In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Look what the three stooges are up to!
They got shiny medals!
Bush bestows highest civilian honor on Tenet, Bremer, Franks
That better be some kind of shame metal. - John Stewart
Proving that only incompetence is rewarded in the Bush administration, the highest civilian medal in America, a medal with a grand history is debased by Bush awarding it to his bungling former employees (probably so they'll keep quiet). How will an award given to Julia Child, Johnny Carson, Charlton Heston, Sam Walton and so many others ever earn back its respect (okay Mandela, Cesar Chavez, Warren Burger, and Mother Teresa have also been honored - this is a serious medal).
But let's look at the achievements these three have brought to America (besides the death of over a thousand of its young soldiers):
- Bremer was the watch dog in charge when 9/11 happened and then was the go to it boy for fake evidence for the Iraqi war.
- Franks is the general who moved his soldiers in so fast during the invasion had no problem letting the country fall immediately into anarchy by standing by during the looting, setting the tone for the entire occupation (and let's not forget he also didn't seem to have a problem leaving weapon stockpiles unguarded as long as the oil facilities were guarded).
- Bremer definitely deserves a special honor. Under his leadership the Iraqi army was disbanded giving a lot of young men the need to find a job, but since under Bremer's leadership there were no jobs, so some of the men came up with a hobby - attacking foreigners. Under Bremer all Bath party members lost their government jobs leaving every level of government understaffed. But that doesn't matter because Bremer himself saw his main mission to be the privatizing of Iraq's public assets. Bremer was in charge of looting, and here he succeeded.
But let's see what the newspapers said:A holdover from the Clinton presidency, Tenet was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1997 to 2004 and was responsible for the effort to pull together conclusions based on information gathered from more than a dozen intelligence agencies during the run-up to the war against Iraq.
In that capacity, Tenet assured Bush that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons - he said at the time the conclusion was a "slam dunk" - and it was upon that information that Bush publicly justified the war. No such weapons have been found in Iraq, where 1,296 American troops have been killed and 9,844 others have been wounded, according to Pentagon figures.
...
"Tommy Franks led the forces that fought and won two wars in the defense of the world's security, and helped liberate more than 50 million people from two of the worst tyrannies in the world," said Bush. "One of the highest distinctions of history is to be called a liberator, and Tommy Franks will always carry that title."
Franks has been criticized, however, for not fully securing weapons depots in Iraq that were later looted by Iraqis. Some of the looted weapons have since been used in insurgent attacks against Iraqi citizens and U.S. forces.
Among those who questioned the administration for those alleged shortcomings, asserting that too few troops were deployed to Iraq, was Bremer, who oversaw the U.S. occupation there until last June. Bremer's critics, meanwhile, have said he presided over the rise of the insurgency in Iraq, in part by dismantling Iraqi security forces and by failing to fully integrate rival Shiite and Sunni groups into the political process there.
- rob 5:05 PM - [PermaLink] -
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