Richard Perle descripes the Bush Administration as dysfunctional, withdrawal becoming likely

The war's neocon boosters have turned sharply on the Bush administration, claiming devastating dysfunction within the administration of President George W. Bush.
They now charge that their grand designs have been undermined by White House incompetence.

David Rose of Vanity Fair has spoken to Richard Perle and a number of other persons around the neocon clan about America's involvement in Iraq.
Here's what they told him.

Richard Perle admits huge mistakes were made, and stresses that they were not made by neoconservatives, and almost get into a humane mode saying he underestimated the brutality and depravity. I'm not sure whether he means Iraq or the White House.

"The decisions [in the White House] did not get made that should have been. They didn't get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly.… At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.… I don't think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty."
...
"I'm getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war. I was in favor of bringing down Saddam. Nobody said, 'Go design the campaign to do that.' I had no responsibility for that."

Perle, being the original "Prince of Darkness" is now plagued with doubt. He left Pentagon's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee as chairman in 2004, giving the central reason to "devastating dysfunction within the administration of President George W. Bush."

David Frum, the former White House speechwriter, the co-writer Bush's 2002 State of the Union address that accused Iraq of being part of an "axis of evil", is not lesser hard on his judgement.

"I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything."

Kenneth Adelman, a Pentagon insider who served on the Defense Policy Board until 2005, wellknown for the "cakewalk" quote, has this to say.

"The most dispiriting and awful moment of the whole administration was the day that Bush gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to [former CIA director] George Tenet, General Tommy Franks, and [Coalition Provisional Authority chief] Jerry [Paul] Bremer - three of the most incompetent people who've ever served in such key spots. And they get the highest civilian honor a president can bestow on anyone! That was the day I checked out of this administration. It was then I thought, There's no seriousness here, these are not serious people. If he had been serious, the president would have realized that those three are each directly responsible for the disaster of Iraq."

Michael Ledeen, the controversial American Enterprise Institute freedom scholar:

"Ask yourself who the most powerful people in the White House are. They are women who are in love with the president: Laura [Bush], Condi, Harriet Miers, and Karen Hughes."

Ledeen himself is a accused by opponents of being involved in the forgery which claimed that Saddam Hussein had bought yellowcake in Niger. Being a scholar on Italian fascism, he is believed to have shady right-wing Italian connections - including alleged ties to the P2 masonic lodge that rocked Italy in the early 1980s. He is described as "the most influential and unabashed warmonger of our time", quoted for "the level of casualties (in Iraq) is secondary".

Other harsh quotes by Ledeen

Frank Gaffney, an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan and founder of the Center for Security Policy:

"[Bush] doesn't in fact seem to be a man of principle who's steadfastly pursuing what he thinks is the right course. He talks about it, but the policy doesn't track with the rhetoric, and that's what creates the incoherence that causes us problems around the world and at home. It also creates the sense that you can take him on with impunity."

Eliot Cohen, director of the strategic-studies program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and member of the Defense Policy Board says

"I wouldn't be surprised if what we end up drifting toward is some sort of withdrawal on some sort of timetable and leaving the place in a pretty ghastly mess.... I do think it's going to end up encouraging various strands of Islamism, both Shia and Sunni, and probably will bring de-stabilization of some regimes of a more traditional kind, which already have their problems.... The best news is that the United States remains a healthy, vibrant, vigorous society. So in a real pinch, we can still pull ourselves together. Unfortunately, it will probably take another big hit. And a very different quality of leadership. Maybe we'll get it."

Note the last two sentencies.

What bugs me is why statements like these go public in the last week up to election.

To me message reads: They don't want GOP to win.


[edit on 6-11-2006 by khunmoon]

Excellent find, Khunmoon, I'm giving you a WATS for this!

It does make one wonder if they had the election in mind when coming forward. In fact, it seems they did. This just blows me away. Here are some other things to take into consideration as well.

- Bush just signed the Military Commissions Act, which among other things, says that Bush can't be charged with war crimes.

-Bush just bought 200,000 acres or so in Paraguay.

Now, taken with this new info, I'm wondering this: Does Bush know something we don't? i.e. is he afraid of being brought to justice over his war crimes becauase he thinks the Dems will take the House or Senate in the election? Either way, it seems that the rats are deserting the sinking ship rapidly. I wouldn't be surprised if the 2006 ended up not being rigged, if indeed Bush has no support. There are so many implications to this, but one thing is sure, the ship of state has made a U-turn and is now back peddling.

Rats deserting a sinking ship?

As for the Paraguay land purchase. It just might have something to do with what's under that land. I'm sure the Bush friendly government in Paraguay probably gave them a knock-down price as well for a few favours

Thank you for your confidence, forestlady, much obliged.

You know, articles like this aren't really that hard to come by. I go to truthout.org, it's a site that collects all the news that don't fit the mainstream. When possible I prefer to link via the 'go to original', because I know a lot of people, when they see it's from truthout, are prejudged condamning it to be left-wing.

Maybe it is, but they DO get the Truth out.

Here is one from today, very well supporting my post from yesterday.

www.truthout.org...

This is why I spent the last couple of days focused so heavily on Michael Ledeen's weekend lie in National Review that he "opposed the military invasion of Iraq before it took place" even though he repeatedly wrote and said the exact opposite. It's not because Ledeen himself matters per se, but because this straightforward incident illustrates the dynamic so perfectly.

Ledeen has no compunction at all about blatantly lying even in the face of a literal wave of conclusive evidence showing that he is lying - and his National Review editors such as Rich Lowry are content to remain silent about it because it's not news to them that their magazine is printing demonstrable falsehoods. It doesn't even warrant a response, let alone a correction, retraction or apology. That's because lying has become not only a perfectly acceptable tactic, but one that is central to their movement. Lying is not something they do sometimes It is who they are. Lying is a central and consciously adopted part of their ideology.

The grandfather of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, long ago explained the "justification" for lying in an interview with Reason's Ronald Bailey (h/t Mona):

"There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people ... There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work."

It is from that rotted Stalinist root that the right-wing Ideology of Lying emerged, as embodied by the now-infamous warning issued to Ron Suskind by a Bush "senior advisor" after Suskind wrote an article about Karen Hughes which displeased the Leader: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out."

I not always, but for the last couple of years or so, have said,

Mao would envy the level brainwash today have been brought to in the United States, and Stalin sure gives approval nods from his grave as for the tools applied to it.

[edit on 6-11-2006 by khunmoon]

Richard perle should know about it. He's a contributer. He brought us the Iraqi posterboy Chalabi who fed us disinfo.


Its not that they don't want the GOP to win, its that they want to make sure their butts are padded and they have a way in when the Dems take back power. They aren't taking chances. Playing both sides of the field it seems

Originally posted by forestlady

Now, taken with this new info, I'm wondering this: Does Bush know something we don't? i.e. is he afraid of being brought to justice over his war crimes becauase he thinks the Dems will take the House or Senate in the election? Either way, it seems that the rats are deserting the sinking ship rapidly. I wouldn't be surprised if the 2006 ended up not being rigged, if indeed Bush has no support. There are so many implications to this, but one thing is sure, the ship of state has made a U-turn and is now back peddling.

Uh... didn't you miss something here??

Who put him up to this stuff? who paid his campaign financing? who backed him in the corridors of power? who paid him off? who boosted him in the media? who told him what to do?

Bush is a puppet and Perle and his friends of ISRAEL are the puppet masters.

I would be crying for a bonfire to burn the puppet carvers right now if justice was what mattered instead of political rivalry, but obviously I am in the minority.

Well you are going to see more things coming out from the GOP base as the race for the 2008 elections starts.

Is like everything we are going to hear more blame put on Bush and his administration than anything else.

Because everybody is on a political agenda in Washington.

And after all Bush is not going for re-election.

This election has become a balancing act.

For the candidates to distance themselves from inside spin of the administration, because it is now getting so thick even ordinary people start to see it.
For the fundraisers to keep every door open.

The neocons have become a pawn in a game of their own, now spun out of control.

This analysis Neo-Con Nadir? tries to sort things out.

So many Republican candidates have been distancing themselves from the White House, on Iraq, in particular, that Bush himself was finally forced to abandon his three-year-old "stay-the-course" mantra last week.

Worse, some of the neo-conservatives' former allies have publicly turned on them with a vengeance. Former Secretary of State Al Haig, a strong supporter of going to war in Iraq, shocked many here two weeks ago when he told a widely-viewed CNN Sunday talk show that the war had been "driven by the so-called neo-cons that hijacked my party..."

He referred by name to Richard Perle of the American Enterprise Institute and the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board and former Deputy Defence Secretary (now World Bank President) Paul Wolfowitz, as well as the editorial-page writers of the Wall Street Journal.

And Chalabi is brought on stage again.

"Iran and Turkey, both powerful neighbours of Iraq, must be involved in the process to help Iraq's security situation improve and its democratic process and economy develop," Chalabi told the Associated Press from his home in London last weekend.
...
Yet, Chalabi's view that gaining Iran's cooperation -- through either direct talks or in the context of regional negotiations -- in stabilising Iraq is a sine qua non for U.S. disengagement is increasingly accepted among the policy elite here. They include senior Republicans, such as former deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Dick Lugar, as well as top Democratic lawmakers, most recently the front-runner for the party's 2006 presidential nomination, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Here the grand old man, the grey eminence of American diplomacy, James Baker comes in.

"I believe in talking to your enemies," he said last month after meetings with Damascus' foreign minister and Tehran's U.N. ambassador who reports directly to Iran's Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Baker's words and activities set off a storm of protest by Perle's associates at the American Enterprise Institute, notably Michael Ledeen, who called the former secretary's approach "active appeasement", and Michael Rubin, who warned that "Baker's cold realist calculations may surrender Iraq to Iranian suzerainty."

The dilemma now clearly is Iran. To bomb it or ask for a hand.

This is the scenario GOP is preparing for with one or both houses out of their control.

I would not worry about Iran, you have to understand thier history they are a nation of persians in a land of arabs, Iran is more concerned with thier own borders than attacking us. The same can be said of North Korea, they fear China both have developed Nuclear weapons due to thier fears of thier nieghbors not because they want to fire missles at us. I will say however in true machiavellian strategy the Republicans use this fear to brainwash the public.
What is wrong with people questioning why military leaders speaking out about Bush? While in uniform officers are strictly forbidden to say anything against our leaders and must "tow the line" with white house rhetorics, it is only after they leave service that they get to say what they want ecspecialy now that Bush is on his way out and can not concern himself with targeting these people. You see Bush has "defecated in the punch bowl" as it were by letting Rumsfeld run many generals out of th service like Shinseki and others who were trying to implement new ways of fighting faster and over greater distances there by having fewer troops able to control larger areas well needless to say Rumsfeld scrapped that went with Viet Nam style tactics and now leaves our troops in the middle of a civil war.
Any whooo, Bush needs to be prosecuted for war crimes for ignoring the Geneva convention and I think it says quite alot that he feels he needs to sign legislation that clears him of any charges.

Here's an article that refers back to the initial Vanity feature. Offering an update as to where the neocom movement stands... or lies.. at present.



[edit on 24-12-2006 by khunmoon]

And so the orgy of backbiting starts. I'm wading through these articles and the first thing to strike me is this, from the "Neo Culpa" article in the original post:

an American withdrawal that leaves Iraq as an anarchic "failed state"—is not yet inevitable but is becoming more likely. "And then," says Perle, "you'll get all the mayhem that the world is capable of creating."

Perle was wrong then and he's wrong again. US withdrawal is the sine qua non of Iraq getting back to some kind of normalcy, which will take years, but is more feasible than people think. The insurgency has said that it will stop its violence once the US withdraws. An overwhelming majority of Iraqis want the US out. And yet Perle and his ilk insist on painting a picture of anarchy (which is what exists right now in Iraq anyway) should they withdraw.

I'm not "delphic" but I think things would slowly be put back together once the US left. I'm prepared to admit that this could be a rather simplistic view.

The extent to which Perle weasels is truly disgusting. He STILL believes, in the face of all the evidence, that Hussein could have supplied WMDs to terrorists, or so he says.

And the sight of the neocons blaming Bush for being a simpleton is pathetic beyond measure. They knew he was a simpleton in the first place, they failed to manage him adequately, their plans were ruinous... and now they are the ones to "cut and run" - from the White House, that is.

As for heaping blame on Bremer, that's equally inexcusable. All the nonsense spouted about invading Iraq to bring them freedom and democracy is exposed by looking at what Bremer did - which is exactly what he was supposed to do.

This thread from June 2006 excerpts Greg Palast's book Armed Madhouse and reveals that Jay Garner was sacked by Donald Rumsfeld for promising elections within 90 days. A tight, but possible, deadline, this conflicted with a plan for "selling off" - to US firms at fire-sale prices - Iraq's infrastructure. It was this plan which Bremer was brought in to implement.

But it's this sentence that makes me wonder whether the whole article is disinformation or merely the expression of a nation in denial:

Their dismay extends beyond the tactical issues of whether America did right or wrong, to the underlying question of whether exporting democracy is something America knows how to do.

This is ridiculous. It was obvious to disinterested observers, right from the start, that the US intended to plunder Iraq. The extent to which it has become impossible is their real failure, and the real victory for the Iraqis.

[edit on 27-12-2006 by rich23]