From: Adam <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the field.near
the bridge">

Dave Ings wrote:
> Once again I agree with you. (Ok, not the crap part though )
>
> If these allegations are proven, it will be (has been) a tragedy with
> considerable political fall-out as you observed elsewhere. Murtha speaking
> out publicly certainly counts for something, but surely we should let the
> investigation complete before drawing final conclusions.

My guess from Murtha's comments is that the investigation is complete &
now it's back with the gov to try & lessen the blow/foreign fall out
before the eventual publication.

It's a std technique, leak a bit to an opposition pol to give the
impression that "see democracy etc works, we thus can't be that
bad...it's just some rotten apples...etc.etc.etc" when you know it
will come out eventually anyway.

They tried that with Abu Ghraib but it was done so poorly people ended up
(fairly correctly) thinking that what had been "leaked" was
merely the vaguely palatable stuff.

Expect the "talking points" wrt "few bad apples" to
have already been sent to Fox News.

Now to ensure the firewalls are in place so none of this travels upwards.

On the ground in Iraq, suspicions are just going to be confirmed esp
because initially the US mil refused to believe the survivors. The big
problem (politically) is that this raises doubts wrt a whole slew of US mil
killings of Iraqi civies from people shot at road blocks to dead civies in
cities/towns where it's been "IED alley".

What may hurt (politically) in the US is if the soldier's defence was to do
with too long in theatre, too few troops, not enough rotations/rest, high
stress etc.etc.

Then suddenly Shinseki starts to look even more correct & the recent
"General's revolt" looks even more like Patriotism & those
who cast them as pseudo-semi-traitors become even more discredited.

e.g.:

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/consequences/2003/0228p
entagoncontra.htm

That piece is nowaday just beyond funny, including such wonderful quotes as:

""We have no idea what we will need until we get there on the
ground," Mr. Wolfowitz said at a hearing of the House Budget
Committee. "Every time we get a briefing on the war plan, it
immediately goes down six different branches to see what the scenarios look
like. If we costed each and every one, the costs would range from $10
billion to $100 billion.""

&

""The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S.
forces I think is far off the mark," Mr. Rumsfeld said. General
Shinseki gave his estimate in response to a question at a Senate Armed
Services Committee hearing on Tuesday: "I would say that what's been
mobilized to this point — something on the order of several hundred
thousand soldiers — are probably, you know, a figure that would be
required." He also said that the regional commander, Gen. Tommy R.
Franks, would determine the precise figure.

A spokesman for General Shinseki, Col. Joe Curtin, said today that the
general stood by his estimate. "He was asked a question and he
responded with his best military judgment," Colonel Curtin said.
General Shinseki is a former commander of the peacekeeping operation in
Bosnia.

In his testimony, Mr. Wolfowitz ticked off several reasons why he believed
a much smaller coalition peacekeeping force than General Shinseki
envisioned would be sufficient to police and rebuild postwar Iraq. He said
there was no history of ethnic strife in Iraq, as there was in Bosnia or
Kosovo. He said Iraqi civilians would welcome an American-led liberation
force that "stayed as long as necessary but left as soon as
possible," but would oppose a long-term occupation force."


& the classic:

"Mr. Wolfowitz spent much of the hearing knocking down published
estimates of the costs of war and rebuilding, saying the upper range of
$95 billion was too high, and that the estimates were almost meaningless
because of the variables. Moreover, he said such estimates, and speculation
that postwar reconstruction costs could climb even higher, ignored the fact
that Iraq is a wealthy country, with annual oil exports worth $15 billion
to $20 billion. "To assume we're going to pay for it all is just
wrong," he said.
"

Adam

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