Pro-war prevaricators

Iraq embassy memo refutes Bush, Republicans


Full of it

I spent too much time last week listening to the House speeches concerning the non-binding Iraq war continuation/Terror war resolution. President Bush and his drop-in propaganda trip to Iraq and the rest of the pro-war side struck me as giving an awesome dose of un-reality. For example, I watched on C-SPAN while Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH) explained how the American invasion was just the cat's meow for the women of Iraq.

Rep. Deborah Pryce: If I were asked to give one good reason why we should stay in Iraq, I would tell you to stay. We need to stay for the women. Well, I saw women of diverse ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic classes. They were empowering each other with education, with hope, with friendship, just like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony....

Then as if it was on cue, right after passage of the resolution, a devastating cable sent straight from the horse's mouth at the US Embassy in Baghdad was leaked to the Washington Post, ripping the slimy intestines out of the Republican case for continuing the war as is.

Juan Cole has posted text of the cable here. The document is marked ``sensitive'' and begins,

1. (SBU) Beginning in March. and picking up in mid-May, Iraqi staff in the Public Affairs Section have complained that Islamist and/or militia Groups have been negatively affecting their daily routine. Harassment over proper dress and habits has been increasingly pervasive. They also report that power cuts and fuel prices have diminished their quality of life. Conditions vary by neighborhood, but even upscale neighborhoods such as Mansur have visibly deteriorated....

It should no longer be so hard to see that it is the American war that causes deterioration.

Rep. Pryce must have missed on her tour what is described by this note in the cable about the lives of Iraqi women who are collaborators with the occupation:

Two of our three female employees report stepped up harassment beginning in mid-May. One, a Shiite who favors Western clothing, was advised by an unknown woman in her upscale Shiite/Christian Baghdad neighborhood to wear a veil and not to drive her own car. Indeed, she said, some groups are pushing women to cover even their face, a step not taken in Iran even at its most conservative.

3. (SBU) Another, a Sunni, said that people in her middle-class neighborhood are harassing women and telling t h em to cover up and stop using cell phones (suspected channel to licentious relationships with men). She said that the taxi driver who brings her every day to the green zone checkpoint has told her he cannot let her ride unless she wears a headcover. A female in the PAS cultural section is now wearing a full abaya after receiving direct threats in May. She says her neighborhood, Mhamiya, is no longer permissive if she is not clad so modestly.

The cable goes on to mention that an ``Arab newspaper editor told us he is preparing an extensive survey of ethnic cleansing, which he said is taking place in almost every Iraqi province , as political parties and their militias are seemingly engaged in tit-for-tat reprisals all over Iraq''.

Complaints about the lack of electric power and day-long gas lines are transmitted in the cable. The widespread threat of kidnapping is reported. And this incredible item:

In April, employees began reporting a change in demeanor of guards at the green zone checkpoints. They seemed to be more militia-like, in some cases seemingly taunting. One employee asked us to explore getting her press credentials because guards had held her embassy badge up and proclaimed loudly to nearby passers-by ``Embassy'' as she entered Such information is a death sentence if overheard by the wrong people.

Wow. The palace guards are willing to out collaborators at the gate! This says to me that this war is totally lost by the Americans already, unless they take a decision to just destroy the entire population. Otherwise, the country will never willingly be governed by American puppets.

Naturally, the corporate media beyond the Post has been completely unwilling to take any action to fact check Republican claims against the revelations presented by the cable. Media Matters has a very good post on this media non-response here.