I hope it's true. I also hope he's not doing it at Cheney's bidding to free up resources for an attack on Iran. That sounds completely crazy to me but I think Cheney's been completely crazy for awhile now.

And now Perfect leaves with Robert Gate's integrety in his back pocket. Oops. Gate's only accepted his resignation because those awful Dems would criticize him for not standing up to the President.

How about calling it the "White House Report on the Surge"?

Posted by: Himself
Date: August 24, 2007 9:41 AM
***************************************
Well, to truly provide counter spin one might call it the "White House Report on the Escalation"

It is funny (actually not so) how “surge” is widely accepted instead of escalation. What about invasion and occupation? How about that old Patriot Act. And just who in Iraq should be labeled with the venerable title of Freedom Fighters? Which side?

About the picture... are we sure the picture in this article is really Pace? The general pictured is a one star, so this is either a really old picture, or it's not him.

Regretably, today's generals are little more than political hacks! Every one of them appear to be looking out for their own careers, rather than the benefit of the troops. They all paint a rosy picture of how well the war is going, something they don't even believe themselves, and ever on the look out not to say anything that will preclude there pinning on another star. Gone are the days when the respected generals cared more for the troops then their own careers. Those days are not likely to return unless the present crop of "star gazers" are fired, resign, or deceased. Note that I did not say "have a change of mind" for that is synonymous with fired!

I have admired Peter Pace since he stood up to the demented and depraved pervert Rumsfeld against torture. I think that Gen. Pace has held off the attack on Iran until now and that we have a lot to thank him for. Gates is an iran-contra criminal.

Gen. Pace's facial expressions of extreme sorrow have always seemed more appropriate to the tragedy that has overtaken our country and Iraq and the countless deaths and maiming by the insane cabal than bush's smirking which is shared by the demented karl rove and gonzales.

General Pace standing up now is showing immense courage and we need to finally get a clue and support those who have been working on our behalf against very dangerous and powerful reptiles.

Dual chains of command?

Something seems to be seething beneath the Administration's surface. Remember that JCS Chief Gen. Pace has publicly scoffed at the idea of attacking Iran. In SecDef Robert Gates' confirmation hearings, Gates displayed the capacity to foresee the disastrous consequences of a U.S. attack on Iran, including the closing of the Straits of Hormuz by the Iranians and the incitement of even greater regional turmoil.

Yet shills such as Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner (“Baghdad Bergner”--assigned out of the Cheney/Bush NSC) and the bullet-skulled Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno (former commander of the Fourth Infantry Division, widely reputed for its heavy-handed, counter-productive occupation of the area around Tikrit) now sit in the Green Zone in Baghdad to promulgate the propaganda devised by VP Dick Cheney and David Addington, Cheney's Chief of Staff. The thrust of the propaganda is to justify the “surge” and also seems to be to lay the groundwork to justify attacking Iran.

Bergner and Odierno just make stuff up—such as their claim that EFPs are being supplied by Iran to one and all in Iraq. The credulous stenographers hunkered down in the Green Zone, such as Michael Gordon (who is to Iran as Judith Miller was to Iraq) of the NYT, obeisantly xerox the fabrications and without scrutiny report them as fact.

It almost seems as though there are two separate military chains of command: one leads directly from Cheney's office down through Gen. Petraeus to these PR people (Odierno and Bergner) in Baghdad. The other, competing, chain of command seems to go through SecDef Gates down through the JCS and to the rest of the regional commands. These military professionals have been skeptical about the "surge" in Iraq from the get-go, and they are smart enough to comprehend the consequences of starting another war in the region.

An exception to this chain of command under Gates may be the Special Operations Command, which shows some evidence of having the particular attention of Cheney and Addington (as in the seizure of five Iranian officials at the Iranian diplomatic facility in Irbil, Iraq in January and in the kidnapping of an Iranian Second Secretary Jalal Sharafi in Baghdad in February). It is hard to imagine that someone of Gates' sophistication would have permitted such provocative Special Forces operations, had he known about them in advance.

So let us watch the testimony of Secretary Gates and of Gen. Petraeus very closely in September. Will they make different assessments on the prospects of the "surge"? If the topic of Iran comes up, will Gates express skepticism about the wisdom of launching another preemptive war? Let us also watch very carefully what Gen. Pace and the other Joint Chiefs say publicly. Oh yes, and watch everyone's body language and candor in responding to questions.

If there are clear differences between the testimony of SecDef Gates and and that of Gen. Petraeus, we can probably assume that the remaining reality-based voices for sanity have not been totally extinguished in this Administration, and that it may yet be possible to silence the drumbeat for war with Iran.

However, if Gates and Petraeus sing in perfect unison and include “Iran” in the lyrics, we can probably assume that VP Cheney has consolidated his power, is totally ascendant, and has decided to march the country into yet another preemptive war of choice. President Bush, supported by an exceptionally weak personal staff made even weaker by the departure of Karl Rove, will continue to take his policy guidance more or less exclusively from Cheney and and Addington and will continue to serve as the Administration's front-cover Alfred E. Neuman.

In that case, be prepared to bet long on oil futures and short on everything else.

Why is he telling us that NOW -- on his way out, just like Tenet?

http://osi-speaks.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-general-pace-on-his-way-out-as-jcos.html#links

It looks as though the ONE requirement for anyone to rise to the level of leadership in this counrty anymore is to shed any semblance of honesty, integrity, and concern of our nation. If we vote anyone into office this next election with previous national experience, I believe we are doing nothing more than supporting the downhill slide we are now in.

The mobs which have been up there inducting new members, giving them control over their districts, and letting them know how to vote in order to not "rock the boat too much" need to be extricated, and the only way to do it is to get rid of the ones who remain in office, pacifying the common folk they are actually destroying.

I believe Hoagland's article on TPM was correct when he said

"The need to protect the White House, the Pentagon and both major political parties from greater Iraq fallout explains much of the blame being dumped on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at this late date -- even though his deficiencies and close links to Iran and Syria were clearly visible when the administration helped install him in the job in 2006."

It's about protecting those at the top who started this mess, not the common folk. It's about making sure the pigs on the farm, when this is over, are still in charge and more equal... and democracy be damned...

Oh _this_ ought to be good:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/24/us.iraq/index.html
An Army 2-star (MG Lynch, of the Multi-National Division) was asked about Warner's idea to start bringing troops back by Xmas, and shot it down as being "a giant step backwards". 'Course, he probably didn't know Pace was going to start talking reduction too. Or maybe he did, and Lynch is bucking for a promotion by backstabbing a guy who's on his way out. Either way, I bet there's a lot of cursing going on inside the E-ring this morning...

Nelly-Bly, I saw Lt. Col. Nagl on the Daily Show last night.

He wouldn't answer Jon Stewart's last question on the percentage of the insurgency made up by al-Qaeda. I think he probably lied when he said the number is classified b/c I have seen gov't estimates before. They have been around 10%, an extraordinarily inconvenient number for the Bush admin.

I think that proves that he was there for propaganda purposes and nothing else.

Stewart got a few good questions in there, esp. the question on the political situation in Iraq making the military performance irrelevant, but I can't believe he didn't ask the obvious question, "This manual calls for many, many more soldiers to fight an insurgency than we currently have or have ever had in Iraq. Please explain."

Gen. Pace is history.The only way to judge this lastest call for reduction is to wait for the Medal of Freedom award. If he gets it ,this is Bush talking.If he doesn't get the medal ole Pete is finally thinking of his men.

Punchy there's a nice graph showing dips to 115,000 and surges to 160,000 before (like during the purple finger election). We've lowered and raised them a number of times.

It is sometimes the most noble military action to assess the need for pull-out from an ill begotten, bankrupt enterprise.
A total bill of goods was pandered to yank our young into this horrific quagmire.
The military mucks, of all people, ought not be able to kid themselves into such bloody costly business.
Hell.
I have to pinch myself to make sure I haven't dropped into the middle ages every morning.

bob at 12:36 PM-

I fully agree with you. I suspect that Rove tried to make the rational political argument and lost the argument for Bush's brain to Cheney and Addington. Having lost the power struggle, Rove was left with no option but to "spend more time with his family" in Texas.

Rove, not being stupid, could surely see that if Cheney and Addington fulfill their neocon death wish to launch a preemptive war against Iran, the Bush Administration would not merely go down in history as a failure, but, once the predictable and unintended consequences of such a war work themselves out, a cataclysmic failure.

Examples of what may well be in store:

--$100+ a barrel oil

--skyrocketing energy costs shocking an already fragile U.S. economy into deep recession

--a potentially transformational 2008 election driving the corporatist/evangelical/racist/interventionist G.O.P. alliance out of power for a generation

--intensifying regional conflict in the Gulf, with a good chance that by soliciting covert or even overt assistance from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, especially Russia and China,
Iran will manage to sustain itself and avoid overall defeat and an American occupation of oil-rich Khuzestan

--a growing conviction in European capitals (except perhaps for Poland, Latvia, and the Czech Republic) that the U.S. is indeed led by madmen and that Europe must extricate itself from being bound to U.S. policy and must look for more collaborative relationships with Russia and China

--a fear by Japan that the U.S. is incapable of rational, predictable behavior, and therefore that Japan either must build its own nuclear deterrent or come somehow to a reliable long-term understanding with Russia and China to preserve its economic and security interests

--a collapse of many of the medieval, authoritarian Sunni monarchies throughout the Middle East and North Africa, and perhaps even of the brittle and ruthless Mubarak regime in Egypt

--accelerating disintegration in Pakistan, with Musharraf and the Pakistani Army using the escalating conflict in the Gulf as an excuse to resist a return to a genuine parliamentary system under Benazir Bhutto's Sind-based Pakistan People's Party and Nawaz Sharif's Punjab-based Muslim League (indeed, Iran, if it so chose, could be a disruptive influence in Pakistani Baluchistan)

--an accelerated resurgence of the Taliban (and the real al-Qaeda) in Afghanistan, as U.S. efforts are diverted once again from the real "war on terror" and into Iran

--perhaps even increasing calls for new international institutions and banking structures to move away from over-dependence on dollar transactions in international trade and capital flows.

You and others surely have some other possible consequences to add to this admittedly cursory list.

I suspect that Rove, who, unlike his intellectually impaired and millennialist boss, is capable of thinking a couple of moves ahead, had a few nightmares involving such scenarios before he was forced to abandon his patron to the undiluted neocon charms of Cheney and Addington.

Why is he "Perfect Pete" Pace?

Oh I see: He polishes the knobs so carefully...

To FMArouet:
Voltaire couldn't have summarized it any better!
Thanks!

Help General Pace find his missing Gonads!
http://conspiracytheorysatire.blogspot.com/2007/08/help-general-pace-find-his-gonads.html

Mais, oui! C'est Perfumed Prince Peter Pace. What a stinker.

Mais, oui! C'est Perfumed Prince Peter Pace. What a stinker.