Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

The Next Iraqi Occupation
cross posted at firedoglake

We learned this week that in January 2003, George W. Bush was set
on preemptive war. WMDs didn't have anything to do with it.

Yet in early March 2003, Bush went on national TV and said it was up
to Saddam as to whether there would be war.

We know President Bush said, \”We
do not torture.\” Yet, we have the pictures, the horror stories and
the ill will to prove that we have indeed been involved with torturing people.

We heard Bush say, \”I
don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.\” Then we
saw the videotape.

We heard Bush on April 20, 2004, say that \”a
wiretap requires a court order.\” Yet we know our president has been
illegal wiretapping American citizens.

We learned this week, through Murray Waas, that President Bush knew all along
that there was no uranium from Niger. But that didn't stop our president from
using information he knew to be false in his state of the union speech.

Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser,
cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election
prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had
been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged
within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal
review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser
Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that
claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address — that Iraq was
procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon — might
not be true, according to government records and interviews. Insulating
Bush, by Murray Waas

On Iraq, Bush has said time and again that when the Iraqis stand up, we will
stand down. But then, just recently, our president started talking about the
next president taking over where he left off, with withdrawal coming after 2009.

Now, the press is slowly starting to focus on what's been building for months
and months. A serious, U.S. foot print in the Iraqi desert meant to take over
where our carriers in the Persian Gulf leave off. Huge bases are being constructed,
as large as 19 square miles.

Anthony Zinni,
who will be a guest tomorrow on \”Meet
the Press\” (Zinni will be on with Senator Suck Up), had this to say
about it.

\”It's a stupid idea and clearly politically unacceptable,\”
Zinni, a former Central Command chief, said in a Washington interview. \”It
would damage our image in the region, where people would decide that this\”
— seizing bases — \”was our original intent.\”

We know that redeployment has become the word of 2006, which started with the
Democrats,
Jack Murtha and continuing through this week with the \”Real
Security\” plan, which commits to rebuilding our military, doubling
Special Forces, securing loose nukes, committing to American security, which
includes getting a 21st energy plan kicked into high gear.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush says we're going to stand down when the Iraqis ready.
The rumors began long
ago. But there still isn't a government, while the U.S. is strengthening
bases in the Iraqi desert at Al-Asad,
Balad and Tallil.

Does anyone really know what's going on in Iraq right now? And even if the
president told us, could we believe him?