Monday, July 21, 2008

McCain on Iraq - Op-Ed rejected by the New York Times

From the Drudge Report - McCain's Iraq editorial that was somewhat arbitrarily rejected by the New York Times.  
 
NYT REJECTS MCCAIN'S EDITORIAL; SHOULD 'MIRROR' OBAMA
Mon Jul 21 2008 12:00:25 ET

An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES -- less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
 
The paper's decision to refuse McCain's direct rebuttal to Obama's 'My Plan for Iraq' has ignited explosive charges of media bias in top Republican circles.
 
'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece,' NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday to McCain's staff. 'I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.'
 
In McCain's submission to the TIMES, he writes of Obama: 'I am dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it... if we don't win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president.'
 
NYT's Shipley advised McCain to try again: 'I'd be pleased, though, to look at another draft.'
 
[Shipley served in the Clinton Administration from 1995 until 1997 as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Presidential Speechwriter.]
 
A top McCain source claims the paper simply does not agree with the senator's Iraq policy, and wants him to change it, not "re-work the draft."
 
McCain writes in the rejected essay: 'Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. 'I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,' he said on January 10, 2007. 'In fact, I think it will do the reverse.'
 
Shipley, who is on vacation this week, explained his decision not to run the editorial.
 
'The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans.'
 
Shipley continues: 'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq.'
 
Developing...
 

 
The DRUDGE REPORT presents the McCain editorial in its submitted form:
 
In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation "hard" but not "hopeless." Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.
 
Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there," he said on January 10, 2007. "In fact, I think it will do the reverse."
 
Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that "our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence." But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.
 
Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, "Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress." Even more heartening has been progress that's not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.
 
The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama's determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his "plan for Iraq" in advance of his first "fact finding" trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.
 
To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.
 
Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.
 
No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five "surge" brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.
 
But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.
 
Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his "plan for Iraq." Perhaps that's because he doesn't want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be "very dangerous."
 
The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we've had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the "Mission Accomplished" banner prematurely.
 
I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don't win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

Arab league to block justice for Darfur

The news speaks for itself. The Arab League is rushing to defend an acknowledged genocidal war criminal.
 
Ami Isseroff
 
Monday, July 21, 2008
 
Jennie Matthew
 
Agence France Presse
 
KHARTOUM: Arab League chief Amr Moussa headed for Khartoum on Sunday with a plan aimed at stalling possible legal moves against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, accused of masterminding genocide in Darfur. Bashir was to receive Moussa Sunday evening, bolstered by an agreement from Arab foreign ministers to seek a political solution to the crisis sparked when the World Court prosecutor sought an arrest warrant for Bashir.
 
Egypt's official MENA news agency, quoting Sudanese Deputy Foreign Minister Al Samani al-Wassila, said Moussa would suggest to Bashir "the possibility of holding an international conference."
 
Such a conference, it added, would "gather all forces and Sudanese and international parties to solve the problem of Darfur ... and to close the file in a definite manner."
 
The Arab League on Saturday resolved to support Sudan, slammed International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo as "unbalanced," and said Sudanese courts should judge those accused of war crimes during Darfur's five-year conflict.
 
Moreno-Ocampo accuses Bashir of personally instructing his forces to annihilate three non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, masterminding murder, torture, pillaging and the use of rape to commit genocide.
 
The UN says up to 300,000 people have died and more than 2.2 million have fled their homes since the conflict erupted in February 2003. Sudan says 10,000 have been killed.
 
It began when African ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Khartoum regime and state-backed Arab militias, fighting for resources and power in one of the most remote and deprived places on earth.
 
Moreno-Ocampo asked ICC judges Monday to issue a warrant for Bashir's arrest. If granted, which it is unlikely to happen for months, it would be the first issued by The Hague-based court against a sitting head of state.
 
Moussa has refused to divulge details of the plan before his meetings in Khartoum, but the Arab League on Saturday urged Sudan to give suspected Darfur war criminals trials that were not a "sham." According to the ICC statute, if credible trials of alleged war criminals are held domestically, the court's own charges are dropped.
 
Sudan's two other ICC indictees, Cabinet Minister Ahmad Harun and Arab militia leader Ali Kosheib, had both been set to face trial in Sudanese courts on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
 
Kosheib's trial was indefinitely suspended in March 2007. Harun was briefly detained and released last October for lack of evidence.
 
Sudanese diplomatic efforts now focus on persuading the UN Security Council to freeze any prosecution of Bashir for a year, renewable, warning that peace prospects would be severely undermined.
 
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ali Karti, told reporters in Khartoum that information could soon emerge about Sudan approaching the Security Council to invoke article 16 of the Rome Statute.
 
"Nothing is done now, actually, for the Security Council to take any action ... Now we have the African Union, we have the Arab League ... maybe in the coming few days you will hear about something like that," he said.
 
The Security Council has the power to adopt a resolution requesting that the ICC suspend its procedures for 12 months.
 
Western members of the 15-strong council have called consideration of such a freeze premature, given that the ICC judges have not yet formally issued any arrest warrant.
 
Sudan is also banking on strong support from the African Union, which can also put such a request to the Security Council, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
 
Egypt, meanwhile, called Sunday for an international conference to find a political solution to the conflict in Darfur, state media reported.
 
The conference should be held "in coordination with the UN, permanent members of the Security Council and countries influential in Africa," the MENA news agency quoted Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu al-Gheit as saying. - AFP