Need to Know Basis Only

/snark on/

Right hand, meet Left Hand...

Pentagon surprised by Bush pledge to destroy Abu Ghraib: report

I know he's the boss and all that, but the President might have at least IM'd the Pentagon that he was going to announce this...a text message, courier pigeon, something...

Pentagon officials were caught by surprise by President George W. Bush's announcement on Tuesday that the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad was to be torn down.

"This office was not aware of any plans to raze Abu Ghraib or build another prison," a Pentagon spokesman told The New York Times, insisting that he remain anonymous lest he was seen as contradicting the president.

A White House official, who also asked not to be identified, told the daily it was Bush's idea to include the announcement in a speech Tuesday, in which he outlined his strategy to hand over power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30.

Then again, it is mostly a symbolic PR move at this point, so I guess the only one the President needed to tell really was Karl Rove ("tell" .... "repeat back".... same difference).

/snark off/

Comments

[Macallan]

I think you had with "he is the President"...

[JimPortlandOR]

(no snark applied)

Yep, Bush said he's build them a new shining symbol of hope: a modern medical center (oops, maximum security prison).

After the new symbol is done, he'll "tear down that wall", (oops, prison of equal-opportunity torture).

Wait, isn't Iraq "sovereign" after 6/30.
- Isn't this their decision to make?
- Will this be US money to build and destroy, or Iraqi money?
- What if the Iraqis want a trauma hospital instead?
- Can the Iraqi's name the new max. security prison "George Bush Torture Center"?

Wait again: if this is the awful symbol everyone thinks, why don't we tear it down before 6/30?

Ah, the wonders of the BushCo mind.....they think so deeply about PR stuff.

[Doh]

Actually, latest I've heard is that nobody wants to tear it down-- DoD and Congress think it would be a big waste of money and even the Iraqis see it as just a publicity stunt. Apparently they'd prefer we just stop torturing innocent people and holding kids hostage. Go figure.

I'm sure this episode says a lot about the Bush Administration, but really at this point what more needs to be said?

[asdf]

And then there's this.

Apparently there's some ancient Iraqi proverb that everyone keeps repeating over there, something about "it's the people, not the place."

[Edward]

Great link asdf...compare the wisdom of these comments with the quick fix PR the Prez is offering and there's a distinct gap

Interior Minister Samir Shaker Mahmoud al-Sumeidi said he understood Bush's desire to "remove the memory and the stain" of the prisoner abuse scandal. Still, he argued it would be better to change the way the prison is managed rather than construct a new building.

Oqail Sawar, a columnist for the Al-Ayam daily, declared that the only way to remove the injustice from Iraq is not to tear down Abu Ghraib but for the United States to make a genuine apology and for "the torturer murderers to be handed over to an objective, international, just judiciary."

On Tuesday, Ahmed Hassan al-Uqaili, deputy chief of the Human Rights Organization in Iraq, dismissed Bush's promise as a Republican ploy "to win the (presidential) election in the United States."

Amnesty International has also criticized Bush's pledge, arguing that leaving the prison standing could help in prosecuting crimes committed there during the regime.

[john]

IF anyone knows what that exact proverb is--"it's the poeple, not the place" I'd be interested to know it