Mark A. Kilmer (the weblog)

With a tip of the hat to Robert Waters (Watersblog), we’ve learned that “Anonymous,” author of Imperial Hubris, is a CIA veteran named Michael Scheuer.

Google revealed nothing on the fellow, but a look at this article from the Boston Phoenix web site reveals that his name was not kept secret because he wanted it that way or to protect his safety; rather, it’s a strange set of CIA rules and procedures: “[H]is forced anonymity is both unprecedented and telling in the context of CIA history and modern politics.”

And the Boston Phoenix site that this:

[I]f liberals seem ecstatic that yet another career national-security official is blasting the Bush administration for unnecessarily invading Iraq and bungling the so-called war on terror, they’re also horrified by Anonymous’s apparent advocacy (largely rhetorical, actually) of a military campaign that includes “killing in large numbers” and “a Sherman-like razing of infrastructure” as part of “relentless, brutal and blood-soaked defensive military action until we have annihilated the Islamists who threaten us.”

And as I described Sunday [HERE and HERE], he also favors the doctrine of preemption.

President Bush’s vision is one of a world of democracies not at constant war. Jacques Chirac’s vision is one of a world in which the United States is kept in check and thwarted.

His speech in Istanbul called for the EU to accept Turkey as a member, as it would prove that a Moslem nation could join with non-Islamic nations and that the “clash of civilizations [is] a passing myth of history.”

Chirac told the President to shut up, “none of your beeswax.” He said that Bush “not only went too far but went into a domain which is not his own.”

He does not want the United States to exert its influence, even if it is working towards a world without recklessly spilled blood.

Another poll, this one by HI Europe.

A survey of a several thousand people if five European countries — Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain — asked for positive or negative feelings about world leaders. It concluded that the most popular global leader there is U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, followed by Pope John Paul II. This reveals their secular, globalist side as well as a reassuring religious aspect to their EU culture.

French President Jacques Chirac is most popular in Germany, and he is tied with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder for most popular in France. They each scored their low marks in the U.K.

A pretty good breakdown from PR Newswire can be found HERE.

This is Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawai speaking to NBC News Anchor Tom Brokaw, as carried on their evening news program Tuesday:

Allawi: We know that this is an extension to what has happened in New York. And — the war have been taken out to Iraq by the same terrorists. Saddam was a potential friend and partner and natural ally of terrorism.

Brokaw: Prime minister, I’m surprised that you would make the connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq. The 9/11 commission in America says there is no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and those terrorists of al-Qaida.

Allawi: No. I believe very strongly that Saddam had relations with al-Qaida. And these relations started in Sudan. We know Saddam had relationships with a lot of terrorists and international terrorism. Now, whether he is directly connected to the September — atrocities or not, I can’t — vouch for this. But definitely I know he has connections with extremism and terrorists.

MSNBC.com sub-headed the story: New Iraq leader
believes deposed president had relationships with terrorists. Always didn’t express belief, however; he expressed, in his term, knowledge.

Brokaw is “surprised” that Allawi would differ from the conclusions of the 9-11 Commission? Brokaw is very confused. The 9-11 Commission is not, and cannot be, the last word on anything. It’s just a dinky commission set up by the U.S. government to study something way out of the realms of expertise of its various members. Prime Minister Allawi, though not living in Iraq, lived these matters for decades.

Of course the Iraqis are going to disagree with the 9-11 Commission. The commission’s conclusion was, admittedly and by necessity, incomplete.

Get this. On July 9, ex-Greenie Ralph Nader and former candidate Howard Dean will debate one another for 90-minutes on the PBS Justice Talking radio program. Wiccan priestess Margot Adler will moderate.

Things like this are too priceless to be the products of one’s imagination. This is real.

“YAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

Kerry doesn’t cross picket lines — never has, he said when refusing to address the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Boston, around striking police officers. But what if they are still striking when the DNC happens in two weeks?

Kerry can attend the DNC without breaking his promise. All he has to do is what the New York Times did in an article this afternoon: Declare the strike to be bogus.

The polls, for what they might or might not be worth, show the Presidential race at a near-tie. This is unthinkable, and maybe if it weren’t for the media-driven Abu Ghraib “scandal,” the President might have a significant lead.

The press is waging Kerry’s campaign, and President Bush has to counter that. It takes time and money, and that’s where we come in.

Click RIGHT HERE to be directed to the page where you can become a Bush Team Leader, an official part of the campaign. You can also join by donating at the campaign’s SECURE SERVER.

This effort is undersigned by WW founder PoliPundit and the entire cast of Wictory Wednesday bloggers (page down to #3).

According to The Hill newspaper, the “Big Three” TV networks will air less of the two major political conventions this year.

“We know we’re going to cover the nomination and the [nominee’s] speech,” said one network’s spokeswoman, but “we’re not sure about the first two days.”

After 1976, the parties’ national conventions have gone from political event to showcase, to fun and spectatcular extravaganza! (All we need is the fabulous and exciting merchandize waiting to be won…)

The bottom line is the bottom line. There is a certain civic duty to carrying the acceptance speeches, but the rest is party dross. There’s nothing to be learned, and massive loads of viewers would no doubt tune to something else. We have cable and satellite.

Granted, I’m talking about the “average viewer,” not about you or me. We’ll watch on FNC or CNN or MSNBC, and maybe some of you will read a book instead. (If the noise gets to us, and it probably will, we can always watch the conventions on C-SPAN.)

So the nation will miss Zell Miller’s Wednesday speech. Maybe they can watch a Drew Carey rerun. (No fabulous and exciting merchandise there, either.)

Good morning.

We all know the aura of self-importance which surrounds Joe Biden, precedes him where’er he walks.

This is a cut story from THE BUZZ in the Kansas City Star online (free subscription):

As a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Joseph Biden has the use of a supersecure cell phone. Recently, the Delaware Democrat was talking to reporters when the secret cell phone on his desk suddenly rang. “Sorry, gotta take this,” Biden said. Biden said into the phone: “Rita’s not here, sorry. No. I don’t know any Rita.”

Of course, it begs a question: How can a cell phone, being wireless, be “supersecure”?

A part of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-New York) political ideology can be found in this quote delivered to wealthy Californians, from the AP carried by the San Francisco Examiner:

“Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you,” Sen. Clinton said. “We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”

Granted, she was speaking to wealthy Democrats who think it a fine thing that government confiscate some of their income for use in the various redistribution schemes, but the principle of which she spoke applies to all Americans who pay taxes.

What is “The Common Good”? The definition of 20th Century Democrats barely resembles that of the 18th Century democrats who crafted our Constitution and founded our Republic. It is most certainly not a principle “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” since it is all government-dependent.

She means well, but she is speaking of a fundamental evil. (Not bin Laden/Zarkawi evil; rather, it’s a different type, one which conceals its odiousness behind a cloak of tolerance and sharing. But the tolerance and sharing, I must remind, are mandated by threat of force, quite literally while those tolerating and sharing are doing so not of their own choice — even though they would do so — but almost literally staring down the barrel of a gun.)

That’s Hillary’s ideology. I don’t have the stomach for her.

JF Kerry spoke today at Jesse Jackson’s Daimler-Chrysler-RAINBOW/PUSH Coalition Conferences today, giving the expected speech about the “haves” vrs. the “have-nots.” His speech was secondary news, however, behind the large crowd protestors who were unhappy with Jackson for having the conference underwritten by a large corporation, Daimler-Chrysler.

So we had a billionaire Presidential candidate trying to stoke class envy at a quasi-Socialist convention sponsored by the world’s largest automaker.

Welcome to the Democratic Party, circa 2004. Michael Moore, start recording.

Last week, it was Ralph Nader who urged JF Kerry to select John Edwards as his running mate. This week, it’s county Democrat chairs. In fact, eight of eleven Democratic Party chairs from Dick Gephardt’s home State of Missouri urged Kerry to select Edwards.

John Edwards has been underestimated by observers on the left and on the right. Attempts to dismiss him in the primary process proved laughable.

John Edwards is a bright man, and he is the best liar in the Democratic Party right now. This is not to say that he tells more lies than anyone else; rather, that he is much more skilled at it than even, say Bill Clinton.

He can look at the electorate as a jury and convince them of virtually anything that helps his cause.

As far as raw brainpower, he is smarter than is Kerry, and Kerry might suspect this, hurting Edwards’s chances to be selected; more likely, though, Kerry feels himself intellectually superior to Edwards, which works in Edwards’s favor. (This is why Kerry won’t pick a Joe Biden, who projects an aura which might intimidate him.)

Right now, Kerry is doing nothing against President Bush. In fact, except for a few freak polls last month, Kerry has done nothing against the President all year. He needs a zip to his ticket, something which will inspire both the party base and new voters.

Howard Dean could have been that man, but he’s insane. Wes Clark, ditto that, ableit to a lesser degree. Gephardt, as we’ve seen, won’t even help Kerry per se in Missouri, and Vilsack is, nationally right now, a throwaway.

Ronald Reagan, running against an incumbent in 1980, selected his closest primary challenger, George Bush. Kerry likes history.

Have the core tenets of the foreign policy known as the Bush doctrine been “undermined” and “discredited”? Reporter Robin Wright and “a wide range of Republican and Democratic analysts and U.S. officials” evidently think so. Just look at her analysis.

Robin Wright no longer works for the Los Angeles Times; in case you, like me, missed it, she is now with the Washington Post, and she asserts that 15-months ago, the President’s Iraq policy was based on four principles:

The United States should act preemptively to prevent strikes on U.S. targets. Washington should be willing to act unilaterally, alone or with a select coalition, when the United Nations or allies balk. Iraq was the next cornerstone in the global war on terrorism. And Baghdad’s transformation into a new democracy would spark regionwide change.

Those, she writes, have been laughed off the stage:

[T]hese central planks of Bush doctrine have been tainted by spiraling violence, limited reconstruction, failure to find weapons of mass destruction or prove Iraq’s ties to al Qaeda, and mounting Arab disillusionment with U.S. leadership.

1. Preemption. It is still intact, although he may now require a more certain intelligence. As “Anonymous,” the author of the book which supposedly blasts the President’s handling of the war on terror, put it on last Sundays This Week on ABC:
   

   “What there was, I think, was a lack of moral courage or bureaucratic courage to say, ‘This isn’t the best intelligence in the world, but it’s the best we’re likely to get. And if we don’t take this action, we’re going to lose a lot of Americans.”

2. Act unilaterally or with a limited coalition if the U.N. fails. It is still intact, and it has proven successful. Saddam is no longer in power, and our foreign policy is not tied to French acquiescence, which is that for which opponents of the Bush doctrine are calling.

3. Iraq as the next cornerstone in the global war on terrorism. It is. Better we fight them there than here.

4. A Democratic Middle East. Give it time, and we’ll see what comes of it.

The piece was published yesterday, which was supposed to be the first day of the week on which the turnover in Iraq was to take place. A Monday publication would have given it time to do damage to the President before the transfer of authority. That was… shall we say, preempted by the surprise transfer on Monday.

That did not stop her from appearing on Charlie Rose yesterday.

He said he’s concerned about his own mortality. William F. Buckley is giving up National Review, the conservative bi-weekly he began in 1955. His controlling shares are going to a board of trustees he has created. Ed Capano, a long time National Review hand, is taking over as the magazine’s Chief Executive Officer, and Rich Lowry remains as editor, according to the press release.

To me, this is tragic. I have subscribed for almost twenty years, but I have been unnerved of late by the slow creep of the world’s most illuminative magazine into the lazy depths of Jonah Goldberg-ization. His prose is a trendy pastiche of yesterday’s cliché with… what did President Reagan ask Fritz? “Where’s the beef?” He would be a fine fit with a necon magazine like B. Kristol’s Weekly Standard, but not with NR.

I guess I’m a disgruntled paleocon. We are going to make a come back. I trust Capano and Fowler, and what good is a movement if it must be dragged along by an octogenarian? (Reagan was one of those when he effectively departed the conservative movement. Perhaps we should treat this similarly, though hopefully Mr. Buckley has not had nature steal his faculties and senses.)

When JF Kerry savaged the President on foreign policy matters yesterday, it was an attack on a Commander in Chief while overseas during wartime. It is stuff for punks, and one would hope (but certainly not expect) that Kerry were above it.

From Reuters.com:

The senator noted, “Today’s newspapers are full of stories about how the president, the administration are trying to repair relationships with NATO and with allies” during a trip to Europe.

He said Bush’s diplomacy before the war in Iraq and since had alienated allies like Germany, France, Turkey and NATO and suggested those relationships might not be fully repaired until there is a new president in the White House.

“It may well be that it takes a new president to be able to re-establish the relationships that we have had in the past,” Kerry said, adding he believed he could, “do a better job.”

Our relationship with Turkey is as strong as ever; the Germans have put the war disagreement behind them, and the French were the French before the war as they are afterwards. There is nothing Kerry can do about that.

Our relationship with Great Britain is as strong now as it has ever been (at least since Roosevelt and Churchill).

The campaign continues…

The new ABC News/New York Times survey of X number of people (the CBSNews.com story doesn’t specifiy) shows that the President has narrowed the “vote for” gap with candidate JF Kerry to 45-44. (Last month, Kerry was up by eight points.)

For the first time, more people (30%) claim to think the economy is doing well than think it is growing worse (21%). They have the President pegged at 39% approval, up from 36% last month.)

“Polls is polls.”

Last month’s ABC.NYT was offered has the first evidence that Kerry was finally gaining traction and starting to pull away from Bush, but it was obscured by a flood of other results of other polls which showed the race even.

That’s a poll.

Good morning.

Here’s an interesting take on the JF Kerry “WON’T CROSS THE PICKET LINE” story.

Captain Ed, taking his turn at Blogs for Bush, writes that Kerry is a failed diplomat because he was unable to settle Boston’s police strike.

In the wake of the Al Qaeda-Iraq Connections embarrassment, one would think the news media would want to avoid sticking their faces in it again.

But here’s the AP:

In a matter of a few minutes Monday, the Supreme Court unraveled a major component of the Bush administration’s legal strategy for fighting the war on terror.

Actually, the ruling affirmed the President’s power to hold enemy combatants but must explain why to a judge. This could lead to sensitive intelligence becoming public, and it will add effort and expense, but it’s not a major blow to the war on terror. The prisoners in Gitmo can have attorneys. That is fair enough.

Contrast this with what is so far in the New York Times:

The Supreme Court ruled today that people being held by the United States as enemy combatants can challenge their detention in American courts — the court’s most important statement in decades on the balance between personal liberties and national security.

Fine. No histrionics from them.

This was not at all malfeasance on the AP’s part on the order of what went on after the interim staff report went public. In fact, the AP news article would have been fine as an Op/Ed, while the Times reporting on the staff report would have been a malicious “gotcha” fabrication appearing in any forum.

What did the Times ombudsman have to say?

This is from the French wire AFP

ISTANBUL (AFP) - US President George W. Bush checked his watch, whispered in British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s ear, and shared a smile and a handshake with his closest ally on Iraq in a quiet but unmistakably joyful reaction to the handover of power there.

The silent celebration began when US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld passed Bush a note during a meeting of NATO leaders, not all of whom knew that Iraq’s new government was assuming sovereignty two days ahead of schedule.

The furtive message was from US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who wrote Bush: “Mr President, Iraq is sovereign. Letter passed from (US civilian overseer Paul) Bremer at 10:26 AM Iraq time - Condi.”

While the alliance’s secretary general spoke, Bush read the note, smiled, scrawled “Let Freedom Reign!” on the note with a black marker, and passed it back to Rumsfeld, who grinned broadly.

Bush rolled up his left suit sleeve, checked his watch — it was 10:17 am (0717 GMT) — whispered a few words in Blair’s ear, smiled and extended his hand, which the prime minister happily took as both leaders smiled.

And here is a jpeg of the “furtive message” described above:

From White House.gov, here are the remarks of Bush and Blair from Istanbul. As President Bush said: “The final decision was by Prime Minister Allawi, and he thought it would strengthen his hand. And so that’s why the handover took place today, as opposed to 48 hours later.”

As mentioned below, JF Kerry opted not to cross the Boston police’s picket line to speak to the United States Conference of Mayors Monday, so they replaced him with Massachusetts’ Republican Governor Mitt Romney:

“A mayor, a governor and a president have a responsibility for making tough decisions and balancing budgets,” Mr. Romney said, according to The Associated Press. “Senators don’t. You always want to support labor and the efforts of labor . . . but our first responsibility is to the people.”

Translated, that means: Do not take Kerry’s promises seriously; he does not know what he is talking about.

On Friday, Michael Moore said to NBC’s Matt Lauer:

I’m not a member of the Democratic Party. If you know anything about me, anybody who’s followed me, I’m the anti-Democrat. I have railed against the Democrats for a long time. They have been a weak-kneed, wimpy party that hasn’t stood up to the Republicans. They let the working people down across this country.

But according to SmokingGun.com:

New York City Board of Elections records show that Moore, 50, registered to vote in Gotham in 1992, checking off “Democratic” as his party affiliation. He listed his address as the swanky Upper West Side building where he owns a multimillion dollar condominium (Moore’s office is on West 57th Street). The filmmaker’s New York registration remains active, though he has not voted since an October 2001 Democratic runoff election.

Moore is also registered to vote in Michigan, where he owns property, though he has not yet voted there. In Michigan, one does not have to declare a party affiliation, so he’s not a registered Independent there, either.

Though Moore has not yet voted twice, according to the information here before us, we might have a conspiracy to do so.

[initial source: Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire]

I’ve put the new column by Justin Darr, Sauce for the Goods, on the Rightsided Newsletter web site. It’s an exercise in the GOP taking the tactic of say or doing “anything they want, no matter how distorted and deceitful, without ever being held accountable for their words and actions” — used by JF Kerry, Michael Moore, et al. — and turning it loose on them.

Read the column HERE.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today, in Hamdi et al v. Rumsfeld and Rasul et al v. Bush that it is within the President’s powers to hold citizens and non-citizens as “enemy combatants,” but he must satisfactorily explain in court why he wants to do so.

They also refused to hear Jose Padilla’s case because, as I understand it, it was filed in Manhattan while Padilla was in North South Carolina. Padilla was in Manhattan when the case was filed, though, and the government simply moved him. This seems to indicate that the government can hold him indefinitely, provided that it keeps moving him about when habeas corpus is filed.

I’ve put the latest from Peter and Helen Evans on the Rightsided Newsletter web site. It’s an excerpt from their interview with former Senator Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyoming) about American values and the war on terror.

You can read it HERE.

I’ve Just Posted on the Rightsided Newsletter web page:

The latest from columnist Dustin Hawkins, The Worst Best City for Blacks, looks at how Washington, DC was rated by Black Enterprise was one of the best places for American blacks “to live, work, and play.”

Huh?

Read the column HERE.

You remember the Sixteen Words from the President’s 2003 State of the Union Speech.

“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

That launched former Ambassador Joe Wilson on his flirtation with fame.

From the Financial Times, Sunday:

When the US State Department later passed the documents to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, they were found to be fake. US officials have subsequently distanced themselves from the entire notion that Iraq was seeking buy uranium from Niger.

However, European intelligence officers have now revealed that three years before the fake documents became public, human and electronic intelligence sources from a number of countries picked up repeated discussion of an illicit trade in uranium from Niger. One of the customers discussed by the traders was Iraq.

These intelligence officials now say the forged documents appear to have been part of a “scam”, and the actual intelligence showing discussion of uranium supply has been ignored.

Sweet.

No, I’m not going to rehash Ross Perot. (I did that with a Perotista comparison to the Deaniacs earlier this year.) I am talking about this year’s billionaire candidate, JF Kerry.

According to Los Angeles Times, Kerry’s worth, through his wife, was estimated like this:

The Times analysis produced estimates as low as $900 million and as high as $3.2 billion.

Three senior executives at investment firms that handle accounts for wealthy clients reviewed The Times’ study and said the $1-billion valuation was a fair and conservative estimate.

By jove, sounds like he’s from the wrong one of the “Two Americas.”

This is a followup on an earlier post, with the exact quote.

“Anonymous” is an active CIA official who wrote a book called Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. The book trashes the CIA “bureaucrats” and the tactics in the war on terror, and he talked to George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week this morning.

He was talking to Steph about al Qaeda when he said

“What there was, I think, was a lack of moral courage or bureaucratic courage to say, ‘This isn’t the best intelligence in the world, but it’s the best we’re likely to get. And if we don’t take this action, we’re going to lose a lot of Americans.”

THAT, my friends, is preemption. It is what the President did when making the call to invade Iraq. Anonymous is in essence praising the President for invading Iraq when he did and criticizing those who did not support the action as cowards.

Anonymous said some other things I want to address, but not in this post. Anonymous backs preemption.

AND BTW, Anonymous appeared in silhouette on Steph’s show, but he looked an awful lot like Joe Klein to me.

Here’s this from today’s Rightsided Newsletter:

[CBS’s Face the Nation host Bob] Schieffer next brought in Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, to refute the Secretary of State. Biden said in no uncertain terms: “More troops are coming.” He’s just back from Iraq — his third trip and “most candid yet” — and that’s what he is told. He expected a “minimum of 140,000 troops” on the ground through December of 2005, and a “surge” in troops at around the time of the January elections.

“Competence” is one of JF Kerry’s words, and Biden made his pitch. He said that the situation in Iraq could work out. “We just need a more competent leadership in the Administraton.”

Kerry’s been making similar statements for months, meandering meaninglessly, saying vague things which sound as if they should be profound, then stating that he thinks the situation can be salvaged if the Administration starts to do things differently.

This time, he abandoned his call for the Administration to change and instead stated that we need new leadership in the White House. A new President: JF Kerry.

It could have been a desperation call from the Kerry campaign which triggered this change.

Another of the tell-alls, purportedly devastating to the Bush Administration, has been published and is being sold.

On ABC’s This Week, though, I heard something with which I agreed.

This is what I jotted for today’s Rightsided Newsletter:

An anonymous officer with the CIA — 22-year veteran of the CIA who occupies a senior position in counterterrorism — is the author of a new book: Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror. On TW, he appeared as a shadow, but his voice wasn’t garbled. We learned that he had already written a book, so this was not motivated by an overwhelming need to “right the wrongs,” as Dick Clarke and others claimed — and that this book was approved with no edits by his superiors at the agency.

I’m going to stop reporting on “Anonymous” right there. Steph nodded his head in agreement at this straight talker, possibly thinking that he could set the Bush Administration straight. Whether Anonymous realizes it, whether Steph was able to connect the dots, he was talking about precisely what the President did in invading Iraq.

Preemption. The bureaucratic cowards of whom he writes could just as easily be Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosit… and JF Kerry, post-Howard Dean.

The Sunday Rightsided Newsletter has been sent to the sundry global Inboxes, and it is now LIVE on the Rightsided Newsletter web site.

It has the summary and analysis of this morning’s talk shows, of which I’ll add more in this space.

In a few minutes, I’ll post what I saw from the CIA author known as “Anonymous.” Perhaps unintentionally, it was the strongest statement in favor of Bush Administration policy I’ve yet heard from one who is not in the Administraiton or an ally.

NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw talked to MTP host Tim Russert from Baghdad, where the old man is covering the transition of authority later this week.

Here’s the bit from the rought draft of the Rightsided Newsletter concerning that chat:

Brokaw in Baghdad. First a bit about the NBC News anchor talking to MTP host Russert at the beginning of his show. The world was about to explode, he insisted: “This is the storm before the even larger storm that could be coming.” (That was nothing less than butchering an old saw.)

He informed us that “Iraq is divided into so many parts, all at war with each other.” Indeed, Iraq is a “deep and bloody swamp.”

But he said that he has spoken with people who expect the Shi’ite Badr Brigade to help the government fight the insurgents. He did not mention this, but the Badr Brigade is Iranian controlled and supported. Brokaw also said that he expects the military to request additional troops because “they are spread out so thin.”

More later.

Good morning.