The Daily Brief

I don’t think we could have said it better here (apart from the wisdom of this conflict remark), so I’ll just quote DarkSyd:

Despite my personal misgivings about the wisdom of this conflict, I freely profess pride, and extend my best wishes to the hundreds of thousands of US Service People and Iraqi Citizens, whose sacrifice made this day possible. A sacrifice all too frequently paid for in the currency of cherished blood and unimaginable grief. UTI is hopeful for the best, even while bracing for the worst.

I’d like to ask a favor: Regardless of one’s political inclination, irrespective of your confidence in the electoral process employed, or the decision to invade and occupy Iraq, no matter what the outcome, let us all stand united in our admiration for those courageous Iraqi’s who will brave gunfire, RPGs, bombs, and reprisal, to determine their own fate? For they choose to do so in bold defiance of promised violence and certain intimidation.

I’d like to add that I’m a bit annoyed by all the polls and pundits concerned with American opinions about the “legitimacy” of this first Iraqi election. Our opinion matters not one wit here; the legitimacy of this election will be determined strictly by whether or not the Iraqi people accept it as legitimate. On that, I have great confidence.

Insiders say that we will, without a doubt, begin withdrawing troops from Iraq within a year. But Condoleeza Rice flatly denies this.

I hope she is correct. We must remember the lessons of Vietnamization, where the native insurgency was all-but-dead, but the South Vietnamese forces could not withstand an invasion from the north.

The Center for Corporate Responsibility has this list of it’s Top Ten War Profiteers of 2004:

At the beginning of the Iraq war, Andrew Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), proclaimed that the reconstruction of Iraq would look like a modern-day Marshall Plan. But a year and a half later, a combination of bureaucratic ineptitude, corporate corruption and the growing Iraqi resistance threaten to undermine the Bush administration’s grand designs.

In mid-July, U.S. officials admitted that fewer than 140 of the 2,300 reconstruction projects funded by the U.S. were underway. Although AID says “dirt has been turned” on 1,167 projects including schools and hospitals, with at least 70 new ones staring each week, it’s unlikely that the big picture has changed much. The kidnapping and execution of contract personnel and the ongoing sabotage of key projects — power plants, electricity lines and oil pipelines — has slowed work in many areas of the country to a crawl, jacking up the cost of security, insurance and other ancillary expenditures, which in most cases amount to half of the contractors’ budgets.

By August, Ambassador John Negroponte had to announce that more than $3 billion of $18 billion in U.S. aid earmarked by Congress for engineering and reconstruction work would be used for security and counterinsurgency operations.

The announcement was tacit recognition that a kind of vicious cycle is at work. The aggravation caused by the lack of electricity and other basic services is certain to be blamed on the CPA and the contractors, which could result in further support for the resistance. Exactly how much the resistance has gained from the festering resentments caused by the stalled reconstruction process is difficult to say. But an increase in attacks on construction sites – more than one a day according to the Army – indicates that they are a clear target of the resistance.

In late December, Contrack International, the lead partner on a $320 million transportation systems contract, announced that it was withdrawing from Iraq because of “prohibitive” security costs.

By the fall, news that just 7 percent of the $18 billion originally allocated for reconstruction set off fireworks in Congress. Senator Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, blasted the Bush administration as “incompetent” for failing to devote adequate on-the-ground personnel to contract administration, management, and oversight.

“It’s beyond pitiful, it’s beyond embarrassing, it’s now in the zone of dangerous,” added Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska.

For the most part, it looks like a pretty good report. But of course, they have to score one on the boogyman:

U.S. firms are not the only ones to complain about how difficult it has been to get in on the action. (Rep. James P. Moran Jr., D-Virginia, told to a Washington Post reporter that a company in his district was told by Pentagon officials that “if they want the money they really have to go though Halliburton.”) Even the administration’s closest Iraqi allies have been critical.

Let’s see: somebody at the Pentagon told Rep. Moran, who told a WaPo reporter, who told them – riiiiight.

Those who doubt whether or not we are winning in Iraq should follow the course of the refugees.

As I noted in my earlier post, the Washington Times Bill Gertz is the first of the major media to be on the chemical weapons lab story:

Chemicals and bomb-making literature found at two houses in Fallujah, Iraq, last week show Iraqi rebels are prepared to use chemical and biological weapons in future attacks, a U.S. military spokesman said yesterday.

Rebels in Fallujah had materials for making chemical blood agents and also a “cookbook” on how to produce a deadly form of anthrax, said Army Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan in a telephone interview.

Gertz had reported on Zaqawi’s ties to al-Qeada and Baghdad back in July. It’s difficult to believe that Zarqawi was going about this without at least Saddam’s tacit approval.

Most discussion of Iraq’s ethnic groups concerns itself only with the Shites, Sunnis, and Kurds. But there are others. Among them are Armenians, Asyrians, and Turkomen. This makes consideration of such options as partion problematic. Indeed, in such areas as Kirkuk and Mosul, Turkomen guerillas have been quite active.

Iraqi National Guard troops have reportedly found a chemical weapons lab in Fallujah. No word yet on whether any or all of it predates the invasion.

Update: Hans Blix is skeptical:

But Dr Blix told students: “Let’s see what the chemicals are … many of these stories evaporate when they are looked at more closely.”

He added: “If there were to be found something, we would all be surprised.

“The chances are, I think, relatively small. I would be surprised if it was something real.”

But It does seem that there is something to this:

The US military has described the find in Fallujah as the “largest weapons cache to date in Fallujah”.

The weapons, including anti-tank mines and a mobile bomb-making lab, were found inside a mosque used by Sunni rebel leader, Imam Abdullah al-Janabi.

The military said troops also found documents detailing hostage interrogations, as well as what may be a mobile bomb-making factory housed in a truck, mortar systems, rocket-propelled grenades, launchers, recoilless rifles and parts of surface-to-air weapons systems.

Update 11/29/04: The major media still appears silent. But the Washington Times’ Bill Gertz seems to be all over he story. Look for something from him tomorrow.