Saturday, September 13, 2003

Just what did he say and when did he say it? All the quotes in this piece in the AP regarding recent statements by Paul Wolfowitz, number 2 man in the Pentagon, confuse me a bit. However, the jist is that the Bush administration is still making sweeping claims to link Al Qaida and Iraq but that the press is being more careful and forcing members of the administratration that make such claims to back them up. To wit, Wolfie was forced to retract some recent more sweeping claims about Al Qaida presence in Iraq. The article says that: "The Bush administration has outlined only limited evidence of Iraqi-al-Qaida contacts before the war, and no conclusive evidence that Iraq and al-Qaida plotted joint terror operations." Furthermore, the truth of the matter seems to be that we don't really know who's the enemy in Iraq. The AP goes on to say that "Likewise, U.S. officials have said they have a poor picture of who is arrayed against U.S. forces in Iraq now, and how coordinated their activities are." Read the entire report. 11:59:28 AM    comment []

Deja vu all over again The US and a major portion of rest of the world failed once again to agree upon a course of action in Iraq. the BBC reports on a recent meeting of the five permanent members of the UN Security council. Once again, France appears to be the lead opposition voice. But other major countries, including Germany, Russia and China, do not support the current US proposal for UN invovlement in Iraq. See the BBC report. The NY Times also published a report on the meeting. 10:32:35 AM    comment []

The $87 billion it appears is just the beginning. The report in the Washington Post outlines the wear and tear on the US armed forces equipment and materiel. The longer it goes the worse the damage. What will be available if we were required to conduct major operations somewhere else? See the details in the Post article.  10:22:15 AM    comment []