Get Ready To Rumble: Petraeus Blames Iran for Green Zone Attack

Chris Floyd's site has been hacked too much; it's up again at the moment but who knows for how long?

In event of emergency, Chris will post at his original blogspot site, Empire Burlesque Now dot blogspot dot com. In the meantime I will try to mirror some of his work here, just in case.

Here's the latest from Chris, by kind permission, as always.

Still Not Worried? Petraeus Blames Iran for Green Zone Attack

Yesterday, we noted the story that the Saudi government is now preparing plans to deal with "any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards" that may arise from an attack on Iran's nuclear reactors. This was reported by a top Saudi newspaper, Okaz, and relayed by a leading German news service, dpa -- one day after Dick Cheney paid a visit to the kingdom. As we noted, no one knows exactly what was said at that confab of allied authoritarians -- but something sure lit a fire under the Saudis, and convinced them that urgent action is needed to brace for the lethal overspill from a strike on Iran.

Now today comes word that the sainted General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq -- and recepient of perhaps the most copious bipartisan tongue bath ever given to a serving military officer by the U.S. Congress -- has blamed Iran for the multiple mortar attack on Baghdad's Green Zone on Sunday. As the BBC reports:

The most senior US general in Iraq has said he has evidence that Iran was behind Sunday's bombardment of Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.

Gen David Petraeus told the BBC he thought Tehran had trained, equipped and funded insurgents who fired the barrage of mortars and rockets.

He said Iran was adding what he described as "lethal accelerants" to a very combustible mix.

That's not all. After praising himself for his brilliant "counterinsurgency" masterstroke of paying Sunni insurgents and violent religious extremists to kill other Iraqis instead of Americans for awhile -- while also arming, training and funding the Shiite extremists now in charge of the Iraqi army and security forces to kill and torture other Iraqis -- Petraeus went on to blame Iran for being the main cause of violence in Iraq. (For a true picture of what Petraeus and the vaunted "surge" has actually wrought in Iraq, see Michael Schwartz's detailed and devastating report, "The Battle of Bagdhad."). From the BBC:

In an interview with BBC world affairs editor John Simpson, Gen Petraeus said violence in Iraq was being perpetuated by Iran's Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guards.

"The rockets that were launched at the Green Zone yesterday, for example... were Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets," he said, adding that the groups that fired them were funded and trained by the Quds Force.

"All of this in complete violation of promises made by President Ahmadinejad and the other most senior Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts."

The Iranians, of course, have deep, intricate and longstanding ties to the "Iraqi leaders" whom Petraeus is now helping maintain in "power" -- if that's the word for the operations of a gang of brutal kleptocrats whose residence in office is sustained wholly by the foreign military forces who invaded their country at the order of another gang of brutal kleptocrats in Washington. But Petraeus -- and the White House kleptos -- have continually pushed the line that Iran is attacking a government led by their ideological and religious allies, in order to....what, exactly? Replace them with,er, ideological and religious allies? Well, logic has never been the strong suit of the Crawford Caligula and his courtiers, who believe they can "create their own reality" by the assertion of imperial will -- and by the expenditure of human cannon fodder. (Petraeus' remarks came on the day that the American military death toll in Iraq reached 4,000.)

Actually, of course, these charges aren't meant to make logical or geopolitical sense. They are simply being tossed out there, week after week, month after month, to "catapult the propaganda" for war with Iran "at the time, place, and in the manner of our choosing," to quote Bush's doctrine of preemptive war in the official "National Defense Strategy of the United States." Or as I noted here last year about an earlier round of charges:

[Petraeus] is asserting as unassailable fact accusations which have never been substantiated, not even by the Regime's own intelligence agencies -- whose bar for "confirming" provocative intelligence is, as we all know, preternaturally low. Petraeus doesn't intend for his words to be taken seriously -- that is, not in the real world, where military attacks by one nation on another lead to an immediate response. No, his words are intended for the media echo chamber, where they will bounce around in the midst of all the other mind-obliterating noise, with a few key scraps falling into the mix: "Iran" -- "killing Americans" -- "Qods" -- "Iran" -- "killing Americans" -- "Qods." That's all they want -- and that's all they need -- to get across. They certainly don't want anyone to pay close attention to the details of the patter they're putting out. They just want a few keywords to filter into the battered public consciousness, because these are the elements they will invoke when the time comes to launch their own unprovoked military agression against Iran: "Iran's Qods Force is killing Americans, and we must, reluctantly, retaliate. Therefore, tonight I have ordered a series of air raids on Qods Force bases in Iran...."

And hey: "Qods" sounds a lot like "al Qaeda," doesn't it? That gives you extra traction in the echo chamber -- more bang for the propaganda buck.

Let's be clear about this. This is an administration that claims the right to go to war on the merest suspicion that some evil foreign entity might attack Americans at some time in some way. This is an administration that has already acted on this deranged -- but oh-so-war-profitable -- "national defense strategy." This is an administration that specifically named Iran as a dire threat to the nation in the most recent version of this official strategy.

And now, we have Petraeus' j'accuse -- the culmination of more than a year of statements by U.S. officials accusing Iran of direct involvement in attacking and killing American personnel in Iraq. By the morally demented but consistent "principles" enunciated and acted upon by the Bush Administration (principles which of course include the use of manufactured evidence and knowing deception to launch wars in the name of "national security"), the White House has already established an iron-clad case for attacking Iran. Indeed, by their own lights, they have actually been criminally negligent and weak-kneed for not having attacked Iran long ago -- as the most vociferous wingnuts and con-jobs out there keep insisting.

As we said last week, the groundwork for the attack has already been laid. When and if a strike comes, it will almost certainly come quickly, without warning. There will be no new major PR campaign, just a "surge" in the same "mind-obliterating noise" of lies and accusations that has barraged us for so long. And no doubt we will see the redoubtable Petraeus take the lead in this surge against the American people -- with the same slickness and vigor with which he has perpetrated the murderous ethnic cleansing of Baghdad -- when he comes to Congress for another tongue-bath next month.

Note: Petraeus has been an eager dissembler for L'il Boots since the beginning, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in this remarkable compendium of spin, waffle and flim-flam. For more on the saint's progress on the road to glory see: The Imperator Reports: Let the Blood Flow On; Killers and Extremists in the Pay of Petraeus; and Shotgun Wedding: The Saint, the Insurgents, and the Surge's "Success."

Plus: Winter Patriot tells us of another success story of the "humanitarian intervention" in Iraq: Fallujah.

Try To Imagine: NATO Unchained With Petraeus At The Helm And Nukes In The Quiver

A multinational team of elderly hijackers is trying to cut NATO loose from its few lawful restraints. If they succeed, NATO would no longer need the consent of its constituent nations and/or the UN before it attacked defenseless countries at the direction of the USA. And furthermore, it would feel comfortable not only threatening to use nuclear weapons in a first-strike role, but actually using them. This is utter madness, of course, and therefore entirely to be expected.

Chris Floyd explains it in a masterful post: "The New New World Order: A First-Strike NATO Über Alles", which you should read in full -- soon.

Coincidentally -- or not! -- there appears in the New York Times a piece by Michael Gordon and Eric Schmitt announcing that

The Pentagon is considering Gen. David H. Petraeus for the top NATO command later this year

Gordon and Schmitt explain that this move

would give the general, the top American commander in Iraq, a high-level post during the next administration

but they say the matter

has raised concerns about the practice of rotating war commanders.

I should say so. Plenty of questions here, too.

Why? It's a reward.

A senior Pentagon official said that it was weighing “a next assignment for Petraeus” and that the NATO post was a possibility. “He deserves one and that has also always been a highly prestigious position,” the official said.

How? Congressional approval.

In one approach under discussion, General Petraeus would be nominated and confirmed for the NATO post before the end of September, when Congress is expected to break for the presidential election.

When? Before January of 2009.

He might stay in Iraq for some time after that before moving to the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, but would take his post before a new president takes office.

What are these people thinking?

A NATO post would give him additional command experience in an important but less politically contentious region, potentially positioning him as a strong candidate in a few years to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, several military officials said. They and some others who discussed the potential appointment declined to be identified because they were speaking about an internal personnel matter.

So why are they talking? Just passing the time of day with a few ace reporters?

No, really. What's up?

General Petraeus’s last post in Europe was as a senior officer for the NATO force in Bosnia, where he served a tour in 2001 and 2002. “He did a great job for me as a one-star in Bosnia,” said Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, who served as NATO commander at the time and has since retired. “He would have the credibility to keep Afghanistan focused for NATO.”

I never know what to make of Michael Gordon but I get the impression that whenever anybody in the Pentagon needs to leak some goodies, there's a short list of reporters he might call, and our man at the NYT is on that list.

So this story is probably a trial balloon, but the idea is actually quite perfect, when you think about it. Petraeus gets a reward for the alleged success of the so-called surge, NATO gets Petraeus to put Afghanistan back on the map of GWOT, Petraeus gets additional "command experience" in a leading role in a war designed to last forever, after which he can become chairman of the Joint Chiefs, it puts a pro-Bush general in charge of NATO just in case 2009 brings a new President with new views ... and ... and ... and ... if it's not clear yet, the entire mode of thought expressed here confirms that NATO really is a branch of the Pentagon.

Put this together with what Chris Floyd has written (which is by far the larger story, by the way), and you get a very scary picture: nuclear NATO as a first-strike weapon in the American "quiver of escalation", led by a man who thinks nothing of walling in urban residents behind concrete barriers and bombing their homes in the middle of the night, then calling it "progress" and "democracy".

If anyone could say with a straight face, "We had to nuke the Middle East in order to save it," Petraeus is your man.

Now try to imagine this man leading a nuclear-armed rogue army called "NATO".

Don't take my word for it; read Chris:

The Lords of the West have called upon their elder chieftains of war to chart a course that will preserve their power and preeminence in the face of an ever-more uncertain future. The answer? A meaner, leaner NATO, openly committed to a nuclear first-strike strategy and stripped of all the "consensus" garbage that has sometimes hampered the organization's American bosses.

[and more...]

... And The 'Reverse Bang For The Buck' Award Goes To ... MoveOn!

Robert Parry dissects the MoveOn / Petraeus / New York Times debacle, focusing on return on investment, rather than the more commonly discussed angle, freedom of speech.

His conclusion:

MoveOn has taken $142,083 from American donors and given it to the New York Times for the privilege of running an ad that served to undermine the goal of reining in President Bush’s Iraq War. Talk about getting a reverse bang for your buck.

Note to MoveOn leadership:

The New York Times is now and has always been our enemy.

Let them raise their own money.

Please!

Parry continues:

(By contrast, for many independent media outlets, the cost of that one ad would cover all their expenses for a year or more. In 2006, the entire budget of our Web site, Consortiumnews.com, was $109,000.)

I can't even imagine what sort of coverage this cold website could provide if it had a hundred thousand a year to work with. But even without that ... What an unbelievable waste of money!

~~~

For the full impact of Robert Parry's analysis, please read these three columns from Consortium News:

Hard Lessons from MoveOn Fiasco

MoveOn & Media Double Standards

The Left's Media Miscalculation (Redux)

Swear Him In? Hell, No! Kick Him Out! No Oaths For Today's Liars

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern was expelled from today's Congressional hearings for suggesting that General David Petraeus should be sworn in before beginning his testimony.

Had Petraeus been sworn in, his testimony would have occurred under oath, and the lies he told today would have qualified as perjury.

Am I speculating? No. There is absolutely no doubt that Petraeus lied -- even before he started talking about Iraq.

As McGovern describes it (with my emphasis):

Petraeus tried to square a circle in his very first two paragraphs.

In the first, he thanks the committees for the opportunity to “discuss the recommendations I recently provided to my chain of command for the way forward.” Then he stretches credulity well beyond the breaking point -- at least for me:

“At the outset, I would like to note that this is my testimony. Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself. It has not been cleared by, nor shared with, anyone in the Pentagon, the White House, or Congress.”

If not the Pentagon or the White House, which chain of command was Petraeus talking about? Oh, never mind.

Despite the many shortcomings obvious in his carefully constructed fiction, Petraeus was showered with accolades by both Republicans and Democrats.

Why would the Democrats be so agreeable to having smoke blown up their backsides? Because, as Chris Floyd explains,

he has provided them with an excuse for not doing anything to stop the war, or even slow it down ...

It's Official! General Petraeus Will Testify Before Congress On 9/11/07 And The Date Is Simply A Coincidence!

Yesterday I wrote somewhat snarkily about the scheduling of General David Petraeus' testimony before Congress in support of "his" report on the "surge". The report attributed to General Petraeus will be written by White House staffers and is scheduled to be released on September 15th.

In yesterday's piece I speculated that the timing of Petraeus' testimony -- beginning September 11th -- was purely coincidental.

There wouldn't be any professional or political value in having General Petraeus testify about the Surge in Iraq on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, would there?

Apparently not. The Washington Post says administration and "opposition" figures agree with me about this.

The first installment of Petraeus's testimony is scheduled to be delivered before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a fact both the administration and congressional Democrats say is simply a scheduling coincidence.

Simply a scheduling coincidence! How reassuring!

I can't tell you how relieved I am. For a moment there I actually thought they might use our national tragedy for political purposes.

Negroponte, Petraeus Scheduled To Play Vital Roles At Crucial Times

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, one of our most infamous career diplomats, has served in troubled areas such as Vietnam, El Salvador and Iraq, and has reportedly left death squads in his wake in all three countries.

Negroponte is scheduled will visit Pakistan in September, and his itinerary seems almost unfathomably interesting: he's scheduled to arrive on the 10th of September and leave on the 12th.

With all the destabilizing influences currently at work in Pakistan; considering Pakistan's still largely unexplored relationship with the events of September 11, 2001; with all that's been going on here, and all that's already scheduled to happen here on that day, I can't help but ask myself:

"Why would the State Department want its death squad specialist in Pakistan on September 11th?"

It's probably just a coincidence, right?

It's probably also coincidental that General David Petraeus is scheduled to testify before Congress on the 15th of September, which just happens to fall on a Saturday.

So it's probably also just a coincidence that they're thinking of having him testify on the previous Tuesday.

There wouldn't be any professional or political value in having General Petraeus testify about the Surge in Iraq on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, would there?

The much-anticipated surge report is still expected September 15th, but it will be written by White House staff. And that's probably coincidental, too.

We'll Have Troops In Iraq For Decades Because Iraq Is A Sovereign Nation ... Or Something!

Helen Thomas is by far the most experienced member of the White House press corpse, and she draws an awful lot of flak for the questions she asks -- the sort of questions all White House reporters used to ask, back when she was a young woman.

Unlike many other White House scribes, who would be happy to retire at half her age, and despite the flak, she continues to ask pesky questions and she keeps writing columns critical of the president and his war in Iraq. But like so many of the other more-or-less dissident journalists we've mentioned here lately, she lays out a series of relevant facts but doesn't quite seem to know what to make of them.

Here's her most recent column, from the Salt Lake Tribune:

President Bush and his spokesmen continue to say that Iraq is a "sovereign" nation and that the U.S. is there at the invitation of the Iraqi government.

At a May 24 news conference, the president also said U.S. troops would go home if the Iraqi leaders asked them to leave. Does anyone believe a nation under foreign military occupation is really sovereign? Not likely. There are other indications that the U.S. is in Iraq for a longer haul than the American people would like.

"We are there (in Iraq) at the invitation of the Iraqi government," Bush told reporters. "This is a sovereign nation. We are there at their request."

What a charade.

Much as I agree with the sentiment, this is not the word I would use. This is much more fragrant, and much more deadly, than any charade. But then again I am not writing for corporate publication.

The president also told reporters it would be "catastrophic" if the U.S. pulled its troops out of Iraq. And he made it clear that the U.S. would be very persuasive in urging the Iraqis not to ask American forces to leave Iraq in its present chaotic stage.

He explained it this way: "We work closely with them to make sure that the realities are such that they wouldn't make that request."

... which shows how sovereign they really are ...

I asked a White House press spokesman whether the U.S. would support a referendum among Iraqis on whether the U.S. occupation should continue. He declined to answer.

What can he say? If he says "Yes", that's a promise he cannot keep. And if he says "No", that's telling the truth, one thing White House press spokesmen do as infrequently as possible.

At the same time, Bush knows that his victory in winning congressional approval for a $120-billion war-funding bill is a temporary triumph.

But that's not a problem -- this is the only kind of triumph he needs. One temporary triumph after another will get him all he ever wanted. I'm surprised that Helen Thomas doesn't see this.

After all, he only needs to keep the war-crimes rolling for another 18 months -- or as long as he decides to stay in office, if he can swing it.

Time is running out for his disastrous policies in Iraq.

Oh, no! I beg to differ! Time may be running out on his term of office, but in the meantime he's still getting what he wants and we still can't do anything about it. And I'm very surprised she doesn't see that.

The political pressure even from Republican ranks is growing for a change in U.S. policy.

But it won't matter in the slightest. Nor will the fact that American public opinion is now solidly against this president, and his war -- unless We The People can subvert the will of the Congress, which at this point seems decidedly unlikely.

The New York Times reported last week - and White House press secretary Tony Snow confirmed - that Bush has told recent visitors he is seeking a model for Iraq similar to the American presence in South Korea.

And Reuters is saying more or less the same thing at this very moment!

The three-year Korean War ended with a ceasefire in 1953 and the U.S. still has some 28,000 troops in South Korea. A Korean model would mean that American troops will remain in Iraq for years to come. Snow would not discuss the possibility of permanent U.S. bases in Iraq.

The silence on this point tells you everything you need to know.

We are NOT leaving!!

Why don't we get that yet?

Meantime, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence - now under the new chairmanship of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. - is issuing a series of reports about U.S. intelligence and its role in the lead up to the war. A recent report from the panel said that analysts had warned Bush in January 2003, a couple of months before the U.S. attack, that a war in Iraq could provoke sectarian violence and cause Iran to assert its regional power in the Persian Gulf. The analysts also predicted a surge of hostility in the Arab world as the result of any U.S.-led military operation.

When asked about the report, Bush replied, "We were warned about a lot of things, some of which happened and some of which didn't happen."

That may or may not be so, but this line of discussion is quite meaningless, for several reasons.

First, we already know the "intelligence" was bogus -- deliberately bogus. This has been demonstrated over and over. The decision to go to war was made in advance of the intel, and the intel was fabricated to give the prior decision diplomatic cover, so to speak.

Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly clear that Bush welcomes the destruction he was "warned" about. The "warnings" would have come across as "green lights" to any sociopathic drunk, let alone one commanding the largest killing machine ever built.

And beyond all this morality, there's the cold hard logic of the statement: Whether or not he was warned about things that did not come to pass is irrelevant.

The president said he made the decision to depose Saddam Hussein after weighing the risks and rewards.

But Saddam Hussein is gone. He's been gone for a long time. And we're still there. This is not about Saddam Hussein. Why doesn't Helen Thomas see that?

This was an issue that transcended "the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein", remember?

And speaking of things that are often forgotten, how can Helen Thomas -- or anybody else -- write column after column about this war and not mention oil? Is this a make-work project for bloggers?

Listen, friends: The war in Iraq is not about Saddam Hussein. It's not about weapons of mass destruction. It's not about bringing democracy to the Middle East. And it's not about terrorism.

This war is about OIL.

But Bush won't say so, and neither will Helen Thomas, and so the lies and their half-hearted refutations continue, but we come no nearer to the truth.

[Bush] added: "I firmly believe Iraqis are better off without Saddam Hussein in power ... (and) I think America is safer."

Tell that to the families of 3,433 American dead and to the 25,549 Americans who have been wounded and to the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed in the war.

Again I applaud the sentiment but not the choice of words. Tens of thousands of Iraqis? It must be more like a million by now. But what does Bush care? There are no Bushes dying, no Cheneys either.

Bush said he will await an assessment in September from Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, to determine his next move. Apparently the buck will stop with Petraeus, who also will report to Congress.

Or else the buck will never stop at all, as it never seems to do in this administration. In which case the current move serves mostly as an excuse for the president to spend the bulk of the summer working hard clearing brush back at the ranch.

"I don't micromanage the war," the idiot boy can say, "I leave that to the generals."

So in addition to an excuse to head back to Crawford, it's also a slap at the Democrats, who by and large have done nothing to deserve it. But Helen Thomas doesn't see it this way at all. She writes:

The administration is obviously looking for a bone to toss to the outmaneuvered Democrats and to appease those restive Americans who want the U.S. to pull out of the Iraqi debacle.

Wow! It takes a lot of rose tint in the glasses to see the Democrats as "outmaneuvered". "Out to lunch" is more like it -- but even that is inexcusably polite.

This is not a bone. This is not an appeasement. It is, just like the most recent "blank check" from Congress, a temporary victory. One of a series. All this vicious little man has ever wanted. Just a long series of temporary victories.

Now, when General Petraeus comes back with his assessment, the decider will have a number of options. For instance, he can spend a few more months deciding to send another General into the crucible for another six months and another assessment. We have no basis for assuming he will do anything else. It will be another temporary victory, against which the Democrats can prattle and posture but do nothing responsible or restrictive. And meanwhile this is still a war we should never have started, and meanwhile this war is still killing people every day, and meanwhile the demolition of Iraq continues. If Helen Thomas, one of the best White House reporters, is leaving out all this context, what are the rest of them writing?

Oh, never mind. I know what they're writing. They're doing the same thing she is, but without any of the critique: just quoting the president and his spokesmen verbatim and letting the readers sort it out. Helen Thomas seems like she's trying to sort it out but she doesn't have a very good handle on it. Maybe she should read Chris Floyd. Then she wouldn't write sentences like:

In a sign of growing desperation, Bush is falling back on the al Qaida threat and the need "to fight them there," not here.

In my view the "desperation" is bogus. The president may be "falling back" on a talking point he has used for a long time, but how does this indicate "growing desperation"?

And that "need" -- the "need" to fight them there so we won't have to fight them here -- that's bogus, too! Once again Helen Thomas falls in with the maddening crowd by neglecting to mention two very obvious facts: [1] the war in Iraq in no way prevents terrorists from striking at the United States, and [2] continuing to wage this unprovoked war crime -- against people who never harmed us, and never intended to harm us -- provides motivation for people to become terrorists and attack us.

"They have made it abundantly clear what they want," he said. "They want to spread their ideology. They want safe haven from which to launch attacks," he added. "They are willing to kill the innocent to achieve their objectives, and they will fight us."

Speaking of ideology, Bush should look in the mirror. He bought into the neoconservative ideology which maintained that the U.S. is the only superpower and should dominate the Middle East.

No kidding. But that's not all the neocons wanted. And look what they're getting! And look what they're doing!

Some of the leading neocons have found their escape hatches at colleges and think tanks and other safe havens, now that their grandiose geo-political plans have collapsed in disaster.

Again I disagree. They've gone to their next cushy jobs, via the revolving door of graft and corruption. Their plans are not collapsing. The only thing that's collapsing is the support for those plans among the American people...

... who don't matter anymore. Why doesn't anybody seem to understand this?

Bush and Cheney have made it abundantly clear that they refuse to be constrained by such quaint notions as the will of the people. Did we think they were kidding when they said that?

Meantime, the White House has become a tight little sanctuary for a few remaining hawks. And Bush seems determined that the war he started will not end on his watch.

Of course it won't. The decider has decided.

Why is this so difficult to grasp?

Army General Tries His Hand At Spinning, And Fails

According to the New York Times,

The top military commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, warned Thursday that an American troop pullback this fall would lead to an escalation in sectarian killings and worsening violence.

“My sense is that there would be an increase in sectarian violence, a resumption of sectarian violence, were the presence of our forces and Iraqi forces at that time to be reduced,” General Petraeus said at a Pentagon news conference.

It's hard to understand what General Petraeus is complaining about. An escalation in sectarian killings and worsening violence have been among the administration's main goals for Iraq ever since before the invasion.

Am I kidding? No, I am not. Otherwise they wouldn't have started the "sectarian" death squads.

So ... now that the death squads are raging, why don't we just withdraw, let the Iraqis finish killing each other, then go back in and pump out all the oil?

Why not? Because that's not the way it will work.

If we withdraw, the "sectarian" violence will come to an end, perhaps not all at once (although who can say?) or perhaps gradually, and then there will still be Iraqis left standing, and we will never get to go back in and pump out all the oil.

Maybe that's what he's afraid of.

Clearly he's afraid of something, or else he's very ill, but in any case he's clearly delirious, because he's been making no sense at all:

He said that sectarian killings had declined two-thirds from their level in January, in part because of construction of walls around some neighborhoods that had allowed security forces to maintain control of areas as they were cleared.

But he conceded that the overall violence had not subsided, and he warned that large-scale attacks using car bombs against markets and other locations filled with civilians could still occur and set off more Sunni and Shiite revenge killings.

Let's see now: If sectarian killings have declined two-thirds, but overall violence has not subsided, does that mean non-sectarian killings have taken up the slack? And how can we possibly tell the difference? Do Iraqis have their religion tattooed on the back of their necks? Are the bodies of murder victims marked to indicate whether their killings were sectarian or not? Or is this just another attempted bamboozlement of the American public?

I'm pretty sure what it is. How about you?