Insurgency for Dollars

BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 — The insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, corrupt charities and other crimes that the Iraqi government and its American patrons have been largely unable to prevent, a classified United States government report has concluded.

The report, obtained by The New York Times, estimates that groups responsible for many of the insurgent and terrorist attacks are raising $70 million to $200 million a year from illegal activities. It says that $25 million to $100 million of the total comes from oil smuggling and other criminal activity involving the state-owned oil industry aided by “corrupt and complicit” Iraqi officials.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_11_19_atrios_archive.html#116449386690294943

Marshall Wittman Envy & a 2008 McCain-Lieberman Ticket

Flip flop, buttkisser, and torture bill turncoat McCain and the new GOP koolaid recruit Joe Lickerman for the 2008 ticket?

http://rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001792.php

Waxman Has Bush Administration in Sights

In January, Waxman becomes committee chairman - and thus the lead congressional hound of an administration many Democrats feel has blundered badly as it expanded the power of the executive branch.

Waxman's biggest challenge as he mulls what to probe?

"The most difficult thing will be to pick and choose," he said.

The choices he makes could help define Bush's legacy.


http://rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061125/D8LK9BHG1.html

Rumsfeld okayed abuses says former U.S. general

Rummy is hosed...

MADRID (Reuters) - Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the prison's former U.S. commander said in an interview on Saturday.

Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski told Spain's El Pais newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Rumsfeld which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation.
Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods.

"The handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: "Make sure this is accomplished"," she told Saturday's El Pais. More on the story

Thanks from the Americablog

Cliff's Corner

Thanks to my one-month old adorable son Douglas, for entering my life (and my beautiful wife for doing, let’s say, 98.7% of the work) and already having more hair and understanding of the Sunni Triangle than Dick Cheney.

Thanks to IMs, Congressional Pages and attempted GOP cover-ups.

Thanks to Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for fighting the insidious "liberal media.”

Thanks to “Democrat” Marty Peretz’s wife for buying his public platform, so we can listen to his post-Trotskeyite, pathetically pretentious, imbecilic faux-sagacity on Iraq.Thanks to obscure Tunisian racist phrases.

Thanks to The Young Turks, the best damn show on radio — where I am allowed to spew my pablum once a week.

Thanks to J.D. Hayworth, for losing.Thanks to Sean Hannity’s hairdresser — it’s really a delight (and kinda gay).

Thanks to FoxNews Democrats like Susan Estrich and Kirsten Powers for their helpful and insightful analysis as to why their party sucks.

Thanks to Democrats for suddenly remembering the word “Iraq” during the campaign.

Thanks to the great slate of Democratic populists who have the ability to change things in this country (I can’t just name a few here, it would do injustice to the rest).

Thanks to Connecticut election law for allowing primary losers to run for office until they finally find a way to win.

Thanks to Ken Mehlman’s closet… that must be where he his turnout formulas disappeared.

Thanks to Robert Greenwald for making the best damn progressive films out there.

Thanks to Tom DeLay for aborting his soul.

Thanks to AMERICAblog for everything you do.

Thanks to Anne Northup for losing.

Thanks to Ted Haggard, temptation and voicemail.

Thanks to Michael J. Fox.

Thanks to Brittany and K-Fed for the memories.

Thanks to Ann Coulter and her pet larynx for the memories.

Thanks to MSNBC bookers for allowing me to have nice conversations with Republicans on TV.

Thanks to Michael Steele for losing.

Thanks to Don Sherwood’s aggressive massage technique.

Thanks to Jim Talent for opposing stem cell research.

Thanks to bloggers for doing the MSM’s job.

Thanks to President Bush for waiting until after the election to go Ike Turner on Rumsfeld.

Thanks to martinis for turning Mark Foley into a molester and Mel Gibson into Charles Lindbergh.

Thanks to Howard Dean and the 50 state strategy.

Thanks to “The Dukestir.”

Thanks to the Republicans for bringing back Trent Lott — and Michael Richards for playing him on stage.

Thanks to Katherine Harris, just for existing — I smell reality show darling (I’ve already pitched it: Pearls Gone Wild).

Thanks to Karl Rove for “dealignment.”

Thanks to Dick Cheney for having stellar aim… I hear Grover Norquist has some free time and airline miles.

And finally, thanks to the entire GOP for running an operation Lucky Luciano would have been proud of. I appreciate your kindness in letting us have the legislature back so my son only had to spend three weeks and one day under unified criminal rule of our government.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! Hopefully you, like me, can rest a bit easier knowing Republicans actually have an assorted check or balance.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/

A New Congressman Says 'No' to the President

Most freshman Democratic members of the House of Representatives attended last week's reception at the White House with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, White House political czar Karl Rove and others who had just finished plotting and executing unrelenting attacks campaigns on the newcomers. But the target of some of the campaign season's crudest attacks, Minnesota's Keith Ellison, had better things to do.

Ellison, the first Muslim to ever be elected to Congress, skipped the private reception at the White House in order to attend a reception organized by the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations.

"I went to the AFL-CIO reception, because I wanted to meet and greet leaders of labor, and get to know them," explained Ellison, who won an intense Democratic primary and then the general election with strong union backing. "Those are the people who I came here to support." Was it hard to give up a chance to rub elbows with the president and vice president?

"It wasn't even a close call," Ellison told the Associated Press. "Maybe one day I'll get to meet the president. He's the president, and I respect him in his role as the president, but I have exceedingly sharp differences with him on a policy level."

"We are being led by a president who believes he has a right to send us to war based on a lie, that it's O.K. to torture prisoners and to spy on Americans. His administration has given sweetheart deals and no-bid contracts to private companies and then looked the other way when those profiteers cannot account for hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars," Ellison said during the campaign. And, yet, where is the outrage? Where are the leaders who are willing to stand up and demand accountability?"

More on the story.

Senate Democrats Revive Demand for Classified Data

"Seeking information about detention of terrorism suspects, abuse of detainees and government secrecy, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are reviving dozens of demands for classified documents that until now have been rebuffed or ignored by the Justice Department and other agencies....

"[Senate Judiciary Committee Soon-to-be Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT)], who has said little about his plans for the committee, expressed hope for greater cooperation from the Bush administration, which he described as having been 'obsessively secretive.' His aides have identified more than 65 requests he has made to the Justice Department or other agencies in recent years that have been rejected or permitted to languish without reply....

"Now that they are about to control Congress, what...Democrats regard as a record of unresponsiveness has energized their renewal of longstanding requests for information about some of the administration’s most hidden and fiercely debated operations. In addition, other such requests by committee members deal with subjects like voter fraud, immigration and background inquiries on Supreme Court nominees....

"With Democrats in control, it will be harder for executive branch agencies to sidestep requests for documents. Behind each request will be the possibility of Democrats’ voting to issue subpoenas that would compel documents or testimony, although Senate aides said they hoped to avoid conflict." (NY Times) More on the story.

While we were sleeping....

Libby Leak Trial May Be Delayed

The trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, could be delayed, based on an appeal that a special prosecutor plans to seek in the case.

Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald notified the court last night that he plans to appeal U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton's ruling this month on the standards the judge will use for determining which classified materials Libby may use as evidence in defending himself. Libby faces trial on charges of perjury, lying to investigators and obstruction of justice.

More on the story

Got to run. I will enjoy my Turkey day with family. Cheers!

Even the turkey is hosed by Bush

Turkeys pardoned by Bush may not last long.

”The birds, bred for their meaty breasts, quickly grow too heavy to move themselves around, and usually die before the next Thanksgiving. Last year’s winner and its understudy, also pardoned by Bush, were no exception. Billed as the ‘Happiest Turkey on Earth’ at last year’s Disneyland Thanksgiving Day Parade, where it was honorary grand marshal, both ‘Marshmallow’ and its sidekick ‘Yam’ already have passed away, of natural causes, according to a spokeswoman for Disneyland.”

And that is a real clue for turkeys. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

The I-Word Is Aimed At The Wrong Guy

From the weekend edition of US News and World Report's Washington Whispers:

The degree to which the new Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill despises Vice President Dick Cheney is a big plus for President Bush. Consider why incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scrapped an idea to impeach Bush: "Two words: Dick Cheney," he says, joking that it would vault the veep into the Oval Office.
Pelosi and Reid have rightly said that impeachment is off the table now, as it will be. What they haven't said is whether that will change after the Democrats convene a whole series of oversight hearings next year to document the administration's malfeasance on everything from the Cheney Energy Task Force deliberations, to Plame, to Guantanamo, to domestic spying, and of course Iraq and perhaps 9/11.

But I suspect that Pelosi and Reid are also smart enough to misdirect the media away from what the real plan may be, as evidenced by this most recent comment by Reid.
They wouldn't target the guy at the top, but rather the lesser-popular and even more responsible architect underneath him. They'd go after Cheney.

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/

Very smart move: go after the co-President.

Bush ‘feels the warmth’ through the bubble

The bubble boy can't connect to the outside world...

The "bubble" that protects the president from competing ideas and possible critics here in the United States has gone international. Consider Bush's recent trip to Vietnam, and the "connection" the president made with the Vietnamese people.

On Saturday, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, conceded that the president had not come into direct contact with ordinary Vietnamese, but said that they connected anyway.

"If you'd been part of the president's motorcade as we've shuttled back and forth," he said, reporters would have seen that "the president has been doing a lot of waving and getting a lot of waving and smiles." He continued: "I think he's gotten a real sense of the warmth of the Vietnamese people."

I can't be sure exactly how Hadley defines "connected," but exchanging waves from a speeding car is hardly the ideal way to get "a real sense of warmth."

Unfortunately, this fits into a pattern. When Bush went to India in March, he avoided regular people. When the president barnstormed through East Asia last year, he "visited no museums, tried no restaurants, bought no souvenirs and made no effort to meet ordinary local people."
It's remarkable, but we've elected a world leader who has no real interest in the world.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/

The Job-o-negger aides land plum jobs

SACRAMENTO, Calif. --Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed or assigned dozens of staff members this year to high-paying jobs elsewhere in state government -- some of them to six-figure posts he once said were a waste of taxpayer money and should be eliminated.
An Associated Press investigation of Schwarzenegger's staff turnover after last year's disastrous special election revealed that he moved 40 people to other state positions, and at least half of them saw their salaries increase, some by more than $30,000 a year.

Schwarzenegger also gave six former staffers jobs with state boards and commissions he previously tried to dismantle.
Rewarding loyal aides with plum jobs is a long-standing political practice. But many of the appointments run counter to Schwarzenegger's own pronouncements and raise questions about his willingness to make future cuts in state agencies where many of his former staffers now draw paychecks. More on the story.

I smell another recall election in the the horizon in Kalifornia real soon...

THANKSGIVING: 21 Reasons to Give Thanks

We're thankful for our country's troops.

We're thankful America dumped the 109th Congress.

We're thankful Rick Santorum will have more free time to find the WMD.

We're thankful we don’t have to go to war with the Secretary of Defense we had.

We're thankful for "red state values," like protecting reproductive rights, supporting stem cell research, and rejecting discrimination.

We're thankful Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who calls climate change the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," will no longer chair the Senate environmental committee.

We're thankful that Matt Drudge does not rule our world.

We're thankful Al Gore helped the country face the inconvenient truth.We're thankful Bill O'Reilly does not resort to name calling - well, besides labeling the Progress Report/ThinkProgress as "far left loons," "kool-aid zombies," "hired guns," "vile," "haters," a "far left smear website," and "a very well-oiled, effective character assassination machine."


We're thankful minimum wage ballot initiatives passed in six states.

We're thankful the Dixie Chicks aren't ready to make nice.

We're thankful Ted Haggard bought the meth but never used it.

We're thankful for the 100,000 readers who responded to our Tell the Truth About 9/11 campaign.

We're thankful for "the Google" and "the email" (and the "series of tubes" that make them possible) -- but not iPods, which are endangering our nation.

We're thankful Maf54 isn't online right now.

We're thankful people send us Jack Abramoff's email.

We're thankful Keith Olbermann's ratings are up and Bill O'Reilly's ratings are down.

We're thankful President Bush's secret plan for Iraq is safe with Conrad Burns.We're thankful we won't spend Thanksgiving turkey hunting with Dick Cheney.

We're thankful the "Decider" only gets to make the decision 789 more days.

And last but not least: We're thankful to the Progress Report readers for their tips, energy and support.

Officer named in Taser incident

UCPD identifies Terrence Duren as police officer who used a Taser on a student in Powell

Terrence Duren, whose tenure with university police has included an award for UCPD Officer of the Year as well as allegations of police misconduct and use of excessive force, was the officer who used a Taser against Mostafa Tabatabainejad in Powell Library last Tuesday, university police said Monday. Duren arrived on the scene with Officers Alexis Bickamong, Kevin Kilgore and Andrew Ikeda, and the sergeant on duty was Philip Baguiao, said Nancy Greenstein, UCPD director of police community services. The 43-year-old officer, who was on active duty Monday, was also the subject of media attention three years ago after he shot a homeless man in Kerckhoff Hall.

Tabatabainejad's attorney, Steven Yagman, who on Friday announced plans to file a suit against the university, said the student did not produce his BruinCard because he felt singled out during the identity check. It is not clear how many students were asked for identification, but witnesses said the Community Service Officers on duty spent several minutes checking, while other students in the CLICC Lab at Powell said they were not asked for their BruinCards. More on the story

Here is the taser policy

Twelve days of Fitzmas

I know. It's not Christmas yet. Hopefully our friendly neighborhood prosecutor Fitz will provide early Christmas gifts to the evildoers.. Cheers!

On the Twelve Days of Fitzmas, my true lord gave to me.

Here we go:




Twelve Jurors are marching
Eleven reporters are fighting
Ten singing Patsies
Nine Bushies families are freaking
Eight pink slips are giving
Seven evildoers crying
Six confessions given
Five indictment counts
Four latte coffees
Three amigos jailed
Two No-Doz pills
And one donut from Krispy Kreme

CACI: Torture in Iraq, Intimidation at Home

Not for long...

Dogged by serious allegations of human rights abuses in Iraq, a leading profiteer from the Iraq war engages in intimidation campaigns against journalists in America who seek to expose its practices.

CACI's strategy has been two-fold: its flacks have distorted well-documented facts in the public record beyond recognition, and its senior management has lawyered up, suing or threatening to sue just about every journalist, muckraker and government watchdog who's dared to shine a light on the firm's unique role as a torture profiteer.
Lately, the company's sights have been set squarely on Robert Greenwald, director of Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, in which CACI plays a starring role. Greenwald has been in a back-and-forth with CACI's CEO, Jack London, and its lead attorney, William Koegel, during "months of calls, emails and letters" in what Greenwald calls a campaign to "intimidate, threaten and suppress" the story presented in the film.
"The threatening letters started early, trying to get us to back off," Greenwald told me. "We refused, and went back at them with a very strong letter saying, 'no, you're war profiteers and we won't be silenced.' Like any bully, they backed down when confronted. No lawsuit was filed- they're a paper tiger."
The story they don't want told is of a federal contractor that, according to the Washington Post, gets 92 percent of its revenues in the "defense" sector. The Washington Business Journal reported that CACI's defense contracts almost doubled in the year after the occupation of Iraq began, and profits shot up 52 percent.
Yet CACI insists it isn't a war profiteer (a subjective term anyway), but was just answering an urgent call in Iraq. In a letter to Greenwald, Koegel wrote: "the army needed ... civilian contractors to work as interrogators" because the military didn't have the personnel, and CACI responded to the "urgent war-time circumstances" and "has no apologies."

But while the firm had experience in electronic surveillance and other intelligence functions, it, too, didn't have the interrogators. Barry Lando reported finding an ad on CACI's website for interrogators to send to Iraq, and noted that "experience in conducting tactical and strategic interrogations" was desired, but not necessary. According to a report by the Army inspector general, 11 of the 31 CACI interrogators in Iraq had no training in what most experts agree is one of the most sensitive areas of intelligence gathering. The 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, which was in charge of interrogations at Abu Ghraib when the abuses took place, didn't have a single trained interrogator.

"It's insanity," former CIA agent Robert Baer told The Guardian. "These are rank amateurs, and there is no legally binding law on these guys as far as I could tell. Why did they let them in the prison?"

Note: Robert Greenwald is a member of the board of the Independent Media Institute, AlterNet's parent organization.

More on the story.

Do you prefer hemmoroids or kidney stones?

6 out of 10 Americans preferred Bush I

I never thought that Bush the elder would ever be so popular but that's what happens when you have the village idiot in the White House.

U.S. drops bid to reinstate Lay's convictions for Enron fraud

That was expected..


The U.S. government dropped an attempt to restore the convictions of Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay, who died six weeks after being found guilty of spearheading the fraud that destroyed the company.

The government moved yesterday to withdraw a Nov. 16 notice of an appeal of Lake's decision. Steven Tyrrell, chief of the Justice Department's fraud section, said in the document the government made the move after a bill to change the law was introduced in Congress. He didn't elaborate.``Now, from a criminal standpoint, Ken Lay is forever exonerated,'' said Ed Tomko, a former federal prosecutor who defended another Enron executive against fraud charges.Tomko said efforts to change the law are ``largely meaningless'' to Lay's criminal case, because lawmakers can't apply punishments retroactively.``It might mean something to the next case,'' Tomko said. ``But the government is already chasing Ken Lay's money in a civil case.''U.S. authorities last month filed a civil forfeiture case against Lay's estate, seeking $12.5 million for victims of Enron's collapse.

More on the story.

Poll: Majority of Iraqis want us out within a year, support attacks on US troops

74% of Shiites and 91% of Sunnis in Iraq want us to leave within a year. The number of Shiites making this call in Baghdad, where the U.S. may send more troops to bring order, is even higher (80%) In contrast, earlier this year, 57% of this same group backed an "open-ended" U.S. stay.

By a wide margin, both groups believe U.S. forces are provoking more violence than they're preventing -- and that day-to-day security would improve if we left. Support for attacks on U.S. forces now commands majority support among both Shiites and Sunnis.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/

Bush admits that he doesn't know what he's doing in Iraq

No surprise here. Just shocking that 3 1/2 years in to this quagmire that was totally his creation, Bush has no idea what's he going to do in Iraq:

Bush was asked about proposals by some members of Congress, including 2008 presidential hopeful John McCain, to send more troops to Iraq in an effort to stabilize the country."I haven't made any decisions about troop increases or troop decreases, and won't until I hear from a variety of sources," Bush replied.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/

Rice Was Against Iraq Group Before She Was For It

Last week, Salon ran a glowing piece about Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s role in creating the Iraq Study Group, an independent panel meant to advise the administration on Iraq policy.

The article credited Rice with taking Rep. Frank Wolf’s (R-VA) idea to create the panel and personally pitching it to President Bush:

“It was remarkable that Condi Rice took the lead,” said David Abshire, president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency in Washington, and one of four people in the November meeting, including Rice. The Iraq Study Group, he said, “happened with her going to the president.” […]
Asked to comment on this article, a State Department spokesman would say only that Rice supported the idea of the Iraq Study Group from early on. “The department and the administration have embraced this effort from the beginning as a way to show and maintain public support for advancing our goals in Iraq,” said spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos.

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/20/rice-iraq-study/

Human rights group wants Saddam verdict overturned

A human rights group is calling for the conviction of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to be reversed, RAW STORY has learned.

Citing many procedural and substantive flaws, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch declared in a 97-page report released Sunday that the trial of Saddam Hussein was unfair and that the court should overturn the guilty verdict.

“The proceedings in the Dujail trial were fundamentally unfair,” said Nehal Bhuta of the International Justice program at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “The tribunal squandered an important opportunity to deliver credible justice to the people of Iraq. And its imposition of the death penalty after an unfair trial is indefensible.” More on the story.

Embittered Insiders Turn Against Bush

The V for Vendetta crowd are showing up in droves...


The weekend after the statue of Saddam Hussein fell, Kenneth Adelman and a couple of other promoters of the Iraq war gathered at Vice President Cheney's residence to celebrate. The invasion had been the "cakewalk" Adelman predicted. Cheney and his guests raised their glasses, toasting President Bush and victory. "It was a euphoric moment," Adelman recalled.
Forty-three months later, the cakewalk looks more like a death march, and Adelman has broken with the Bush team. He had an angry falling-out with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this fall. He and Cheney are no longer on speaking terms. And he believes that "the president is ultimately responsible" for what Adelman now calls "the debacle that was Iraq."

Adelman, a former Reagan administration official and onetime member of the Iraq war brain trust, is only the latest voice from inside the Bush circle to speak out against the president or his policies. Heading into the final chapter of his presidency, fresh from the sting of a midterm election defeat, Bush finds himself with fewer and fewer friends. Some of the strongest supporters of the war have grown disenchanted, former insiders are registering public dissent and Republicans on Capitol Hill blame him for losing Congress.

A certain weary crankiness sets in with any administration after six years. By this point in Bill Clinton's tenure, bitter Democrats were competing to denounce his behavior with an intern even as they were trying to fight off his impeachment. Ronald Reagan was deep in the throes of the Iran-contra scandal. But Bush's strained relations with erstwhile friends and allies take on an extra edge of bitterness amid the dashed hopes of the Iraq venture.

"There are a lot of lives that are lost," Adelman said in an interview last week. "A country's at stake. A region's at stake. This is a gigantic situation. . . . This didn't have to be managed this bad. It's just awful."

The sense of Bush abandonment accelerated during the final weeks of the campaign with the publication of a former aide's book accusing the White House of moral hypocrisy and with Vanity Fair quoting Adelman, Richard N. Perle and other neoconservatives assailing White House leadership of the war.

The weekend after the statue of Saddam Hussein fell, Kenneth Adelman and a couple of other promoters of the Iraq war gathered at Vice President Cheney's residence to celebrate. The invasion had been the "cakewalk" Adelman predicted. Cheney and his guests raised their glasses, toasting President Bush and victory. "It was a euphoric moment," Adelman recalled.

Forty-three months later, the cakewalk looks more like a death march, and Adelman has broken with the Bush team. He had an angry falling-out with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this fall. He and Cheney are no longer on speaking terms. And he believes that "the president is ultimately responsible" for what Adelman now calls "the debacle that was Iraq."
Adelman, a former Reagan administration official and onetime member of the Iraq war brain trust, is only the latest voice from inside the Bush circle to speak out against the president or his policies. Heading into the final chapter of his presidency, fresh from the sting of a midterm election defeat, Bush finds himself with fewer and fewer friends. Some of the strongest supporters of the war have grown disenchanted, former insiders are registering public dissent and Republicans on Capitol Hill blame him for losing Congress.

A certain weary crankiness sets in with any administration after six years. By this point in Bill Clinton's tenure, bitter Democrats were competing to denounce his behavior with an intern even as they were trying to fight off his impeachment. Ronald Reagan was deep in the throes of the Iran-contra scandal. But Bush's strained relations with erstwhile friends and allies take on an extra edge of bitterness amid the dashed hopes of the Iraq venture.

"There are a lot of lives that are lost," Adelman said in an interview last week. "A country's at stake. A region's at stake. This is a gigantic situation. . . . This didn't have to be managed this bad. It's just awful."

The sense of Bush abandonment accelerated during the final weeks of the campaign with the publication of a former aide's book accusing the White House of moral hypocrisy and with Vanity Fair quoting Adelman, Richard N. Perle and other neoconservatives assailing White House leadership of the war. More on the story.