Republican hack, and known lover of the prostitutes, GOP Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana spent only 10 hours in Iraq, but has come back and said in the 10 hours he could tell the surge is working. Our troops are asked to spend no less than 15 months in Iraq, Vitter, 10 hours, only 1/1092 nd the time our troops are help there. Vitter said, “My bottom line conclusion is that the surge is working very, very well” and then he ran past his awaiting wife, and handed a hot blond $50 and hugged her. He then used the line, “Hey baby, do I get a discount if I am a senator?” and shuffled off.

I am not even sure why he is still in the chamber, he is almost as much an embarrassment as Bush himself is to the GOP. Maybe they keep him around because he knows the best places to score the infidelity!

Jesus Christ does this son-of-a-bitch have any shame what so ever. The Republicans just flat out hate the troops, they just hate them.

ABC News

The Bush administration opposes a Democratic effort to restore full educational benefits for returning veterans, according to an official’s comments last week.

Senate Democrats, led by Virginia’s Jim Webb, want the government to pay every penny of veterans’ educational costs, from tuition at a public university to books, housing and a monthly stipend.

Such a benefit was a major feature of the historic 1944 G.I. Bill, which put more than eight million U.S. soldiers through college and is now credited by historians as fueling the expansion of America’s middle class in the post-war era.

But in recent years the benefit has dwindled; under the current law, passed in 1985, veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan can expect Uncle Sam to cover only 75 percent of their tuition costs. That’s not enough, say Democrats and veterans’ advocates.

More than 450,000 used the benefit last year, at a cost to taxpayers of $2 billion, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which administers the program. The Democratic proposal would cost an additional $5.4 billion a year, the VA estimates — and that’s too much, it says.

I am sorry to all the folks out there that are in fact retarded, I mean this figuratively, not literally, well maybe a little literally. The Pentagon has decided almost 5 years after the war in Iraq started that they should start tracking weapons sent to Iraq. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office tens of thousands of rifles, pistols, helmets, body armor, and other weaponry has vanished into thin air, and the Pentagon can not account for them.

Now this is where I wonder just how stupid the people at the top are in the US. We are suppose to be fighting a bunch of people that do not have uniforms, are civilians, what the hell are we doing arming them? You are telling me that 5 years after this Charlie Foxtrot started you are just now starting to track guns? How many of these unaccounted guns have killed our soldiers?

The Times (UK) is reporting that the numbers are staggering

• 110,000 rifles
• 80,000 pistols
• 135,000 pieces of body armor
• 115,000 helmets

This just shows the level of incompetance within the leadership of this nation. It saddens me that the military is run by …

VOANews.com

A report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office says tens of thousands of rifles, pistols and other items sent to Iraq are unaccounted for. As VOA’s Al Pessin reports from the Pentagon, officials are promising to keep closer track of weapons sent to Iraq.

The report does not say the missing weapons have gone astray, into the hands of insurgents or onto the open market. Rather, it says that in its haste to provide the material to Iraqi forces in the midst of a war, the U.S. military command in Iraq did not keep close enough track of rifles, pistols, body armor and helmets intended for the Iraqi army and police forces.

Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman spoke about the report on Monday.

“One should not assume that just because you cannot provide a strict audit paper trail that those weapons are necessarily not being used for their intended purposes which is for the Iraqi security forces,” he said.

Whitman says he is not aware of any of the U.S. weapons or other equipment being found in the possession of insurgents or in any of the thousands of insurgent weapons caches coalition and Iraqi forces have found around the country. But Whitman acknowledges, as the department does in a letter at the end of the GAO report, that it needs to improve its inventory system in Iraq.

Today in a news conference out “president” said that Americans were crazy, and that is why they want the war in Iraq over. Bush said, “First of all, I understand why the American people are — you know, they’re tired of the war. People are — there’s war fatigue in America. It’s affecting our psychology. I’ve said this before. I understand that. This is an ugly war.”

It is not the American people that have a psychological issue, it is you George. You keep telling us that everything is going great, whole we have over 3,600 dead American soldier and according our own National Counter-terrorism Center, “Al-Qaida Better Positioned to Strike the West.” What did these men and women die for? The head of the CIA, a 4-star General I remind you, said that instability in Iraq is “irreversible“. The”escalation” is turning out to be a huge failure, as General Hadden says “irreversible.”

So Bush, who is crazy, the whole world is telling you that Iraq is a disaster, your own appointees are telling you it is a failure. Your fellow countryman are screaming at you to stop killing our troops and pissing away our money. George, for the love of god, level with the American people, tell us why we are in Iraq? Drop the bullshit about terror, because we lost that war, what is the truth, and what event needs to happen so that you will end this disaster?

Right now a keg at a frat house has a greater chance of surviving than do out solders in Iraq. Bush war is a disaster for our troops, they are over worked, stressed out of there ever loving minds, and dangerously outnumbered. At this point I feel like they are slaves to George Bush and his total cluster-f*ck of a war. Bring them home NOW.

ABC News Reports…

The U.S. military said 14 American troops have died in several attacks in the past 48 hours, including five slain Thursday in a single roadside bombing that also killed four Iraqis in Baghdad.

Elsewhere, a suicide truck bomber struck the Sulaiman Bek city hall in a predominantly Sunni area of northern Iraq, killing at least 16 people and wounding 67, an Iraqi commander said.

The latest U.S. deaths raised to at least 3,545 the number of American troops who have died since the war began in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

On May 1, 2003, President Bush stood underneath a “Mission Accomplished” banner and announced that “Major combat operations have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”

Here’s a by-the-numbers look at the situation then, compared to the situation now:

ThinkProgress Points this out

George W. Bush was governor of Texas. Then, Bush criticized President Clinton for not setting a timetable for exiting Kosovo.

George W. Bush, 4/9/99:

“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”

And on the specific need for a timetable:

George W. Bush, 6/5/99, Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

“I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn.”

Despite his past statements, Bush now refuses to apply the same standard to his war and smears those who want a similar timetable for Iraq.

Well it is not really making it up, it is leaving it out. In order to make sure that the numbers look good, and that Republican talking heads have something to point to and say "See it's working" the administration had to leave out the scores of people who have dies because of car bombs. To Bush, those don't count.

From McClatchy (bolds are mine)

U.S. officials who say there has been a dramatic drop in sectarian violence in Iraq since President Bush began sending more American troops into Baghdad aren't counting one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians.

Car bombs and other explosive devices have killed thousands of Iraqis in the past three years, but the administration doesn't include them in the casualty counts it has been citing as evidence that the surge of additional U.S. forces is beginning to defuse tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

President Bush explained why in a television interview on Tuesday. "If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings, we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory," he told TV interviewer Charlie Rose.

Others, however, say that not counting bombing victims skews the evidence of how well the Baghdad security plan is protecting the civilian population - one of the surge's main goals.

"Since the administration keeps saying that failure is not an option, they are redefining success in a way that suits them," said James Denselow, an Iraq specialist at London-based Chatham House, a foreign policy think tank.

Bush administration officials have pointed to a dramatic decline in one category of deaths - the bodies dumped daily in Baghdad streets, which officials call sectarian murders - as evidence that the security plan is working. Bush said this week that that number had declined by 50 percent, a number confirmed by statistics compiled by McClatchy Newspapers.

But the number of people killed in explosive attacks is rising, the same statistics show - up from 323 in March, the first full month of the security plan, to 365 through April 24.

It has been reported that we lost 9 of our finest in one day in Iraq. For the love of all that is good and holy in this world, can we please end this pointless war. George, you have won, the military is broken and your friends are richer than they ever dreamed. You won, so can we now end the death?

END THIS WAR NOW AND BRING OUR TROOPS HOME. IT IS NO LONGER ABOUT SUPPORTING THE TROOPS, IT IS ABOUT SAVING THEM FROM THE MESS YOU HAVE CREATED!

If you hear McCain tell the story, Iraq is a desert playground where pixies and sand sprites frolic in morning dew. Where people are happy and safe. In short McCain has host his fucking mind.

So to prove his point on how great Baghdad is, he went to Iraq and strolled around. It was a great photo-op for propaganda, but it is what was not in the photos that shows McCain is a coward, and liar. In his little walking tour of a market the brave McCain had over 100 soldiers, 3 Blackhawk helicopters above, and 2 Apache gun ships. Well if I had that much protection I would stroll the streets of hell.

What a Coward, is this the guy we want as president?

The fact is you know Bush is lying because his lips are moving. Bush is playing Chicken with our troops. He keeps tiring to peddle a lie that if HE vetoes the Iraq Spending supplemental the troops will run out of money by April 15^th. Keep in mind the Congress passed the bill to fund the troops, it is the “President” that is going to veto the funding.

The fact is, the April 15^th date is something he pulled out of his ass, like most things.

PRNewswire-USNewswire

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made the following statement upon receipt of a Congressional Research Service (CRS) analysis of the Army's ability to finance its operational needs with existing funds well beyond the April 15th date asserted by President Bush.

In a thorough review of Army data and the Defense Department's existing legal authorities, non-partisan budget experts at CRS informed the Congress that the Army could maintain its wartime operations well into July 2007 with funds the Army has already been provided.

"This study confirms that the President is once again attempting to mislead the public and create an artificial atmosphere of anxiety. He is using scare tactics to defeat bipartisan legislation that would change course in Iraq. After waiting months for this Administration to send us its funding requests, both houses of Congress worked quickly to pass the emergency supplemental bill for our troops. Congress has acted in good faith and will send the President a conference report for his signature well ahead of the July 2007 date CRS identified. If the President vetoes this bill, he is making the choice to continue down the same failed path in Iraq.

"Instead of holding press events to score political points, I call upon the President to tone down his rhetoric, stop the veto threats of a bill he has not yet seen, and sit down with the congressional leadership to discuss how our two co-equal branches of government can get an emergency spending bill passed that funds our troops and makes America more secure."

The US Military is so overtaxed that the DOD has notified 1800 Ready Reserve Marines that they may be called up for a tour in Iraq. Here is what the Ready Reserve is, when someone signs up for the service, say 4 years, their contract says that are to spend 4 years active duty, and 4 years inactive duty, in other words the Ready Reserve. For the most part, these people leave the service and go on about their civilian lives.

It is almost unheard of to call up these forces, the DOD is strapped, and god knows that we would never ask for a draft, because nothing would end this war faster.

From the Stars and Stripes

The Marine Corps plans to notify 1,800 Marines in the Individual Ready Reserve this month that they could be mobilized for one year, to include an expected seven-month deployment to Iraq, said Maj. Steven O’Connor, Reserve liaison officer at Headquarters Marine Corps Public Affairs.

Troops in the IRR have left active duty but still have time on their obligation to serve. Unlike other reservists, they do not drill.

Of the Marines notified, about 1,200 are expected to get orders to join the I Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq, O’Connor said Monday.

That breaks down to 1,067 sergeants and 133 captains, said Lt. Col. Jeff Riehl, of Manpower and Reserve Affairs.

Of the roughly 60,000 Marines in the IRR, about 25,200 are eligible for this callup, Riehl said.

Riehl gave the following breakdown of how many Marines the Corps is looking to call up per Military Occupational Specialty:

• Aviation maintenance, 361
• Logistics support, 225
• Infantry, tanks and artillery, 223
• Motor transport, 178
• Communications, 97
• Intelligence, 95
• Military police, 21

In August, the Corps announced that it planned to mobilize up to 2,500 Marines in the IRR to stem a shortfall of 1,200 Marines. The Corps had been relying on volunteers from the IRR, but fewer Marines in the IRR had volunteered to be mobilized.

Since then, 150 Marines in the IRR have been notified they could deploy, of which 69 have received orders to go to Iraq, O’Connor said.

I blogged about this myself, but Neocynic over on DailyKOS has done a great job, so I am reposting it here.

For those who missed last month's ration of neocon Orwellian agitprop, be advised that for today's Two Minute Hate Session: We have always been, and are now, and will be forever at war with Iran, and not Al-Queda, who have been, and are now, and will be forever our ally.

In what can only be called the perfect response from the most uncaring administration ever to grace 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, today White House talking hack Tony Snow told America exactly what Bush is going to do about the deplorable conditions suffered by out returning wounded from Iraq, as one said "If Iraq don't kill you, Walter Reed will."

From the White House's own Website… (bolds are mine)

Q The administration's mantra for a long time has been "support the troops." What is the reaction, then, when you read this series of stories in The Washington Post about troops coming home from Iraq, Afghanistan and being treated so poorly, apparently, based on this long investigation? What's the President's reaction?

MR. SNOW: There are a couple of things. First, it's not a mantra. I would really choose words carefully. It's a commitment to support the troops. And the President, as you know, has visited the wounded many times at Walter Reed and we are concerned about it. And the people who –

Q Were you aware?

MR. SNOW: We are aware now, yes. And I would refer you to the Department of Defense, which I know is taking a very close look at it, too.

Look, the men and women who have gone and fought for our country over there, they deserve the best care.

Q So why has that not been guaranteed, then?

MR. SNOW: I'm not sure that — you know, when you find a problem, you deal with it.

Q So you're saying the President learned about this from The Washington Post?

MR. SNOW: I don't know exactly where he learned it, but I can tell you that we believe that they deserve better. And, again, Ed, this is something where I'd suggest you give DoD a call, because I know they've taken a good, hard look at it.

Q Tony, can I follow on that? As Bob Dole might ask, where's the outrage?

MR. SNOW: There's plenty of outrage.

Q Is there?

MR. SNOW: Yes.

Q So the President responded how when he learned about this? What, specifically — did he order something to be done?

MR. SNOW: What I'm suggesting — there's a reason I'm suggesting — DoD is the proper place in which we'll be taking care of these issues. And I would refer you to them for comment. But this is something that's going to have to be an action item.

Q But is there any evidence that it was even looked at before the paper printed its two stories?

MR. SNOW: Yes.

Q Then tell us about that evidence.

MR. SNOW: That's why — again, I would refer you, Bill, to the Department of the Army, which runs the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. This is the place where if you want to get –

Q That's just an easy way for you not to have to talk about it.

MR. SNOW: Well, it's also a way of pointing to the proper authorities, which is what you would want.

Q The White House doesn't want to be on record with a more emphatic expression of amazement and upset about this?

MR. SNOW: No. David asked where the outrage — of course there's outrage that men and women who have been fighting have not received the outpatient care — if you read the stories, there are many who are happy with it, some who are unhappy, and it's important that we show our commitment to the people who have served. I don't know what more you want me to do.

***
Q What is your reaction of Major General Weightman, who is the Commander at Walter Reed, also says in the bottom of the article on Sunday in The Washington Post, said that he's concerned and that they're bracing for, "potentially a lot more casualties," people coming to Walter Reed because of the surge. Does that cause the White House to think at all about that policy, because you have the Commander of Walter Reed –

MR. SNOW: There are a whole series of things, and, again, this is why you need to talk to people who are in the chain, because –

Q But this he said on the record.

MR. SNOW: I understand, Ed. But there are a series of things. First, for Walter Reed, what you end up having is treatment of people who are wounded — and also this is Bethesda, as you know, different sorts of injuries are treated at the two facilities. And many of those people are there for months. And this story deals with outpatient care after that treatment, right? So it's important, I think, to understand that you've got to be prepared for all things that are going to come your way, including getting the piece right when it comes to outpatient care, and continuing also to do well by inpatients.

But, again, I know you want me to — I'm simply not going to go beyond what I know. And in this particular case, the people who do know the facts and do know what's going on, and do know how the investigations are proceeding are the guys over at DoD.

There is little for me to say, from UPI

U.S. Marine Gen. Peter Pace admitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday equipment will be a problem when U.S. forces in Iraq are increased.

During testimony over the $481.4 billion fiscal 2008 defense budget, Pace said the military has about 41,000 armored vehicles in Iraq — fewer than will be needed “to cover all of the troops that are deploying.”

Pace said it will be July before enough equipment is in place.

“The commanders on the ground have talked with the chief of staff of the Army and the commandant of the Marine Corps and have agreed that they will be able to share the assets on the ground so that no soldier or Marine will leave the compound without proper protection,” Pace said when asked why more troops should be deployed immediately.