Thank you!! That CS Monitor article also contains links to some other excellent articles. I've pasted a couple here. The one recurring theme is the disconnect between the politicians' versions of what is happening and the information coming from the intelligence community and top military commanders. Methinks the politicos are lying through their teeth:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=at1lIqWuwDBs&refer=us
Senate Report Says Hussein Didn't Support Al-Qaeda (Update2)
By William Roberts
Sept. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Declassified U.S. Senate reports said that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein didn't trust al-Qaeda and refused to support it.
``Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime,'' one of the reports said. Hussein refused all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support, said the report issued in Washington today by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
A second committee report said that Iraq Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress told U.S. officials that Iraq possessed nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, information that later proved inaccurate.
Democrats said the reports show that statements by Bush administration officials before the Iraq war weren't supported by U.S. intelligence known at the time they spoke.
They include statements by Vice President Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, then Bush's national security adviser, linking Iraq to al-Qaeda, said Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee.
Cheney's statement that an Iraqi intelligence officer met in Prague with Mohammed Atta, a leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers, was ``not substantiated by the intelligence assessments at the time this statement was made by the vice president,'' Rockefeller said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2350795,00.html
Top soldier quits as blundering campaign turns into 'pointless' war
Christina Lamb
THE former aide-de-camp to the commander of the British taskforce in southern Afghanistan has described the campaign in Helmand province as “a textbook case of how to screw up a counter-insurgency”.
“Having a big old fight is pointless and just making things worse,” said Captain Leo Docherty, of the Scots Guards, who became so disillusioned that he quit the army last month.
“All those people whose homes have been destroyed and sons killed are going to turn against the British,” he said. “It’s a pretty clear equation — if people are losing homes and poppy fields, they will go and fight. I certainly would.
“We’ve been grotesquely clumsy — we’ve said we’ll be different to the Americans who were bombing and strafing villages, then behaved exactly like them.”
Docherty’s criticisms, the first from an officer who has served in Helmand, came during the worst week so far for British troops in Afghanistan, with the loss of 18 men.
They reflected growing concern that forces have been left exposed in small northern outposts of Helmand such as Sangin, Musa Qala and Nawzad. Pinned down by daily Taliban attacks, many have run short of food and water and have been forced to rely on air support and artillery.
“We’ve deviated spectacularly from the original plan,” said Docherty, who was aide-de-camp to Colonel Charlie Knaggs, the commander in Helmand.
“The plan was to secure the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, initiate development projects and enable governance . . . During this time, the insecure northern part of Helmand would be contained: troops would not be ‘sucked in’ to a problem unsolvable by military means alone.”
According to Docherty, the planning “fell by the wayside” because of pressure from the governor of Helmand, who feared the Taliban were toppling his district chiefs in northern towns.
