Death in Iraq, State of Denial in D.C.

Sadly, the Bush administration continues its campaign of propaganda about the war on terror and the war in Iraq. In recent days, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush have tried to paint a picture of positive momentum and an insurgency in Iraq that is in its "final throes". Unfortunately, the news out of Iraq doesn't give us any reason to believe them. Actually, the assesments of our own military commanders betrays the falsehoods spouted by our top elected officials:

"Yesterday, the top American commander in the Persian Gulf told Congress the Iraqi insurgency has not grown weaker in the past six months. 'I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago,' Gen. John Abizaid said.

This on a day when many Americans were killed in Iraq. Also at the same time Bush refused an Iraqi request to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq while meeting with an Iraqi leader in D.C. Funny how we can set timetables for Iraqi elections and constitution writing, but they can't ask us to set timetables for ourselves.

A lot of this is detailed in the Seattle Times.

The New York Times published a stong editorial about the dishonest nature of the Bush administration in the war on terror. The article said three facts need to be acknowledged about Iraq:

1) The war has nothing to do with Sept. 11.
2) The war has not made the world, or this nation, safer from terrorism.
3) If the war is going according to plan, someone needs to rethink the plan.

Meanwhile, the U.S. policy of extraordinary rendition has come under fire from one of our biggest allies in the war in Iraq: Italy. The Italian Justice department has issued arrest warrants for CIA officers who arrested a terrorist in Italy and sent him to Egypt where he was tortured. It turns out that Italy had been building a case against the terrorist for a long time and was ready to make an arrest. But now the whereabouts of this terrorist is unknown. See the article in the Seattle Times.