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Little known fact 
Kevin Drum reminds us of this little know fact: "...did you know that George Bush had a chance to take out terrorist mastermind Abu Musab Zarqawi back in 2002 but didn't do it because he was afraid it might weaken the case for invading Iraq?"
In his Tough on Terror? post back in March, Drum pointed us to this article:
Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind by Jim Miklaszewski
...NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself -- but never pulled the trigger.
In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.
The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council.
"Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties after 9/11 and we still didn't do it," said Michael O'Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution.
Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe.
The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq.
"People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president's policy of preemption against terrorists," according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.
In January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq.
The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it.
Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi's operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam. [more]
Bush keeps saying that Kerry doesn't understand the "War on Terror". His rhetoric rings hollow if you are paying attention to the details. The Bush administration has skewed, missed or obstructed the chance to snag bin Laden and Musab Zarqawi. They have demonstrated, over and over, that they are utterly clueless in their execution of the "War on Terror".
Just the facts
100 Facts and 1 Opinion: The Non-Arguable Case Against the Bush Administration by Judd Legum
Read all 100. Each one is documented, with links.
Reality check
Bush's Blinkers by Bob Herbert
Does President Bush even tip his hat to reality as he goes breezing by?
He often behaves as if he sees - or is in touch with - things that are inaccessible to those who are grounded in the reality most of us have come to know. For example, with more than 1,000 American troops and more than 10,000 Iraqi civilians dead, many people see the ongoing war in Iraq as a disaster, if not a catastrophe. Mr. Bush sees freedom on the march.
Many thoughtful analysts see a fiscal disaster developing here at home, with the president's tax cuts being the primary contributor to the radical transformation of a $236 billion budget surplus into a $415 billion deficit. The president sees, incredibly, a need for still more tax cuts.
The United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. The president responded by turning most of the nation's firepower on Saddam Hussein and Iraq. When Mr. Bush was asked by the journalist Bob Woodward if he had consulted with former President Bush about the decision to invade Iraq, the president replied: "He is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to."
Last week the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University said in a report:
"During the past year Iraq has become a major distraction from the global war on terrorism. Iraq has now become a convenient arena for jihad, which has helped Al Qaeda to recover from the setback it suffered as a result of the war in Afghanistan. With the growing phenomenon of suicide bombing, the U.S. presence in Iraq now demands more and more assets that might have otherwise been deployed against various dimensions of the global terrorist threat."
There are consequences, often powerful consequences, to turning one's back on reality... [more]
Faith in Bush
Bush's Cult from the left coaster
Thanks to the tip from commenter DEK, we find confirmation of what many of us suspect all the time: Bush supporters, for whatever reason, are extremely misinformed about what their candidate stands for and are ignorant about the world around them. A study released just today by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes concludes that Bush supporters falsely ascribe to Bush positions that are opposite of what he stands for, and have a view of Iraq WMDs and Al Qaeda that reflect gross ignorance of reality. These findings are similar to an earlier study, which found that of all the major networks, those who got their news from Fox News were the most misinformed about 9/11, and the reality and rationale for the Iraq war. [more]
Can you spell C-O-R-R-U-P-T-I-O-N
Army to Let Halliburton Keep Iraq Payment Reuters
The U.S. Army is laying the groundwork to let Halliburton Co. keep several billion dollars paid for work in Iraq that Pentagon auditors say is questionable or unsupported by proper documentation, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
According to Pentagon documents reviewed by the Journal, the Army has acknowledged that the Houston-based company might never be able to account properly for some of its work, which has been probed amid accusations that Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root unit overbilled the government for some operations in Iraq.
The company has hired a consulting firm to estimate what Halliburton's services should cost, the report said.
The newspaper, citing the documents and internal memorandums, said that officials are considering using the estimate to serve as the basis for "an equitable settlement," under which the Pentagon could drop many of the claims its auditors have made against the company.
But the Journal added that some disgruntled Pentagon officials see the effort to broker an outside settlement with the company as unusual because the contract is so large.
According to the report, Kellogg Brown & Root so far has billed about $12 billion in Iraq, and about $3 billion of that remains disputed by government officials.
The Journal also cited Pentagon records showing that $650 million in Halliburton billings are deemed questionable. An additional $2 billion is considered to have insufficient paperwork to justify the billing, the report said.
A representative for Halliburton did not immediately return a call seeking comment early Friday.
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