Bush Chooses What to Believe

And here's Bush talking to U.S. troops in Kuwait: "There is no doubt in my mind that we will succeed. There is no doubt in my mind when history was written, the final page will say: Victory was achieved by the United States of America for the good of the world; that by doing the hard work now, we can look back and say, the United States of America is more secure, and generations of Americans will be able to live in peace."

Benchmark Watch

At long last, the Iraqi government has met one of the political benchmarks it set for itself more than a year ago. Sort of.

Joshua Partlow and Michael Abramowitz write in The Washington Post: "The Iraqi parliament passed a bill Saturday intended to make it easier for former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to return to government jobs and collect their pensions, a significant achievement for the divided legislature on an issue still regarded with raw emotion by many Iraqis.

"The agreement marks the passage of the first of the legislative benchmarks, a series of goals the U.S. government had once championed but largely ceased advocating publicly after months of delay, frustration and inaction. . . .

"The legislation seeks to redress the first order issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003, the controversial decision that drove thousands of Baath Party members from their jobs and alienated them from Iraq's political process. That decision, along with a move to disband the Iraqi army, is widely believed to have fueled the Sunni insurgency that proved so deadly in the following years."

But wait. As Partlow and Abramowitz note: "Although the agreement was widely praised, some Iraqi legislators saw the bill as motivated by the same punitive spirit that they felt guided the initial purge of Hussein's government after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. . . .

"'The problem is that the new leaders have gone in the direction of revenge and vengeance, rather than going into healing those wounds,' said Izzat Shabender, a Shiite who is on the de-Baathification committee in parliament. 'Even if this law is passed, it cannot achieve the goal -- which is opening a new chapter with the Baathists. . . . It's got nothing to do with reconciliation. The culture of reconciliation does not exist in the heads of the Iraqi leaders.'"

Solomon Moore writes in the New York Times: "A day after the Iraqi Parliament passed legislation billed as the first significant political step forward in Iraq after months of deadlock, there were troubling questions -- and troubling silences -- about the measure's actual effects. . . .

"[T]he legislation is at once confusing and controversial, a document riddled with loopholes and caveats to the point that some Sunni and Shiite officials say it could actually exclude more former Baathists than it lets back in, particularly in the crucial security ministries.

"Under that interpretation, the law would be directly at odds with the American campaign to draft Sunni Arabs into so-called Awakening militias with the aim of integrating them into the police and military forces."

A Saudi Announcement

Matthew Lee writes for the Associated Press: "The Bush administration will notify Congress on Monday of its intent to sell $20 billion in weapons, including precision-guided bombs, to Saudi Arabia, moving up the announcement to coincide with the president's arrival in Riyadh, The Associated Press has learned.

"Despite concern about the deal from some lawmakers, the State Department, which last month said it would delay the notification until after Congress comes back into session, will announce the proposed sale on Jan. 14, a day before the House returns to work and more than a week before senators return to Washington, said a senior official."

The McConnell Interview

What to make of National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell? A 15,000-word story in this week's New Yorker, based on a series of interviews with the normally reticent spy, is full of shocking revelations, but few conclusions.

The Lawrence Wright article is not on the New Yorker Web site yet, but is available here, from the Wall Street Journal Web site.

In it, McConnell describes his goal of an incredibly intrusive surveillance state -- "giving government the authority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer, or Web search," Wright writes.

"The plan will propose restrictions that are certain to be unpopular. In order for cyberspace to be policed, Internet activity will have to be closely monitored. . . . With the cyber-security initiative, McConnell is asking the country to confront a dilemma: Americans will have to trust the government not to abuse the authority it must have in order to protect our networks, and yet, historically, the government has not proved worthy of that trust. 'FISA reform will be a walk in the park compared to this,' McConnell said. 'This is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we're going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens."

But, at the same time, Wright subtly demonstrates how McConnell himself isn't to be trusted. His lead anecdote, for instance -- about McConnell using the story of three missing soldiers in Iraq as a case study for the need to revise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- eventually emerges as an indictment of McConnell's deceit or incompetence.

What's consistently lacking in McConnell's narratives is evidence to support his positions. And nowhere does he get squirrellier than while talking about torture.

"During one conversation, I asked McConnell, 'Have we gotten meaningful information through torture?'

'We don't torture,' he responded automatically.

"'O.K., through aggressive interrogation techniques.'

"'"Aggressive" is your word,' he said. 'Have we gotten meaningful information? You betcha. Tons! Does it save lives? Tons! We've gotten incredible information. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. K.S.M. No. 3. Go pull his testimony. A lot of what we know about Al Qaeda and what we shut down came out of that.'"

But as Wright notes: "The reliability of the confession of Mohammed, who after sustained abuse claimed a role in more than thirty criminal plots, has been widely questioned."

McConnell tells Wright he signed off on the interrogation program. "I asked how he defined torture.

"'There's a history of people making claims that it's not torture if you don't force the failure of a major organ,' McConnell said, referring to the infamous 2002 memo by John Yoo, a Justice Department lawyer, who argued that an interrogation technique was torture only when it was as painful as organ failure or death.

"'My view is, that's kind of absurd. It's pretty simple. Is it excruciatingly painful to the point of forcing someone to say something because of the pain?' . . .

"'There are techniques to get the information, and when they get the information it has saved lives,' he said vaguely. 'We have people walking around in this country that are alive today because this process happened.'

"Couldn't the information be obtained through other means?

"'No,' McConnell said. 'You can say that absolutely.' He again cited the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. 'He would not have talked to us in a hundred years. Tough guy. Absolutely committed. He had this mental image of himself as a warrior and a martyr. No way he would talk to us.'"

But, as Wright notes: "Among the things that Mohammed confessed to was the murder of Daniel Pearl. And yet few people involved in the investigation of Pearl's death believe that Mohammed had anything to do with the crime; another man, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, was convicted of killing Pearl."

McConnell's comments on waterboarding are particularly hard to reconcile.

"'You know what waterboarding is?' he asked. 'You lay somebody on this table, or put them in an inclined position, and put a washcloth over their face, and you just drip water right here' -- he pointed to his nostrils. 'Try it! What happens is, water will go up your nose. And so you will get the sensation of potentially drowning. That's all waterboarding is.'

"I asked if he considered that torture.

"McConnell refused to answer directly, but he said, 'My own definition of torture is something that would cause excruciating pain.'

"Did waterboarding fit that description?

"Referring to his teen-age days as a lifeguard, he said, 'I know one thing. I'm a water-safety instructor, but I cannot swim without covering my nose. I don't know if it's some deviated septum or mucus membrane, but water just rushes in.' For him, he said, 'waterboarding would be excruciating. If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful! Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture.'

"I queried McConnell again, later, about his views on waterboarding, since this exchange seemed to suggest that he personally condemned it. He rejected that interpretation. 'You can do waterboarding lots of different ways,' he said. 'I assume you can get to the point that a person is actually drowning.' That would certainly be torture, he said. The definition didn't seem very different from John Yoo's. The reason that he couldn't be more specific, McConnell said, is that 'if it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it.'"

Bling Watch

Michael Abramowitz writes in The Washington Post: "When President Bush showed up Sunday to meet United Arab Emirates President Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan, he was presented with the biggest bling Secret Service agents said they had ever seen: a giant necklace set with hundreds of rubies, emeralds and other precious stones, holding a medallion that included a hand-painted enamel American flag.

"It was just one example of the kind of lavish wealth on display as Bush makes his way through Persian Gulf countries bursting with oil money.

"The president and his party stayed here Sunday night at the Emirates Palace, a giant Taj Mahal-like hotel that cost more than $3 billion to build. The hotel has a nearly mile-long private beach with sand imported from Algeria. The interior hallways are lined with gold and marble."

Here's a picture of the bling; and one of Bush waving a sword around.

Pool Report Watch

For journalists, going on international trips with Bush is typically not an enviable task. But the Chicago Tribune's Mark Silva blogs about his night at the Emirates Palace: "[M]y room was running somebody 1595 USD a night, and the amenities include a PDA to control all of the entertainment. The NEC flat screen, I am estimating 60 inches. . . .

"Red and yellow rose petals were strewn, or actually arranged on white towels, on the floor of the bathroom, and I was doing my best to navigate around them so as not to spoil the effect. . . .

"However, I have it from a highly credible junior administration official that I was staying in the UAE equivalent of maid's quarters."

Culture Clash

Terence Hunt writes for the Associated Press: "One is a night owl who likes to do business after midnight. The other is an early-to-bed guy who brags about going to sleep around 9:30 p.m. . . .

"One of them is King Abdullah of oil-rich Saudi Arabia. The other is President Bush.

"So what happens when the president comes calling on the king? Call it the battle over bedtime.

"It appears Bush is willing to make some concessions for the king.

"Bush, after a day of meetings in Dubai on Monday, is scheduled to arrive in Saudi Arabia for his first visit to the kingdom. He had an appointment at the palace beginning at 9:05 p.m. -- the time he usually is getting ready for bed.

"The big question is, how long will the president stay?"

From a background briefing with an unidentified senior administration official yesterday:

Q: "The President is kind of an early-to-bed guy -- (laughter) -- and the King likes to stay up late, and the meeting tomorrow starts at 9:00 a.m. What do you think, how long is it going to go?"

Senior Administration Official: "Well, we'll see."

Q: "We have a wager, hence the giggling. (Laughter.)"

Q: "We have a wager. (Laughter.)"

Q: "You think it could go pretty late, though, right? I mean -- (laughter.)"

Senior Administration Official: "You know, this is a matter of great sensitivity and I don't really want to be wading in -- (laughter) -- very significant. But if someone wants to offer me 10 percent on the side, I could see what I could do. (Laughter.)"

Late Night Humor

Via U.S. News, David Letterman's "Top Ten Things Overheard on George W. Bush's Trip To The Middle East."

Among them: "3. 'That's not a kitty, sir, it's a Sphinx.'

"2. 'It's nice to finally put a face to the devastation I've created.'

"1. 'My next stop -- the Middle West!'"

Cartoon Watch

Kal on Bush's stature in the Middle East; Ann Telnaes on Bush's embrace of theocrats; Tony Auth on Karl Rove's view of Obama.