Pentagon Report, Like a Bug, (S)Quashed

The absence of a direct link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda--and, apparently, the critical media response to that absence--has prompted the Pentagon to squelch a report on the matter.
Produced by the the Institute for Defense Analyses and titled "Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents," only the executive summary (redacted, natch) has been made available.
The summary document includes quotes such as this one from Saddam: " ... when they say anything about Iraq--[like] Iraq supports terrorism--then they have to say that Iraq has documents on this issue and [we] don't ..."

Says the study, although the "Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP) review of captured Iraqi documents uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism ... [of a] disparate mix of pan-Arab revolutionary causes and emerging pan-Islamic radical movements ... this study found no 'smoking gun' (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al-Qaeda."
Further, the study noted, "the predominant targets of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens, both inside and outside of Iraq."

Of course, the report runs counter to repeated claims by the Bush Administration that Saddam worked with al-Qaeda.
George Bush in September 2002: "al Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn't, but the danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world. Both of them need to be dealt with. The war on terror, you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."

And to think--what a surprise--that a taxpayer-funded report contradicting administration "intelligence" on the matter hasn't been released to the public (technically, it is available "only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia," according to ABCNews, but it won't be posted online as originally intended.).

Several conservative outlets, such as the Weekly Standard, have in the past repeated the assertion of a linkage between Saddam and al-Qaeda. In 2005, Stephen F. Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn wrote, "the evidence we present below, compiled from revelations in recent months, suggests an acute case of denial on the part of those who dismiss the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship."

What follows is a list of what I imagine an attorney would term, at best, circumstantial evidence--for example:

"1. from 1987 to 1989, the detainee served as an infantryman in the Iraqi Army and received training on the mortar and rocket propelled grenades.
2. A Taliban recruiter in Baghdad convinced the detainee to travel to Afghanistan to join the Taliban in 1994.
3. The detainee admitted he was a member of the Taliban.
4. The detainee pledged allegiance to the supreme leader of the Taliban to help them take over all of Afghanistan," among others.

My goodness. That surely proves a connection between--what?--a single Iraqi and the Taliban? It's obvious to all of us that, therefore, Osama bin-Laden plotted with Saddam Hussein to bring down the WTC, defeat the US and establish a global Caliphate ruled jointly by Hussein and bin-Laden.


Ah, but there's that pesky 9/11 Report which has this:

"Responding to a presidential tasking, [counter-terrorism chief Richard] Clarke’s office sent a memo to Rice on September 18, titled 'Survey of Intelligence Information on Any Iraq Involvement in the September 11 Attacks.' Rice’s chief staffer on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, concurred in its conclusion that only some anecdotal evidence linked Iraq to al Qaeda.The memo found no 'compelling case' that Iraq had either planned or perpetrated the attacks ... arguing that the case for links between Iraq and al Qaeda was weak, the memo pointed out that Bin Ladin resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Finally, the memo said, there was no confirmed reporting on Saddam cooperating with Bin Ladin on unconventional weapons."
(emphasis added)

And let us might remind ourselves of the Senate Intelligence Committee's Report which found, "the data reveal few indications of an established relationship between al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein's regime before September 11, 2001."

Nevertheless, as George Bush said in 2004, "the reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and Al-Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda."

Behold that Bushism: It's the truth because it's the truth.

Even though it isn't.

An Admiral "Resigns" and More War Threatens

It's a bad sign, to put it mildly, that Admiral William Fallon, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East (CENTCOM), has "resigned" due to his opposition to the Washington nomenklatura's lip-licking, salivating insistence on attacking Iran.
Depressingly, this increases the possibility/probability of an expansion and acceleration of this seemingly eternal War on Terror.
It would be an understandable, were this administration possessed with some equanimity, to argue that Fallon's departure is the result of an unacceptable divergence from policy by a subordinate. After all, this is a republic where the military must defer to the civilian leadership.
And as a matter of principle, few would disagree.

But--and this is certainly obvious nearly eight years into a disastrous "governance"--George Bush and Co. remain as arrogant, belligerent and threatening as ever. And all signs point to more of the same following Fallon's departure. In any case, there was no "official" disagreement between Fallon and the White House to begin with, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Speaking with utter believability, Gates said of Fallon's resignation/retirement, "I believe it was the right thing to do, even though I do not believe there are, in fact, significant differences between his views and administration policy ... [although] I think there is this misperception out there that there were."

Then again, when Fallon was interviewed by al-Jazeera last September, he said of Iran, as reported by the Financial Times, "this constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me, which is not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war and that is what we ought to be working for."
Prior to that, he apparently ruffled feathers in Washington by improving military relations with China which resulted in, as Esquire put it, "the Pentagon and Congress ... realizing that their favorite 'programs of record' (i.e., weapons systems and major vehicle platforms) were threatened by such talks that the shit hit the fan."
Said Fallon, "I blew my stack. I told [then-Defense Secretary] Rumsfeld, Just look at this shit. I go up to the Hill and I get three or four guys grabbing me and jerking me out of the aisle, all because somebody came up and told them that the sky was going to cave in."

Sec. Gates said that Fallon "told me that, quote, 'The current embarrassing situation, public perception of differences between my views and administration policy, and the distraction this causes from the mission make this the rigbt [sic] thing to do,' unquote."
Gates insisted, throughout the course of his public statement on the matter, that Fallon "was fully supportive of" administration policy regarding Iran, that there was a public "misperception" about it, but that there were no "differences at all" between the admiral and the White House.

Yet, as Esquire put it, "well-placed observers now say that it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring, maybe as early as this summer, in favor of a commander the White House considers to be more pliable. If that were to happen, it may well mean that the president and vice-president intend to take military action against Iran before the end of this year and don't want a commander standing in their way."

When a reporter at Gates' press conference, referring to the Esquire article, said "there was a line in that ... story that said that basically if Fallon gets fired, it means we're going to war with Iran. Can you just address that --"
Gates said, "well, it's just ridiculous. It's ridiculous ... the notion that this decision portends anything in terms of a change in Iran policy is, to quote myself, ridiculous."

Huh.
Okay, then.
I guess that's settled.

Hollywood, the Wars and an Untrusting Audience

Where does the American public stand, really, on the Iraq War specifically and the War on Terror generally?
Many people have, since these wars began, protested vociferously, loudly and repeatedly for them to end (indeed, in the case of Iraq, for it not to begin).
And yet they go on.
Is it because we've, collectively, failed to persuade elected representatives of our rejection of them? Is it that those representatives feel safe to disregard that rejection out of the belief that only fringe elements feel so strongly? In short, is it that, at bottom, there simply aren't enough people who stand against perpetual war compared with those who reflexively support the Bush Administration?

According to recent polling data from Rasmussen Reports, "46% of likely voters believe the U.S. and its allies are winning the War on Terror," while a combined 49% say either "the terrorists" are winning or neither is the case.
"Short-term optimism about the War in Iraq is greater than long-term optimism" where "45% say it will ultimately be judged a failure".
Gallup, meanwhile, polled Americans in late January/early February and found "that a majority of Americans continue to express opposition to the war in Iraq, attitudes that are unchanged in the last two months ... 57% of Americans say it was a mistake for the United States to send troops to Iraq, while 41% say it was not a mistake. Those numbers are identical to what Gallup measured in late November/early December.
This broad measure of the correctness of the U.S. decision to go to war in Iraq has not changed much, even with more positive assessments of U.S. progress in Iraq in the last three months."

It seems safe to say that most Americans aren't generally happy with their government's war-related policies.
Yet Hollywood's attempts to to address the issue through such films as Redacted, Rendition, In the Valley of Elah, Grace is Gone, Lions for Lambs, and A Mighty Heart (which, I suppose, doesn't count since it's a non-American film) have been met with a box office thud. Surely they weren't all poor films (although Time's Richard Corliss says, fairly or not, "the great Iraq movie--like a solution to the current Iraq quandary--is still a thing to hope for").
Rendition brought in less than $10 million. The Valley of Elah under $7 million. Redacted slightly more than $65 thousand. Lions for Lambs a little more than $15 million. And A Mighty Heart with Angelina Jolie generated a mere $9 million.
How did they do on dvd? According to Rotten Tomatoes, Rendition has brought in $5 million thus far. In The Valley of Elah some $4.5+ million.

What, then, does this reveal about public attitudes and Hollywood's efforts?
NY Times critic A.O. Scott, in a November 2007 review of Brian De Palma's Redacted, wrote that "Mr. De Palma’s premise, implicit in his choice of title and stated in many interviews and public pronouncements, is that the truth about Iraq has been edited and obscured, kept away from the American public," but that "I think he may have misdiagnosed the condition of the audience, which is not lack of information about Iraq but rather a pervasive moral and political paralysis."

But "pervasive moral and political paralysis" is a better description of American politicians than its citizens.
Many have tried to explain why it's taken so long to make such movies and/or why audiences aren't responding.
Michael Cieply of the NY Times noted that "in the past, Hollywood usually gave the veteran more breathing space. William Wyler’s 'Best Years of Our Lives,' about the travails of those returning from World War II, was released more than a year after the war’s end. Similarly Hal Ashby’s 'Coming Home' and Oliver Stone’s 'Born on the Fourth of July, both stories of Vietnam veterans, came well after the fall of Saigon."
But today, according to Scott Rudin who's a producer of the upcoming Stop-Loss, "media in general responds much more quickly than ever before. Why shouldn’t movies do the same?"

To John Patterson of the Guardian, this has been anything but a quick response: "The Hollywood studios have taken their own sweet time facing up to the Iraq war. The conflict has dragged on for four and a half years, longer than America's involvement in the second world war, yet only now is Hollywood beginning to address it head on. And even though documentarists have been tearing into the subject almost from the beginning ... Iraq seems to have utterly paralysed Hollywood's ability to address war with its usual vigour and bloodthirsty enthusiasm."

Lew Harris of Movies.com said, in an AFP article, that "these movies have to be entertaining. You can't just take a movie and make it anti-war or anti-torture and expect to draw people in. That's what happened with 'Rendition' and it has been a disaster. People want war movies to have a slam-bang adventure feel to them ... But Iraq is a difficult war to portray in a kind of rah-rah-rah, exciting way."

Equally bizarre was the view of John Cooper of the Sundance Film Festival that audiences are "ready for funny. Film-makers haven't said all there is to say about the war in Iraq, but I think audiences are saturated."

I suspect audiences are less saturated than wary and are simply not inclined to trust Hollywood or other media when it comes to coverage--dramatic or otherwise--of these wars.
Why should they? The mainstream media, inclusive of Hollywood, is part of the elite and the seller of bills of goods.
When Harris Interactive found that "over half of Americans say they tend not to trust the press," they were of course referring to cable and network news, print media and radio. Had they included Hollywood, those numbers might have been worse.