I wouldn’t leave a comment on this if my life depended on it. It’s an interesting read and something that each individual should decide for themselves, whether or not he is right.

President Bush charged Thursday that Iran continues to arm and train insurgents who are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and he threatened action if that continues.

At a news conference Thursday, Bush said Iran had been warned of unspecified consequences if it continued its alleged support for anti-American forces in Iraq. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had conveyed the warning in meetings with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad, the president said.

Bush wasn’t specific, and a State Department official refused to elaborate on the warning.

Behind the scenes, however, the president’s top aides have been engaged in an intensive internal debate over how to respond to Iran’s support for Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq and its nuclear program. Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy.

The debate has been accompanied by a growing drumbeat of allegations about Iranian meddling in Iraq from U.S. military officers, administration officials and administration allies outside government and in the news media. It isn’t clear whether the media campaign is intended to build support for limited military action against Iran, to pressure the Iranians to curb their support for Shiite groups in Iraq or both.

Nor is it clear from the evidence the administration has presented whether Iran, which has long-standing ties to several Iraqi Shiite groups, including the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr and the Badr Organization, which is allied with the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, is a major cause of the anti-American and sectarian violence in Iraq or merely one of many. At other times, administration officials have blamed the Sunni Muslim group al Qaida in Iraq for much of the violence.

For now, however, the president appears to have settled on a policy of stepped-up military operations in Iraq aimed at the suspected Iranian networks there, combined with direct American-Iranian talks in Baghdad to try to persuade Tehran to halt its alleged meddling.

Story

This is an interesting read. If you have time check it out.

July 30, 2007 issue - Dick Cheney may be a taciturn man, writes author Stephen F. Hayes, but the vice president can become animated discussing doomsday scenarios. In his new biography, “Cheney: The Untold Story of America’s Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President” (578 pages. HarperCollins. $27.95), Hayes tells the story of the Cheney family, sitting around their new big-screen TV in Jackson Hole, Wyo., on a recent Fourth of July, watching the 1997 movie “The Peacemaker.” Starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman, the film is about a plot to blow up New York with a nuclear bomb. Partway through the movie, Cheney’s wife, Lynne, entered the room and asked what was happening. The question was directed at no one in particular, but the vice president launched into “a 10-minute, scene-by-scene synopsis of the action,” according to Lynne’s brother Mark Vincent. She interrupted to clarify her question: “What’s happening now?”

Cheney, writes Hayes, woke up on the morning of September 12, 2001, asking: when is the next attack? A lot of Americans woke up that day asking the same question, but while many have been lulled back into semicomplacency, Cheney has never stopped worrying and wondering and—it must be said—trying to do something about it. The vice president has become a kind of modern-day prophet of doom. He is seen by many Americans as slightly creepy, if not sinister. Of course, he could be right: Al Qaeda may well be, as recent intelligence reports suggest, gearing up for another and possibly more catastrophic attack. But what makes Cheney so dire, so animated by gloom?

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I guess this Senate has been so busy passing real legislation they have the time to entertain censure motions and get into another filibuster.

WASHINGTON — Liberal Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold said Sunday he wants Congress to censure President Bush for his management of the Iraq war and his “assault” against the Constitution.

But Feingold’s own party leader in the Senate showed little interest in the idea. An attempt in 2006 by Feingold to censure Bush over the warrantless spying program attracted only three co-sponsors.

Feingold, a prominent war critic, said he soon plans to offer two censure resolutions — measures that would amount to a formal condemnation of the Republican president.

The first would seek to reprimand Bush for, as Feingold described it, getting the nation into war without adequate military preparation and for issuing misleading public statements. The resolution also would cite Vice President Dick Cheney and perhaps other administration officials.

The second measure would seek to censure Bush for what the Democrat called a continuous assault against the rule of law through such efforts as the warrantless surveillance program against suspected terrorists, Feingold said. It would also ask for a reprimand of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and maybe others.

Complete story here.

President Bush reclaimed his presidential powers from Vice President Cheney after recovering from the sedative effects made necessary by having a colonoscopy.

Five polyps were found, but none seemed to be of any danger.

This is actually a simple procedure and is done under a sedative put into your hand by IV, which makes you a little loopy for a couple of hours.

Anyone over fifty should have this procedure done at least every five years and more if there seem to be problems that are not just regular polyps. I had one done three years ago and had three polyps removed. I’ll go back in two years and have the procedure done again.

The prep for it is no fun, but you shouldn’t feel anything in the procedure.

Since I also had an endoscopy done at the same time I did feel a pinch when the polyps were removed but I think that’s because they didn’t have me sedated enough and it was just a pinch and nothing I couldn’t stand.

This procedure can help detect colon cancer early, and I strongly urge you to get one done if you are 50 or older.

See Mr. Vice President , it wasn’t that bad.

At 10 a.m. on April 4, 2001, representatives of 13 environmental groups were brought into the Old Executive Office Building for a long-anticipated meeting. Since late January, a task force headed by Vice President Cheney had been busy drawing up a new national energy policy, and the groups were getting their one chance to be heard.

Cheney was not there, but so many environmentalists were in the room that introductions took up “about half the meeting,” recalled Erich Pica of Friends of the Earth. Anna Aurilio of the U.S. Public Interest Group said, “It was clear to us that they were just being nice to us.”

A confidential list prepared by the Bush administration shows that Cheney and his aides had already held at least 40 meetings with interest groups, most of them from energy-producing industries. By the time of the meeting with environmental groups, according to a former White House official who provided the list to The Washington Post, the initial draft of the task force was substantially complete and President Bush had been briefed on its progress.

In all, about 300 groups and individuals met with staff members of the energy task force, including a handful who saw Cheney himself, according to the list, which was compiled in the summer of 2001. For six years, those names have been a closely guarded secret, thanks to a fierce legal battle waged by the White House. Some names have leaked out over the years, but most have remained hidden because of a 2004 Supreme Court ruling that agreed that the administration’s internal deliberations ought to be shielded from outside scrutiny.

One of the first visitors, on Feb. 14, was James J. Rouse, then vice president of Exxon Mobil and a major donor to the Bush inauguration; a week later, longtime Bush supporter Kenneth L. Lay, then head of Enron Corp., came by for the first of two meetings. On March 5, some of the country’s biggest electric utilities, including Duke Energy and Constellation Energy Group, had an audience with the task force staff.

Story

This speaks for itself.

The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.
The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: “Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.”
The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.

Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. “The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern,” the source said this week.

Nick Burns, the undersecretary of state responsible for Iran and a career diplomat who is one of the main advocates of negotiation, told the meeting it was likely that diplomatic manoeuvring would still be continuing in January 2009. That assessment went down badly with Mr Cheney and Mr Bush.

“Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact,” said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Story

Vice President Dick Cheney has made an unannounced visit to Baghdad presumably to press for reconciliation between the various factions in Iraq.

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday on an unannounced visit, at a time when pressure from Washington is growing on the Iraqi government to meet political benchmarks aimed at healing sectarian divisions.

John Roberts, the U.S. embassy information officer in Baghdad, said Cheney would meet with senior Iraqi officials. He gave no further details.

Cheney is on a tour of the Middle East.

It can’t hurt and it may help.

Update: For a more in-depth report please go here.

Words spoken on Capitol Hill Tuesday by Vice President Cheney:

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I usually avoid press comment when I’m up here, but I felt so strongly about what Senator Reid said in the last couple of days, that I thought it was appropriate that I come out today and make a statement that I think needs to be made.

I thought his speech yesterday was unfortunate, that his comments were uninformed and misleading. Senator Reid has taken many positions on Iraq. He has threatened that if the President vetoes the current pending supplemental legislation, that he will send up Senator Russ Feingold’s bill to de-fund Iraq operations altogether.

Yet only last November, Senator Reid said there would be no cutoff of funds for the military in Iraq. So in less than six months’ time, Senator Reid has gone from pledging full funding for the military, then full funding but with conditions, and then a cutoff of funding — three positions in five months on the most important foreign policy question facing the nation and our troops.

Yesterday, Senator Reid said the troop surge was against the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. That is plainly false. The Iraq Study Group report was explicitly favorable toward a troop surge to secure Baghdad. Senator Reid said there should be a regional conference on Iraq. Apparently, he doesn’t know that there is going to be one next week. Senator Reid said he doesn’t have real substantive meetings with the President. Yet immediately following last week’s meeting at the White House, he said, “It was a good exchange; everyone voiced their considered opinion about the war in Iraq.”

What’s most troubling about Senator Reid’s comments yesterday is his defeatism. Indeed, last week, he said the war is already lost. And the timetable legislation that he is now pursuing would guarantee defeat.

Maybe it’s a political calculation. Some Democratic leaders seem to believe that blind opposition to the new strategy in Iraq is good politics. Senator Reid himself has said that the war in Iraq will bring his party more seats in the next election. It is cynical to declare that the war is lost because you believe it gives you political advantage. Leaders should make decisions based on the security interests of our country, not on the interests of their political party.

Thank you.

If the president could/would make his case this strongly he might have more support for what he’s doing.

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