Insurgent attacks remain high throughout 'surge'

In his weekly radio address yesterday, president Bush spoke about the briefing he received from General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker regarding the 'surge.' He said, "They told me about the progress they're seeing across Iraq." The primary purpose for the surge was to quell insurgent attacks so that the Iraqi government could make political progress. Apparently Petraeus and Crocker were not debriefed by the Defense Intelligence Agency regarding the incidence of insurgent attacks the past six months in Iraq. The report evidences that insurgent attacks against Iraqis, Iraqi security forces, and Coalition troops remain high.

Soothsayer Cheney

Just before president Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq, Tim Russert interviewed vice president Dick Cheney on Meet the Press. Russert stated, "The army's top general said that we would have to have several hundred thousand troops there for several years in order to maintain stability." Cheney responded:

I disagree. We need, obviously, a large force and we've deployed a large force. To prevail, from a military standpoint, to achieve our objectives, we will need a significant presence there until such time as we can turn things over to the Iraqis themselves. But to suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don't think is accurate. I think that's an overstatement.

Four and a half years have passed since Bush declared "major combat operations in Iraq have ended." Bush has 'surged' over 150,000 troops into Iraq, and there's no indication that he'll be withdrawing them any time soon. This is yet another of Cheney's expert prognostications on the war.

With his track record at foretelling the results of invading Iraq, Cheney is a shoo-in as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award from Bush.

Governor Mike Huckabee claims knowledge that America has used torture for interrogation

Alan Colmes, with Sean Hannity, was interviewing Governor Mike Huckabee on FOX News following the Presidential Debate. At 8:30, Colmes asked Huckabee if he, as President, would use torture to extract intelligence about an imminent terrorist attack on America. In the process, he made the point that John McCain says that accurate information cannot be extracted by torture. Huckabee countered that point by claiming, "we have received good solid information from individuals from doing things of the nature you're describing, and saved American lives because of it." The nature of things Colmes was talking about was torture. If Huckabee is not lying, he would be able to provide evidence that we have interrogated people using torture. Regardless of who he's referring to as "we," if such evidence exists, I think Huckabee's supporters, not to mention any other voting American, would be very interested in seeing it.