The Assassination of Qassim Suleimani

Demonstration in Tehran Over U.S. Assassination of Qassim Suleimani

On Friday, an American drone fired missiles into a convoy leaving the Baghdad airport and killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, who for decades has led Iran’s Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Several officials from Iraqi militias were also killed.

President Donald Trump, speaking from his Mar-a-Lago resort, said,”Suleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks…” He did not provide any details or evidence of such. Given the President’s propensity for lying, the credence of Trump’s rationale can certainly be questioned.

Suleimani was definitely an enemy of America, but George W Bush and Barack Obama both had opportunities to take him out and chose not to because the benefit was largely symbolic and the cost was largely unknowable. Of course, neither Bush nor Obama were facing an impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate.

What the general public is missing in all the “Sturm and Drang” over impeachment is the detrimental impact Trump’s global actions — self-serving, ill-considered, or simply impetuous — have on American interests and on American lives. This is particularly true of this latest precipitous act.

The assassination of a revered Iranian leader undermines Iranian elements seeking regime change. It encourages Iran’s accelerated development of a nuclear arsenal. Because it was carried out on Iraqi soil, it forces Iraqi’s leaders to demand the removal of U.S. forces, opening the divided country to further Iranian and Russian influence. And it effectively neuters our NATO allies. Also, although unlikely to be discussed by authoritative sources, it very likely compromised significant elements of U.S. national technical means, if not HUMINT against Iran.

People have asked whether this action will lead to an American war in Middle East. My answer is, “Where the hell have you been for the last six decades!”*

_____________________________
 *The July 1958 Marine landing in Beirut, Lebanon began the modern era of America’s wars in the region.

Ignorant of History and Determined to Repeat It

Yogi Berra died recently. He was a hall-of-fame baseball player for the New York Yankees -- an iconic figure in baseball -- but more than that, he was a guy who could string a few words together and make you think, huh? One of the things he said that the recent Republican debate brought to mind was, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might wind up someplace else.”

That’s certainly what’s happened to us ever since we started meddling in the byzantine affairs of the Mesopotamian tribes of Iran, Iraq, and Syria. It worries me that our recent crop of Republican presidential candidates seem so uninformed about America’s unfortunate history of failed excursions in the region. They stood on the dais at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Library in Simi Valley, California, and tried to convince voters that they were the honest-to-god best person to be the next American president and fly on the Air Force One that stood as the backdrop to these wannabe Commanders-in-Chief. Unfortunately they demonstrated that they aren’t ready for the job.

With the possible exception of Sen. Rand Paul, these people still don’t understand the massive strategic blunder that the U.S. made in invading Iraq in 2003. They don’t ‘connect the dots’ between that calamity and the chaos that exists in and migrates from the region today.

The candidates talked over each other in their efforts to convince the audience how tough they’d be as commander-in-chief. They would’ve stayed in Iraq, forgetting that the Iraqis didn’t want us and George W. Bush agreed to leave. They’d take on ISIS on the ground in Syria. The so-called “second-tier” Republican debaters were even more forceful in their promises to put “boots on the ground” in Syria.

Jeb Bush, who has vacillated on the wisdom of his brother’s decision to invade Iraq, admits he’s using some of the same foreign policy advisers his father and brother used. But he “will be his own man.” He blames President Obama and Hillary Clinton for creating the “insecurity” in the Middle East, “the likes of which we never would've imagined.”

Insecurity is a placid term for what is a haboob of death and destruction that, in fact, not only could we have imagined, but was predicted by none other than the elder Bush, who showed admirable restraint in not attempting the occupation of Iraq after kicking Saddam out of Kuwait in 1991, saying that doing so, “would have been disastrouss.” At that time, even Dick Cheney cautioned against becoming mired down in an Iraq “quagmire.” Brent Scowcroft, Chairman of George W. Bush’s own Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, went on ‘Face the Nation’ in August 2002 where he predicted that invading Iraq, “would turn the Middle East into a cauldron.” He followed up with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal later that month.

The Iraq war cost America thousands of lives, left thousands more injured and maimed, cost trillions of dollars, and brought the U.S. economy to its knees. The conduct of the war tarnished forever America’s image as a just and reliable ally. It left Iraq a devastated country wracked by sectarian violence. It created this humanitarian crises that floats bodies upon the shores of Europe.

In defense of his brother, Jeb Bush said, “You know what? As it relates to my brother, there's one thing I know for sure. He kept us safe.”

We Should Have Stayed In Iraq -- Oh, Really?!

Is Obama responsible for the rise of ISIS and the chaos and conflict raging in the Middle East? Republicans, especially the now unrepentant Jeb Bush, say Obama's decision to pull troops out of Iraq caused this debacle. Nonsense. "One can argue the single most consequential decision that brought us to today’s deplorable situation is the decision to invade Iraq." This from the conservative National Review. No kidding!

As for pulling out of Iraq, Shortly before Obama took office in January 2009, his predecessor, George W. Bush, finalized an important agreement after about a year of negotiations with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Called the Status of Forces Agreement, it spelled out the withdrawal of all American troops by the end of 2011.

The agreement failed over a demand by the U.S. that American troops be given immunity from prosecution by Iraqis, a very touchy political issue within the Iraqi Parliament. Obama was not going to allow American troops to be judged by Iraqi courts after the disaster that was the Bush Administration's prosecution of the war.

No immunity meant no residual troop presence. In an October 2011 news conference, Nouri al-Maliki said, "When the Americans asked for immunity, the Iraqi side answered that it was not possible. The discussions over the number of trainers and the place of training stopped. Now that the issue of immunity was decided and that no immunity to be given, the withdrawal has started."

One can easily imagine how "enraged" Republicans would've been had Obama agreed to allow American troops to be prosecuted in Iraqi courts for alleged crimes. They might've started throwing shoes!

A Brief History of the Road to Iraqi Ruin

by Jon Phillips

When George Herbert Walker Bush and dozens of international partners collaborated to expel Iraq from Kuwait, the first Bush administration sought wise counsel about whether it should invade Iraq and unseat Saddam Hussein. The advice given was to stop ground forces at the border and to make an end of the air war, subject to invasive WMD inspections and rendering harmless. Later, enforced no fly zones, over southern and northern Iraq, were installed to protect Iraqi minorities. This policy was accepted and followed. Although Iraq suffered under sanctions and its economy collapsed, warfare stopped and some semblance of security remained in Iraq. Saddam remained the uncontested power in Iraq and excluded terrorists and nihilists from Iraq to bolster his own regime security. He even tolerated minorities such as Christians to the extent that they didn't threaten his power position. The WMD programs were systematically deconstructed and eliminated.

I was there in the mid 90's and that was the situation on the ground. The country was not destabilized and life went on. When George W. Bush, 'Dubya,' became President he was given advice to not invade for the same reasons as were given to his Dad (don't open Pandora's Box). He ignored this advice and lied America's way (ex-CIA Director Michael Morrell recently reiterated this) into a disaster that has destabilized Iraq and arguably threatens to destabilize the whole region. Terror groups and nihilists have gained a foothold, Islamic sects and ethnic groups are at war, religious minorities have been destroyed or dispersed, and are dying or fleeing to neighboring countries and beyond.

Dubya's 'Grand Old Partyy' desperately wants everyone to forget the horror they lockstep agreed to unleash. None, except Colin Powell, have publicly admitted the travesty of this decision for disaster and apologized for their role in it. Powell was largely a critic of the idea, as he was the first time as Chair of JCS, but ended up going along with it. His compliance ended his outstanding career in public service -- blemished by association.

 Now, the U.S. evangelical Christian community says they're appalled by the genocide committed against their brethren in Iraq and the region. They should be. They should also ask themselves some soul searching questions -- did they vote to put Dubya in office? Are they voting now for people who support greater U.S. war fighting commitments around the globe? Are they willing to send their children to fight in open-ended insurgencies and willing to witness more resulting chaos, genocide and ethnic cleansing that results from power vacuums created?

I pondered these questions and found them so unsettling that I decided to change parties after more than 25 years (something I've written about before). I could not, in good conscience, vote for a party that would do such things and then deny their responsibly and continue to promote policies that would further degrade regional, international and U.S. security.

If Christians in the U.S. give a damn, they must tell their Republican representatives that they won't accept anymore war mongering from them and ask them to come clean on Iraq. Otherwise, I don't want to hear their insincere and/or ignorant whining about the catastrophe that has ensued from their horrific decisions. The devil didn't do this. Bush, backed by over 95% of all Republicans in the House and Senate, made this travesty a reality. They created the conditions to allow the devil to run amok. House Democrats voted 2 to 1 against the Iraq Resolution.

As for me, I'd rather vote for people who aren't so gung ho to go to war.

___________________________________________________
Jon Phillips is a Senior Nuclear Technology Expert at the International Atomic Energy Agency and Director, Sustainable Nuclear Power Initiative at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The opinions expressed here are his own.

Remembering 9/11

Attack on the Pentagon, September 11, 2001

I was working at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Science & Technology Intelligence when the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred. The event completely changed my work focus and I soon found myself working out of a special compartmented information facility, a SCIF (pronounced “skiff”), in the basement of the Pentagon helping to plan Operation Iraqi Freedom. I saw the damage to the Pentagon first hand.

When I returned to PNNL, I worked on counter terrorism. We briefed a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) for our region -- JTTFs were set up as a result of what were seen as intelligence failures in preventing 9/11 -- and worked with an FBI office in Seattle to help them shift from after-the-fact crime assessment to forward-looking attack prevention. I worked with our counterintelligence/counter terrorism group doing threat assessments.

Back in the PNNL SCIF, I saw playing cards showing the most wanted members of Saddam Hussein’s government posted on the cork board. These cards were called “personality identification playing cards.” We turned them upside down as the individuals were captured or killed. You can now buy these cards on eBay (but some of the decks for sale are not the original cards).

After my temporary duty at the Pentagon, my focus at PNNL shifted from intelligence analysis of major powers, to the far more difficult assessment of non-state actors. We quickly learned that an over dependence on technical means for intelligence collection (e.g., imagery) wouldn't cut it in the new threat environment.

I think the world changed dramatically after 9/11 -- mine certainly did.

"As the United States heads toward the sixth year of the global war on terror, representing violent nonstate actors (VNSA) as a system remains elusive to all but a few pockets of the Department of Defense." (Maj. Tara A. Leweling, 2006)

A Cross in the Oak

As I was going to war
I cut a cross in the oak,
So that father and mother shouldn't weep,
So that the crossed oak should weep.

Es, karā aiziedams,
Cirtu krustu ozolā,
Lai nerauda tēvs, māmiņa,
Lai raud krustiņš ozolā.

But they do weep, the mothers and fathers. Over six thousand US men and women have died in Iraq (4442) and Afghanistan (1584) as of June 2011, and yet our news media ignores these futile wars and their toll, and instead concentrates its coverage on the lives and deaths of sometime celebrities, who greatest contribution to society may be an object lesson in wasted lives.

The Demise of a Thoughtful Republican

George W. Bush, Donald Rusfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz announcing Joint Resolution to authorize force against Iraq.

By J. Phillips

The Iraq War is an utterly depressing subject. My upbringing as a military brat and career as an international nuclear security expert and weapons inspector in Iraq between the two wars cast this unnecessary foreign adventure in a grave, unflattering light. This war alone broke me out of a lifelong tradition of support for the Republican Party. In the history of strategic blunders, this war may prove to be much worse than Vietnam from the perspective of our nation’s place in the world.

Charles Duelfer, chief U.S. investigator on
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, confirming
there were no WMD stockpiles in Iraq.

The lack of a persuasive casus belli in the case of Iraq, and the predictable distraction that resulted, interfered with the proper execution of justifiable military and nation building efforts in Afghanistan.

Success in that endeavor is now imperiled.

The military difficulties of defeating the Taliban and other tribal coalitions, on Afghani terrain, are well understood. Afghanistan has a storied history of ruining all invaders going back many centuries and they have not been successfully administrated by an external power since Timur’s conquest 600 years ago. The dramatically punctuated Afghani terrain and its finely parsed tribal feudalism is a simile of Russian winter and its regional partisans in the annals of military history. It’s a place where invaders have gone to die a slow death. The combination of that difficult, but justifiable proposition with the coincident invasion and occupation of Iraq, arguably the Yugoslavia of the Middle East and the primary foil of Iranian ambitions, was pure Bush Administration folly.

All but seven of 272 Republican legislators lent active support to Bush’s destructive foreign policy. The Democrats, cowed by a nationalist spin machine wrapped in the flag, voted tepidly against the war 147 to 111. The neocon spin machine had convinced a willfully ignorant electorate that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction at the ready to use against us, was complicit in 9/11 and was in league with Al Qaida. These assertions were patently false. It’s not possible that the Bush Administration was uninformed. The lack of justification for war was simply an inconvenient truth standing between them and their ideological goals.

No less than Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor to George HW Bush during the First Gulf War, opined against the imminent invasion in the Wall Street Journal in an attempt to divert the Titanic from its tragic course, but Bush’s neocons and the Republican Party would have none of it. After witnessing these events I could not, in good conscience, support a political party that actively promoted and participated in this ill-fated national decision. It became the demise of a thoughtful Republican.

Though I did not respect the pack of craven Democrats who supported the Iraq invasion, over half did not support the Iraq War – including then Senator Obama. They bucked the popular view as a matter of principle. Ironically, cleaning up this horrendous mess, left by the previous Republican Administration, has now fallen to President Obama’s Administration along with an extensive laundry list of other messes.

Recent estimates of the direct losses of the Iraq War on the larger U.S. economy range as high as $3 trillion all said and done. This does not include opportunity costs, which are the “unknowable unknowns” – the might have beens. The related increment in the national debit will exceed $1 trillion. Your personal share of the U.S. economic losses of the Iraq War will total roughly $10,000. That comes to a U.S. “investment” of roughly $150,000 per Iraqi man, woman and child, spent thoroughly eviscerating their nation in a blender as it were. If it’s not obvious to the reader, this is an inconceivably large figure in contrast with the extremely limited means of an average Iraqi citizen.

We have spent our national treasure destroying another country without justifiable cause and then trying to contain the consequence of the ensuing chaos. It has been a war funded entirely on debit from day one and has been a significant contributor to the destruction of our economy, but speaking from the heart, the wasted treasure is so much less compelling than other things.

I feel familial grief for the uniformed services that have suffered in the aftermath of that thoughtless decision. To date, in excess of 4,400 U.S. soldiers have died and roughly 30,000 suffer with combat injuries. Thousands suffer from post-traumatic stress disorders, chronic depression and related substance abuse. Many thousands of marriages have been destroyed by deployments without end – remember the “Stop Loss policy?” Their children join the swollen ranks of the progeny of broken homes. Suicides among military personnel have soared. All of these casualties of war have families and extended families that bear the brunt of our unfortunate nationalist excess.

The tragic legacy of the Iraq War is only beginning to unfold within the military community. Knowledge that it is a rear guard effort to try and recover from a disastrous Republican Administration decision only makes these losses more intolerable. In a nation whose conscience has become seared by an outbreak of neoconservative nationalism, it’s not even worth raising the hundreds of thousands of casualties on the Iraqi side including the uncounted multitude of innocents killed, maimed and displaced after the fact by the sectarian conflict we unleashed. How many innocents will die and be maimed before Iraq is stabilized? Do we even care?

Most Americans are either ignorant of the facts or can’t find the personal courage to stare into that dark abyss and contemplate whether they bear a share of indirect responsibility for that disaster through their voting decisions. They would rather sit in church pews, watch football games and go to barbecues – so would I. But we can rest assured that more than one generation of Iraqis will not forget this. It is now burned into their national consciousness and it will increase the danger of terrorism we face for the foreseeable future.

So where’s the honor to be found in this debacle? I propose that these good soldiers and their families are worthy of double honor, respect and support from the American people for toiling to stabilize Iraq. Thereby saving the United States from the utter disgrace and disrepute that would have been ours if Iraq were allowed to spin out of control into a sectarian genocide of our making. The Bush Administration, the voters that put them in power and a minority of craven Democrats that supported it, started this war, but the U.S. military is now compelled to finish it.

To those arm chair generals out there that have been supportive of the Iraq War from its inception, please find the personal courage and humanity to see the brilliant film The Messenger. Its heart-felt portrayal of the ocean of grief unfolding in my “home town” stuns one into a holy silence – as the commanding officer in the film states: notification of the first of kin is a sacred duty. While you’re at it view The Hurt Locker for its depiction of the chaos and inhumanity of the sectarian violence that you and I elected to unleash. Those so certain of their point of view should not be afraid to be students of its actual consequence.

The suffering of military personnel and their families coping with death, physical maiming and mental injuries from this elective war is beyond my ability to impersonally dismiss as a usual outcome that the military will have to tolerate for the greater good of the country. There’s nothing usual about this situation.

And what of the flood of Iraqi war refugees, many of whom are Christians, killed or forced from their country by the Islamic fundamentalism that we elected to unleash? Iraq, despite its notorious dictatorship, was a secular state that protected its Christian minority. What of the other minorities who are now crushed under the wheels of majority groups fighting to fill the power vacuum that we elected to create? Apparently, “freedom is an untidy business” as Mr. Rumsfeld so casually stated.

But does taking responsibility in Iraq mean that the electorate should now have corporate amnesia and absolve the Republican Party for making this disastrous decision before they have fully appreciated the consequence and reformed their perspective? This is about political tough love that only an educated electorate can administer to the proper measure. I voted for them all my life before they did this terrible thing, but I can have the personal integrity now to admit my error, change my mind, and vote against them until their last nationalist neocon has been sent packing.

Adolf Hitler was a nationalist neocon. He was a German populist elected in reaction to the economic collapse of the Weimar Republic – Germany’s first attempt at liberal representative democracy. That ideological path is spawned in economic hardship and riven with danger and infamy. God help us if we cannot find the strength to resist that path.

As in the time of FDR and Truman, the Republicans have lost their way. They’re in desperate need of an extended retreat to the political wilderness to find themselves again and cast off the radical influences of populism and neoconservatism. If they don’t accomplish this painful task of reform, they will not be in a position to help build a positive future. They will cease to be the worthy inheritors of the proud legacy of Lincoln, TR and Eisenhower – all of whom would be labeled “RINO” by populist Republicans today.

America’s future needs Republicans, but this batch is defective. Believe in an America that’s a force for good in the world rather than a force for greed, destruction, war and fear. Send the Republicans away until they get it right.

The true cost of the Iraq war: $3 trillion and beyond

Washington Post
By Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes
Sunday, September 5, 2010; B04 


Writing in these pages in early 2008, we put the total cost to the United States of the Iraq war at $3 trillion. This price tag dwarfed previous estimates, including the Bush administration's 2003 projections of a $50 billion to $60 billion war.

But today, as the United States ends combat in Iraq, it appears that our $3 trillion estimate (which accounted for both government expenses and the war's broader impact on the U.S. economy) was, if anything, too low. For example, the cost of diagnosing, treating and compensating disabled veterans has proved higher than we expected.
Moreover, two years on, it has become clear to us that our estimate did not capture what may have been the conflict's most sobering expenses: those in the category of "might have beens," or what economists call opportunity costs. For instance, many have wondered aloud whether, absent the Iraq invasion, we would still be stuck in Afghanistan. And this is not the only "what if" worth contemplating. We might also ask: If not for the war in Iraq, would oil prices have risen so rapidly? Would the federal debt be so high? Would the economic crisis have been so severe?

The answer to all four of these questions is probably no. The central lesson of economics is that resources -- including both money and attention -- are scarce. What was devoted to one theater, Iraq, was not available elsewhere.

Afghanistan
The Iraq invasion diverted our attention from the Afghan war, now entering its 10th year. While "success" in Afghanistan might always have been elusive, we would probably have been able to assert more control over the Taliban, and suffered fewer casualties, if we had not been sidetracked. In 2003 -- the year we invaded Iraq -- the United States cut spending in Afghanistan to $14.7 billion (down from more than $20 billion in 2002), while we poured $53 billion into Iraq. In 2004, 2005 and 2006, we spent at least four times as much money in Iraq as in Afghanistan.

It is hard to believe that we would be embroiled in a bloody conflict in Afghanistan today if we had devoted the resources there that we instead deployed in Iraq. A troop surge in 2003 -- before the warlords and the Taliban reestablished control -- would have been much more effective than a surge in 2010.

Oil
When the United States went to war in Iraq, the price of oil was less than $25 a barrel, and futures markets expected it to remain around that level. With the war, prices started to soar, reaching $140 a barrel by 2008. We believe that the war and its impact on the Middle East, the largest supplier of oil in the world, were major factors. Not only was Iraqi production interrupted, but the instability the war brought to the Middle East dampened investment in the region.

In calculating our $3 trillion estimate two years ago, we blamed the war for a $5-per-barrel oil price increase. We now believe that a more realistic (if still conservative) estimate of the war's impact on prices works out to at least $10 per barrel. That would add at least $250 billion in direct costs to our original assessment of the war's price tag. But the cost of this increase doesn't stop there: Higher oil prices had a devastating effect on the economy.

Federal debt
There is no question that the Iraq war added substantially to the federal debt. This was the first time in American history that the government cut taxes as it went to war. The result: a war completely funded by borrowing. U.S. debt soared from $6.4 trillion in March 2003 to $10 trillion in 2008 (before the financial crisis); at least a quarter of that increase is directly attributable to the war. And that doesn't include future health care and disability payments for veterans, which will add another half-trillion dollars to the debt.

As a result of two costly wars funded by debt, our fiscal house was in dismal shape even before the financial crisis -- and those fiscal woes compounded the downturn.

The financial crisis
The global financial crisis was due, at least in part, to the war. Higher oil prices meant that money spent buying oil abroad was money not being spent at home. Meanwhile, war spending provided less of an economic boost than other forms of spending would have. Paying foreign contractors working in Iraq was neither an effective short-term stimulus (not compared with spending on education, infrastructure or technology) nor a basis for long-term growth.
Instead, loose monetary policy and lax regulations kept the economy going -- right up until the housing bubble burst, bringing on the economic freefall.

Saying what might have been is always difficult, especially with something as complex as the global financial crisis, which had many contributing factors. Perhaps the crisis would have happened in any case. But almost surely, with more spending at home, and without the need for such low interest rates and such soft regulation to keep the economy going in its absence, the bubble would have been smaller, and the consequences of its breaking therefore less severe. To put it more bluntly: The war contributed indirectly to disastrous monetary policy and regulations.

The Iraq war didn't just contribute to the severity of the financial crisis, though; it also kept us from responding to it effectively. Increased indebtedness meant that the government had far less room to maneuver than it otherwise would have had. More specifically, worries about the (war-inflated) debt and deficit constrained the size of the stimulus, and they continue to hamper our ability to respond to the recession. With the unemployment rate remaining stubbornly high, the country needs a second stimulus. But mounting government debt means support for this is low. The result is that the recession will be longer, output lower, unemployment higher and deficits larger than they would have been absent the war.

* * *

Reimagining history is a perilous exercise. Nonetheless, it seems clear that without this war, not only would America's standing in the world be higher, our economy would be stronger. The question today is: Can we learn from this costly mistake?

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University, was chairman of President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers and winner of the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001. Linda J. Bilmes is the Daniel Patrick Moynihan senior lecturer in public policy at Harvard University. They are co-authors of "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict."

Revisiting Past Glories

With the mid-term elections coming up, a lot is being said about the Obama Administration and its effectiveness in dealing with a myriad of issues facing the country. Although the economy and jobs are central to the current debate, Iraq and Afghanistan are still at the forefront of hard problems yet to be satisfactorily resolved.


I think it's important for thoughtful Americans to understand some background on these military adventures.

One of the most devastating accounts of that fiasco was the book by that title, Fiasco, the American Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas Ricks. The planning for and execution of the early stages of that war were abysmal. Much of the problem seems to have been with Pentagon planners eager to satisfy the White House -- Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld -- who were determined to present the coming war in as rosy a picture as possible -- quick and easy. Ricks states that under Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith, the Pentagon concocted "the worst war plan in American history," with insufficient troops and no thought for the invasion's aftermath. Anyone who keeps up with developments in Iraq knows this now, but Rick's book was published in 2006 and at the time, caused no little controversy. Bob Woodward's books, Bush at War, and Plan of Attack, provided interesting insights into the Bush White House's "seat of pants" approach to critical national defense issues, although Woodward's writing style is somewhat wooden, especially in comparison with Rick's.

I just finished reading, Where Men Win Glory, the Odyssey of Pat Tillman. I had to stop reading it at night before bed, because the story of how the Bush Administration and the Pentagon betrayed an honorable, heroic man made me so angry and upset I could not sleep. Most people probably know by now that Tillman was killed by the men in his own platoon; an event termed "friendly fire" by the military -- an oxymoron if there ever was one. But few people know the full story of how first the Army, and then the Bush White House, went to great extremes to keep the public, and even the Tillman family in the dark about what really happened. The actions of the Army and the Administration were so egregious that it makes one literally ill to read about it.

I happened to be reading, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, by Scott McClellan, at the same time. McClellan left the White House after he was lied to about the Valery Plame affair and in briefing the White Press Corps on the basis of what he was told, made himself out to be a liar. McClellan's story of how the Bush Administration conducted government affairs as if they were involved in a continuous political campaign, without regard for the truth, and ruthless in their treatment of anyone who didn't toe the party line, is extremely troubling.

I also read recently, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, by Richard A. Clarke. Here again, the White House comes across as uninformed and arrogant. Much of what Clarke writes is supported by another book I read earlier in the year, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, by George Tenet. In his book, Clarke details how, in light of mounting intelligence of the danger Al-Qaeda presented, his urgent requests to move terrorism up the list of priorities in the early days of the Bush Administration were met with apathy and procrastination. He is particularly critical of Condoleezza Rice, Bush's National Security Advisor, who seemed not only unaware of the Al-Qaeda threat, but uninterested as well. To her, Al-Qaeda was simply one of many extremist groups, no more important than others. Rice was one of Bush's strongest supporters for the invasion of Iraq.

For many, the invasion of Iraq now seems a terrible strategic blunder, both in terms of its impact on the balance of power in the Middle East -- we did a great favor for Iran -- and it's diversion away from the center of the terrorism storm in Afghanistan. There are those who believe that oil was the real reason for the war, but that's probably simplistic. George W. Bush probably convinced himself that invading Iraq and creating a democratic government there would be a great achievement -- a centerpiece for his presidential library. In addition, he wanted to one up his father, who always favored brother Jeb, the sober, thoughtful, industrious son, who would one day be president. Well, Dubya showed him -- he showed us all.

And here we are, about to elect representatives to lead us in the difficult times ahead. As we ponder how to cast our votes, I think it's important to revisit past glories.

Sen. Murray's Political Courage Denigrated by Republican Senatorial Committee

On August 31, 2010, the National Republican Senatorial Committee brought up Sen. Patty Murray’s 2007 statement against George W, Bush’s Iraq war surge, and had the audacity to demand that she “admit that she was wrong and apologize to General Petraeus, and especially the brave men and women who served under him, for working to undermine their mission in Iraq… If Democrats like Patty Murray had their way in 2007, they would have wasted the sacrifices of our troops to satisfy their far-left base, and Iraq would today be controlled by terrorist networks instead of on the path towards democracy.”

Senator Murray’s vote against the surge was consistent with her opposition to the war from the very beginning; she was among the minority of senators (23) that had the political courage to stand against the Bush Administration’s unwarranted decision to invade Iraq. Murray was frustrated by the White House’s haste to push the congress into approving the war resolution. As we now know, the White House wanted no such debate. Bush had made up his mind (or had it made up for him) and had his minions working hard to convince the American public that a “mushroom cloud” was an imminent threat if American troops didn’t topple Saddam Hussein. That was, of course, hogwash.

Gen. Shinseki, US Senate hearing, February 25, 2003

It is also important to remember that Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki warned in February of 2003, a few months before the war was launched, that “Something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers… would be required” to stabilize Iraq after an invasion. For his candor, he was vilified by the Republican war juggernaut. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was particularly incensed. His deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, said Shinseki was “wildly off the mark.” Rumsfeld himself echoed Wolfowitz’s statement, saying, ''The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far off the mark.'' Gen. Shinseki was marginalized and retired  shortly thereafter. He was, of course, proved right, and when George Bush called for a surge in 2007, he was admitting as much.

What Sen. Murray seemed to be saying when she voted against the surge is pretty straight forward, i.e., you were wrong then, why should we believe you’re right now? In fact, some of what she said was,

“I’ve been looking forward to finally having this debate here in the Senate, but some Republicans have a different strategy. They don’t want to have a real debate. They don’t want us to consider the resolutions that have been offered. I’m not going to comment on their motives, but I will point out the consequences. Every day they block a debate, they send a message that Congress supports escalation. Every day they block a debate, they deny our citizens a voice in a war that has cost us dearly in dollars and lives. And every day they block a debate, they are blocking the will of the American public.

I’m on the floor today because I know this debate is long overdue. And I’m not going to let anyone silence me, the troops I speak for, or the constituents I represent.

Ever since the start of combat operations in March 2003, I’ve been frustrated that we have been denied a chance to hold hearings, a chance to ask the critical questions, to demand answers, to hold those in charge accountable, and to give the American people a voice in a war that is costing us terribly. And I can tell you one thing: We are going to have that debate whether some in this body like it or not.

Four years ago, I came here to the Senate floor to discuss the original resolution that gave the President the authority to wage war in Iraq. At that time, I asked a series of questions, including: What will it require? Who’s with us in the fight? What happens after our troops go in? How will it impact the Middle East? How will it affect the broader War on Terror? And are we being honest with the American people about the costs of war?

Today, four years, $379 billion, and more than 3,000 American lives later – the President wants to send more Americans into the middle of a civil war – against the wishes of a majority of the public and of Congress. As I look at the President’s proposed escalation, I’m left with the exact same conclusion I reached 4 years ago. I cannot support sending more of our men and women into harm’s way on an ill-defined, solo mission with so many critical questions unanswered.”

If Sen. Murray’s challenge to debate going to war in the first place was accepted, is it possible that the public would have discovered that the cost of the war might far exceed the Bush Administration’s low ball estimate of $50 to $60 billion, even though Bush’s own Director of the National Economic Council, Lawrence Lindsey, stated that it might cost $100 to $200 billion (see the cost today).

Donald Rumsfeld called Lindsey’s estimate “baloney” and Lindsey was fired. Is it possible that the public would have learned that the war might take longer than a few weeks, as Rumsfeld implied when he said the war “could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.”

And perhaps more importantly, is it possible that had we focused our attention on Afghanistan and capturing/killing Bin Laden in the first place, we wouldn’t now be bogged down in an un-winnable war in that quagmire, while still struggling to stabilize an unruly Iraq?

Possible? You’re damned right! 

In war, truth is the first casualty

Pat Tillman (left) and his brother, Kevin, in front of a Chinook helicopter in Saudi Arabia before their tour of duty as Army Rangers in Iraq in 2003.

HEARING

before the

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MISLEADING INFORMATION FROM THE BATTLEFIELD

APRIL 24, 2007

__________

Serial No. 110-54

__________

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

STATEMENT OF KEVIN TILLMAN

    My name is Kevin Tillman.

    Two days ago marked the third anniversary of the death of

my older brother, Pat Tillman, in Sperah, Afghanistan. To our

family and friends, it was a devastating loss. To the Nation,

it was a moment of disorientation. To the military, it was a

nightmare. But to others within the government, it appears to

have been an opportunity.

    April 2004 was turning into the deadliest month to date in

the war in Iraq. The dual rebellions in Najaf and Fallujah

handed the U.S. forces their first tactical defeat as American

commanders essentially surrendered Fallujah to members of Iraq

resistance, and the administration was forced to accede to

Ayatollah Sistani's demand for January elections in exchange

for assistance in extricating U.S. forces from its battle with

the Mahdi Militia.

    A call-up of 20,000 additional troops was ordered, and

another 20,000 troops had their tours of duty extended.

    In the midst of this, the White House learned that

Christian Parenti, Seymour Hersh and other journalists were

about to reveal a shocking scandal involving mass and systemic

detainee abuse at the facility known as Abu Ghraib.

    Then on April 22, 2004, my brother, Pat, was killed in a

firefight in eastern Afghanistan. Immediately after Pat's

death, our family was told that he was shot in the head by the

enemy in a fierce firefight outside a narrow canyon.

    In the days leading up to Pat's memorial service, media

accounts based on information provided by the Army and the

White House were wreathed in a patriotic glow and became more

dramatic in tone. A terrible tragedy that might have further

undermined support for the war in Iraq was transformed into an

inspirational message that served instead to support the

Nation's foreign policy wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    To further exploit Pat's death, he was awarded the Silver

Star for Valor. The abridged version went like this:

          Only after his team engaged this well armed enemy did it

        appear that the enemy's volume of fire into Corporal, into the

        kill zone diminished. Above the din of battle, Corporal Tillman

        was heard issuing fire commands to take the fight to an enemy

        on the dominating high ground.

          Always leading from the front, Corporal Tillman aggressively

        maneuvered his team against the enemy position on the steep

        slope. As a result of Corporal Tillman's effort and heroic

        action, the trail element of the platoon was able to maneuver

        through the ambush position of relative safety without

        suffering a single casualty.

          The fight that ensued at Corporal Tillman's position

        increased in intensity. Corporal Tillman focused all his

        efforts on keeping the men of his team safe while continuing to

        press the attack himself without regard for his own personal

        safety. In the face of mortal danger, Corporal Tillman

        illustrated that he would not fail his comrades. His actions

        are in keeping with the highest standards of the U.S. Army.

    This was a narrative that inspired countless Americans as

intended.

    There was one small problem with the narrative, however. It

was utter fiction. The content of the multiple investigations

revealed a series of contradictions that strongly suggest

deliberate and careful misrepresentations.

    We appeal to this committee because we believe this

narrative was intended to deceive the family but more

importantly to deceive the American public.

    Pat's death was clearly the result of fratricide. It was

due to a series of careless actions by several individuals in

our platoon after a small harassing ambush.

    During this uncontrolled shooting, the driver of the

vehicle himself recognized friendlies immediately but kept

driving for approximately 400 meters while the soldiers in the

back of his truck continued to shoot at the hillside where the

U.S. soldiers were and civilians.

    The vehicle saw arms and hands waving. Smoke was flying.

Pin gun flares. An Afghan soldier was immediately recognized.

They never felt threatened, and they still shot up the village

unprovoked. The vehicle behind them clearly saw the U.S.

soldiers on the hillside and were calling cease-fire.

    The end result were the death of Pat and the Afghan soldier

as well as two more soldiers wounded in the village.

    The signs were available, but the decision to shoot was

made. This was not some fog of war. They simply lost control.

    According to the sworn statements, statement on April 26th

by the fellow soldier who was right next to Pat, literally

right next to Pat:

          I remember watching the friendlies just shooting at us. A 50-

        cal rolled up into our sights and starting to unload on top of

        us. It would work in boosts. Fifty cal for 10 to 15 seconds,

        240 Bravo, 10 to 15 seconds, back and forth. Specialist Tillman

        and I were yelling: Cease. Stop. Stop. Friendlies. Friendlies.

        Cease fire.

          But they could not hear us.

          Tillman came up with the idea to let a smoke grenade go. They

        stopped. This stopped the friendly contact for a few moments,

        and that is when I realized the AMF soldier was dead.

          At this time, the GMV rolled into a better position to fire

        on us. We thought the battle was over, though, so we were

        relieved, getting up, stretching out and talking with one

        another when I heard some 5.56 rounds coming from the GMV.

          They started firing again. That is when I hit the deck.

          Specialist Tillman at this time was hit by small arms fire. I

        know this because I could hear the pain in his voice as he

        called out: Cease fire. Friendlies. I am Pat, F'ing, Tillman,

        damn it.

          He said this over and over again until he stopped.

    The facts of this case clearly show Pat and the Afghan

soldier were killed by fellow members of his platoon as well as

the wounded soldiers on the hillside, and they knew this

immediately.

    Revealing that Pat's death was a fratricide would have been

yet another political disaster during a month already swollen

with political disasters and a brutal truth that the American

public would undoubtedly find unacceptable. So the facts needed

to be suppressed.

    An alternative narrative had to be constructed. Crucial

evidence was destroyed including Pat's uniform, equipment and

notebook. The autopsy was not done according to regulation, and

a field hospital report was falsified.

    An initial investigation completed in 8 to 10 days before

testimony could be changed or manipulated and which hit

disturbingly close to the mark disappeared into thin air and

was conveniently replaced by another investigation with more

palatable findings.

    This freshly manufactured narrative was then distributed to

the American public, and we believe the strategy had the

intended effect. It shifted the focus from the grotesque

torture at Abu Ghraib and a downward spiral of an illegal act

of aggression to a great American who died a hero's death.

    Over a month after Pat's death when it became clear that it

would no longer be possible to pull off this deception, a few

of the facts were parceled out to the public and to our family.

    General Kensinger was ordered to tell the American public,

May 29th, 5 weeks later, that Pat died of fratricide but with a

calculated and nefarious twist. He stated: ``There was no one

specific finding of fault'' and that he ``probably died of

fratricide.''

    But there was specific fault, and there was nothing

probable about the facts that led to Pat's death. The most

despicable part of what General Kensinger told the American

public was when he said, ``The results of this investigation in

no way diminish the bravery and sacrifice displayed by Corporal

Tillman.''

    This is an egregious attempt to manipulate the public into

thinking anyone who would question this 180-degree flip in the

narrative would be casting doubt on Pat's bravery and

sacrifice. Such questioning says nothing about Pat's bravery

and sacrifice anymore than the narrative for Jessica diminishes

her bravery and sacrifice. It does, however, say a lot about

the powers who perpetrated this.

    After the truth of Pat's death was partially revealed, Pat

was no longer of use as a sales asset and became strictly the

Army's problem. They were now left with the task of briefing

our family and answering our questions. With any luck, our

family would sink quietly into our grief, and the whole

unsavory episode would be swept under the rug. However, they

miscalculated our family's reaction.

    Through the amazing strength and perseverence of my mother,

the most amazing woman on Earth, our family has managed to have

multiple investigations conducted. However, while each

investigation gathered more information, the mountain of

evidence was never used to arrive at an honest or even sensible

conclusion.

    The most recent investigation by the Department of Defense

Inspector General and the Criminal Investigative Division of

the Army concluded that the killing of Pat was ``an accident.''

    The handling of the situation after the firefight was

described as a compilation of ``missteps, inaccuracies and

errors in judgment which created the perception of

concealment.''

    The soldier that shot Pat admitted in his sworn statement

that just before he delivered the fatal burst from about 35

meters away, that he saw his target waving hands, but he

decided to pull the trigger anyway. Such an act is not an

accident. It is a clear violation of the rules of engagement.

    Writing up a field hospital report stating that Pat

``transferred to intensive care unit for continued CPR'' after

most of his head had been taken off by multiple 5.56 rounds is

not misleading.

    Stating that a giant rectangle bruise covering his chest

that sits exactly where the armor plate that protects you from

bullets as being ``consistent with paddle marks'' is not

misleading. These are deliberate and calculated lies.

    Writing a Silver Star award before a single eye witness

account is taken is not a misstep. Falsifying soldier witness

statements for a Silver Star is not a misstep. These are

intentional falsehoods that meet the legal definition for

fraud.

    Delivering false information at a nationally televised

memorial service is not an error in judgment. Discarding an

investigation that does not fit a preordained conclusion is not

an error in judgment. These are deliberate acts of deceit.

    This is not the perception of concealment. This is

concealment.

    Pat is, of course, not the only soldier where battlefield

reality has reached the family and the public in the form of a

false narrative.

    First Lieutenant Ken Ballard died in Najaf, Iraq, just 1

day after Pat's fratricide went public. His mom, Karen

Meredith, was told that Ken was killed by a sniper on a

rooftop. Fifteen months later, she found out that he was killed

by an unmanned gun from his own vehicle.

    Private Jesse Buryj was killed May 5, 2004, in Iraq. His

family was told he was killed in a vehicle accident. A year

later they received the autopsy report, and they found that he

was shot in the back. The Army was forced to concede that he

was accidentally shot by a Polish soldier. Just recently, out

of nowhere, a lieutenant showed up at their family's house and

told them that an officer in his own unit had shot him. They

are still looking for answers.

    Sergeant Patrick McCaffrey was killed June 22, 2004, from

what the family was told ``an ambush by insurgents.'' Two years

later, they found out that those insurgents happen to be the

same Iraqi troops that he was training. Before his death, he

told his chain of command that these same troops that he was

training were trying to kill him and his team. He was told to

keep his mouth shut.

    About a year ago, I received a phone call. I was at my

mom's house, and it was an emergency breakthrough from the

operator. It happened to be a woman named Dawn Hellermann from

North Carolina, so it was 2 a.m., her time.

    Her husband, Staff Sergeant Brian Hellermann was killed in

Iraq. She was tired of receiving new official reasons why her

husband had died. She was desperate for help, so she called us.

The system had failed her.

    Those soldiers deserve better, and their families deserve

better.

    Our family has relentlessly pursued the truth on this

matter for 3 years. We have now concluded that our efforts are

being actively thwarted by powers that are more important,

excuse me, that are more interested in protecting a narrative

than getting at the truth or seeing that justice is served.

    That is why we ask Congress, as a sovereign representative

of the whole people, to exercise its power to investigate the

inconsistencies in Pat's death and the aftermath and all the

other soldiers that were betrayed by this system.

    The one bit of truth that did survive these manipulations

is that Pat was and still is a great man. He is the most

wonderful older brother to ever exist. Pat wanted to leave a

positive legacy based on his actions, and he did that. But

Pat's death at the hands of his comrades is a terrible tragedy.

    But the fact that the Army and what appears to be others

attempted to hijack his virtue and his legacy is simply

horrific. The least this country can do for him in return is to

uncover who is responsible for his death, who lied and covered

it up, and who instigated those lies and benefited from them.

Then ensure that justice is meted out to the culpable.

    Pat and these other soldiers volunteered to put their lives

on the line for this country. Anything less than the truth is a

betrayal of those values that all soldiers who have fought for

this Nation have sought to uphold.