Buncha Stuff.
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: More tidbits...
Some weeks I don't feel like touching this blog other weeks...I just can't get enough!

First off, with the one year anniversary of the breaking of the Abu Graib scandal why don't we check in with Donald Rumsfeld...This one was sent to me by Jeff:
(Reuters)

Asked during a briefing "are we winning" the war, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not directly respond.
"The United States and the coalition forces, in my personal view, will not be the thing that will defeat the insurgency," Rumsfeld said.

"So, therefore, winning or losing is not the issue for 'we,' in my view, in the traditional, conventional context of using the word 'winning' and 'losing' in a war. The people that are going to defeat that insurgency are going to be the Iraqis."

Wait a cotton-pickin' minute here...Did Rumsfeld say that we won't WIN? WTF!? We're the U.S. Fuckin' A!? There's no losing in the U.S.Bitoches!?

"Rummy's confused response sent Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Richard Myers into a sputtering attempt at damage control.

After Rumsfeld finished, Myers interjected, "I'm going to say this: I think we are winning, OK? I think we're definitely winning. I think we've been winning for some time."

Oh right, what Rummy meant to say is that we are always winning...

"But even Gen. Myers had to admit that U.S. forces have made absolutely no progress over the past year.

Iraq's insurgency remains undiminished in its capabilities in the past year despite U.S.-led efforts to crush the rebels, the top American general said on Tuesday.

"I think their capacity stays about the same," Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said of Iraq's insurgents during a Pentagon briefing. "And where they are right now is where they were almost a year ago."

Hmm, that almost sounds like a..Uhhh...Whaddya Call it? Quagmire?

"Myers said rebels are staging 50 or 60 attacks a day in Iraq after the number had dipped to about 40 daily. He said the number of daily attacks is about the same as a year ago."

Eew, I wonder if 50 or 60 attacks per day is merely an insurgency then how many daily attacks are required for a given conflict to be an all out war? Always nice to see Rummy caught with his pants down.

Speaking of wars and more specifically Terrah...I recently queried what is happening with that whole 'Terrah War.'

(BBC)
"US 'conceals high terror figures'

Data withheld from an annual report on terrorism by the US state department show a sharp increase in attacks in 2004, a top Democratic lawmaker says."

wwwWWWHHHAAAAA?! But I thought we were WINNING?

"Henry Waxman, citing official briefings given to congressional aides, said the number of "significant" attacks had risen more than three-fold in a year.

The California congressman urged the administration to release the figures.

The state department has said it will stop providing them. It admitted to mistakes in last year's report.

In June 2004 the department was forced to double its original estimate of terror victims in the previous year.

It said 625 people had been killed in attacks worldwide in 2003 - not 307 as stated in the annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report published two months earlier."

Ok, mistakes were made...So who is to blame?

"Last week the department announced that it would no longer publish statistical data, but that the newly created National Counter-Terrorism Centre would do so at a later date."

AH. So, it's the State department's fault that we are not winning the War on Terrah...Well, it would be if it weren't for those dastardly clerical errahs that occurred convienently enough in an election year. Now we can blame the new Counter-terrah center for all those kinds of fuck ups...Eventually, ya know, when they get up and running sometime in the next twenty years, I suppose.

"On Tuesday Mr Waxman accused the state department of concealing an increase in terror attacks.

He said congressional briefings by federal officials pointed to a dramatic rise in the number of "significant" terrorist attacks - those that result in loss of life, serious injury or major damage.

There were about 650 such attacks last year, the congressman said - up from 175 in 2003, a record number at the time."

Clearly Mr. Waxman HATES America since he is losing the War on Terrah for us all by himself. Here's the good stuff (emphasis added):

"In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice circulated by his staff, Mr Waxman said that even the latest figures may be too low. He said many incidents most Americans would regard as terror attacks were excluded from the data because they did not meet the state department's definition."

And what would that definition be? Not given here.

"The large increases in terrorist attacks reported in 2004 may undermine administration claims of success in the war on terror, but political inconvenience has never been a legitimate basis for withholding facts from the American people," the letter added."

Hmmmmmmmm?!

"Last year's original report said there had been a total of 190 terror acts around the world in 2003 - pointing to a steady decrease over three years.

The administration seized on this and other numbers as proof that its war on terror was succeeding.

In the revised report the department said there had in fact been 208 attacks - an increase from 2004.

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell said there had been no attempt to deceive people, and blamed clerical and administrative errors."

So, it really was because of faulty administrative staff! Those bastards were probably conspiring with the awful 'intelligence community' in getting this war going. I mean, what else could it be? I am sure the Administration would never, ever be party to this kind of exageration or lies, right?