HE CAN TRAVEL ON THE TAX PAYER DIME IN THE TAX PAYER PAID FOR AIR FORCE ONE. BUT WHEN FADED CELEBRITY BARRY O GOES INTO A PRICEY FUND RAISER, NO ONE BETTER THINK THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO FOLLOW.
THESE REPORTERS SPOKE WITH BARRY O AFTER THE FUNDRAISER AND HE EXPLAINED THE PRECAUTIONS WERE NECESSARY "SO WE COULD LET OUR HAIR DOWN. WE TALK ABOUT FADED CELEBRITY TOPICS -- LIKE SHOULD WE DO A REALITY SHOW OR NOT? OR MAYBE IF PARIS OR LINDSAY IS MORE PASSE? SOMETIMES WE TALK ABOUT HOW TO AVOID PANTY LINES -- WE CAN DO A WHOLE HOUR ON THAT. IT'S JUST IMPORTANT FOR US TO LET OUR HAIR DOWN, YOU KNOW?"
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
US House Rep Ed Royce: Never has a terrorist organization itself
controlled such a large, resource-rich safe haven as ISIS does today.
Never has a terrorist organization possessed the heavy weaponry, cash
and personnel that ISIS does today -- which includes thousands of
western passport holders.
The Iraqi population is terrorized; they have suffered mass executions
and harsh sharia law. Last week, the remaining members of the ancient
Christian community in Mosul fled on foot in face of ISIS demands that
they convert or face death.
To be clear, ISIS's take-over has been aided by Prime Minister Maliki’s
malfeasance and incompetence. Maliki has disastrously failed to
reconcile with key Sunni groups. Many -- including myself and Ranking
Member Engel -- urged him to form a more inclusive government so that
ISIS could not exploit legitimate Sunni grievances. Maliki has only
proven himself to be a committed sectarian; certainly no statesman. It
is time for Iraqis to move forward in forming a government that serves
the interests of all Iraqis.
Royce was speaking at today's House Foreign Affairs Committee. He is
the Chair of the Committee, US House Rep Eliot Engel is the Ranking
Member. Appearing before the Committee were the Defense Dept's Elissa
Slotkin and the State Dept's Brett McGurk.
We're going to start with Elissa Slotkin:
First,
we have added forces to protect
U.S.
personnel
in Iraq. The safety of U.S.
citizens and
personnel in Baghdad and throughout Iraq
is our highest priority.
The Department of Defense is
meeting all requests from the Department of State
for security support to US Embassy
Baghdad.
As described in
the War Powers
notifications
we
transmitted
to Congress
on June
16
and
26, DoD
has sent
a
Fleet Antiterrorism
Security Team (FAST
), a Crisis Response Element
(CRE),
and additional military assets and personnel
to reinforce security at our diplomatic
facilities in Baghdad
and the Baghdad International Airport.
That's from Slotkin's opening remarks and we're going with the written
version and not the oral version because that was more clear in writing.
Should something go wrong with regards to US diplomatic staff in Iraq,
people will be asking what was going on? Was there a plan? Already,
the issue of the safety of the diplomatic staff has been an issue.
Speaking on behalf of DoD today. Slotkin conveyed the government's
position.
Whether that's enough or not is something events will most likely determine.
Something that can be determined right now?
That the administration was doing enough or not? That can be judged
right now. Here's Brett McGurk speaking of the days after rebels took
Mosul.
Brett McGurk: Over the next three days, in meetings
with our embassy team and video
conferences with
President Obama and the National Security Council, we immediately prepared and
executed our crisis response. We also worked closely with Iraqi officials to organize the
defenses of Baghdad and restore some of the confidence that had been battered. Our response
to the immediate crisis
proceeded along three parallel tracks. First, and
most importantly, we worked to ensure the security
of our own personnel and facilities.
Second, in parallel, we
both relocated and
surged U.S. diplomatic, intelligence, and
military resources to develop strategic options for the President with real-time and
accurate information. Third, we worked with Iraqi officials to strengthen their defenses
of strategic locations, and set the political process on track,
with a focus on forming a
new government following national elections.
Everything the administration has done since 2010 has pretty much been
wrong. That includes US President Barack Obama's weasel words when
running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 2007 and
2008. He did not face cheering crowds and garner applause and shouts of
joy for declaring, "I will withdraw some troops from Iraq in 16 months,
in fact, let's call them 'combat troops,' while I keep many more on the
ground in Iraq."
No, what got cheers were his claims that "we" wanted to get the US
troops out of Iraq -- all. 16 months was the promise he gave the
public. He should have kept it. He should have ordered an immediate
departure from Iraq of all US troops upon being sworn in back in January
2009. If he'd done that, it would be Bully Boy Bush's (illegal) war.
BBB started it, the American people wanted it ended, Barack could have
done that and then, if anything bad happened, he could say, "All I did
was end the war."
But he's not very bright nor are his advisers -- and, even worse, than
not being very bright? Being not very bright and falsely assuming
you're a genius. Instead of leaving it Bully Boy Bush's war, Barack
wanted to toy with it, wanted to f**k with it, wanted to put his stamp
on it.
And he did. And he owns the illegal war the same as BBB.
No one knows what would have happened if Iraq had been left to move
forward on its own at the start of 2009. But what is known now is that
installing Nouri al-Maliki for a second term -- after voters rejected
him -- guaranteed Iraq would take the path it currently is on.p
And now Nouri wants a third term.
Grasp that Barack never anticipated that happening. He's unable to forsee the most basic possibilities.
Remember that, following the 2005 parliamentary elections, Iraq waited
several months for a prime minister. What was the hold up?
Not the Parliament. They wanted to name Ibrahim al-Jafaari. He's been
the prime minister, then Ayad Allawi. But the Bully Boy Bush
administration -- not one noted for wisdom -- managed to grasp that Iraq
-- ruled by a strongman -- could quickly fall back to that pattern.
They nixed al-Jafaari. But in the next election, even with Nouri
losing, Barack and his administration weren't smart enough to grasp that
giving Nouri a second term could lead to all the problems Iraq now
faces.
They're not very smart and really struggle to anticipate much of
anything. The gang that supposedly moved on three dimensional chess
levels? Turns out they can't even handle tic-tac-toe.
From the hearing . . .
US House Rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: In your excellent opening
statement, Mr. Chairman, you had said -- about Mr. McGurk -- that in
February you [McGurk] said that we must ensure that ISIL can't gain safe
haven in western Iraq and that you were confident that Iraq would deny
them this. We all know how that turned out. Just a few months later,
ISIL took over most of western Iraq. How could your assessment have
been so far off? How could Iraq lose this territory? Why didn't we
respond to their calls for help? Your testimony from February shows
that there's some serious disconnect within the administration and the
reality of the threat in Iraq. Or we've just been completely failing in
addressing it. You said in February, that the US began to accelerate
some of our foreign military assistance programs and information sharing
to get a better intelligence picture of Iraq. Last month, Secretary [of
State John] Kerry said nobody expected ISIL to capture Mosul. Even if
our foreign military assistance had not quite kicked in yet, shouldn't
our information and intelligence gathering efforts have been able to
get a better assessment, a more accurate assessment, of Samarra and
Mosul? And it has been widely reported that while taking control of
Mosul, ISIL seized rather large quantities of US supplied foreign
military assistance and made off with nearly half a billion dollars from
the local banks -- in addition to tanks and humvees that were taken.
US officials were quick to deny the claims of ISIL-- that they captured
advance weaponry such as Black Hawk helicopters. Did they capture any
caravan aircraft with advanced weapon platforms? And did they take any
other advanced weaponry like MPADS [Man-portable air-defense systems]?
US military equipment and hundreds of millions of dollars aren't the
only items that ISIL has seized. The Iraqi government confirmed that
ISIL took uranium from Mosul University. What is the status of that
uranium? What could ISIL use that for? And on the Christian community,
we've seen that the ancient Christian community in Iraq is under seige
by these Islamist militants. Once a vibrant and sizable community, now
over 1 million Christians have been forced to flee their homes and
communities or be killed. Their homes are being marked by ISIL and they
are being given an ultimatum to flee, to convert or to be murdered. In
February, you said, Mr. McGurk, that the Christian community had the
resources to protect itself and that we had actually made progress.
It's clear that we haven't made any progress. We cannot protect them.
So what are we doing now to protect the few remaining Christians and
their religious sites and artifacts? As Ranking Member Engel had
pointed out, are we -- on any level -- coordinating with Iran on the --
or Syria -- over our Iraq policy or ISIL and does the administration
believe that Maliki must go? Yes or no? Thank you, sir, gentle lady.
Brett McGurk: Let me -- Let me try to address some of these in
order. First, uhm, the discussion we had -- the very good discussion we
had back in February was focused on Anbar Province and I'll just bring
you up to speed on-on where we are Anbar Province. At the time, Falluja
was in control of ISIL, Fallua's still in control of ISIL. I made
clear then that our advice was 'not to move into Falluja, that it was to
set up a coordinate' -- and that coordinate remains in place although
it is fairly loose. Second, we wanted them to hold the provincial
capitol of Ramadi. So far, they are still holding the provincial
capitol of Ramadi. What has changed significantly in Anbar is a very
sophisticated attack what happened late last month with an attack on al
Qaim the strategic border crossing in Iraq -- which again proves that
ISIL is really an army, it's a military capable force, it was a multiple
day assault.
al Qaim? In June, in two days in June, al Qaim, Rutba, Rawa and Anah were taken by rebels -- all in Anbar.
Other aspects of Brett's testimony registered as well as evidenced by
today's State Dept press briefing moderated by spokesperson Marie Harf.
QUESTION: Very quickly, the parliament failed today to choose a
president. Now the problem if they don’t do it tomorrow, then they will
miss the deadline, because next week is the (inaudible).
MS. HARF: Well, they’ve said they will meet tomorrow and will vote tomorrow.
QUESTION: Could you very quickly tell us what Mr. McGurk is doing now?
MS. HARF: Brett McGurk?
QUESTION: Yeah.
MS. HARF: He’s back in the United States.
QUESTION: He’s back in the --
MS. HARF: He was testifying on Capitol Hill today.
QUESTION: Okay.
QUESTION: On Afghanistan?
QUESTION: (Off-mike) McGurk.
MS. HARF: Mm-hmm.
QUESTION: He said that ISIS is not just a terrorist
organization, but a full army and is more powerful than al-Qaida. Can
you comment on that?
MS. HARF: I haven’t seen – I didn’t watch his entire hearing
this morning. Let me take a look at what he said. Clearly, they have
significant military capabilities, though. That is true.
We'll return to the hearing to note this exchange.
US House Rep Albio Sires: Ms. Slotkin, I have been here since 2006
and I have come to hate the words "assess" and "train." We seem to be
assessing and training Iraqi soldiers, assessing the situation in Iraq
and I think the situation is worse than ever. After spending billions
of dollars, we train an army, someone shoots at them, they run for the
hills. Where did we go wrong with these people? That we put all this
money into this training and they can't even defend a section of their
own country? And I just -- it's mind boggling to me. Now we have this
situation where we have ISIL moving in all sorts of directions and I'm
concerned that -- in Jordan, for example -- we have 2 million refugees
and if we have a situation where they destabilize Jordan, the whole area
-- It's just -- It's just a big mess. What did we do with all that
money that we paid to train those people? Where are these trained
people? And I've been here since 2006 -- and not just this
administration. I'm talking from 2006 on. Can you just -- Mr. McGurk,
could you also assist me in understanding this?
Elissa Slotkin: Sir, let me address the issue of the training. I
think anyone who has watched the news or been part of our efforts in
Iraq was disappointed by what we saw in Mosul. And I think the biggest
thing that we looked at and that we were surprised by was the disolving
of frankly four Iraqi divisions up and around that area -- and some
areas where they did not fight, in contrast to western Iraq where they
did put up a fight. And rather than a lack of capability, I think what
we believe happened is that they just lacked either the will or the
direction to fight. So either they saw a snowballing effect, out of
fear, stripped off their uniform and turned or they waited for direction
from Baghdad that did not come and therefore departed. We don't
believe that they lacked a basic capability. It's that, at the end of
the day, they did not have the will or direction to fight in that part
of the area.
RECOMMENDED: "
Iraq snapshot"
"
Will Iraq name a president today?"
"
Drive All Night"
"
When I used to sing for you"
"
All American Boy"
"
Peace is Just a Word"
"
Till They All Get Home"
"
Spiral Down"
"
Carly's "Hold Out Your Heart""
"
Kate Nash's "Foundations""
"
tori amos' hidden gem"
"
Cause you were my protection from the rain inside"
"
He got busted"
"
THIS JUST IN! BUSTED!"
