'Move On'? Not So Fast, Mr. President

Al Qaeda in Iraq Fact Check

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Michael R. Gordon and Jim Rutenberg write in a front-page New York Times story: "In rebuffing calls to bring troops home from Iraq, President Bush on Thursday employed a stark and ominous defense. 'The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq,' he said, 'were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that's why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.'

"It is an argument Mr. Bush has been making with frequency in the past few months, as the challenges to the continuation of the war have grown. On Thursday alone, he referred at least 30 times to Al Qaeda or its presence in Iraq.

"But his references to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the Qaeda leadership. . . .

"Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia did not exist before the Sept. 11 attacks. The Sunni group thrived as a magnet for recruiting and a force for violence largely because of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, which brought an American occupying force of more than 100,000 troops to the heart of the Middle East, and led to a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

"The American military and American intelligence agencies characterize Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as a ruthless, mostly foreign-led group that is responsible for a disproportionately large share of the suicide car bomb attacks that have stoked sectarian violence."

But in reality, Gordon and Rutenberg write, "the militant group is in many respects an Iraqi phenomenon. . . . [The] membership of the group is overwhelmingly Iraqi. Its financing is derived largely indigenously from kidnappings and other criminal activities. And many of its most ardent foes are close at home, namely the Shiite militias and the Iranians who are deemed to support them."

Just last week, New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt shamed his own paper for allowing Bush to get away with that assertion unchallenged.

To Philadelphia Daily News blogger Will Bunch, Gordon and Rutenberg still pulled their punches: "The truth is this: What George W. Bush said to the nation yesterday was a lie, and an easily provable one."

Time Columnist Joe Klein explains: "George W. Bush has demonstrated only an intermittent relationship with reality about Iraq. . . . Recently, in his desperation, starting with his speech at the Naval War College on June 28, he has been telling an outright lie, and he repeated it now, awkwardly, in Cleveland: 'The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is the crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims, trying to stop the advance of a system based upon liberty.'

"That is not true. The group doing the most spectacular bombings in Iraq was named al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia by its founder, Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, now deceased, in an attempt to aggrandize his reputation in jihadi-world. It is a sliver group, representing no more than 5% of the Sunni insurgency. It shares a philosophy, but not much else, with the real al-Qaeda, which operates out of Pakistan. . . .

"We have had more than four years of a President who seems to have such a low opinion of the public that he can't bear to tell it the truth about a war gone sour."

And Michael Hirsh writes for Newsweek about that same assertion that "the facts are otherwise: Saddam's Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, as Bush himself has previously admitted, and Al Qaeda in Iraq didn't even exist before the Iraq invasion, which followed 9/11 by a year and a half."

CNN's Elaine Quijano asked Bush to back up his assertion yesterday. Unsurprisingly, Bush wasn't able to do so.

"Q But, sir, on that point, what evidence can you present to the American people that the people who attacked the United States on September the 11th are, in fact, the same people who are responsible for the bombings taking place in Iraq? What evidence can you present? And also, are you saying, sir, that al Qaeda in Iraq is the same organization being run by Osama bin Laden, himself?

"THE PRESIDENT: Al Qaeda in Iraq has sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden. And the guys who had perpetuated the attacks on America -- obviously, the guys on the airplane are dead, and the commanders, many of those are either dead or in captivity, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. But the people in Iraq, al Qaeda in Iraq, has sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden. And we need to take al Qaeda in Iraq seriously, just like we need to take al Qaeda anywhere in the world seriously."

And George Packer blogs for the New Yorker about how the chief military spokesman in Iraq -- fresh from the White House -- is now parroting Bush's talking point about al Qaeda being the principal threat to Iraqis: "After four years in Iraq, apparently, America's wartime leadership still believes that candor is the enemy of success -- that message discipline and the will to win can defeat the facts."

The View From Iraq

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Joshua Partlow and Sudarsan Raghavan write in The Washington Post: "Iraqi politicians on Thursday struck a more pessimistic tone about Iraq than did the White House assessment, and said the deadlock between warring Sunni and Shiite factions makes major political progress unlikely in coming months."

CNN's Michael Ware spoke with Anderson Cooper last night.

"COOPER: The benchmark for reducing the level of sectarian violence was given a satisfactory rating. . . . From what you're seeing, from what you see when you go out with the troops, as you often do, what kind of progress has been made on that front?

"WARE: Well, on the sectarian violence, it's -- you know, if you want to take the measure that there's fewer bodies tortured, executed showing up on the streets of the capital alone, then you can say, well, there's been some impact on sectarian violence.

"But that's not looking at the -- countrywide. Across the country, particularly if you include the figures of U.S. or Iraqi security forces, the deaths remain much the same as they have been. So, in one particular indicator on the streets of Baghdad are, and the numbers may be down. That doesn't mean the sectarian violence has really abated in any fashion.

"And let's not forget, say here in Baghdad, hundreds of thousands of people have left in the past 12 months. So, there's fewer people to be caught in the middle. Neighborhoods themselves are much more homogeneous than they were. They have essentially been ethnically cleansed. So, now the neighborhoods are Sunni and are Shia.

"And, also, don't forget, America is now allowing predominantly Sunni neighborhoods to maintain their own militias here in the capital and some of the provinces. That means the police death squads can't get to them. So, really, has the sectarian violence abated? Not exactly. And is that directly related to al Qaeda? No, because that ignores the fact that al Qaeda's not the only one involved in the sectarian violence.

"What about this Iraqi government and police death squads? What about the Iranian-backed militias? So, just looking at al Qaeda as an end to the sectarian violence is almost an insult to the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have died as a result of that violence so far."

The Fine Print: Moving Backward?

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Karen DeYoung writes in The Washington Post: "Despite stepped-up training, the readiness of the Iraqi military to operate independently of U.S. forces has decreased since President Bush's new strategy was launched in January, according to the White House progress report released yesterday."

Robert Burns writes for the Associated Press: "While many in Congress are pushing President Bush to alter course in Iraq by September if not sooner, his new status report on the war strongly implies that the administration believes its military strategy will take many more months to meet its goals."

Opinion Watch

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The New York Times editorial board writes: "With the American public in despair over the Iraq war and key members of his own party deserting him, President Bush is still trying to twist reality to claim that his failed effort is worth sticking with. . . .

"Mr. Bush still refuses to talk about what almost everyone else now understands is essential: the need to develop an orderly plan to extricate American troops from a lost cause and reposition them in ways that can genuinely protect our national interests."

The USA Today editorial board writes that Bush miscasts the nature of the war.

"He persists in portraying the fight largely as freedom lovers on one side and al-Qaeda terrorists on the other. While that is a piece of the struggle, the U.S. troops also find themselves trying to suppress an extraordinarily violent, multi-sided sectarian conflict. . . .

"Bush also continues to insist that 'victory' is attainable. He's nearly alone in that assessment."

The Los Angeles Times editorial board writes that "a broader view leads to the conclusion this editorial page reached in May: that Bush and his military advisors should already be planning to draw down U.S. forces, a process that should be deliberate, not abrupt, and that should commence no later than this fall."

Rosa Brooks writes in her Los Angeles Times opinion column: "If we're serious about resolving the Iraq crisis, we need to get away from the rhetoric of sacrifice, cost and responsibility and instead ask clear-eyed questions about our capacities and interests.

"What can we actually accomplish with the resources we have? What can we realistically expect from the Iraqi government, and what do the Iraqi people want? What's the worst-case scenario if we withdraw in six months? Twelve? Eighteen? What's the worst-case scenario if U.S. troops remain indefinitely? What will staying -- or leaving -- cost us in terms of allies, intelligence and regional cooperation and stability? With our military and much of the federal budget tied up in Iraq, what other crises -- or opportunities -- are we ignoring?"

Press Corps Watch

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Howard Kurtz writes for The Washington Post: "The press declared war on the war yesterday.

"I can reach no other conclusion after watching the president's press conference.

"With each successive question, White House correspondents essentially asked why anyone should believe that Bush has a viable strategy for success in Iraq. The clear subtext is that the commander-in-chief has little or no credibility left on the subject.

"Compare that to the tone of the questioning in 2003 and 2004, and the difference is striking."

Now read The Post's Peter Baker in a Live Online yesterday, addressing that very question: "I realize it's a popular myth among critics of the evil MSM that the press corps is only now asking the president hard questions, but frankly I don't think that's the case. I've been back on the White House beat for more than 2-1/2 years and the questioning today seemed the same as it's been both in this tour and my last tour on the beat."

Contempt Watch

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Robert Barnes and Dan Eggen write in The Washington Post: "A court battle over President Bush's broad but largely untested claims of executive privilege grew more likely yesterday when a House panel took the first step toward bringing contempt charges against former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers."

Poll Watch

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The Wall Street Journal reports: "President Bush's approval level slipped to 26% in the most recent Harris Interactive survey. The rating was the lowest of his presidency and on par with approval ratings President Richard Nixon received in Harris polls taken during the height of the Watergate scandal."

Snow's Shopping Tip

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Think Progress catches Tony Snow on Fox News: "To walk out of Iraq right now would plant a seed that ultimately would lead to destabilization there, hundreds of thousands of deaths, loss of our influence in the region, would create instability throughout the Middle East throughout East Asia, throughout Europe. And sooner or later it would come to our shores, to a shopping mall near you."

Cheney Gets His Money

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Andrew Taylor writes for the Associated Press: "The White House scored a win Thursday on Capitol Hill after a moderate Senate Democrat broke with his party to restore funding for Vice President Dick Cheney's office."

A Reader's Question

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White House Watch reader Debbie Taylor notes Bush's insistence yesterday that he makes his decisions based on principle and not politics, and writes: "You often ask your readers for questions to pose to Bush, and my question would be: 'You have said that you don't base your decisions on politics, then explain why your Political Director, Karl Rove, is involved in all decisions made by your administration.'"

Op-Ed Humor

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On the New York Times op-ed page, Michael Feldman reinterprets the Hippocratic Oath in the Bush era.

Cartoon Watch

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Mike Luckovich on Bush the comedian; Stuart Carlson on Bush's distraction; Duane Powell Bush's secrets; David Horsey on the greatest scandal of all. And John Sherffius is apparently at code red.