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September 28, 2006
WB: Help is on the way
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anna missed adds a link to: Skullduggery in the Pentagon’s Budget
From TPM
Veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward tells Mike Wallace that the Bush administration has not told the truth regarding the level of violence, especially against U.S. troops, in Iraq. He also reveals key intelligence that predicts the insurgency will grow worse next year. Wallace’s interview with Woodward will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Oct. 1 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
According to Woodward, insurgent attacks against coalition troops occur, on average, every 15 minutes, a shocking fact the administration has kept secret. “It’s getting to the point now where there are eight, 900 attacks a week. That’s more than a hundred a day. That is four an hour attacking our forces,” says Woodward.
The situation is getting much worse, says Woodward, despite what the White House and the Pentagon are saying in public. “The truth is that the assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the president and you have the Pentagon [saying], ‘Oh, no, things are going to get better,’” he tells Wallace. “Now there’s public, and then there’s private. But what did they do with the private? They stamp it secret. No one is supposed to know,” says Woodward.
Posted by: beq | Sep 28 2006 18:43 utc | 2
Air Force Jet Wins Battle in Congress
The Senate is scheduled to vote this week on the $447 billion Pentagon budget for 2007, which contains a measure promoted by backers of the F-22 that could extend the jet’s production run beyond its 2011 termination date and reduce Congressional oversight of the program.
On Monday, after negotiations in a Senate-House conference committee, the F-22 measure was put into the final Pentagon budget, which the full House passed on Tuesday.
The measure could open the door to additional F-22 purchases above the 183 budgeted by the administration and could extend the life of the program a few years by using a multiyear procurement contract rather than subjecting the F-22 to annual Congressional review.
…
The plane’s “fly-away” cost, equivalent to the sticker price in a car, is $130 million. But if development costs are included and spread over the 183 planes in the program, the total cost to the government rises to $350 million per plane.
Critics say the F-22 represents technological overkill at a time when United States air superiority is unquestioned and the nature of warfare has changed. It was originally designed for aerial combat against the Soviets. Today, one of its biggest critics is the Government Accountability Office, which in July issued a report saying, “The F-22 acquisition history is a case study in increased cost and schedule inefficiencies.”
It is not that there is no money in the budget. It just does not go where it could be used “sensible”. The “lack of budget” is a scam – and only a scam. The Army could let go of its idiot FCS plans, the Air Force of its F-22 idiocity and the Navy of its useless missile subs.
But as a General looking for an extended and very valuable position as an industry consultant after ending their “service” time, there is no use in paying for grunts – only for “programs”.
Though I’ve said it many times before, I feel a need to repeat myself–if onloy to remind myself of what it was that I was saying.
There’s only one campaign that counts, and it’s not the election campaign of 2006. It’s the insurgency in Iraq. And why? Because we Americans won’t leave unless driven out by the insurgency. This apparently requires the wreckage of the armed forces on the ground, and of our own government as duly created by the framers of the Constitution–along with the charging of a $1 trillion bill to our offspring.
Okay, that’s a pretty high price to pay, but it’s a deal all the same–the one that will see us driven us into the sea, back across the desert, and onto runways crowded by cargo planes in a headlong, one-way retreat.
Posted by: alabama | Sep 28 2006 20:00 utc | 5
déjeme decirle, a riesgo de parecer ridículo, que el revolucionario verdadero esta guido por grandes sentimientos de amor
— che
señor cheney, usted no es un revolucionario
Posted by: b real | Sep 28 2006 21:04 utc | 7
Billmon – that’s a fantastic photoshopping job.
Just putting the Che in Cheney.
Posted by: Billmon | Sep 28 2006 23:59 utc | 8
Ha! Billmon #8!! That is the first thing that has made me laugh on this dark day.
Posted by: Maxcrat | Sep 29 2006 0:08 utc | 9
I remember reading back during the Gulf War some speculation that Saddam put his army into the desert so that they would be slaughtered. Since the Iran war was over they had become a threat to the regime, as well as an expensive luxury.
It’s not inconceivable that Cheney would like to see foot soldiering outsourced, and the regular Army as competition. It’s a brave new world, my friends.
Posted by: Dick Durata | Sep 29 2006 1:30 utc | 10
Thank you Bernhard,Billmon,and everyone who posts here! Hard times ain’t they! I like to say that I can only hope that I will never have to tell anyone “I told you so”!
Posted by: R.L. | Sep 29 2006 6:04 utc | 12
R.L., the “hard times” will come down in ten to fifteen years, when our children assume positions of political responsibility. What a mess they’ll have on their hands! And they won’t be able to ignore it.
The bill will certainly have to be paid. The best we can do, in our modest bar hereabouts, is to give them the clearest possible record of how we tried to help them in advance, even if we failed. We need to provide them this record, not to make us look good–a total waste of time–but to give them encouragement as they try to sort things out.
Posted by: alabama | Sep 29 2006 6:29 utc | 13
Alabama, I’m with you about the children. Spent some time recently with a few of the 20-year-olds, trying to encourage them to challenge authority.
I do have faith in this coming generation to take their in-built cynicism and our advice to make a better world.
Globalization means equalization, I thought that meant us dropping our standard of living to match the rest of the world, but I neglected that we also have to accept the rest of the world’s tyranny to meander across the meridian to our system … I’m learning a lot right now.
Posted by: jonku | Sep 29 2006 6:57 utc | 14
As Bernhard said, this is ridiculous. The Pentagon budget is already bigger than the military spendings of the rest of the world together. Asking for more, given the near-bankruptcy of the US treasure, is a fucking joke. These bastards should just cut the stupid useless budget of BushCo’s Death Star, or whichever fanciful hi tech projects they have up their sleeve.
But they prefer to ruin the country to fuel their own delusions of invincibility and of Evil Galactic Empire, and to give pork to their friends. This is what’s wrong with the current Army budget.
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Sep 29 2006 7:09 utc | 15
Actually, they have the information but not the ability to analyze.
My nephew’s friend returned from a 7-month tour in Iraq or Afghanistan attached to a US Special Forces group.
Said that his friend reported that he saw mothers with children pull out AK 47s in a crowd, to mowed down by US forces. ? Not sure that’s a true quote or experience. Later in the conversation my nephew said that his friend advised that the only way to win in Afghanistan was to napalm the poppy fields.
Okay, I said. But what do the people of Afghanistan do for a living. Farmers? So burning their fields would do what — make them starve? Or would a season of no crops lead to a better yield the following season.
Another conversation re: the Taliban — didn’t they govern Afghanistan to a certain extent. They did destroy beautiful buddhist statues, they were fundamentalist students (Talib) at one time, trained in Pakistan’s madrassas, oppress women etc., but didn’t they also bring down opium production. So if the farmers weren’t growing opium, were they growing food. Sounds like a good aim for the country to me, eliminating one of the causes of foreign interest there.
It’s clearly complex but engaging with people who have information and opinions is helping me.
Are my ideas above resonant; right or wrong?
A
Posted by: jonku | Sep 29 2006 7:19 utc | 16
The only battle that counts is the War On Climate.
Awful news from NASA’s Jim Hansen in this week’s New Scientist, One Degree And We’re Done For:
Earth is already as warm as at any time in the last 10,000 years, and is within 1 °C of being its hottest for a million years, says Hansen’s team. Another decade of business-as-usual carbon emissions will probably make it too late to prevent the ecosystems of the north from triggering runaway climate change, the study concludes (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 103, p 14288).
This War on Terror crap is the biggest distraction going. Leave the oiil in the ground, for god’s sake.
Posted by: Dismal Science | Sep 29 2006 9:15 utc | 17
The right of the unborn or better said in Latin “nascituri” those that are to be born, that right was taken away and now all the rights of everybody are taken away. We might imagine the abortion permission to be a great mutation and to that mutation we have adapted and this latest adaptation, the elimination of rights, is not unreasonable and by that I mean that one can follow a seamless path of elimination of rights. Who can withdraw all his money from the bank at once? nobody. We are restricted to $500 per day and if we withdraw more than $10000 the federal government is watching us and we become immediately suspects of money laundering or drug dealing. When I go shopping I am watched by cameras because I am suspect of being a thief simply by the fact that I am walking into a store. What can I say of all the details of life that have to be revealed when applying for a job, what about the profuse checking of my credentials when I go to vote, the justification of my charities before the IRS, the criminalization of my right to discipline my children, the elimination of my right to choose an employee, the elimination of my freedom to use whatever words I wish to use and on and on. After all freedom is the possibility to sin. Eliminate that possiblity and freedom has vanished. Didn’t some famous poet make one of his characters say something to the effect that it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven? We cannot constrain our sexual drive and we want to constrain “global warming”. I am in despair but I have come to realize that what drives me into despair is a the necessary development from our drives. We have earned our present condition.
Posted by: jlcg | Sep 29 2006 10:20 utc | 18
“We cannot constrain our sexual drive and we want to constrain “global warming”. I am in despair but I have come to realize that what drives me into despair is a the necessary development from our drives. We have earned our present condition.”
Trouble is; Our sex drive has been hi-jacked by the Multi- National Corporations (Who have gained ‘personhood’ under the constitution). Since they don’t need jiggy joggy they have transmuted it into the lustful acquizition of filthy lucre. What can we do, now that our government has been totally taken over by these asexual preditors?
We (our government) are broke yet corporations are gaining larger profits than ever in history. And. It’s our money they’ve got!
Posted by: pb | Sep 29 2006 16:27 utc | 19
And yet, I have had a Navy Chief claim that things are much better under The Little King, that materials requests are filled and that she no longer has to dumpster dive or pay out of pocket to get stuff.
So go figure.
I truly despise the administration, and I think they are destroying our ground forces … but I’m not in the military, so my POV counts for less than the POVs of those who live it.