Iraq

KBR gets awarded a new contract in Iraq, despite being under a criminal investigation for faulty wiring that killed two U.S. soldiers. Maybe the government will contract with that peanut company in Georgia to send products to our troops also.

Now if a Democrat did this the Republicans would be calling for a criminal investigation:

A congressional trip to Iraq this weekend was supposed to be a secret.

But the cat’s out of the bag now, thanks to a member of the House Intelligence Committee who broke an embargo via Twitter.

A delegation led by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, arrived in Iraq earlier today, and because of Rep. Peter Hoekstra , R-Mich., the entire world — or at least Twitter.com readers—now know they’re there.

“Just landed in Baghdad,” messaged Hoekstra, a former chairman of the Intelligence panel and now the ranking member, who is routinely entrusted to keep some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets.

Before the delegation left Washington, they were advised to keep the trip to themselves for security reasons. A few media outlets, including Congressional Quarterly, learned about it, but agreed not to disclose anything until the delegation had left Iraq.

Nobody expected, though, that a lawmaker with such an extensive national security background would be the first to break the silence. And in such a big way.

Not only did Hoekstra reveal the existence of the lawmakers’ trip, but included details about their itinerary in updates posted every few hours on his Twitter page, until he suddenly stopped, for some reason, on Friday morning.

Wow – what an idiot. Perhaps it’s time to reexamine his security clearance credentials.

It seems like it was only two weeks ago we heard how Iraq was the "central front in the war on terrorism". Oh wait - it was! That's what John McCain and Sarah Palin told us, while trying to paint Obama as dangerous threat who didn't understand the wars we are in.

Well now we got the chief spook saying the same thing:

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said yesterday that al-Qaeda remains the single greatest threat to the United States but that Iraq is no longer the central front in the broader war on terrorism.

"Today, the flow of money, weapons and foreign fighters into Iraq is greatly diminished and al-Qaeda senior leaders no longer point to it as the central battlefield," Hayden told an audience at the Atlantic Council, a bipartisan group that deals with international affairs. But he warned that al-Qaeda remains "a determined, adaptive enemy" that is resilient and operating "from its safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas."

"If there is a major strike on this country, it will bear the fingerprints of al-Qaeda," he said. While law enforcement and diplomacy have their place, Hayden said, "this war -- and no one should mistake it as anything else -- is far from over.

Our side has been saying this for the past few years now and we were always chastised for it. Perhaps Hayden is saying it just so he can maybe keep his job, but there's also the chance he had been lying and is now speaking the truth. That's why we need new eyes and minds in the intelligence sector.

David Kurtz hits the nail on the head:

The Administration's most persistent spin of the new Iran NIE is that it vindicates their position because it shows that Iran did in fact have an active nuclear weapons program in 2003. That's quite some vindication.

What it really means is that faced with two neighbors in the spring of 2003 who both harbored nuclear ambitions, we invaded the country without an active WMD program while ignoring the one that did. I'm not suggesting we should have invaded Iran instead, but by the Administration's own reckoning, we should have.

It puts an exclamation point on the colossal folly of our Iraq adventure.

Will anyone in the MSM or any of the big pundits out there be willing to raise this point? It should be echoed in the homes of every single American.

It looks like Condi's plan of forcing diplomats to Iraq is meeting some resistance.

Uneasy U.S. diplomats yesterday challenged senior State Department officials in unusually blunt terms over a decision to order some of them to serve at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad or risk losing their jobs.

At a town hall meeting in the department's main auditorium attended by hundreds of Foreign Service officers, some of them criticized fundamental aspects of State's personnel policies in Iraq. They took issue with the size of the embassy -- the biggest in U.S. history -- and the inadequate training they received before being sent to serve in a war zone. One woman said she returned from a tour in Basra with post-traumatic stress disorder only to find that the State Department would not authorize medical treatment.

(on a personal note - I wasn't able to blog yesterday because I decided to take the plunge and move to Vista. I will post about that experience on my tech blog later for those interested).

Following yesterday's news that the State Department decided to give Blackwater immunity, today we find out a new battle is brewing between the Iraqi government and our's over immunity for all contractors:

The Iraqi government on Tuesday approved draft legislation lifting immunity for foreign private security companies, sending the measure to parliament, a spokesman said.

The question of immunity has been one of the most serious dispute between the U.S. and the Iraqi government since a Sept. 16 shooting involving Blackwater USA guards that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

The government's decision followed reports that the State Department has promised Blackwater bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month's shooting.

So if this legislation ends up passing in Iraq, what will we do? Will we honor the sovereignty of Iraq and allow it (I mean real sovereignty - not some Bush definition)? If we don't, then the interesting question will be where it goes from there. The U.N. is already looking into the issue, so there is a chance this could end up being argued at the Hague. Of course any ruling against the U.S., or any action taken against us will meet a veto in the Security Council. Remember - this is how the Bush regime considers democracy to work; do what I want and I will say you got democracy.

Today the number of soldiers killed in Iraq reached 3,308, including 3 soldiers killed today.

Also under the radar is the U.K.'s decision to drop the phrase "war on terror":

The British government has stopped using the phrase "war on terror" to refer to the struggle against political and religious violence, according to a Cabinet minister's prepared remarks for a Monday speech.

International Development Secretary Hilary Benn, a rising star of the governing Labour Party, says in a speech prepared for delivery in New York that the expression popularized by President Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks strengthens terrorists by making them feel part of a bigger struggle.

Ironic. When the Democrats tried to do this they were called "terrorist lovers" amongst other hateful things by the rabid right. Do they feel the same way about our number one ally? Will the Republicans in Congress, as well as the White House commence an attack against Downing Street the same way they did against the Democrats? Time will tell.

It was just a little over a month ago that Bush said he told al-Maliki that the U.S. forces would "operate more freely". This raised a lot of questions in Washington, and rightfully so. It appears that the U.S. was taking it's cues from the Iraqis on our military presence.

Now we have the case of the alleged rapes in Iraq. For those that haven't heard about it, then let me bring you up to speed. On Monday a Sunni woman alleged she was raped by the police for (which is predominately Shi'ite). On Monday night, al-Maliki announces an investigation into the allegations. On Tuesday morning, al-Maliki doesn't just clear the police officer of any wrong-doing, but also commends them. This caused an uprising and Ahmed Abdul Ghafur al-Samarrai, who was head of the state body that controls the Sunni religious sites, called for an international investigation. After that, al-Maliki fires al-Samarrai.

Remember - this is a secular war we are in the middle of in Iraq. It is also a Muslim secular war, where Rape is an extreme taboo. In this secular war you got Sunni versus Shi'ite. al-Maliki is a Shi'ite, just like the alleged assailants.

al-Maliki based his decision on a medical report from a U.S. medical facility in Iraq, where the victim was treated. Now this has General Petraeus upset and he is calling for an investigation:

But we can hold off on Bush. John Dean said there could very well be grounds for Congress to impeach members of the administration. Bob Fertik at Democrats.com wants to start with Gonzales, but I have my eyes on someone else.

Last year Bob Woodward gave us a chilling look into the administration. In his book, State of Denial, Woodward talks about the months leading up to 9/11 and what wasn't done. I blogged about this back in September:

On July 10, 2001, the book says, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, met with Ms. Rice at the White House to impress upon her the seriousness of the intelligence the agency was collecting about an impending attack. But both men came away from the meeting feeling that Ms. Rice had not taken the warnings seriously.

Condi quickly went into denial mode, but that didn't last long as this revelation came out a few weeks later: