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oh boy. feelin good

every day in every way this war is more and more of one big clusterf**k.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/04/05/iraq.blackwater/index.html

Iraqi official: Blackwater staying on 'is bad news'

Story Highlights
NEW: Iraqi government displeased contract was renewed, top adviser says

Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqis, including women and children, in September

Renewal will last only through end of year, second adviser says

Needed changes in oversight have been made, State Department official says


BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. State Department's renewal of Blackwater's contract to provide security in Iraq "is bad news," an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said.

Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 people, including women and children, last September, prompting an outcry and protest from Iraqi officials.

"This is bad news," al-Maliki adviser Sami al-Askari said. "I personally am not happy with this, especially because they have committed acts of aggression, killed Iraqis, and this has not been resolved yet positively for families of victims."

About 25,000 private contractors from three companies protect diplomats, reconstruction workers and government officials in Iraq. Under a provision put into place in the early days of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, security contractors have immunity from Iraqi law.

Al-Askari said he would push for the Iraqi government to contest the contract renewal.

"The U.S. government has the right to choose what contractors it chooses, but Iraq should also have the right to allow or ban certain contractors from operating on its territory," he said. Watch Blackwater contractors conduct simulated raid »

Al-Askari said there is a general mood of displeasure within the Iraqi government because of the contract renewal.

Another al-Maliki adviser, Sadeq al-Rikabi, said the contract would be temporary since the U.N. mandate under which the United States operates in Iraq will expire at the end of the year, to be replaced by a bilateral agreement under negotiation.

Blackwater is one of three contractors working under a "task order" to provide security services in Iraq. The other two are Triple Canopy and DynCorp.

The State Department contract must be renewed every year and is up for renewal next month. In effect, Blackwater's contract will roll over for another year, said Greg Starr, who heads the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service.

Starr said new rules and an agreement between the State Department and U.S. military have improved coordination and the supervision of contractors.

Blackwater must work under the rules of the Iraqi government, he said.

The FBI is in charge of the U.S. investigation of the September incident, in which survivors and victims' family members contend Blackwater guards started shooting without provocation.

Blackwater says its employees were returning fire after coming under attack from armed insurgents, but an Iraqi investigation called the killings "premeditated murder."

Starr said the U.S. government, in particular U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, will take a close look at the FBI's investigation report, "and then we decide whether it is consistent with U.S. goals and policies to continue the contract."

It will be important to see whether the FBI finds Blackwater itself criminally responsible, or merely a few of its employees, Starr said.

"We can terminate contracts for the convenience of the government if we have to," he said. "I am not going to prejudge what the FBI is going find in its investigation. It's complex. I think the U.S. government needs protective services."

Starr said only three additional "escalation of forces" incidents have happened since the new rules of engagement were set up.


"I am up to this point very satisfied with the changes we have seen," he said. "Essentially, I think they do a very good job. The September 16 incident was a tragedy; it needs to be investigated carefully. The results of that will come out eventually and we will decide how we will proceed."

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell declined to comment, referring all questions to the State Department.

Posted by Marv:

Starr said new rules and an agreement between the State Department and U.S. military have improved coordination and the supervision of contractors.

Right! I believe you Starr.

semi fired up. dman

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/04/hbc-90002804

Worst. President. Ever.
by Scott Horton


“It would be difficult to identify a President who, facing major international and domestic crises, has failed in both as clearly as President Bush,” concluded one respondent. “His domestic policies,” another noted, “have had the cumulative effect of shoring up a semi-permanent aristocracy of capital that dwarfs the aristocracy of land against which the founding fathers rebelled; of encouraging a mindless retreat from science and rationalism; and of crippling the nation’s economic base.”

America’s historians, it seems, don’t think much of George W. Bush.

Now in all fairness, historians should wait a while before passing judgment on a president’s who served recently, much less one still in office. But the current incumbent is a special case. After all, 81 percent of Americans, according to a recent New York Times poll, believe he’s taken the country on the wrong track. That’s the highest number ever registered. The same poll also says 28 percent have a favorable view of his performance in office, which is also in Nixon-in-the-darkest-days-of-Watergate territory.

But, as George Mason University’s History News Network reports, the historians have a different measure. They want to stack him up against his thirty-three predecessors as the nation’s chief executive. Among historians, there is no doubt into which echelon he falls–his competitors are Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Franklin Pierce, the worst of the presidential worst. But does Bush actually come in dead last?

Yes. History News Network’s poll of 109 historians found that 61 percent of them rank Bush as “worst ever” among U.S. presidents. Bush’s key competition comes from Buchanan, apparently, and a further 2 percent of the sample puts Bush right behind Buchanan as runner-up for “worst ever.” 96 percent of the respondents place the Bush presidency in the bottom tier of American presidencies. And was his presidency (it’s a bit wishful to speak of his presidency in the past tense–after all there are several more months left to go) a success or failure? On that score the numbers are still more resounding: 98 percent label it a “failure.”

This marks a dramatic deterioration for Bush. Previously he wasn’t viewed in the most positive terms, but there was a consensus that he wasn’t the “worst of the worst” either. That was in the spring of 2004. In the meantime, Bush has established himself as the torture president, the basis for his invasion of Iraq has been exposed as a fraud, the Iraq War itself has gone disastrously, the nation’s network of alliances has faded, and the economy has gone into a tailspin–not to mention the bungled handling of relief for victims of hurricane Katrina. In 2004, only 12 percent of historians were ready to place Bush dead last.

Here are some of the comments that the historians furnished:

“No individual president can compare to the second Bush,” wrote one. “Glib, contemptuous, ignorant, incurious, a dupe of anyone who humors his deluded belief in his heroic self, he has bankrupted the country with his disastrous war and his tax breaks for the rich, trampled on the Bill of Rights, appointed foxes in every henhouse, compounded the terrorist threat, turned a blind eye to torture and corruption and a looming ecological disaster, and squandered the rest of the world’s goodwill. In short, no other president’s faults have had so deleterious an effect on not only the country but the world at large.”

“With his unprovoked and disastrous war of aggression in Iraq and his monstrous deficits, Bush has set this country on a course that will take decades to correct,” said another historian. “When future historians look back to identify the moment at which the United States began to lose its position of world leadership, they will point—rightly—to the Bush presidency. Thanks to his policies, it is now easy to see America losing out to its competitors in any number of areas: China is rapidly becoming the manufacturing powerhouse of the next century, India the high tech and services leader, and Europe the region with the best quality of life.”

Posted by VDesai:

What's worse?

Knicks as a team or Bush as president? These are the questions I ponder daily.

LOL. Bush running the Rangers. It's a combo answer.

Worst ever is right. The last quote is perfect.

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