Former Iraqi Prime Minister pleads for peace

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace hosted a discussion with former Iraqi prime minister and current Parliament member of Iraq, Ayad Allawi. Allawi said the American military surge caused some successes, but the situation in Iraq is still very fragile. He said the Iraqi government needs to capitalize on whatever fleeting stability the surge may have caused to make progress towards peace and trust.

He said the current sectarian government will not be able to uphold the nation. He said the prevalent sectarianism in the Iraq only encourages the spread of terrorism and extremism. He hopes Iraqis will one day be seen as just Iraqis, and not by their ethnicities. He said activation of the UN and other regional organizations could encourage the international community to be involved in promoting stability. His most emphatic point was that stability must be established first, before bureaucratic details can be considered.

Kucinich testifies at divisive hearing on Bush administration

Republicans told the House Judiciary Committee that political disagreements, no matter how large, are not grounds for impeachment proceedings at a hearing discussing appropriate Congressional responses to Bush abuses of power. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said the hearing served no purpose other than anger management, stating that no evidence exists which supports grounds for impeachment and that the hearing’s lack of bipartisanship affected Congress’s already low credibility.

Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) said the Bush White House is unprecedented in its distortion of executive privilege, noting Bush’s alleged falsification of pre-Iraq war intelligence and approval of certain interrogation techniques. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) stated that the committee was attempting to solve an institutional problem,acting in a deliberative manner, not an accusatory manner. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) earlier had called Bush “the worst President our country has ever seen.”

In his testimony before the committee, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said pre-war justifications provided to Congress were untrue and that Congress had relied on the White House’s false statements while authorizing the Iraq war. Kucinich also said that Iraq posed no security threat to the United States and, since Iraq lacked a weapons program, Saddam Hussein was unable to harm the United States or arm terrorists. Congress’s decision now, Kucinich said, is whether it should defend the Constitution and prevent abuses of power in the Executive and Judiciary Branches.

Rep Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) said the White House has been dominated by corruption and incompetence, stating that the Bush administration ignored numerous warnings prior to the Sept. 11 attacks. He said the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s decision to scale back troop levels in Afghanistan aided Osama bin Laden’s escape into the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan. Hinchey suggested that it would have been more difficult to justify an attack against Iraq if bin Laden had been apprehended by the US military. Recognizing that impeachment had been referenced by many, Hinchey said the Bush administration, through the ways it violated the law, is “probably the most impeachable administration in the history of America.”

Obama lays out his five-fold national security plan

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a speech on U.S. foreign policy, national security and strategy in Iraq at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. Obama was introduced by Wilson Center director Lee Hamilton who started jovially referencing an incident where Obama had to show ID at a DC gym.

Obama began his speech with a historic reference to the Marshall plan quoting from General Marshall's speech about rebuilding enemy nations, "What is needed? What can best be done? What must be done?"

The junior Democratic senator criticized the governmental response to Sept. 11 listing things "We could've done." He described the war in Iraq as one "that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks." He advocated a national security strategy that goes "not just in Baghdad."

He outlined his national security policy based on five points: "ending the war in Iraq responsibly; finishing the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban; securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states; achieving true energy security; and rebuilding our alliances to meet the challenges of the 21st century."

Obama defended his position on ending the war in Iraq. "George Bush and John McCain don't have a plan for success in Iraq. They have a plan for staying in Iraq." He defined victory as leaving Iraq to a sovereign government that can care with its people and an enemy whose power cannot reemerge. He laid out a redeployment plan for U.S. forces to leave Iraq by 2010. He said he would shift power to Afghanistan putting two more combat brigades in Afghanistan as well as non-military aid.

He also called to stop "bankrolling the ambitions for Iran," by purchasing foreign oil. He classified global warming as a national security issue. He also called for an increase in foreign assistance to $50 billion for development as a means of security.

Why Obama's Iraq plan will fail

Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign held a press conference with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann to discuss Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) Iraq position. Graham called Obama's plan for withdrawal "brazen", attacking the Illinois senator and his party for allegedly building an anti-war movement based on the idea that the conflict in Iraq has been lost and the Republican Party is to blame.

A foreign policy adviser to the McCain campaign stated that half of the provinces within Iraq are under Iraqi control, and that this success wouldn’t have been possible without a continued commitment from the United States. She stated that it is important that the Iraqi government looks to America as a trusted partner and embrace McCain’s strategy.

Graham and Scheunemann both felt that Obama’s strategy for immediate withdrawal from Iraq would ultimately undo all successes made in the region, particularly those made since the US troop surge in 2007. Sen. McCain’s strategy offers a continued commitment to the Iraqi government to ensure success within the nation.

Soldiers killed in Iraq, but not by guns

Cheryl Harris and Larraine McGee lost their two sons in Iraq, but they were not killed in combat; they were electrocuted because of faulty electrical equipment built and maintained by Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR) contractors. Before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, the mothers told their tragic stories about the reckless and complacent behavior of KBR employees that lead to their sons’ deaths.

Harris’ son, Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, was electrocuted while taking a shower in his barracks at the Radwaniyah Complex in Iraq in 2008. McGee’s son, Stagg Sgt. Christopher Everett, died while power-washing a Humvee in Al Taqqadum, Iraq in 2005. 13 soldiers have been electrocuted to death because of KBR contractor incompetence and lack of accountability.

At first, Army officials could not answer Harris when she asked how her son was killed, Harris said. The building’s main circuit panel, the secondary panel, and the water tank were not grounded, Harris said. Shockingly, KBR’s electrician had known about these hazards 11 months before her son was killed. According to Harris, in October 2004, another soldier in Iraq died in almost the exact same way. The Army report about Sgt. Christopher Everett’s death stated that the generator supplying electricity to the power washer was improperly grounded.

Debbie Crawford, former KBR electrician, noted that when she was working in Iraq, basic tools such as electrical tape and wire nuts were sometimes scarce. Many KBR employees supervising the electrical contractors did not have any electrical experience at all. At one point, Crawford noticed a ground wire, which is supposed to protect people from getting electrocuted, being used as a “hot” wire, mentioned it to her foreman, and he told her to “make it work and don’t worry about.” Nobody asked to see her license, checked her job references, or gave her a qualification test when she applied for the job.

Rachel McNeill, former heavy construction equipment operator in Iraq, said that when she first got to Iraq, soldiers in her house had been shocked in the shower. KBR was in charge of maintenance and repairs. In order to fix the water heater, McNeill was supposed to submit a work order, which would take days to go through. But an electrician from another platoon fixed it in half an hour.