Ken Silverstein, writes in Harper's Magazine:
"During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein's Information Minister became the butt of a million jokes for proclaiming that American soldiers were being routed, even as U.S. troops were quickly closing in on Baghdad. “Their infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad,” Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf—aka Baghdad Bob—said as Saddam's end neared. “Be assured, Baghdad is safe.”
Now, on the subject of Iraq the Bush administration has roughly the same credibility as Baghdad Bob, and for similar reasons: the administration covers its ears when it gets bad news and anyone bold enough to deliver it is sent to face the firing squad. “This administration,” Bob Graham, the former Senator and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told me, “does not seek the truth as a basis for its judgments, but tries to use intelligence to validate judgments it has already made.”
Read the complete piece [here] on how the news getting back to Washington is either not accurate or being heard. It's obvious that George Bush and John Howard have conveniently ignored the carnage and horrors of the Iraq War as they so lavishly patted each other on the back on how great the other is whilst Howard was in Washington.
Meanwhile, in another revelation which will do nothing to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis, The Independent reports:
"A respected Congressman with strong ties to the Pentagon has said that US Marines behaved much worse than previously thought in the Haditha incident in western Iraq last November, in which at least 15 civilians were killed.
Last night, Defence Department officials declined to comment, saying that a criminal investigation was still in progress. But they did not deny claims by John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and former Marine who saw combat in Vietnam, that Marines killed women and children "in cold blood"."
Read the full Independent piece here.
"During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein's Information Minister became the butt of a million jokes for proclaiming that American soldiers were being routed, even as U.S. troops were quickly closing in on Baghdad. “Their infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad,” Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf—aka Baghdad Bob—said as Saddam's end neared. “Be assured, Baghdad is safe.”
Now, on the subject of Iraq the Bush administration has roughly the same credibility as Baghdad Bob, and for similar reasons: the administration covers its ears when it gets bad news and anyone bold enough to deliver it is sent to face the firing squad. “This administration,” Bob Graham, the former Senator and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told me, “does not seek the truth as a basis for its judgments, but tries to use intelligence to validate judgments it has already made.”
Read the complete piece [here] on how the news getting back to Washington is either not accurate or being heard. It's obvious that George Bush and John Howard have conveniently ignored the carnage and horrors of the Iraq War as they so lavishly patted each other on the back on how great the other is whilst Howard was in Washington.
Meanwhile, in another revelation which will do nothing to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis, The Independent reports:
"A respected Congressman with strong ties to the Pentagon has said that US Marines behaved much worse than previously thought in the Haditha incident in western Iraq last November, in which at least 15 civilians were killed.
Last night, Defence Department officials declined to comment, saying that a criminal investigation was still in progress. But they did not deny claims by John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and former Marine who saw combat in Vietnam, that Marines killed women and children "in cold blood"."
Read the full Independent piece here.
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