Cheney Stands by His ‘Last Throes’ Remark By Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post Staff Writer

Vice President Cheney yesterday defended his much-criticized claim a year ago that the Iraq insurgency was in its “last throes” and said he believes that Iraq “turned a corner” last year when its people held elections creating a constitution and a government. …

Cheney has repeatedly stood by his May 2005 declaration that the insurgency was waning….

The most famous optimistic assessment came nearly three years ago, when President Bush stood on an aircraft carrier off California under a banner that read “Mission Accomplished.” “We have seen the turning of the tide,” he said then. Since that statement, more than 2,300 Americans have died in Iraq.

Despite Cheney’s assertion that no one foresaw how difficult the post-invasion phase would be, defense and Middle East experts have said that administration officials during the run-up to the war ignored their warnings about potential obstacles ahead.
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Bush said that the “Democrats are good talkers, we’re good doers.”

Iraq Debate Previews Presidential Bids By Shailagh Murray and Charles Babington, Washington Post Staff Writers

Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) called Kerry’s amendment a “tuck-tail-and-run approach.”

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) took a slap at some of the partisan rhetoric that has marked the debate all week. “The American people want to see serious debate about serious issues from serious leaders,” Hagel said. “It should be taken more seriously than to simply retreat into focus-group-tested buzzwords and phrases like ‘cut and run.’ “ [mjh: 2008 is going to be such a better year, when decent people like Hagel and McCain take back their party from the bunglers.]

Sen. Clinton Accuses GOP of ‘Playing Politics’ With War By Susan Jones, CNSNews.com Senior Editor

“They choose to tar all who disagree with an open-ended, unconditional commitment as unpatriotic, as waving the white flag of surrender. They may not have a war strategy, but they do have an election strategy,” Clinton said the Senate floor.

Republicans Gone Wild By Dana Milbank

Maybe it’s the early summer heat, but something has caused House Republicans to boil with rage this week — and to direct much of it at President Bush and his administration.

The Intelligencer & Wheeling News-Register
New Law Won’t Deter Terrorists
By The Intelligencer

Members of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations that target Americans seem to be a very humorless lot — but we suspect some of them are laughing hysterically at the Ohio General Assembly. Legislators, with Gov. Bob Taft’s approval via his signature on a bill, have given the terrorists good reason to wonder if Americans just aren’t very bright.

In the process they have added to the bureaucratic burden of local governments throughout Ohio, making government more expensive without accompanying benefits.

The Ohio Patriot Act, approved by legislators in December and signed into law by Taft in January, took effect a few weeks ago. It may have some genuinely helpful tools to help state and local officials combat terrorists — but it also contains some ridiculous provisions. …

Obviously, the requirements were put into the new law to bulk up the Ohio Patriot Act in an attempt to convince Buckeye State residents that their government actually is doing something meaningful to protect them. But if government paperwork was an effective defense against terrorists, we suspect al-Qaida leaders would have decided long ago that the United States was impregnable.

Right Web | Analysis | The Neocons Are Talking War—Again by Tom Barry

The neocons are largely united over Iran policy, which they say should have three pillars: avoid diplomacy, which they call appeasing the “evildoers;” destabilize Iran and set the stage for regime change by supporting the “true democrats;” and bomb Iran before it poses an imminent threat to Israel or the United States.

The neocons and their allies in the Pentagon and vice president’s office set the Bush administration’s policy on Iraq. As they set their sights on the next target of preventive war and regime change, what the “scholars” at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Iran Policy Committee, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and other neocon groups are saying about Iran merits attention. …

Today, the gathering War Party on Iran is discussing a two-pronged strategy—having the United States and Israel begin preparations for military strikes, while at the same time immediately putting into motion a destabilization strategy involving U.S. support for Iranian dissidents.

International Relations Center | Special Report | The “Present Danger” War Parties by Tom Barry

On three occasions since the end of World War II—in 1950, 1976, and 2004—elite citizen committees have organized to warn the nation of what they viewed as looming threats to U.S. national security.

These three Committees on the Present Danger (CPD) aimed to ratchet up the level of fear among the U.S. public and policy community. In each case, the committees leveraged fear in attempts to increase military budgets, to mobilize the country for war, and to beat back isolationist, anti-interventionist, and realist forces in American politics.

In the early 1950s and in the late 1970s, the Committees on the Present Danger succeeded in shifting the country to a war footing—first to launch the Cold War, and two decades later to end the move in the policy community toward détente and arms control agreements with the Soviet Union.

The success of the first two present danger committees has inspired the country’s hawks and neoconservatives to imitate the CPD model. Both the Center for Security Policy, founded by Frank Gaffney in 1988, and the Project for the New American Century, founded in 1997 by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, cite the CPD model.

It was not, however, until the backlash against the war in Iraq started spreading that the Committee on the Present Danger name was resurrected. This time the Committee on the Present Danger points to Islamic terrorism as the present danger we face abroad and anti-war sentiment as the clear and present danger we face at home.

This IRC special report traces the history and the impact of the three CPDs. [keep reading…]

Lawmakers’ Profits Are Scrutinized By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post Staff Writer

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made a $2 million profit last year on the sale of land 5 1/2 miles from a highway project that he helped to finance with targeted federal funds.

A Republican House member from California, meanwhile, received nearly double what he paid for a four-acre parcel near an Air Force base after securing $8 million for a planned freeway interchange 16 miles away. And another California GOP congressman obtained funding in last year’s highway bill for street improvements near a planned residential and commercial development that he co-owns. …

[F]or watchdog groups, the cases have opened a fresh avenue for investigation and a new wrinkle in the ongoing controversy over earmarks — home-district projects funded through narrowly written legislative language. …

“The sound bites from politicians have always been that they’re doing what’s best for their districts, but we’re starting to see a pattern that looks like they might be doing what’s best for their pocketbooks,” said Keith Ashdown, vice president of the group Taxpayers for Common Sense. …

“The facts are the facts,” he said, “and the facts are, [Hastert] made a lot of money off this deal, and he was the one who got this earmark.”