Thursday, July 12, 2007

CIA Said Iraq Instability Seemed 'Irreversible'

Long before the surge it was already obvious that Iraq was lost.
Early on the morning of Nov. 13, 2006, members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gathered around a dark wooden conference table in the windowless Roosevelt Room of the White House.

For more than an hour, they listened to President Bush give what one panel member called a "Churchillian" vision of "victory" in Iraq and defend the country's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. "A constitutional order is emerging," he said.

Later that morning, around the same conference table, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden painted a starkly different picture for members of the study group. Hayden said "the inability of the government to govern seems irreversible," adding that he could not "point to any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around," according to written records of his briefing and the recollections of six participants.

"The government is unable to govern," Hayden concluded. "We have spent a lot of energy and treasure creating a government that is balanced, and it cannot function."

Later in the interview, he qualified the statement somewhat: "A government that can govern, sustain and defend itself is not achievable," he said, "in the short term."
If the goverment of Iraq is unable to govern what are our soldiers fighting to save? Wasn't the reason for the surge to prop up the government? You can prop up a corpse but it is and will always be a corpse. After this report the question becomes if we knew the situation was already lost why did the Bush administration decide to use a surge strategy? The answer is either a President so out of touch with reality that he simply refuses to accept what is right in front of his face or it was a political calculation to not have to admit defeat publicly. My guess is that this was a political calculation and that the additional dead soldiers were acceptable collateral damage in an attempt to salvage the legacy of President Bush.

I realize this is a completely cynical view but with what we have seen over the past seven years it is obvious that these people will do anything and say anything to further their political agenda. A report like this should make people realize that this is a dangerous administration and impeachment proceedings may be the only way to stop them from committing further damage to our nation.

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