U.S. Agency Finds New Waste and Fraud in Iraqi Rebuilding Projects

By JAMES GLANZ
Published: February 1, 2007

BAGHDAD, Jan. 31 — A federal oversight agency reported Wednesday that despite nearly $108 billion that had been budgeted for the reconstruction of Iraq since the 2003 invasion, the country’s electrical output and oil production were still below prewar levels and stocks of gasoline and kerosene had plummeted to their lowest levels in at least two years.

'Miserable failure' Bush rehabilitated as Google steps in to defuse the Googlebombs

Nicholas Carr
Thursday February 1, 2007
The Guardian

If you've had occasion to do a Google search on the phrase "miserable failure" over the past few years, you've probably found that the top result is the official site for George W Bush's presidency. It's there because of a campaign of "Googlebombing".

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But last week, after years of taking a fairly laissez-faire attitude toward Googlebombing, Google decided to put an end to the popular sport.

postscript from the Centre for American Progress …..

‘A report released yesterday by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CB) shows that the real troop increase associated with President Bush’s escalation policy could be as high as 48,000, more than double the 21,500 soldiers that Bush has claimed. Moreover, despite administration assertions that the escalation would cost $5.6 billion, the CBO report estimates that "costs would range from $9 billion to $13 billion for a four-month deployment and from $20 billion to $27 billion for a 12-month deployment." The new facts about escalation come just as Congress is set to receive a long-delayed National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq, the first such document from the U.S. intelligence community since 2002. According to the Washington Post, the NIE "outlines an increasingly perilous situation in which the United States has little control and there is a strong possibility of further deterioration."

Combat units being sent to Iraq need to be backed up by "substantial support forces, including personnel to staff headquarters, serve as military police, and provide communications, contracting, engineering, intelligence, medical, and other services.” According to the CBO, while the Pentagon has specified the number of combat troops being deployed as part of the escalation, it has "not yet indicated which support units will be deployed along with the added combat forces, or how many additional troops will be involved." The CBO’s low estimate envisions at least 15,000 additional support personnel. The alternative scenario “would require about 28,000 support troops in addition to the 20,000 combat troops.”

The CBO report appears to contradict testimony to Congress by Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker, who said at a Jan. 23 hearing that the 21,500 increase included four support battalions. “Right now, we do not anticipate there will be increased combat service support requirements over what is now embedded inside of the brigade combat teams we have." But the CBO report considers Schoomaker's claim and rejects it. "Army and DoD officials have indicated that it will be both possible and desirable to deploy fewer additional support units than historical practice would indicate," the report states. "CBO expects that, even if the additional brigades required fewer support units than historical practice suggests, those units would still represent a significant additional number of military personnel." An aide to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) echoed this point. "While Schoomaker initially said it wouldn’t take extra support troops, CBO doesn’t believe that is possible," the aide said.

New estimates of the cost of escalation come on top of the $379 billion that Congress has already appropriated for the Iraq war. Yesterday, the Bush administration announced it will request an additional $100 billion "to cover war operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of this year," about $80 billion of which will be spent on Iraq. "That would come on top of $70 billion Congress already approved for the wars this year." For 2008, the administration will ask for an amount "larger than the $100 billion in the fiscal 2007 request," Reuters reports.

Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski testified yesterday, “If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large." Indeed, U.S. pressure on Iran has increased significantly in recent weeks. The U.S. government has accused Iran of "helping Iraqi militants make lethal bombs to attack US troops," authorized the U.S. military to "kill or capture Iranian military and intelligence operatives inside Iraq," raided an Iranian liaison office in Iraq and detained several diplomats, and dispatched a second U.S. naval carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf. This past week, the Bush administration said it was investigating whether Iranians had trained the attackers who killed five U.S. soldiers in Karbala. (No "direct evidence" exists, only a "working theory" that the Iranians were involved because the attacks were sophisticated. Former CIA official Bruce Riedel calls this argument "a little bit tenuous. The Iraqi insurgency has shown a great deal of sophistication over the last four years.") For all this bluster, Iran is "mentioned but is not a focus" in the new Iraq NIE, and the Los Angeles Times reported that "[e]vidence of Iranian involvement in Iraq’s troubles is limited." Moreover, as a New York Times editorial stated yesterday, while few doubt Iran's malign intent in Iraq, "more threats and posturing are unlikely to get Iran to back down. If Mr. Bush isn’t careful, he could end up talking himself into another disastrous war, and if Congress is not clear in opposing him this time, he could drag the country along."’

no wonder Barney is bolting .....