The Rag Blog

A US government agency that has exposed corruption in Iraqi reconstruction projects will close in 2007.

Washington lawmakers have reacted with shock at the discovery that an obscure clause in a military spending bill will terminate the work of the auditor.

The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has embarrassed the US administration with its reports on corrupt practices.

Critics of the government claim this is what lies behind its sudden closure.

Dogged investigator

Under the direction of Special Inspector General Stuart Bowen, the Office employs 55 auditors and inspectors.

His office has detailed successes among the many reconstruction projects, such as in the rebuilding of infrastructure essential for transport and education.

However, critics of President George W Bush’s Iraq policy seized on the auditor’s conclusion that the overall $20bn (£11.5bn) reconstruction effort was being hampered by inefficiency as well as attacks by insurgents.

The auditor recently reported that a subsidiary of Halliburton, the largest US civilian contractor in Iraq, had withheld information from US officials.

By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer Sat Nov 4, 11:29 AM ET

WASHINGTON – A leading conservative proponent of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq now says dysfunction within the Bush administration has turned U.S. policy there into a disaster.

Richard Perle, who chaired a committee of Pentagon policy advisers early in the Bush administration, said had he seen at the start of the war in 2003 where it would go, he probably would not have advocated an invasion to depose Saddam Hussein. Perle was an assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan.

“I probably would have said, ‘Let’s consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists,'” he told Vanity Fair magazine in its upcoming January issue.

Meanwhile, the Military Times Media Group, a Gannett Co. subsidiary that publishes Army Times and other military-oriented periodicals, said Friday it was calling for Bush to fire Rumsfeld. An editorial due to be published Monday says active-duty military leaders are beginning to voice misgivings about the war’s planning and execution and dimming prospects for success. It declares that “Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large.”

The editorial concludes by saying that regardless of which party wins in next week’s election, the time has come “to face the hard bruising truth: Donald Rumsfeld must go.”

The third and final act in the national tragedy that is the Bush administration may soon play itself out. The Okhrana reports increasing indications of “something big” happening between the election and Christmas. That could be the long-planned attack on Iran.

An attack on Iran will not be an invasion with ground troops. We don’t have enough of those left to invade Ruritania. It will be a “package” of air and missile strikes, by U.S. forces or Israel. If Israel does it, there is a possibility of nuclear weapons being employed. But Israel would prefer the U.S. to do the dirty work.

That this would constitute folly piled on top of folly is no deterrent to the Bush administration. Like the French Bourbons, it forgets nothing and it learns nothing. It takes pride in not adapting. Or did you somehow miss George W. Bush’s declaration of Presidential Infallibility? It followed shortly after the visit to the aircraft carrier with the “Mission Accomplished” sign.

The Democrats taking either or both Houses of Congress, if it happens, will not make any difference. They would rather have the Republicans start and lose another war than prevent a national disaster. Politics comes first and the country second.

Many of the consequences of a war with Iran are easy to imagine. Oil would soar to at least $200 per barrel if we could get it. Gas shortages would bring back the gas lines of 1973 and 1979. Our European alliances would be stretched to the breaking point if not beyond it. Most people outside the Bushbubble can see all this coming.

WASHINGTON (Nov. 4) – Wealthy Americans and legions of small donors are helping finance an onslaught of last-minute political advertising and a fierce voter turnout drive over the next three days, closing out a midterm election that is projected to cost more than $2.6 billion.

Candidates, the national parties and advocacy groups are pumping millions of dollars into a few dozen House and Senate contests that could rearrange the nation’ political power structure.

(Nov. 3) — An ABC News undercover investigation showed Army recruiters telling students that the war in Iraq was over, in an effort to get them to enlist.

ABC News and New York affiliate WABC equipped students with hidden video cameras before they visited 10 Army recruitment offices in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

“Nobody is going over to Iraq anymore?” one student asks a recruiter.

“No, we’re bringing people back,” he replies.

“We’re not at war. War ended a long time ago,” another recruiter says.

Last year, the Army suspended recruiting nationwide to retrain recruiters following hundreds of allegations of improprieties.

One Colorado student taped a recruiting session posing as a drug-addicted dropout.

“You mean I’m not going to get in trouble?” the student asked.

The recruiters told him no, and helped him cheat to sign up.

I feel like a different person, I am now an engulfed by fear & cowardness, I jump at the sound of a squeaking door, I feel like I’m half dead.

I have this feeling of being stalked; it’s like Spiderman when he gets those vibes when danger approaches. Such a terrible feeling, you feel your heart is going to burst out of your chest.

Furthermore this morning, on my way to work I nearly had a car accident, a Black GMC Suburban nearly hit my Car on the Highway, it then swirled towards the pavement and smashed in, I stopped to see what happened, it seems that the driver was shoot seconds earlier while he was driving or something similar, when they pulled him out of the car he was dead due to multiple gun shots.

By Liam Madden, Sergeant USMC

Recently it has come to light that a growing number of active-duty service members are expressing their opposition to the occupation of Iraq.

The main vehicle of this effort has been the appeal for redress, a web site that provides service members a confidential and legal means of communicating their concerns to members of congress.

Throughout the several interviews I have done with various media outlets, a few valid questions have been raised.

“When is it okay for service members to vocally oppose a war? If the troops opposed every conflict we engaged in, then it could seriously undermine the military’s effectiveness.” And “How and why should I help?”

The first question is a legitimate concern for both civilian and military persons interested but not entirely sold on the appeal for redress. Certainly military personnel can’t oppose any conflict for any reason. If we did, the unit cohesion and discipline that makes us so effective would be diminished.

However, there are circumstances which justify and even morally obligate service members to oppose a government policy.

I believe that the criteria for military personnel’s opposition to the Iraq occupation and the rationale that makes our grievance justified are the following:

1) The shifting reasons we initially invaded Iraq. First the claim of WMD’s and then the imaginary links to Al Qaeda, how long can either the incompetence of our policy makers, or possibly worse, their deceit be tolerated?

When will we decide to do what we do best, stand up and defend our principles?

BAGHDAD, Nov 2 (Reuters) – A senior U.S. general compared Iraq on Thursday to a “work of art” in progress, saying it was too soon to judge the outcome and playing down violence and friction with Iraqi leaders as “speed bumps” on the road.

“A lump of clay can become a sculpture, blobs of paint become paintings which inspire,” Major General William Caldwell, chief military spokesman, told his weekly Baghdad news briefing.

“The final test of our efforts will not be the isolated incidents reported daily but the country that the Iraqis build.”

Three-and-a-half years after the U.S.-led invasion, President George W. Bush is under intense pressure over his Iraq policy ahead of next week’s Congressional elections where polls show he could lose control of both houses halfway through his second term in office.

Rising U.S. casualties and spiralling sectarian violence and insurgent attacks that kill hundreds of Iraqi civilians every week have sparked heated debate in the United States over whether Iraq is descending into civil war.