Exit-from-Iraq movement gathering steam

Catching up with my reading after the NZ trip I see from the website of the Friends Committee on National Legislation that The first bipartisan resolution calling on the president to begin planning for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq was introduced in Congress on Thursday, June 16.
FCNL is a Quaker organization based in Washington DC that lobbies Congress on issues of concern to Quakers. Such as, right now, the need to push for a speedy and total withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.
The site notes that the bill introduced June 15 was sponsored by Republican Representatives Walter Jones (NC) and Ron Paul (TX) and Democrats Dennis Kucinich (OH), Martin Meehan (MA), and Lynn Woolsey (CA). It calls on the president “to announce before the end of this year a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.”
It has the engaging subtitle of “Homeward Bound”.
You can read the text of the legislation here.
Elsewhere on the FCNL site, you can see a handily interactive map showing the location and some details about the 14 possibly “enduring” military bases inside Iraq for which President Bush sought funding in May 2005.
Relevant to what I wrote yesterday about the highly contested north-Iraq cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, note that two of those bases are in Mosul and one in Kirkuk.
Talking of big, lucrative construction contracts, there’s this, from Reuters yesterday:

    WASHINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) – The United States military has signed a work order with Halliburton to do nearly $5 billion in new work in Iraq under a giant logistics contract that has so far earned the company $9.1 billion, the Army said Wednesday.
    Linda Theis, a spokeswoman for the United States Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Ill., said the military signed the work order with Kellogg Brown and Root, a unit of Halliburton, in May.
    The new deal, worth $4.97 billion over the next year, was not made public when it was signed because the Army did not consider that such an announcement was necessary, she said.

So what do we imagine the profit-margin on a $4.97 billion contract is? It must be more than one billion.
How much of that profit will go into Dick Cheney’s blind trust and the bank accounts of his friends and former colleagues from Halliburton? And why did it take the US Army two months to decided that maybe the fact of this contract should be made available to the US public, after all?
… Well, anyway, it strikes me that all of those are just signs of the increasing desperation of an administration that is coming to recognise these two key facts:

    (1) There is no “victory”, either military or political, in sight in Iraq for the foreseeable future, and
    (2) Its continued pursuit of the war in Iraq, and the presence of US troops there, is becoming increasingly unpopular within the US, to the point where it is close to threatening GWB’s entire “legacy” as a president (not to mention the Republican Party’s continued lock on political power).

Pull the troops out of Iraq in decent order while you still can, guys! Follow my 9-point plan for how to do it!

15 thoughts on “Exit-from-Iraq movement gathering steam”

  1. One thing which needs to be investigated is reconstruction money. From what I’ve read very little of the money approved by Congress has been spent, most of the many, many billions came from Iraq. And the result seems to be multifaceted corruption.
    For a long period Iraqi firms were excluded with deals made in Washington with many of the big firms now undergoing military investigation. There are reports of huge sums of cash (hundreds of millions, even billion) floating around with out auditing. There is an Iraqi government ranked among the most corrupt in the world with position going to cliques and food rations below Saddams as much is siphoned off for profit…
    Whatever ones position on Iraq reform of this situation seems necessary. It needs to be investigated, documented and repeated over and over.
    One of the more horrible things that seems to be developing about this invasion is that the administration had so little concern about the difficulties of success that it thought a corrupt, inefficient rebuilding would be fine, so long as friends made money. This does approach a word that people on the right are so fond of throwing around, it is akin to “treason.” Many Americans and the people of Iraq have apid deeply and the priority of administration efforts was not their success.

  2. If I wanted to rally public opinion I would produce an easily reproduced printer/copier size poster with Bush and Faisal holding hand at the top, maybe also the little peck on the cheek.
    Below that I would briefly summarize the role of the Sauds and Saudis in terrorism: the financing of religious schoools, support of the taliban, the fact that the majority of 9/11 murderers and outside fighters in Iraq are Saudi… the corrupt state in opposition to the values we claim to represent.
    I would try to encourage activists to ensure that this picture and commentaryon the windshield of every car in every red region, platered everywhere. Subversively it would move several battles to the right, the “soft on terrorism” charge would get pointed at Bush and defenders such as Limbaugh would have to explain why it is ok that men hold hands and defend the president on “multiculturalism.”
    It would undermine the smug, intolerant position they’ve taken.

  3. Helena — like you, I left the US for 3 weeks and came back to a changed atmosphere much more conducive to a US pullout from Iraq.
    So I dug up a set of markers the the historian Van Gosse has suggested for the political struggle within the US to achieve that end and posted them here.
    This isn’t going to happen easily, but there are concrete steps the peace movement can achieve along the way. Here’s a sample of a few of Gosse’s markers:
    *A prominent Republican elected official breaks ranks with the President
    *A member of Congress loses his or her seat because of support for the war
    *A major national institution (a large religious denomination, a big union, a major association) calls for immediate withdrawal
    *A citywide campaign gets recruiters kicked out of schools
    Note we may already have the first one in Senator Chuck Hagel’s description of Iraq.
    More work for peace folks!

  4. very little of the money approved by Congress has been spent, most of the many, many billions came from Iraq
    Yes this is right only 2% of all the money a located to Iraq constrictions spent, the major part of that money went for the security of course the security of Iraq managed by US.
    This is why the surety in Iraq lasting for ever as much as there is money to be spent.

  6. Great post there, Jan, and great link Salah. Thanks for those.
    I would’ve left a message on your blog, Jan– as I have tried to on Susan’s a couple of times, too. But I have a really pathetic confession to make: with Blogger-hosted blogs, commenters have to sign in with their Blogger usernames and passwords and I can never remember what mine is. Strange, because I used to have a couple of Bloggspot blogs myself, but that’s how bad my memory is.
    Ok, I know that’s a pathetic excuse. But a nice post, anyway!

  9. There is an extremely disturbing and detailed piece in the 7 July London Review of Books entitled “Where has all the money gone? Ed Harriman follows the auditors into Iraq”. In particular, the in-your-face arrogance of KBR and Halliburton when questioned about billing irregularities and missing supporting documentation for invoices delivered to and paid by the US government is simply astounding. And now, Halliburton has yet another contract??
    As an aside, I thought when I read this article that it was typical and shameful that it is appearing in the London Review of Books rather than in some mainstream US media forum.

  10. Special Correspondent has some very interesting information about where a considerable chunk of the money – several billions if I understand him correctly – has gone. Unfortunately, despite the allegations that democracy is blooming in Iraq, he is unable to give me any particulars while he is there for fear of being democratically eliminated. I have a general idea, though, and I must say if my understanding is correct, it comes as no surprise.

  11. Tell us more whenever you can, Shirin. (Feel free to email it to me privately if you prefer.)

  13. Halliburton has yet another contract??
    Helena, I think you, and other American should watch closely Halliburton this company had a history of shame corruption supporting some bad regimes as will state below also lie and theft of money
    1-Halliburton after Vietnam war was in bad shape and in bad financial position, at that time some US political figures help Halliburton to get contract from Arabia Saudi to training the special forces their. The contract was US$72Millin. Imagine the figure of that money 30-40 years ago, and this obviously supporting Saudi Arabia regime to staying in power humiliating human right and enforcing the Whahabi ideas on the Saudis, resulting in 2001 with tourist attack and fanatics educated in the Saudi religious school which enforced by Al Saud family to keep them in power for almost now 90 years. All the world suffer from them now because these fanatic regime and kings and princes they holding the richest country and the nation suffer of no human right no women right high rat of unemployed studies poorness specially out side towns, denying rights of other fiction of Islam (Shiaa) from their rights.
    2- Halliburton charged US military $US 20Million more for delivering petrol for the US trope during the war in Iraq 2003. tow weeks ago Alhyat news paper state that Prime Minister Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah went to Washington to review the agreement between Kuwait and US regarding FREE OIL for the US military troops before the Iraq war and after! The question is why then Halliburton get paid if Kuwait giving free oil to US trop in Iraq? Where the money is went that paid for Halliburton?

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