Late to the party. From the department of Why Didn't You Mention This Earlier?—from James Risen's article ("Account of Broad Shiite Revolt Contradicts White House Stand"):

Although anti-Americanism is hardly universal among Shiites, an anti-American mood has been building for months. At the Grand Mosque in Kufa, where Mr. Sadr took refuge as his militiamen were seizing control of the city on Sunday, this deep vein of anti-Americanism feeds off every rumor.

And Christine Hauser's lead ("Iraq Uprising Spreads; Rumsfeld Sees It as 'Test of Will'"):

The intensification of the combat is sapping efforts to lay the foundations for a largely ceremonial transfer of political sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30.

Have you noticed how all of a sudden the press is paying attention to the fact that the sovereignty transfer is "largely ceremonial," that few or no facts on the ground will change (other than the CPA will magically transmute into America's largest embassy), that nobody's quite sure exactly what Iraqi government entity will be in place to receive the sovereignty we're handing off? Has anything in the pending June 30 arrangements changed in the last several days?

Well, obviously, no. It's just that it's becoming fashionable (or at least permissible) to regain the use of one's eyes—and hey, look, the Boy Emperor doesn't seem to be wearing any pants ...

posted by michael  5:16:46 PM  
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And I'm not even paying for the service. Looks like I don't have to do anything by way of taking out Adam Nagourney and Carl Hulse for their dopey A1 thumbsucker about the political implications of the Iraq blowup ("Battles in Iraq Bring Troubles for Bush and Kerry as Well"). Go read Billmon, who does it better than I would've anyway.


posted by michael  4:53:56 PM  
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Quick reactions to the Times' early report on Condi Rice's testimony before the 9/11 commission, from David Stout ("Bush Understood Threat Posed by Al Qaeda, Rice Tells Panel"):

Guess Stout's still down with Dear Leader.

President Bush understood the deadly threat posed by Al Qaeda terrorists from his very first days in office, the president's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, testified today.

But she said the administration was hobbled by deep-seated problems in intelligence-gathering, notably a lack of communication between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Could you have come up with a more horseshit lead than that, David? And the second graph does Condi the favor of repeating her "structural problems" talking point, repeated ad nauseam in her appearance, and establishing it as the through-line for the piece.

And just so we're clear, Stout reiterates the point about Dear Leader's understanding in the fourth graf:

In her long-awaited appearance before the bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, Ms. Rice insisted under sometimes sharp questioning that Mr. Bush "understood the threat, and he understood its importance," as she put it in her opening statement.

I love that "long-awaited." No suggestion that the waiting, and the length of it, were dictated by Administration stonewalling and its ludicrous assertions of "precedent" and "constitutionality" trying to keep Rice away from public testimony. I notice that the WaPo staff report, while shorter than Stout's piece, quite handily manages the job, albeit leaving it till late in the report: "The commission, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, had feuded for months with the White House over access to government documents and witnesses, and Rice's agreement to testify came after weeks of refusals from White House lawyers." Too much heavy lifting though for Stout, apparently.

Condi testifies in "a calm, businesslike tone" early in the piece, then in a "cool unwavering tone" later on. "Her tone in the opening statement was not confrontational," even though she makes a "clear rebuttal of [the] recent charges" coming from Richard Clarke. Glad that tone issue is all wrapped up.

Stout devotes several grafs to Richard Ben Veniste's aggressive questioning, in particular wrt the Aug. 6 PDB: he picks up Rice's assertion that the PDB "was not a threat report to the president or a threat report to me," and yet won't condescend to mention Ben Veniste's insistence, evaded by Rice, that the briefing did indeed entail a threat report and that it should be declassified. (WaPo, again, does just fine with that.) He appears delighted to mention that "applause and laughter broke out" when Rice scored a point against Bob Kerrey:

Applause and laughter broke out later, however, when, in answer to a question from Mr. Kerrey about why the United States had not responded militarily to the attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen, Ms. Rice quoted from a Kerrey speech saying that the best response to the attack would perhaps be to deal with "the threat of Saddam Hussein."

The applause that broke out when Kerrey, frustrated (like a number of the commissioners) with Rice's long, obfuscatory, off-point replies, told her to "stop filibustering me," however, is silent in Stout's article. (WaPo doesn't mention Kerrey's segment either way.) Stout completely ignores the unusual questioning arrangement, in which commissioners were each given only 10 minutes with Condi (instead of there being a couple of lead questioners with substantial time for follow-up), as he ignores Rice's tactics in answering and eating up question time. But, after all, we know what her "tone" was, and isn't that enough?

Stout makes sure Rice gets the ringing last word:

"After the Sept. 11 attacks, our nation faced hard choices," she said. "We could fight a narrow war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban or we could fight a broad war against a global menace. We could seek a narrow victory or we could work for a lasting peace and a better world. President Bush chose the bolder course."

And, of course, we all know how well that's been working out.

In short: big failing grade for Stout. Let's see if the Times cleans this mess up at all by the time it sees print.

Update (via Atrios): TAP is fact-checking Condi's ass, and she's just as big a liar as you might have expected. Here, and here.

posted by michael  12:57:50 PM  
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Sometimes the headline's where it's at. James Risen's article today, above the fold:

Account of Broad Shiite Revolt Contradicts White House Stand

Here's the lead:

United States forces are confronting a broad-based Shiite uprising that goes well beyond supporters of one militant Islamic cleric who has been the focus of American counterinsurgency efforts, United States intelligence officials said Wednesday.

That assertion contradicts repeated statements by the Bush administration and American officials in Iraq. On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that they did not believe the United States was facing a broad-based Shiite insurgency. Administration officials have portrayed Moktada al-Sadr, a rebel Shiite cleric who is wanted by American forces, as the catalyst of the rising violence within the Shiite community of Iraq.

But intelligence officials now say that there is evidence that the insurgency goes beyond Mr. Sadr and his militia, and that a much larger number of Shiites have turned against the American-led occupation of Iraq, even if they are not all actively aiding the uprising.

That's how much damage this is doing to Bush: A1 is openly calling out the White House for refusing to acknowledge reality in Iraq—and its reporters are now being asked to give play (Judith Miller must be turning over in her grave!) to dissenting intelligence.

Risen is particularly interesting on the subject of the Hezbollah presence in Iraq, reprising and somewhat amplifying his report of last November. I didn't see it at the time, and it doesn't seem to have attracted much attention or follow-up. (I persist in thinking there's a great deal more to al-Sadr's recent, provocative embrace of Hamas and Hezbollah than we know yet.) So if there's an element of tooting his own horn in this (under the surface), I guess Risen ought to be allowed.

In the Shiite-dominated areas of Iraq, some Pentagon officials and other government officials believe that Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shiite extremist group, is now playing a key role in the Shiite insurgency. The Islamic Jihad Organization, a terrorist group closely affiliated with Hezbollah, is also said by some officials to have established offices in Iraq, and that Iran is behind much of the violence.

C.I.A. officials disagree, however, and say they have not yet seen evidence that Hezbollah has joined forces with Iraqi Shiites. Some intelligence officials believe that the Pentagon has been eager to link Hezbollah to the violence in Iraq to link the Iranian regime more closely to anti-American terrorism.

But C.I.A. officials agree that Hezbollah has established a significant presence in postwar Iraq. The Lebanese-based organization sent in teams after the war, American intelligence officials believe.

By implication, doesn't this rather put the lie to all the hype about the alleged Zarqawi letter and the supposed Al Qaeda (or Al Qaeda-ish) plan to foment Shia-Sunni violence this summer?

posted by michael  10:35:00 AM  
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