LtG Ricardo Sanchez, you're up!

Well, the breather afforded to the Bush administration by the unhappy passing of a former President, may well have been arrested this morning with the thump of the WaPo on Washington doorsteps. General Granted Lattitude at Prison is sort of an awkward headline; it makes me wonder if he was not showing up and allowing detainees to levitate. Alas, nothing so benign--the latitude granted was to military intelligence to largely match the techniques being used at Guantanamo. The policy was approved not coincidentally in September 2003, right around the time that Gen Miller made the trip to Abu Ghraib, as we now know in order to put the weight of DoD behind the directives.

Not only that, but as we discover in the post below and as it was more widely reported today, Gen Sanchez personally directed--over brigade objection--that a certain prisoner be hidden from the Red Cross, both physically and in recordkeeping. Believe it or not, we agreed not to do that.

This follow's Friday's report in which it was disclosed that dogs were approved for use at Abu Ghraib, apparently one of the items in the directive from Sanchez. Also included were bread and water diets, which are a direct violation of Geneva principles that include 3 squares. The specificity of the dogs is interesting, however, because it points out the shady denials by Gen Kimmitt about canine enforcement:

The Post said Col. Pappas told Gen. Taguba during his investigation that Gen. Miller said "that they used military working dogs at Gitmo ... and that they were effective in setting the atmosphere for which, you know, you could get information" from prisoners.

"Miller never had a conversation with Col. Pappas regarding the use of military dogs for interrogation purposes in Iraq," Brig. Gen. Kimmitt said. "Further, military dogs were never used in interrogations at Guantánamo."

Notice how he doesn't deny that dogs were used in Iraq, or that anybody else had any conversations with Pappas about it.

Finally, the Telegraph indicates that worse is yet to come--the Red Cross has turned over four documents to an American TV network, who will soon make public their contents. The material is said to be highly damaging to senior civilian personnel at the Pentagon. If that's the case, the link will have been made from Sanchez to people like Cambone, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, and the chain will stretch from the head of the DoD down to Lynndie England.

Taguba slammed?

An interesting item in this week's USNews: an Army captain unscathed by Gen Taguba's harsh report on her brigade's performance at Abu Ghraib, has taken the general's report to some serious task. That Capt Lisa Weidenbush isn't criticized by Taguba is important--it prevents her testimony from being seen as self-serving. Gen Karpinski's efforts to clear her bridage's name leave me conflicted; she's clearly trying to save her ass, even if she is right (and I think I believe her, overall). So Weidenbush has no primary reason to make deep charges against a much superior officer. But in the excerpted report, she seeks to show that the report was "a conclusion in search of an investigation." Some of her powerful conclusions:

The lack of training was not a result of the 800th MP Bde but the Army's misuse of military police units and individual soldiers. It was not the 800th MP Bde's responsibility to provide ready and trained MP units, it was the responsibility of the Army Reserve Command and U.S. Army Forces Command. The Army knew or should have known that correction operations would be required during the reconstruction phase of the war, yet no plan was ever in place to ensure soldiers were trained. The system failed the soldiers and did not properly prepare them for the mission at hand. [emph orig]

The 800th MP Bde should not be cited for the questionable work ethics and loyalty of Iraqi corrections officers. Again, this was a CPA responsibility but the 800th MP Bde was forced to assume the mission. It should also be noted that on several occasions for weeks or months at a time, Iraqi guards went unpaid. This lack of payment was the result of the failures of CPA ministry of finance. The 800th MP Bde made numerous complaints to CPA about this lack of payment. It is not realistic to think that Iraqi guards already accustomed to a corrupt society would be completely loyal if they were not being paid.

And most unexpectedly, I believe I have discovered the ultimate source for our next story, which you may have already read since this one will be below it by the time you read it:

The 800th MP Bde did not sanction the moving of detainees to hide them from ICRC. Only on one occasion did the 800th MP Bde know of this happening, which was a result of a direct fragmentary order by LTG Sanchez. The Bde immediately objected to the implementation of the order and contacted the CJTF-7 Staff Judge advocate to question it. The Brigade was told to implement the order. [emph mine]

Abuse buzz

A lot of buzz, on both sides of the blogging spectrum, over the various memos and testimonies of the past few days (or revealed during that time). First things first--via Tacitus by way of PDX, some primary material: purportedly the first 56 pages of the "President as King" memo. Even in legalese, it's chilling.

As I said, that got Tacitus' attention, and he is rightfully appalled at what it implies. That impressed Mark Kleiman, who gave Tacitus and Sullivan a free pass, but took the rest of the right to task for hiding behind Reagan's funeral to leave it largely unmentioned. Kleiman has been right on top of it lately, and offers the day's highlights, stopping by Brad Delong's place, who quotes someone returning notes on a Sy Hersh speech in Chicago. Dangerous business, that--but at least Brad puts an "if true" before launching into increasingly common DeLong rhetoric like "Either Seymour Hersh is insane, or we have an administration that needs to be removed from office not later than the close of business today." This is the money line that jumps out at everybody:

He said that after he broke Abu Ghraib people are coming out of the woodwork to tell him this stuff. He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, "You haven't begun to see evil..." then trailed off. He said, "horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run."

He looked frightened.

Kevin Drum checks in by running off Kleiman's piece, and also gives Marshall a tip. Marshall uses his thoughts on the memo to tease for his expanded piece at The Hill. Marshall has also noted that Phil Carter is working on the stories as well, and it seems his legal education is making him branch out from military-centric analyses of current news. He goes into detail on Ashcroft's reticence to release the memo--always a strategy to help make you and the memo look innocent! Virginia Postrel is keeping track of Phil, and gives her thumbs down to torture with significant but ultimately harmless equivocation. Carter in turn points you over to Michael Froomkin, who gives a nicely concise abstract of a first sentence:

The memo begins by noting, accurately, that our international obligations include a commitment to refrain from actions that would be ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ under the Constitution. This acknowledgment does not, however, infuse much of what follows.

Froomkin provides many good links to primary material, including the US Code on Torture. And fisking Froomkin is Crascat Sententia, a blog I have not before seen. Curmudgeonly Clerk, in taking on several viewpoints at once (and impressively receiving reply from many of them), sallies forth with a barrage of contextual linking that makes this meager attempt at collecting the accumulated blognoise seem pathetic to compare. Yet, I give it to you. Happy enragement and frothing!

Oliphant's world

I grew up on cartoonist Pat Oliphant as a preteen. He's definitely old school, using all the old tricks of the trade, applied with blistering amounts of sarcasm. And he's pretty liberal (although he gave Reagan what I thought was a very nice tribute).

And speaking of Reagan, as we all have been and I was just yesterday, there is that remains the earnest heir, our current President. Oliphant has a comment on the connection between the two that is devastatingly on target. And the more I think about the possibilities, I wonder if the long term effect on Bush turns out to be negative. He simply does not suffer the comparison very well, and if the BC04 people feel like their feelers over the weekend were not slapped down, they will try to make that comparison wholesale. It's the latest in "just like" technology! Iraq is Just Like Afghanistan! No, wait--it's just like Germany and Japan! No, no, it's really just like World War II itself. Of course I actually mean to say it's just like the Cold War, and Saddam is the Soviets. But there's really no comparison, even for an inveterate Reagan-disdainer like me. Fervid's initial comment on Reagan's legacy was simply, "overrated," and I think that's about right. But Bush II makes Reagan look like Cicero married to Charlemagne, conjoined to Winston Churchill transfusing blood with FDR. Kevin Drum takes an LAT piece into his own hands and compares Bush to LBJ. Certainly, there's the mendacious claim of threat and aggrievement to lead a country into war that binds them. Kevin actually has a much more insightful take on it, though--the failure of the idol's idolizer. Let's just hope that if GDub's numbers continue drifting downward (Gallup has him dropping back to New Hampshire numbers, losing outside the MoE to Kerry), he doesn't go all Single White Female and start leading press conferences dressed and coiffed as Reagan. Maybe the debates...

...damm. This was supposed to be about what a great cartoonist Oliphant is. And it became the 400,351st column or blogposting on Reagan since his death. Dammit! Dammit! Curse you, old man! Even all the leftists are writing about you! Dammit!

Open mouth, insert 'send' key

Courtesy of Jack Bog, another in the annals of the "should I really have sent that" Messages of Unretractable Regret:

"I am no longer comfortable working for a group largely populated by gossips, backstabbers and Napoleonic personalities," the message said.

"In fact, I dare say that I would rather be dressed up like a pinata and beaten than remain with this group any longer." [The bridge-burning lawyer] wished the firm "continued success in your goals to turn vibrant, productive, dedicated associates into an aimless, shambling group of dry, lifeless husks."

I'm sure if he'd reconsidered, he might have realized that dry, lifeless husks are probably naturally aimless shamblers.

Ghosts

Does it speak to the weakness of the current crop, or the dynamism of its cream, that Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan threaten to impact the 2004 election? Plucked out of a mountain of stories about Reagan's life, careers, profile, meaning, accomplishments, failures, friends, past impact, choice of tie, etc., I found a NYT piece discussing the impact of "the Reagan legacy" on the current campaign. The various scenarios of help or harm to Kerry and Bush are generously doled out, usually by willing flacks from either side:

Mr. Bush's advisers said Sunday that the intense focus on Mr. Reagan's career that began upon the news of his death on Saturday would remind Americans of what Mr. Bush's supporters have long described as the similarities between the two men as straight-talking, ideologically driven leaders with swagger and a fixed idea of what they wanted to do with their office.

"Americans are going to be focused on President Reagan for the next week," said Ed Gillespie, the Republican national chairman. "The parallels are there. I don't know how you miss them."

"I've been dreading this every election year for three cycles," said Jim Jordan, Mr. Kerry's former campaign manager. "Bush has totally attached himself to Ronald Reagan. He's going to turn Reagan into his own verifier."

Still, Mr. Kerry's aides said they believed Mr. Reagan's death would be, as a political matter, far in the background by the summer. And Republicans said there were risks in too conspicuously invoking Mr. Reagan as part of Mr. Bush's campaign.

The potential for overplaying of hands at the GOP convention is great. They must be going crazy at BC04, trying to figure out just how much of 9/11 and the Gipper is too much. Cross that line, and they will appear craven and the moves will backfire. Just enough, and they can bask all week.

Luckily for him, Clinton didn't have to die to take over a few news cycles. There really are some deep similarities between the two men; they both made their personal abilities the centerpiece of their appeal, and they both drove partisans across the aisle absolutely batty. While Bush's situation is framed as positive that could go negative if overdone, Kerry is in the position of presumptive harm with the possibility of a silver lining:

God knows, Kerry could stand to be sprinkled with some of the charisma dust that Clinton wears like pancake makeup. These days, no one can excite a crowd of Democrats the way Bill Clinton can. He's the Beatles and Jack Kennedy and Oprah rolled into one. He not only can (and does) raise money for the campaign, he can give it the joy juice it needs to seem a happy enterprise under the bland banner of the dour Kerry. There is no one better at rallying the base, and in a close election, which this certainly will be, Bill Clinton used properly (something Al Gore never figured out) could be decisive in states where urban minority turnout is crucial.

The final analysis is that most of this is fodder for columns (see, it worked--three times, at least!), rather than a prescience of serious electoral impact. But the giant stature of the two greatest Presidents for their respective parties in the last 60 years, will certainly loom over the proceedings. And here again we see the ironies--Bush desperately wants to compare to Reagan's steadfastness and borrow his sunny disposition and disarming way, while Kerry needs to mimic the wonkish competence of Clinton and steal just a smidge of his charm. Don't hold your breath on either, unfortunately.

Andy, get out some more!

Safely previous to the outpouring of menschengrief for Sullivan's mentor Reagan, Andrew takes a moment to rip his favorite journalistic target, NYT (although he's strangely quiet about the now-discredited WMD rah-rah job of Judith Miller). Putting aside for a moment his charmingly eager-to-believe way in which he thinks the US would actually cede power wholesale, one really has to be careful about saying things like

I haven't read anywhere of the Bush administration severely restricting the ability of various Iraqis to run their own ministries, control their own police forces, use their own revenues, etc.

because when that info was clearly available from a major news provider (one I should think Sullivan might deign to read without a paranoid scowl), you either look foolish or mendacious. Very clearly, Bremer has pre-loaded the important functions of government with US-friendly personnel who will maintain control of those institutions well into the period after the theorized first elections:

In a series of edicts issued earlier this spring, Mr. Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority created new commissions that effectively take away virtually all of the powers once held by several ministries. The CPA also established an important new security-adviser position, which will be in charge of training and organizing Iraq's new army and paramilitary forces, and put in place a pair of watchdog institutions that will serve as checks on individual ministries and allow for continued U.S. oversight. Meanwhile, the CPA reiterated that coalition advisers will remain in virtually all remaining ministries after the handover.

In many cases, these U.S. and Iraqi proxies will serve multiyear terms and have significant authority to run criminal investigations, award contracts, direct troops and subpoena citizens. The new Iraqi government will have little control over its armed forces, lack the ability to make or change laws and be unable to make major decisions within specific ministries without tacit U.S. approval, say U.S. officials and others familiar with the plan.

There are three things we can be fairly sure Iraq is not getting their hands on any time soon: control over US forces, control of oil, and control of financial assets like central banking and the reconstruction fund. Which is why I call Sullivan naive. Frankly, what on earth is he doing wanting them to have control over everything? If you want to go ahead and force-feed the Iraqis democracy, you can't be an absentee parent. If that sounds patronizing and paternalistic to the Iraqis, I'm sorry. I know good and well that of all Arab countries, Iraq was academically and professionally very well peopled. But a tribally-based culture doesn't just pick up merit-based living without a few pointers.

So Sullivan has some serious problems with his rant on a number of levels. He's entirely bought into the overhyping of the June 30th deadline, as a way to once again prematurely declare "Mission Accomplished" and issue another round of back-pats for excellent achievement in hollow victory. The CPA is letting the new government heads test their voices and sound authoritative, but we'll see what the dynamic is when it becomes clear how little relevance they will have regarding ultimate US interests.

Bush's tell

If you're like me, you were wondering what the significance might be of George Bush "lawyering up" in the Plame case. Obviously it was played by the administration as a precautionary measure just in case he might be questioned and needed counsel. No big deal there, right?

But...he already has counsel. He has a fleet of government-paid lawyers whose main function is to advise the President on legal matters. So what does he need an outside counsel for?

By way of reader Zap, John Dean provides the answers. As Bill Clinton found out to his dismay during the Lewinsky scandal, conversations with your government lawyers don't have the privacy they used to (or at least that they were assumed to), if there may be evidence of a crime communicated.

So what's the solution? Private help, which still allows traditional confidentiality.
But that begs the question: why would you need to make sure that private conversations remained private, if you were confident nothing you said would implicate anyone (including yourself)? If Bush really didn't have any idea about who leaked Plame's name, then one imagines he would save himself the intrigue buzz created by hiring private counsel. The only reason he'd risk that intrigue, is if the truth is not Bush's friend on this one.

Something tells me that when the Grand Jury finally issues its results, it's going to be another difficult period for the administration. At minimum.