March 2007 - Posts
Okay guys, you stepped in it this time. You really need to figure out a face-saving way to get out of the mess you have created by seizing 15 British sailors and marines.
Your past record is abominable, so what makes you think that anyone is buying this fiction that the British were in Iranian waters? Putting young British sailors on Iranian television reciting obviously coerced “confessions” is ludicrous – no one but possibly the most gullible among your domestic audience takes these statements as fact. Even more ridiculous are the letters written by the sole woman among the detainees, as well as her appearances in a chador. Again, do you really think that anyone believes this charade is how members of the Royal Navy would comport themselves in captivity?
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Tonight is the Radio-TV Correspondents Dinner, the big Washington annual event where I met my wife Kathleen twenty nine years ago.
It was 1978. I was a mid-level staffer at the White House. Kathy was a producer at WJLA-TV. We were introduced by Ann Edwards of the White House staff and have been together since.
Kathleen and I are bringing as our guest tonight Darrell Hammond of Saturday Night Live. Darrell is an uncanny mimic. He can do the very soul of Bill Clinton. He brings Cheney onto the stage better than Cheney does. And he does me. If he’s as good at doing me as he is at doing those other guys, then he’s great!!! I can’t tell because I can’t imagine what I’m like. Can you imagine what you’re like?
Anyway, it’s a big night in DC. It’s that dinner that William Hurt and Holly Hunter attended together in “Broadcast News.” Most important to us, it’s where Kathy and I got together for good.
On the surface, the initial “surge” statistics from Baghdad appear encouraging. By all measures, the number of deaths is down, the number of attacks is down and the number of Iraqi security forces on the street is up.
Good news, right?
Sure, but has the surge solved the problems of sectarian violence in the city and environs? Not if you look at the continued vicious Sunni attacks against the Shia in an attempt to provoke them to reignite the conflict, and the recent attack on a Sunni deputy prime minister. Thus far, the Sunnis have been unsuccessful in goading the Shia into retaliation – the Shia have followed the advice of their religious leadership and not rejoined the fight.
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Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., said that U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' resignation would be "the best thing for the Justice Department and the best thing for the administration."
Pryor's said Gonzales lied to him during a telphone conversation.
"There's no real polite way to say it other than he lied to me."
WATCH VIDEO:
Pryor also said that Karl Rove should testify under oath, and that the 3,00 e-mails released by the White House wasn't enough. To read some of those emails, click here.
The lazy story of the Iraq War is that nobody expected it.
Nobody thought it would be so unpopular. Nobody thought it would cause so much division in this country. Nobody thought it would cause so much of the world to condemn us.
But leaders are not supposed to be nobodies. They’re supposed to know things.
We ought to have known that going into Iraq would lack the world support that President Bush’s father enjoyed in the Persian Gulf War. It was clear as early as December of 2001 that going into Iraq would “forfeit” the global support we enjoyed in the weeks after September 11. It would mean “a hard division” here at home. I just came across those assessments I made back then as a columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle:
"By the late summer of 2002, even before Congress voted to authorize the Iraq War, a Washington Post poll showed that division beginning to show itself. Asked whether they supported war if it would involve “significant casualties,” 51 percent, said “no.” Okay, we were fifty-fifty on the war even six months before the shooting started."
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By Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)
On the fourth anniversary of the Iraq War, President Bush’s talking points were so eerily familiar that if he didn’t mentioned Gen. Petraeus by name, I’d have to wonder if he accidently gave last year’s speech.
The president can point to no more recent success than the 12 million Iraqis that voted in 2005, but he makes no mention of the nearly three million Iraqis now refugees of the ongoing violence. He talks about “further progress” on political reconciliation and economic rebuilding, while the country has descended into civil war and unemployment remains at 33 percent. He spoke of a tyrant held to account by “the people of Iraq,” apparently forgetting that masked executioners chanting “Moktada!” looked like a sectarian death squad, a parody of blind justice. And he described the new Iraqi government as an “ally in the war on terror,” but I don’t think we’ll see them sending troops to Afghanistan any time soon.
All this was par for the course from a president who continues to confuse determination with stubbornness and vision with myopia. But what really stood out for me was this:
“I’m grateful to our service men and women for all they’ve done, and for the honor they’ve brought to their uniform and their country. I’m grateful to our military families for all the sacrifices they have made for our country. We also hold in our hearts the good men and women who have given their lives in this struggle. We pray for the loved ones they have left behind.”
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Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be heading to New York to address the United Nations in hopes of convincing the world that his country’s nuclear research program is for energy and not weapons. He 
has complemented that effort with rhetoric that a military strike on his country’s nuclear facilities will lead to dire consequences.
The Arab countries across the Gulf from Iran are watching this unfolding situation with great concern. An expected consequence of a military strike on Iran is an Iranian attempt to the close the Straits of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Oman and Iran. About 25 percent of the world’s oil supply moves through the straits – most of it from the Gulf Arabs. For years, Iran has been developing military capabilities that will allow it to close the strategic waterway.
Disruption of the flow of oil through the straits is of concern to not just the Gulf Arabs, but the rest of the world as well. Although the United States imports less than 20 percent of its oil from the Gulf, oil is a fungible commodity. If that much oil was taken off the markets, the countries that normally buy this oil will compete with us for oil from our normal sources, driving prices up dramatically.
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By Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)
According to a new study by the American Medical Association's Archive of Internal Medicine, almost one in three Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have sought care at through the VA have been diagnosed with a mental health problem. I wish that I could call this study a wake-up call - but veterans and mental health experts have been sounding the alarm for three years. As early as July 2004, the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that between more than 15 perecent of Iraq vets met screening criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And that was after only one year of war - before anyone had served multiple tours, before the insurgency created an urban battlefield without a front line, and before the sectarian conflict metastasized into a civil war. As the violence worsened, the mental toll on the troops rose. In February 2006, the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that "thirty-five percent of Iraq war veterans accessed mental health services in the year after returning home."
This latest study shows that those veterans seeking care aren't just suffering from "nerves" or "a little trouble sleeping." And they also aren't just coming to the VA to see the dentist, as VA Secretary Nicholson, the Rumsfeld of the Veterans Affairs Department, suggested two weeks age. Make no mistake: this is a generation of new veterans coming home to diagnosable illnesses like depression or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, debilitating problems that can lead to unemployment, divorce, domestic violence, even suicide. On CNN Monday night with Paula Zahn, I talked about these issues and the personal story of one female veteran's fight with depression and suicidal thoughts.
Luckily, Congress is finally taking action to address the growing problem of suicide among new veterans. The Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act (S. 479 and HR. 327) mandates a campaign to reduce the stigma of mental health treatment in the military, better suicide prevention training for VA staff, and a 24-hour veterans' suicide counseling line.
The bill is named after Iraq veteran Joshua Omvig, a 22-year-old Army Reservist who served honorably in Iraq, but returned home unable to cope with his memories of the war. Only months after his return from Iraq, he killed himself.
Joshua's parents, Randy and Ellen, are amazing people of incredible courage. They have told their heart-wrenching story and dedicated themselves to helping other young veterans get the counseling that Joshua so desperately needed. And you can help Randy and Ellen. The Joshua Omvig Act is coming before the VA Subcommittee on Health this Thursday.
Here is a list of the Representatives on that subcommittee:
Michael Michaud (ME)
Phil Hare (IL)
Jeff Miller (FL)
Vic Snyder (AR)
Cliff Stearns (FL)
Jerry Moran (KS)
Corrine Brown (FL)
Richard Baker (LA)
Michael F. Doyle (PA)
John T. Salazar (CO)
Henry Brown (SC)
Shelley Berkley (NV)
If your representative is this list, please give them a call today and tell them that you support the Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act. Click on their names to find the number to call. It will take just a minute or two of your time, and it will help thousands of new veterans get the care they need, before it's too late.
By Andrea Mitchell, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent for NBC News
Yesterday on Hardball, I was slated to talk about what I'd learned about several developments in both the Republican and Democratic campaigns: Fred Thompson's "exploration" of a possible candidacy, Chuck Hagel's decision to punt - for now, and the fuss over Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire remarks about JFK. At the end of the conversation, I was asked a question about the public's support of a Libby pardon. I mistakenly flipped the numbers that I had read earlier in the day and I want to correct the record. According to a CNN poll, 69 percent of those questioned oppose a pardon for Libby. Only 18 percent support it. Apologies for the unintentional error to all of you loyal Hardball viewers.
On March 10th, representatives of the United States will meet in Baghdad with representatives of numerous other countries, including Iran and Syria, in an attempt to resolve the violence in Iraq. I continue to maintain that these two countries are part of the problem in Iraq and unlikely to become part of the solution, especially Iran. Iran and the United States are currently involved in a proxy war in Iraq – the victor will emerge as the pre-eminent power in the Persian Gulf region. I don’t envision them helping us.
It is an interesting turn of events – much of the current violence in Iraq is directly attributable to the actions of Iran and Syria. Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, there was some low level cooperation between the Syrian and American intelligence services against al-Qaeda – Syria is a secular Baathist state with no interest in furthering the aims of a fundamentalist Islamic movement (which ironically, is who runs its ally Iran). However, since the removal of Saddam Hussein, Syria has been a conduit and suspected training ground for foreign insurgents entering Iraq as part of the al-Qaeda in Iraq organization.
Iran and Syria have been close allies since the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 when Damascus spurned its Arab neighbors and supported non-Arab Iran. The two countries just renewed a longstanding mutual defense pact. It’s a convenient arrangement – Iran gets access to Lebanon via Damascus to support Hezbollah (as we witnessed last summer), the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. In turn, Syria gets cheap oil credits from Iran, a powerful ally in the region, and a bargaining chip in its demands for the return of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Despite Syrian support to terrorist groups in Iraq, the United States continues to maintain diplomatic relations with Damascus. It has not always been friendly - I was the air attaché in Damascus for over two years and can personally attest to that. The level of U.S. representation changed in 2005 - following Syrian involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri in Beirut in February 2005, Washington withdrew our ambassador. While she has not yet returned, Syria continues to keep its ambassador in Washington.
Syria’s role in the Baghdad conference will be interesting to watch. Will it continue to be a puppet of Tehran or begin distancing itself in hopes of better relations with the United States and the West? Will the United States and Iran compete for Syria’s affections?
Syria’s overriding national interests are the return of the Golan Heights and renewed influence in Lebanon. If Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was assured that these two things could happen, he might be persuaded to distance himself from Iran. Driving a wedge between these two unlikely allies – a fundamentalist Shia theocracy in Iran and a secular socialist dictatorship in Syria – would be a spectacular diplomatic success. Not only would it re-energize the Middle East peace process, it would also cripple Iran’s ability to support Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
While Iran is focused on splitting atoms, we should focus on splitting the Tehran-Damascus alliance.
Tonight in an exclusive interview on “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” one of the jurors who just convicted Scooter Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice, decried the narrow focus on Scooter Libby and said that because Libby was the only official charged and because he was not charged with the leak itself, Libby should now be pardoned. WATCH VIDEO
Ann Redington says she does not follow the news and came into the Libby trial with a “blank slate” about the CIA leak story. Tonight, she told Hardball, “it kind of bothers me that there was this whole big crime being investigated and he got caught up in the investigation as opposed to in the actual crime that was supposedly committed.” Asked if she wants a pardon for Libby “out of sympathy” and Redington replied, “Yes.”
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I ran into Joe Wilson at Starbucks this morning. We hugged and thought neighborhood coffee was as good a way as any to celebrate Scooter Libby’s guilty verdict yesterday.
Seeing Joe looking happy and fresh made me realize that so many people outside of Washington see this verdict and the events of the past few years as just about politics, not about people.
Joe and Valerie are neighborhood parents. We both have boy-girl twins and our kids played together sometimes. Just like lots of my friends in the neighborhood, they are fun, friendly, smart, passionate and accomplished. Their kids are adorable and play well with others. They are certainly better behaved than my kids.
Joe was always a grand personality. If there is a room at the party that is
louder than others, where the talk is frenzied and the opinions are flying, then Joe is sure to be in the middle of it. Valerie is more reserved but no less engaging when she is talking.
So here they were—a neighborhood family. And then the most powerful men in the country decided that the Wilsons were getting in the way of their personal agenda of economic domination through war-mongering. CONTINUED >>
I had mixed thoughts as I heard the guilty verdicts read today. In 1991, after my return from Operation Desert Storm, I was assigned to the team drafting the Defense Department’s report on the war – Scooter was an Assistant Secretary of Defense in charge of the effort. It was Scooter Libby that pinned on my Bronze Star in a Pentagon ceremony.
I also recall serving at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad in the late 1980’s, the same embassy where Joe Wilson later served as the deputy chief of mission. Joe did an outstanding job during those initial months of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent evacuation of American citizens and embassy staff.
Both men have served their country well. What continues to bother me is how these two public servants have ended up on opposites of a legal battle. The jury found Scooter Libby guilty of obstruction, false statements and perjury. What they did not find him guilty of is releasing the name of an intelligence officer under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. Nor should they have.
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Why were Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff Scooter Libby so intent on avoiding responsibility for Joseph Wilson’s 2002 trip to Africa? The trial heard sworn testimony several witnesses that it was the Vice President’s inquiry that triggered the CIA trip.
So, in the words of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, what was all the “hullabaloo” when Joe Wilson wrote in the New York Times that it was “the vice president’s office” that had raised the question with the CIA of a possible Saddam Hussein effort to buy uranium from Niger? Why did Cheney and Libby want everybody to think it wasn’t the vice president?” Why did Cheney’s chief of staff call and complain so fatefully when Wilson’s claims were repeated on “Hardball?”
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On April 30, 1970, President Richard Nixon announced that U.S. troops had begun the invasion of Cambodia, accusing the Southeast Asian nation of allowing North Vietnamese forces to use the country as a transit route and safe haven for its units operating in neighboring South Vietnam. After years of watching the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese using both Laos and Cambodia in this manner, American military commanders requested permission to chase the enemy into these neighboring countries. In 1970, Cambodia lost its “off limits” status.
Let’s fast forward to present day Afghanistan. The U.S. invasion (Operation Enduring Freedom) shortly following the attacks on the United States by al-Qaeda terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, removed the Taliban-led government of the country and forced al-Qaeda to head for the mountains. After being cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, most of the surviving al-Qaeda fighters fled to neighboring Pakistan, specifically to the federally administered tribal areas and the Pushtun provinces of North Waziristan and South Waziristan (where Islamabad exercises little authority).
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For the past four years this has been a country divided by the war in Iraq. But even the most ardent critics stand in full support of the troops. That's why Americans are furious about reports of wounded veterans returning home to shameful neglect at Walter Reed and other military hospitals around the country.
We talk to Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who was wounded in Vietnam and sits on the Armed Services Committee. WATCH VIDEO
Rep. John Tierney of Massachusetts chaired today's hearing at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and California Congressman David Dreier is the ranking Republican on the House Rules Committee. WATCH VIDEO
We also hear from retired Gen. Barry Barry McCaffrey, who's an MSNBC military analyst; Annette McLeod, who testified today that her husband, Corporal Wendell McLeod, was originally sent to the wrong hospital and later suffered delays in getting outpatient tests and treatment; and Todd Bowers, a Marine who was shot in the face while in his second tour in Iraq and is now the spokesperson for the Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans Of America. WATCH VIDEO
By Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)
By now, most of you have heard the horror stories coming out of Walter Reed Army Medical Center – gravely wounded troops in shoddy housing and confronted by an uncaring bureaucracy as they struggle to get counseling, treatment and benefits. But Walter Reed is only the tip of the iceberg. When wounded troops leave the military, they transfer to the chronically under funded Veterans Affairs system—where they will be once again forced to fight for their benefits, care and counseling.
These wait-times have a human cost. Jonathan Schulze, a decorated Iraq war veteran from Minnesota, went to his VA to get emergency mental health treatment. He told a VA counselor that he was suicidal, but instead of getting the care he needed, he was told he was 26th on a waiting list for a hospital bed. Four days later, he hanged himself in his basement. CONTINUED >>
Presidential hopeful John Edwards plays Hardball with Chris Matthews on Tuesday, 3/6.
What would you ask Edwards?
Chris discussed presidential politics with Meredith Vieira on the "Today Show" this morning. Check it out.
We'll have lots more on Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's weekends in Selma, Ala., on "Hardball" tonight.
U.S. Army Secretary Francis Harvey resigned today after a week of devastating reports about facilities for wounded U.S. troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. We’ll talks to NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski and the Washington Post’s Dana Priest, who broke this story about terrible conditions. WATCH VIDEO
Also tonight, top conservative leaders and activists in the country are gathered in Washington. All the major Republican candidates are there except for Sen. John McCain. We talk to one of his supporters, former governor and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. WATCH VIDEO
And finally, both Democratic presidential frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will travel to Selma, Ala., to commemorate the 1965 civil rights march in that city this weekend. MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell spoke to Sen. Obama about the civil rights milestone and the Clintons. WATCH VIDEO
Sen. John McCain made it official last night on the “Late Show with David Letterman.” Recently, the senator joined us last October for a Hardball College tour at Iowa State and discussed his views on Iraq. With polls showing the country wants out of Iraq, will McCain’s pro-war position be his campaign albatross? Mike Barnicle is an MSNBC contributor, and Chuck Todd is editor in chief of The Hotline. WATCH VIDEO
Plus, the top commander at Walter Reed is out after another damning report in the Washington Post today which said top hospital officials knew about the neglect of wounded soldiers for years. We talk with Dana Priest, the reporter who broke this story, as well as Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, who says that shortly after the war in Iraq began, he told Kevin Kiley about the bad care at Walter Reed. WATCH VIDEO
And finally, what can Chicago politics teach Obama about running for president? Richard M. Daley -- who won his sixth term as mayor of Chicago on Tuesday, putting him on track to surpass his father as the longest serving mayor of that city -- says plenty. WATCH VIDEO
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it’s time once again for our spring training preview of the various players warming up for the longest season of them all: the race for the White House, 2008.
This is a moment when some of the players are still trying to figure out which uniform to wear and what position suits them best: left field, right field, center, pitcher or catcher. It’s early but eagle-eyed scouts can sort of see who’ll be able to hit major league pitching and who won’t.
Let’s look at the roster.
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