Pentagon Still Keeping Iraq Strategy Plan from Congress

[babylonsister]

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004692.php

Today's Must Read
By Spencer Ackerman - November 13, 2007, 9:18AM

Get beyond the surge. Go further than the talk about population protection being the new basis for U.S. efforts in Iraq. The Joint Campaign Plan is the comprehensive strategy for Iraq employed by General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. It's a fairly important document. And Congress can't see it, reports Rachel Van Dongen for Roll Call. (sub. req.)

In television interviews and press conferences, Gen. David Petraeus has described the Joint Campaign Plan as the key military and diplomatic strategy to stabilize Iraq.

Developed by the “big brains” on the ground, Petraeus points to a “unified” effort with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker to achieve political and military security in Iraq by 2009.

Yet despite repeat efforts at the highest levels and Pentagon promises, Congress has been unable to get a current copy of the plan.

After persistent requests from House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the issue has moved up the Congressional chain of command to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). According to an aide, Pelosi asked President Bush for the document several months ago in a White House meeting. Since then, Pelosi’s staff has “repeatedly” requested a copy, her aide said, but has not yet received one.

A spokeswoman for the House Armed Services Committee generously declined to attribute the stonewalling to partisan politics. Yet the committee's request for the plan has been outstanding since the Pentagon missed a March 30 deadline for it. What's more, even though Congress hasn't seen the document, the head of a Government Accountability Office unit mentioned in October 30 testimony that his team saw the plan on a recent trip to Iraq.

Nor is Congress the only one left in the dark about why it can't see the plan. Van Dongen called the White House for an explanation, and it sent her to the Iraq command, known as Multinational Force-Iraq. An MNFI spokesperson told her, "I do not know why the White House would refer you to us regarding these questions." The Pentagon didn't reply, either. Three cheers for openness in government!

more...

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004692.php

[WilliamPitt]

1. But hey, we got the Phase II report, right?

Three years later.

:banghead:

[babylonsister]

2. There's either a lot of behind-the-scenes chatting, or they just

don't care? I'm not getting why they aren't LOUDLY INSISTING this NIE be revealed. But then again, they're not doing a whole lot that makes any sense to me.

[WilliamPitt]

3. They're standing pat, plain and simple.

Somebody in their strategy/tactics echelon (a steak dinner says his name is Rahm) convinced the party to avoid picking fights or getting into confrontations (because we might lose one and stuff), and let the GOP's wildly unpopular approval ratings (and, oh yeah, the war) do their thing and further damage the minority. They'll keep on slow-cooking this loaf until November.

Barring, of course, a party-wide realization that most everyone in America thinks they're a waste of skin and people are dying daily in their war-of-choice and the debt mirage just vanished and the dollar is dying and so many homes have been and will be forclosed upon that the entire American economy is going to take one hell of a savage beating...

...as will the rest of us...but congress is covered, they have good health care, war chests, and full insulation from anything resembling the nation they don't serve and the citizens they don't represent. And that's the important part. They're all set.

No, I'm not bitter.

Anyway, that's what all this shit is. It is a strategy so dumb, so callous, so complicit, a strategy so densly foul it actually has gravity. It sucks so hard it bends light.

And, in far far far too many ways, so do many of them, as well.

[babylonsister]

4. Self-serving bunch of useless skin, they are. And I think you're

right about Rahm. It baffles me, after seeing his 'performance' on Maher's show, why anyone would listen to a thing he says. We know they're getting lots and lots of push-back, but it seems to have no effect. It's all very frustrating, and a dangerous game they're playing, except it's no where near a game and so much is at stake.