Rep. Harman, as a constituent of yours, Manhattan Beach, perhaps this question won't fall on deaf ears. Is it possible, when on the floor of the House for a Democrat to rise immediately following a floor speech by a Republican and speak directly to what was just said rather than the standard practice of simply delivering her prepared speech. Rebuttal on the evening news or the Sunday talk-shows just doesn't cut it.

Hey, if Pete and Rick want to go Iraq and dig for WMD gold, I say: "Bon Voyage!!!"

Have questions about the Cafe? Try here.

Keep on pointing out what matters and what is a charade.

Now back to your Sept 30 2005 post  "View from Iraq," following your trip there. Below is what you wrote back then, where are you now?? 

My message to senior officials was that the US is running out of time to get it right in Iraq and risks losing the hearts and minds of the American public.

I calculate 3 months - culminating with the December 15 election - to persuade the American public that real progress is being made and there is a success strategy in sight.

1.    Get the power on. ...Maximum effort must be made now to secure the power grid and keep it running.

2.    Get the oil out.  Oil exports are lower today than when Saddam was in charge - an enormous missed opportunity to develop resources to pay for Iraq's reconstruction.

3.    Get the government ministries going. ...If a new Iraqi government is to function after December 15, it will have to know how to deliver services and security.

4.    Get Zarqawi.

We can help Iraqis develop a multi-ethnic, pro-democratic government there but these next three months [written in Sept 2005] may be our last shot

Status and your Approach in June 2006???

# 4 is done, but there are questions as to the impact.

As to electricity, oil and functionning government ministries progress is nil or minimal. Setting aside the military departure timetable what about a timetable for electricity, oil and  ministries delivering services??

But how many people are actually tuned into the floor speeches?

The idea I had, that may make the news and highlight the lack of debate, would be to just read some book on the floor. I suggest, Jane Austen but that's just because I'm reading a book about her writing.

I'm w/ you on redeployment. [My frustration is that this Administration is adamant about no timetable when in fact at some point there has to be a drawdown schedule, we won't depart en masse one night!]

How do you plan to counter what I see as the Administration saying they aren't withdrawing when they are just finessing words?? New rotations will be such that they will "replenish" in decreasing amounts. Voila - never withdrew but the number of troops will go down.

As you speak where is the message to the country that the lack of progress leads you to keep resetting the starting point of what needs to happen in X months. What follows is at least the 2nd starting point but I'll guess is probably the 3rd or more:

[June 2006] "In my view, we have 3 to 6 months to advance 3 main objectives:

• Helping the new Iraqi government provide electrical power, particularly in Baghdad, and deliver other critical economic and social services to the Iraqi people.
  
• Supporting the Iraqi government in its effort to disarm Shiite militias and integrate them into a trained Iraqi national security force.
  
• Continuing the process, begun by U.S. Ambassador Khalilzad, of obtaining buy-in from Sunni political leaders.

Thanks for coming to the online forums to talk. Too many guests engage in 1 way "communication."

Wow...  I think this is NEWS, except Rumsfeld just had the sequence wrong.

This must be what Rumsfeld was talking about in his March 30, 2003 statement:

"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

[my emphasis added]

Rep. Pete Hoekstra and Senator Rick Santorum must simply look to help out Rumsfeld here (though a little late).  Rumsfeld probably didn't have time to read the "Army report that described roughly 500 munitions containing 'degraded' mustard or sarin gas, all manufactured before the 1991 gulf war and found scattered through Iraq since 2003."  If Rumsfeld had read it he surely would have defended himself more vigorously when confronted with his, "We know where they are", quote a couple months back.  Right?

Or, maybe this is Snews: Somewhat - North, East, West, South

YEP, just Snews!

_________________________________________________________

“I, ..., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic..."

..."north, east, west, and south"...

Dang... and all this time I thought that's what Rummy responded with when questioned about where the WMDS were located.... Hmmmm...

Now... This damn "Much ado about nothing..." by the Republican Mutt & Jeff clowns is so reminiscent of the story about the mortar shells unearthed at a road building site in southern Iraq in 2004 that were nothing more than leftovers from the '88-'89 Iran/Iraq war... Just one more story to place on the Bullsh!t pile...

Mustard gas found by Iraq weapon hunters

Guardian Unlimited ^ | January 11, 2004 | Paul Harris

Dozens of mortar rounds believed to be armed with mustard gas have been discovered buried in Iraq, Danish troops said yesterday. If confirmed, the find will be the first discovery of chemical munitions in Iraq by coalition forces scouring the country for the weapons of mass destruction used as justification for the US-led invasion. 'All the instruments showed indications of the same type of chemical compound, namely blister gas,' the Danish Army said in a statement on its website. Final test results will be announced within two days. However, the find of a small amount of mortar shells is unlikely...

News is from the plural of "new." As in, "here are the new-s."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News#Etymology

Howard,  Great post, but you could have saved yourself a lot of time by just posting this:

Obi-Wan Rove: These aren't the threats you are looking for.

Media: These aren't the threats we are looking for. Move along.

That really says it all!  But I have a couple of humble additions:

How about Yoda-wannabe-cheney: 

"Certain we are, there are WMD's."  and

"Last throes they are in, the insurgents."

         and a final abomination:

"The Force can be used for good or evil, SO LET'S GO WITH THE EVIL, CAUSE IT IS SO MUCH MORE PROFITABLE FOR US!

Jan Knaus

OK, he is "only" a fool, but he is also a total son-of-a-bitch selfish idiot, and he will never hold office again. His "constituents" are wise to him, and he has no power left. It will be kinda fun finding out how he ends up making a living.

Did someone say "consultant?" "lobbyist?" For either job you have to have access to power. This guy is such a loser, I can't imagine anyone hiring him to intercede on their behalf.

Jan Knaus

Press Release: January 16, 2004

Harman Calls on President to Restore Faith in Intelligence Community in State of the Union Address

Calls 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq a “flawed document”-

“Having studied the 19 volumes of source materials that went into the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, and having read that NIE carefully, my conclusion is it was a significantly flawed document,”

“I believe that unanswered questions regarding the accuracy and reliability of U.S. intelligence have created a credibility gap and left the nation in a precarious position. The Intelligence Community seems to be in a state of denial and the administration seems to have moved on,” said Harman. “These actions imperil national security.”

Divided Congress debates Iraq war
Senate rejects pullout of troops by year's end

“The weapons weren't there, but American troops still are,” said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice. “Our action in Iraq created a failed state and, tragically, our post-war mission, as presently defined, cannot succeed.”
-San Diego Tribune,June 16, 2006

OH, My God! I didn't see that coming! You are probably right! And right after that he will get the Medal of Freedom, (and thus finish the debasement [of that former honor] for all times.)

You are probably right, but I sincerely hope you are wrong on this one.

LET THE BULLSHIT SOAR.............

Jan Knaus

Good God, Dave, you've just disloged an old memory...a childhood Walt Kelly moment:

Pogo: "Snew?" 

Albert: "Yeah, what's snew with you?"

Was that I Go Pogo? 

Neoboho

Snewze, then, could be a boring newscast.

I have had dislodged an old story set with a group of doctors in a pub. One is an infectious disease specialist with a superb reputation in tropical diseases, the interns and residents rapt at his words.

Specialist: "And there I was, faced with the worst outbreak of yaws I'd ever seen."

Intern: "Doctor, what's yaws?"

Specialist: "A pint of best bitter, with my thanks."

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

While we're discussing WMD, let me express a pet peeve on the subject, the accepted use of the phrase. For those of us who lived through either WWII, or the Cold War, a WMD is what was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and their technological decendents. We saw the destruction they caused, and lived with the fear of a nuclear holocaust brought on by politicians whose fear overcame reason. The term WMD came into common use during the Middle East War and spread widely during the Iraq Invasion of Bush II. It is being used to give the horror rightly attributed to nuclear weapons to chemical and biological weapons. That's why we were threatened with a 'mushroom cloud' if we failed to give George Bush the go ahead to attack Iraq. Chemical and biological weapons, while horrible, are not the widespread, weapons of massive destruction that nuclear weapons are. They are largely contained to the much smaller area that a conventional explosive can affect. It was, and is, highly unlikely that Iraq had a real nuclear program, but by attaching the horror of them to the chemical and biological weapons, which were more likely to be found in some fashion, under the umbrella term of WMD, they were able to use a greater fear to start this war. Just another example of misleading the public.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

Would that Representative Harmon had voted not to give Bush the authority to go to war, then we wouldn't be here now discussing the uses terrorists might put clorox to.

That "total son-of-a-bitch" will easily, if he falls out of the Senate, fall into the arms of K Street and probably command as much as $1,000,000/year in salary. There are around 44,000 of the influence hawkers in DC today - more than double the number in 2000. They easily earn $300,00/year which is 100% more than they earned in 2000. One prominent lobbyist said it all, "Washington has become a profit center." Santorum's recent WMD statement got him on the front page and certainly endeared him to the war-profiteers whose numbers are legion on K Street. He's no fool.

"In my view, we have 3 to 6 months to advance 3 main objectives:

* Helping the new Iraqi government provide electrical power, particularly in Baghdad, and deliver other critical economic and social services to the Iraqi people.
* Supporting the Iraqi government in its effort to disarm Shiite militias and integrate them into a trained Iraqi national security force.
* Continuing the process, begun by U.S. Ambassador Khalilzad, of obtaining buy-in from Sunni political leaders."

Here is why none of these will be successful - in three or six months or six years:

1) The US has supposedly been "trying" to get electricity for the last three years. What makes you think the US can do it in the next six months? I quote from a 2004 article on the situation:

"According to deputy manager Omair, Iraq has suffered from a shortage of electricity since the 1991 Gulf War during which American pilots bombed power plants. He added that prior to the 1991 war, Iraq was producing 9,500 MW of electricity per day.

"The parts we need come from Italy and Germany," Omair said, "and the security situation has made it more difficult to get these imported."

In addition to sabotage of gas and transmission lines in Iraq, as well a shortage of supplies, the reconstruction problems in Iraq have been underscored by the mass exodus of foreign contractors.

"Bechtel is responsible for the rehabilitation here," Omair explained. "The companies they subcontracted to, Siemens and Babcock, have pulled out their engineers. Without their presence, the Iraqi companies Al-Marjal and United Company, have been unable to do as much work."

Companies that were working on many of the electricity projects include U.S.-based Seimens-Westinghouse, Bechtel, and General Electric, along with two Russian companies, Tekhnopromexport and Inter Energo Servis (IES), according to the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity.

Yet, according to Al-Haris, the acting electricity minister, many of these companies began departing Iraq prior to the invasion in March, 2003 -- well before the most recent round of exits caused by the deteriorating security situation under the U.S. occupation.

"The work in these stations was started during the past regime," Al-Haris said, "but it was stopped before the war when the companies left Iraq, and the work is still stopped." Al-Haris added, "There are tens of trucks stopped on the border of Turkey, Jordan, and Syria, and they cannot enter because of the bad security situation. All the equipment in the trucks is very important to continue our work."

He reported that another problem is the huge consumption of electricity in Iraq and the huge quantity of electrical consumer goods people are buying. He said, "The annual increase of the consumption of the electricity in the entire world is about 3-5 percent, but in Iraq it is 30 percent.""

In other words, Representative Harman, unless you can solve the security situation - which you can't, given the basic nature of the situation - you CANNOT restore electricity to Iraq.

2) How do you "disarm the militia", then give them guns in the "trained national security force"? This in itself makes no sense. Where do you get the notion that the beliefs of a member of a Shia or Sunni or Kurdish militia will be transformed by induction into the national military?

I suggest you read this article by Joe Guthrie in "The American Conservative". It clearly demonstrates that the US is not and has never been training the Iraqi military to be useful to US goals.

3) How do you get buy-in from the Sunnis when the Shia aren't going to allow it until it's clear that the US will pull out and let the Sunni insurgency kill them?

It seems there is some evidence that Zarqawi was handed over to the US by the Sunni insurgency as part of some sort of deal with the Shia government. Stratfor is claiming this, anyway. However, until there are security guarantees for the Sunni by the Shia government - which essentially means the government has to in some manner restrict the actions of the major Shia militias against the Sunnis - it is unlikely that the insurgency will cease.

And certainly the insurgency will NOT cease against US forces until those forces are GONE from Iraq.

And given the permanent military bases the US is building, those US forces will NEVER be gone from Iraq.

In any event, there is little evidence that Khalizad's efforts are in any way useful. What appears to be happening is that the Sunni insurgency believes it has enough clout now - the ability to threaten full-scale civil war - that it can afford to make overtures to the Shia government. This may or may not play out to the advantage of the US in terms of US withdrawal.

I suspect that if the US wishes to hasten its withdrawal, it should make it clear to the Shia government that the US IS going to withdraw by a certain date and that the Shia government had better make a deal with the Sunni FAST if they want to keep breathing after the US leaves. The US should also directly negotiate with the Sunni insurgency on the same basis - "restrain your attacks on the Shia and us AND make a deal with them and we will leave by a certain date".

I have to disagree partially. A useful reality test is whether a hypothetical weapon, for a given weight, to be an ICBM warhead. Such warheads typically are limited in weight to somewhere between 500 and 2000 pounds per warhead. Not all of that weight, of course, is available to the payload.

US ICBMs had only nuclear warheads, although there were studies of biological designs. The USSR appears to have deployed both nuclear and biological warhead, the latter using agents different than those generally considered good military BW. The Soviet BW warheads were intended more as a superweapon blackmail or even "doomsday machine".

The threat of chemical weapons, especially improvised ones, is generally overstated. Indeed, a good point of reference is the accidental release of methyl isothiocyanate at Bhopal, India. While that caused an estimated 3000 deaths and 100,000 long-term injuries, it still was a release of multiton quantities against totally unprepared civilians. I'm far more concerned against attacks on US industrial chemical facilities than use of chemical weapons, which are generally in the danger range of advanced conventional explosives.

With respect to nuclear weapons, remember that there is a considerable range of yields, as well as delivery methods that considerably modify weapons effects. Hiroshima was hit by a low-to-medium airburst of a weapon somewhere in the 16-20 kiloton (kT) range. At one end of the range, there were subkiloton weapons such as the US W54 tactical device, with a yield of around 0.01 kilotons (10 tons). At the other end, there were weapons such as the Soviet Tsar Bomba, which was detonated with a 58 megaton range and is generally believed yield of 100 MT had it had a third stage (U-238 secondary fission reflector).

There is, incidentally, no theoretical limit to the maximum yield of a multistage thermonuclear weapon. Some recent reports with photographs suggest, but do not confirm, that Tsar Bomba was a set of linked bombs in the 10MT or so range. No one has ever tested a greater than three stage (fission-fusion-fission) bomb, but there's no reason why it couldn't be done -- especially if you were a fan of "Space Opera" style science fiction featuring "planet crackers".

In like manner, however, there is no theoretical maximum to the kill power of a biological weapon. In the safety consensus meetings that established the four existing laboratory biosafety levels, there was some discussion of possible experiments too dangerous to be done on the planet at all. The classic example is to introduce the genetic coding to create Type A botulinus toxin into a strain of Escherichia coli that lives in the intestines of most animals. These bacteria could spread through water, rather than the happily restrictive conditions under which Clostridium botulinum reproduces. While I should doublecheck amphibians, this well might get everything from man through reptiles, although it might or might not get Grover Norquist. Some bacteria have standards.

Burst height has a great deal to do with the area and types of structures a nuclear weapon will affect. Medium airbursts would generally kill the most civilians in a city, where it takes a low airburst, ground burst, or subsurface burst for a hard target such as a buried missile silo. There's something called the Mach Effect that establishes some non-obvious relationships between burst type and kinds of damage. Fallout may well be worse from a device used against a hard target, but the area of blast and heat will be much smaller.

The general rule of military biological weapon selection is that they will not spread from person to person, creating self-sustaining epidemics that can blow back on the group launching the weapon. Even within those constraints, anthrax has the unusual property of long-term contamination of an area, where it's often safe to be in the area attacked by other weapons in weeks. The 1942 British test of anthrax on Gruinard Island left areas potentially lethal until major decontamination in 1984.

It appears that the Soviets worked with weaponizing smallpox and Ebola, which can have massive person-to-person spread. The casualties from such weapons, which could have been released at altitudes where they created a large-scale cloud, could have affected areas certainly in square miles, from a weight feasible to put in an ICBM.

Misleading the public? Depends, I suppose, if one ignores the parts of the public with detailed knowledge of weapon engineering. There's little evidence that Saddam was anywhere close to deliverable nuclear or biological systems, certainly against the US.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Don't hold your breath waiting for anything but excuses and rationalizations.

==========================

JANE HARMAN (D-CA)

Top 5 2003-4 Contributors

1 Northrop Grumman
2 Boeing Co
3 K&F Industries
4 Jones, Day et al
5 Blue Dog PAC

==========================

And just for perspective, this is what the products of Rep Harman's top 3 contributors does to a preteen.

Enjoying Your War Yet? There's Lots More Coming!

Yes, Bush 41 "quit" Carlyle but he still maintains a steady stream of cash from the Savior of the conservative movement, Sun Myung Moon.

Here's a question Rep. Harman.

There is NO doubt Moon has been involved in our nation's negotiations with North Korea at least since Bush 41 gave his blessing to a trip to NK by of one of Moon's fronts, the American Freedom Coalition. Moon named the EXACT same six countries involved today in the 'six way talks' back in the 70s saying God was bringing those six together for the "final battle" and that his group would be involved in that “battle.”

Did the “Intelligence” committee ever look into the role Moon played in supplying launch technology to the North Korteans when members of Moon’s organization middle manned the deal which sent “scrap” submarines to North Korea?

Read some about that here:
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=9868

Moon wants Korea to be the center of the world and is NOT on America's side. He uses America like a toy to reach the world - to help him further his plans to make a unified Korea the Unification Church's sovereign nation. Conservatives foolishly bought into Moon's claim of being anti-communist when, in fact, he also wants democracy replaced.

He has literally called his efforts in the USA, "the natural subjugation of the American government and population." READ THAT QUOTE AGAIN, PLEASE.

Moon has outspent Scaife and anyone on the right propping up, promoting right wing theocratic politics in America. He IS the right's political savior. Without him the hard right does NOT control our government. Can you see anything staring you right in the face? Can anyone?

Why has the government, at least not since the 70s, done anything to expose Sun Myung Moon and his organization's VERY successful efforts to mold our nation's politics? He wanted America to become a HARD right wing, homophobic, theocratic nation and 25 years after conservative leaders got in bed with him, look what we've become.

Talk about your national security issue.

Anything in this article below that might wake people up? Moon has played this nation for a bunch of chumps. He is not even a citizen and we sat back and watched him funnel BILLIONS of dollars, much of which the courts in Japan found the Unification Church swindled from the Japanese, into our political system.

We are truly a blind nation.

Quoting Robert Parry:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/061406.html

Over the past quarter century, South Korean theocrat Sun Myung Moon has been one of the Bush family’s major benefactors – both politically and financially – while enjoying what appears to be protection against federal investigations into evidence that his cult-like organization has functioned as a criminal enterprise.

Indeed, the newest disclosure about Moon funneling money to a Bush family entity bears many of the earmarks of Moon’s business strategy of laundering money through a complex maze of front companies and cut-outs so it can’t be easily followed. In this case, according to an article in the Houston Chronicle, Moon’s Washington Times Foundation gave $1 million to the Greater Houston Community Foundation, which in turn acted as a conduit for donations to the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.

The Chronicle obtained indirect confirmation that Moon’s money was passing through the Houston foundation to the Bush library from Bush family spokesman Jim McGrath. Asked whether Moon’s $1 million had ended up there, McGrath responded, “We’re in an uncomfortable position. … If a donor doesn’t want to be identified we need to honor their privacy.”

Everyone has great comments and very legitimate concerns/questions. Congressman Hoekstra obtained the original intelligence report from me. Senator Santorum is being a spokesperson for Congressman Weldon. The information about the 500 shells that has been provided to the American public is very misleading. Congressman Hoekstra, Weldon & Senator Santorum are playing politics with national security. I have updated my website explaining more,Note: I was the first civilian Federal Agent in Iraq and since 2003 I have tried to get politicians to stop playing political games with the security of America. You can view a summary of the Intelligence Report I provided to Hoekstra and Weldon on 16 mar 2006. www.davegaubatz.com thanks, Dave Gaubatz, U.S. Federal Agent (retired)

Is James Baker still Senior Counsel?

Says it all right there.

Guys the reason Dems and Reps BOTH said Saddam was linked to al Qaeda was because he was.

WMD may be a whole different story and may have been handled improperly but there were certainly links between Saddam and al Qaeda and they were solid.

Please take a look at www.regimeofterror.com for info on the topic that is mainly firsthand and exclusive.

My other blog on intelligence/security matters
www.securitywatchtower.com