Today in Iraq

War News for September 29, 2003 Bring ‘em on: Four US soldiers wounded in two separate bomb attacks near Iskandariya and Taji. Bring ‘em on: US convoy attacked in Fallujah, Polish troops shoot attacker at al-Hilla (last paragraph of this story.) Bring ‘em on: Indian and South African media report US convoy attacked between Khaldiyah and Ramadi. Witnesses report several US soldiers killed. Xinhua reports same story with mention of “heavy casualties” in firefights that lasted “several hours.” US media reports story without reference to casualties, although this version also reports that a Baghdad video store selling Saddam Hussein atrocity flicks got blown up. The truth finally emerges: During the deployment and planning phases, Rummy was screwing with the TPFDD. “But there has to date been no public accounting of the consequences of Rumsfeld's modifications to the military's standard deployment practices as war approached….The result…was a force that was under protected, undersupplied and undermanned for the mission ahead: securing Iraq once major combat ended.” And it looks like Rummy expects the uniformed officers to take a bullet for his incompetence. How do you wreck an Army? Ask Rummy. ”You can politicize the Army promotion system for three- and four-star generals. “Rumsfeld and his civilian aides such as Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith and his military handmaidens have intruded deeply and harmfully into the way the services promote their leaders. “Where once the Army would send up its nominee for a vacant billet, now it must send up two or three candidates who must run the gantlet of personal interviews in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Not just Rumsfeld, but all of his civilian experts who never wore a uniform. What hoops must the successful one jump through? Will it be the tough, bright candidate who's unafraid to speak when he sees mistakes being made? Or will it be the buttoned-down, willow-in-the-wind, can-do yes-man? Your basic Oliver North?” Bush’s Marshall Plan comparisons are pure hooey. Or is that ‘revisionist history?’ Kenya may send troops to Iraq, with UN approval (and an appropriate level of US “investment.”) Chalabi’s defectors fed US intelligence garbage. “…State Department officials involved in the program said, the Iraqi exiles used most of the money to recruit defectors who claimed to have sensitive intelligence information. Until 2002, the State Department handed over those defectors to the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for debriefing. Federal officials said that very few of them had been judged to be credible, but that they knew of no specific assessment of their credibility. After internal State Department reviews…concluded that much of the $4 million allocated for the program had not been properly accounted for and that the intelligence-gathering program was not part of the department's mission, oversight was transferred to the Defense Department in 2002.” Gee, that was just in time for Doug Feith’s newly-created Special Plans Office to get their hands on these bullshit artists and start trumpeting the news that Saddam has WMD and links to terror. It seems to me that these people weren’t connecting dots as much as they were cherry-picking information. Army may reopen Peacekeeping Institute (under a different name, of course.) Bushies distorted Iraqi polls. Max Cleland sounds off about the George W. Bush Desert Classic. Conservatives begin familiar whine: the media is too negative! Andy Sullivan and Instapundit agree. Local story: Wounded soldier from South Carolina copes with combat stress.