibility. Equally pernicious, from our perspective, is the likelihood that intelligence analysts will conclude that the way to success is to acquiesce in the cooking of their judgments, since those above them will not be held accountable. We strongly recommend that you ask for Cheney's immediate resignation.

The Games Congress Plays

The unedifying dance by the various oversight committees of the Congress over recent weeks offers proof, if further proof were needed, that reliance on Congress to investigate in a non-partisan way is pie in the sky. One need only to recall that Sen. Pat Roberts, Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has refused to agree to ask the FBI to investigate the known forgery. Despite repeated attempts by others on his committee to get him to bring in the FBI, Roberts has branded such a move "inappropriate," without spelling out why.

Rep. Porter Goss, head of the House Intelligence Committee, is a CIA alumnus and a passionate Republican and agency partisan. Goss was largely responsible for the failure of the joint congressional committee on 9/11, which he co-chaired last year. An unusually clear indication of where Goss' loyalties lie can be seen in his admission that after a leak to the press last spring he bowed to Cheney's insistence that the FBI be sent to the Hill to investigate members and staff of the joint committee--an unprecedented move reflecting blithe disregard for the separation of powers and a blatant attempt at intimidation. (Congress has its own capability to investigate such leaks.)

Henry Waxman's recent proposal to create yet another congressional investigatory committee, patterned on the latest commission looking into 9/11, likewise holds little promise. To state the obvious about Congress, politics is the nature of the beast. We have seen enough congressional inquiries into the performance of intelligence to conclude that they are usually as feckless as they are prolonged. And time cannot wait.

As you are aware, Gen. Brent Scowcroft performed yeoman's service as National Security Adviser to your father and enjoys very wide respect. There are few, if any, with his breadth of experience with the issues and the institutions involved. In addition, he has avoided blind parroting of the positions of your administration and thus would be seen as relatively nonpartisan, even though serving at your pleasure. It seems a stroke of good luck that he now chairs your President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board

Recommendation #2

We repeat, with an additional sense of urgency, the recommendation in our last memorandum to you (May 1) that you appoint Gen. Brent Scowcroft, Chair of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board to head up an independent investigation into the use/abuse of intelligence on Iraq.

UN Inspectors

Your refusal to allow UN inspectors back into Iraq has left the international community befuddled. Worse, it has fed suspicions that the US does not want UN inspectors in country lest they impede efforts to "plant" some "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, should efforts to find them continue to fall short. The conventional wisdom is less conspiratorial but equally unsatisfying. The cognoscenti in Washington think tanks, for example, attribute your attitude to "pique."

We find neither the conspiracy nor the "pique" rationale persuasive. As we have admitted before, we are at a loss to explain the barring of UN inspectors. Barring the very people with the international mandate, the unique experience, and the credibility to undertake a serious search for such weapons defies logic. UN inspectors know Iraq, know the weaponry in question, know the Iraqi scientists/engineers who have been involved, know how the necessary materials are procured and processed; in short, have precisely the expertise required. The challenge is as daunting as it is immediate; and, clearly, the US needs all the help it can get.

The lead Wall Street Journal article of April 8 had it right: "If the US doesn't make any undisputed discoveries of forbidden weapons, the failure will feed already-widespread skepticism abroad about the motives for going to war." As the events of last week show, that skepticism has now mushroomed here at home as well.

Recommendation #3

We recommend that you immediately invite the UN inspectors back into Iraq. This would go a long way toward refurbishing your credibility. Equally important, it would help sort out the lessons learned for the intelligence community and be an invaluable help to an investigation of the kind we have suggested you direct Gen. Scowcroft to lead.

If Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity can be of any further help to you in the days ahead, you need only ask.

Ray Close, Princeton, NJ
David MacMichael, Linden, VA
Raymond McGovern, Arlington, VA

Steering Committee Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

@ KyKilBly...I'd be slightly curious to hear your definition of Communism...well, not really. I would like to encourage you to see "Control Room", the documentary which I alluded to above. Couldn't do any harm, right? After which you might feel that you are not so much sick of the crappy news you are getting, you are sick from the crappy news you are getting.

^^ Has nothing to do with losing the CURRENT war in Iraq. Typical democrat side job. WE ARE WINNING THE WAR IN IRAQ, isnt that what this post is about?

We have not seen true communism as Marx wanted it. It has never really existed. The former Soviet Union was a mere fascist state as is/was China.

Hell, the US is becoming more and more communist by the day. Free medical care for illegal aliens and the like. Things are going to change though. Alito will be voted in. The 6th district (Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Ohio) has 6 or 7 new judiciaries... XD