What George Bush Can't Say About Iraq >>>

[Stephanie]

WE ARE NEVER LEAVING




WE ARE NEVER LEAVING IRAQ. NEVER. That's the bottom line. That's what he won't tell you. That's why he choked on his lies the other night.

We are building ENDURING BASES.

We are building THE WORLD'S LARGEST EMBASSY.

We are SEIZING THE OIL FIELDS.

And neocon http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Video_Recent_US_actions_could_signal_0112.html">DICK CHENEY still of AMERICAN HEGEMONY.

GEORGE BUSH CAN'T SAY IT, BUT I AM TELLING YOU NOW. WE ARE NEVER LEAVING IRAQ. NEVER. THAT'S THE SUBTEXT BEHIND EVERY SPEECH AND EVERY NEGOTIATION. ALL OF WASHINGTON KNOWS IT. THEY JUST WON'T SAY IT. THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO TO KNOW.

[KingFlorez]

1. Another thing he couldn't say

Is that he's just trying to wait it out until 2009 for it to become the next President's problem.

[Stephanie]

9. Yes but this is why.

This is the reason why.

[hatrack]

22. Exactly. "Surge" my ass. "Augmentation" my ass.

It's anti-decision insurance, plain and simple. He's just waiting for that magic time and place when it will become the Democrats' fault.

[Stephanie]

25. Exit Strategy My Ass.

There never has been one and never will be. And both sides know it.

[Morgana LaFey]

60. No, actually he's admitted that.

Once, at least. He said the troops would not be taken out while he was president -- and I think there was a more explicit portion in which he basically said "the next president" would have to deal with it.

[cui bono]

61. Yes, and it was plural. "future presidents" was what he said. nt

[annabanana]

2. Sadly,

There are Democrats also who will never say this.

[Stephanie]

3. precisely

.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

4. Kick this up, people.

This is the most important post of the . . . ?????

The congressional Dems are afraid to say it, because admitting to it would show their lack of power and resolve.

Nonetheless . . . the lady speaks the truth.

[Stephanie]

15. thanks

I'd like to think I do, on occasion. :hi:

[C_U_L8R]

5. It's not just Iraq

they want the whole thing.. from the mediterranean to pakistan.. and all the oil that's there

[Stephanie]

6. that's the hegemony part

and why stop there? the neocons planned to skip from the ME to N. Korea then China.

[nickynoo]

7. The Bush gang already have 'the ultimate prize' (OIL)......

.... and they care nothing for the carnage and destruction they are creating.

See Chris Floyd

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010807A.shtml

[Stephanie]

8. Welcome to DU!

Nice to meet you nickynoo.

[AzDar]

10. Spot-on, I'm afraid. n/t

[Stephanie]

19. Sadly, I thank you.

I'm afraid it's the truth.

[SammyWinstonJack]

11. He did say that as long as he is pResident, we aren't leaving Iraq.

I believe he said that more than once. I believed him when he said it, probably one of the few times I have ever believed anything he's said. Guess he is capable of telling the truth, at least on one occasion.

[Stephanie]

18. correct >

In an effort to shift public perceptions, Mr Bush last week gave three speeches in as many days, vowing that America would not be pulling out of Iraq. "As long as I'm the President, we will stay, we will fight and we will win the war on terror," he said.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0828-01.htm

[Auntie Bush]

53. Even that isn't the truth...because we will be leaving

as soon as we get our soldiers bloodied asses kicked out, and our treasury looks like Mother Hubbard's cupboard.

[havocmom]

12. Bin Laden wanted US bases out of Arabia & Saddam out of Iraq

bush did exactly what Bin Laden wanted.

[Stephanie]

13. that's right

and we're still doing it, and OBL's still at large.

[EFerrari]

14. That's their plan. My prediction is we will leave Iraq, tail between legs

in an ignominious way and in the not too distant future.

Because these bastards always forget to factor in REALITY to their plans. And all those billions and all that arragance will be a total waste. We are barely holding the Green Zone, fer Christ's sake.

I just hope all our guys get out in one piece.

/behind->between

[Stephanie]

16. Well let's ask the Democrats about that

Because they are not being forthright either.

[EFerrari]

17. No, they're not.

This is going to be a really difficult time for us all.

And, goddam, I'm not ready to hold back at all any more, not for anything. The stakes are much too high.

We have to get out of Iraq and we have to impeach Bush/Cheney.

We have to.

[lapfog_1]

20. We will leave, right after we pump the last drop of oil... n/t

[Stephanie]

21. No.

Because it is our new forward base of operations. We are building a CITY there to house our embassy. We are building a NETWORK of permanent military bases. All future wars will be based out of Iraq. Iraq is our landing strip.

[lapfog_1]

28. Sorry, I meant to add...

we'll leave, right after we pump the last drop of oil FROM THE ENTIRE REGION.

After which, we will have no further interest or use for the entire region (by that time, we will have moved on to NEW resource rich area in which to invade, build bases, etc).

[unkachuck]

23. right on, Stephanie....

....and remember, Middle East/Iraqi turmoil is keeping the rest of the world away from this oil....all our fascists have to do is find a dependable way to get the oil out and they've won....

....everything else, be damned....

[Stephanie]

24. unfortunately for them they are completely incompetent

so they will plow ahead but achieve none of their outrageous goals. that's why they keep upping the ante. to supercede the failures of the past.

[Timbuk3]

26. Dick Cheney's song for America

Worth revisiting.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/American_Empire/Cheney's_Song_America.html

[Stephanie]

27. page not found

got another link?

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

29. Well, do you think the next President will see it this way?

Unless things radically change soon, it looks like the major campaign issue for 2008 will be whether we pull out of Iraq or stay.

Right now, that next President looks like either John McCain or Hillary Clinton.

[Stephanie]

30. I think both of those candidates are yesterday's news.

I think both of them would continue the lies and deceipt about Iraq, allow the occupation to continue, waste more lives, etc. But I don't think either one will be nominated. They are both stale. They are old news. They are alike in that they are both insincere, hawkish centrists, like Lieberman. But neither can win, IMO.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

38. I hope you are right (as I too think both would continue the occupation)

I wouldn't take Hillary lightly, however, not with her money and corporate support.

[Stephanie]

39. believe me, I've made a serious study of Hillary

and in my opinion she is old news. everybody hates her, right and left. nobody feels she can win. only republicans want her as our nominee. I have faith we will choose someone with integrity.

[Stephanie]

31. EXCERPTS FROM THE LINKED ARTICLES >>>

see below

[Stephanie]

32. We are building ENDURING BASES.>>>

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2005/03/enduring_bases_iraq.html

Digging In

News: If the U.S. government doesn't plan to occupy Iraq for any longer than necessary, why is it spending billions of dollars to build "enduring" bases?

By Joshua Hammer

March/April 2005 Issue

When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters last December that he expected U.S. troops to remain in Iraq for another four years, he was merely confirming what any visitor to the country could have surmised. The omnipresence of the giant defense contractor KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown & Root), the shipments of concrete and other construction materials, and the transformation of decrepit Iraqi military bases into fortified American enclaves—complete with Pizza Huts and DVD stores—are just the most obvious signs that the United States has been digging in for the long haul. It's a far cry from administration assurances after the invasion that the troops could start withdrawing from Iraq as early as the fall of 2003. And it is hardly consistent with a prediction by Richard Perle, the former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, that the troops would be out of Iraq within months, or with Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi's guess that the U.S. occupation would last two years. Take, for example, Camp Victory North, a sprawling base near Baghdad International Airport, which the U.S. military seized just before the ouster of Saddam Hussein in April 2003. Over the past year, KBR contractors have built a small American city where about 14,000 troops are living, many hunkered down inside sturdy, wooden, air-conditioned bungalows called SEA (for Southeast Asia) huts, replicas of those used by troops in Vietnam. There's a Burger King, a gym, the country's biggest PX—and, of course, a separate compound for KBR workers, who handle both construction and logistical support. Although Camp Victory North remains a work in progress today, when complete, the complex will be twice the size of Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo—currently one of the largest overseas posts built since the Vietnam War.

Such a heavy footprint seems counterproductive, given the growing antipathy felt by most Iraqis toward the U.S. military occupation. Yet Camp Victory North appears to be a harbinger of America's future in Iraq. Over the past year, the Pentagon has reportedly been building up to 14 "enduring" bases across the country—long-term encampments that could house as many as 100,000 troops indefinitely. John Pike, a military analyst who runs the research group GlobalSecurity.org, has identified a dozen of these bases, including three large facilities in and around Baghdad: the Green Zone, Camp Victory North, and Camp al-Rasheed, the site of Iraq’s former military airport. Also listed are Camp Cook, just north of Baghdad, a former Republican Guard "military city" that has been converted into a giant U.S. camp; Balad Airbase, north of Baghdad; Camp Anaconda, a 15-square-mile facility near Balad that housed 17,000 soldiers as of May 2004 and was being expanded for an additional 3,000; and Camp Marez, next to Mosul Airport, where, in December, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the base's dining tent, killing 13 U.S. troops and four KBR contractors eating lunch alongside the soldiers.

At these bases, KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary that works in cooperation with the Army Corps of Engineers, has been extending runways, improving security perimeters, and installing a variety of structures ranging from rigid-wall huts to aircraft hangars. Although the Pentagon considers most of the construction to be "temporary"—designed to last up to three years—similar facilities have remained in place for much longer at other "enduring" American bases, including Kosovo's Camp Bondsteel, which opened in 1999, and Eagle Base in Tuzla, Bosnia, in place since the mid-1990s.

[Stephanie]

33. We are building THE WORLD'S LARGEST EMBASSY >

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12319798

New U.S. Embassy in Iraq cloaked in mystery
Baghdad locale, slated to be completed in 2007, to be largest of its kind




Updated: 5:45 p.m. ET April 14, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The fortress-like compound rising beside the Tigris River here will be the largest of its kind in the world, the size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq’s turbulent future.

The new U.S. Embassy also seems as cloaked in secrecy as the ministate in Rome.

“We can’t talk about it. Security reasons,” Roberta Rossi, a spokeswoman at the current embassy, said when asked for information about the project.

A British tabloid even told readers the location was being kept secret — news that would surprise Baghdadis who for months have watched the forest of construction cranes at work across the winding Tigris, at the very center of their city and within easy mortar range of anti-U.S. forces in the capital, though fewer explode there these days.

The embassy complex — 21 buildings on 104 acres, according to a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report — is taking shape on riverside parkland in the fortified “Green Zone,” just east of al-Samoud, a former palace of Saddam Hussein’s, and across the road from the building where the ex-dictator is now on trial.

[Stephanie]

34. We are SEIZING THE OIL FIELDS. >>>

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132569.ece

Future of Iraq: The spoils of war
How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches
By Danny Fortson, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim Webb
Published: 07 January 2007


Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state controlled.

[Stephanie]

35. And neocon DICK CHENEY

http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_iraqi-oil-maps.shtml

For Immediate Release
Mar 7, 2006 Contact: Press Office
202-646-5188

Maps and Charts of Iraqi Oil Fields

These are documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under a March 5, 2002 court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force. The documents contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” The documents are dated March 2001. Click here to view the press release.

Iraq Oil Map
Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts - Part 1
Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts - Part 2
United Arab Emirates Oil Map
United Arab Emirates: Major Oil and Natural Gas Development Projects
Saudi Arabia Oil Map
Saudi Arabia: Major Oil and Natural Gas Development Projects

[Stephanie]

36. still DREAMS >

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Video_Recent_US_actions_could_signal_0112.html

Video: Recent US actions could signal Iran conflict, despite White House denials; GOPer's bill requires Congress OK on Iran

David Edwards and Mike Sheehan
Published: Friday January 12, 2007
Print This Email This

Despite its claims to the contrary, some see evidence that the White House is preparing for conflict with Iran.

US forces raided a facility that Iran claimed was being used for diplomatic purposes, alleging that Iranians were funneling weapons to the enemy. Six Iranians were captured in the raid at the consulate, with one being released earlier today.

Several analysts consider parts of President Bush's latest speech as an obvious threat to Iran. One, John Pike of GlobalSecurity, notes that U.S. actions could signal a conflict in the near future.

"It's really unclear what the President was saying," Pike said. "It's a little more clear what the United States is actually doing, was basically calling on Iran not to interfere with Iraq, not to further interfere with Iraq."

Pike added, "But, also, look at what he said the United States is going to do. As previously reported, several weeks ago, the aircraft carrier, John Stennis, is being dispatched to the Persian Gulf. That gives the United States two aircraft carriers in the Gulf. Round the clock operations. He also, surprisingly, announced that the United States was going to be deploying Patriot anti-missile interceptors to the region. It's difficult to imagine whose missiles those would be shooting down other than Iran. It's looks to me like the United States is, at least, raising its capabilities in preparation for possible military confrontation with Iran."

[Stephanie]

37. of AMERICAN HEGEMONY.>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-jenkins/fukuyama_b_37908.html

Simon Jenkins

Bio

01.05.2007
Fukuyama (7 comments )
READ MORE: Iraq, Francis Fukuyama, Simon Jenkins, Dick Cheney, Israel, United States, Afghanistan, Iran, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Tony Blair

A celebrated New Yorker cartoon of the 1950s showed a plane crashing on a runway. As everyone rushed to rescue the crew a solitary scientist walked in the opposite direction. He sighed, "Oh well, back to the drawing board."

As the George Bush's Iraq adventure smoulders on the tarmac, a small group of neo-cons are starting to escape the scene with varying degrees of dignity. Some such as Paul Wolfowitz and Paul Bremer have vanished. A handful, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Tony Blair, remain in denial, parroting the Vietnam line that "we are winning, really". Others such as Francis Fukuyama have a more valid licence to recant, having doubted whether neo-conservatism was relevant to Iraq all along.

***
What is extraordinary, and what Fukuyama does not fully answer, is how so small a group of often crackpot intellectuals came to hijack a superpower. Under Bush men such as Wolfowitz, Cheney, Richard Perle, William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer should have been locked away in some log cabinet. Kristol declared, "It is precisely because American foreign policy is infused with an unusually high degree of morality that other nations find they have less to fear from its otherwise daunting power." On what planet do these people live?

Such words would have been hubristic arrogance at the height of the British Empire. The neo-cons still cannot see what harm is done their cause by Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, the 101st Airborne and extraordinary rendition. They cannot see that these methods of hegemony, minor in themselves, are 9/11 to the defenceless poor of Afghanistan, Iraq and the ghettoes of Palestine. American cried feel out pain after 9/11. They cry it now. Justified or not, this is a fact with which diplomacy (or war) must contend.

The good intentions of the neo-cons may seem axiomatic from within the beltway. America's friends abroad can only reply, and at the tops of their voices, that is now how it seems elsewhere in the world. When Cheney and company now threaten Iran, again with the best of intentions, those friends wonder respectfully if American has taken leave of its senses.

[Jim Warren]

40. This needs to be seen

by as many as possible.

:kick:

[Stephanie]

44. thank you

I agree with you, obviously. :hi:

[zippy890]

41. kick - good post

:dem:

[Stephanie]

45. thanks for the kick

I want more people to read it.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

42. I wish that Pelosi could read this.

She is a good woman, and is actually in a position of tremendous power.

And I doubt that she has had the chance to step back and really see all this information, presented succinctly like this. There's too much static, and that isn't likely to change.

Any of her constituents wanna hand-deliver this stuff???



Oh well, welcome to the machine . . .

[Stephanie]

43. I'm quite sure she knows about all of it.

They all do. Of course they do.

[rustydad]

46. Yes but who's reality is it

The bush team may be thinking we will be there until the oil is gone but that is very unlikely to be the outcome. The age of colonialism is long gone. The world won't stand for it. If we, the world, survive two more years of gwb and gang then we will be out of the ME. Our number one problem then will be the huge economic problem of debt brought on by years of over spending and over commitment. The power to control world events is more and more in the Orient and Russia. The US is fading fast and spending trillions in Iraq only shortens the time to the twilight of the US. Bob

[Stephanie]

47. Then why won't the Democrats talk about it?

What will become of Embassy City? What's the future for the permanent bases? I'd like to hear the Democrats bring this out in the open. Americans don't know. They hear talk about redeployment and phased withdrawal and they think we are getting out of there. We are not.

[leftchick]

48. oustanding thread Stephanie

Thank God you are saying it!

K&R

[Stephanie]

49. thank you for the kick

I wish there were more discussion. I guess there is nothing to discuss, it is a done deal.

[leftchick]

50. the discussion should be happening in congress

It appears it is a done deal with dems and repubs alike. I have not heard one democrat bring up Halliburton City in Baghdad! Not ONE!

:grr:

[Stephanie]

51. Well maybe after Hillary Clinton returns from her listening tour of Baghdad she will mentinon it

NOT!

Silence is complicity, IMO.

[leftchick]

52. I agree

one of the most complicit IMO.

[Stephanie]

56. Indeed

Check her Letter to Constituents on Iraq where she advocates a phased withdrawal "while leaving behind a smaller contingent in safer areas with greater intelligence and quick strike capabilities. This will advance our interests, help fight terrorism and protect the interests of the Iraqi people."

Um, enduring bases, anyone?

[leftchick]

57. what is the difference between hil and

a neocon superhawk? :shrug:

[Uncle Joe]

54. I agree Stephanie

Thanks for the thread.

Kicked and recommended

[Stephanie]

55. thanks

If everyone is already aware of this agenda, why won't they talk about it?

[BeHereNow]

58. Smoke and mirrors, that's why.

They don't talk about it, even though they are fully aware of it
because they are all beholden to the MIC to one degree ot another.

Thus the charade continues.

BHN

[Stephanie]

59. that's why we need completely publicly financed campaigns

HRC was the second highest recipient of lobbyist money last year, right after Rick Santorum.