BUSH: STILL No Plans for REBUILDING IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, Or PAKISTAN!

We still hear from "the public" and news junkies from time to time
that it was such a CRIME for your White House war criminal to invade
Iraq without having a plan for occupying, securing, pacifying, and
REBUILDING that country.  Iraq today bears witness to those incredible
FAILURES.

But far from addressing the problems created by your civilian military
geniuses in Washington, now we're seeing reports that reveal the Bush
cabal STILL has no formal PLANS to rebuild IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, or
PAKISTAN!

Nor any plans to CREATE plans!

It's as though your Nincompoop-In-Chief has put his feet up on "the
desk," hands behind his head, and is merely relaxing, as his criminal
administration winds down to total foreign policy and diplomatic
MISCONDUCT!

And far be it for your equally craven Congress to call Bushie on this
attitude!

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"U.S. Lacks Plan to Operate in Pakistani Tribal Areas, GAO Says"

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 18, 2008; A21



The Bush administration has no comprehensive plan for dealing with the
threat posed by Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, where al-Qaeda leader
Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding, according to a new report
released yesterday from the research arm of Congress.

The Government Accountability Office also said "the United States has
not met its national security goals to destroy terrorist threats and
close the safe haven" provided by the tribal areas, despite having
spent more than $10 billion for Pakistani military operations in the
mountainous border region."

GAO staff members interviewed experts inside and outside the
government, and "we found broad agreement . . . that al-Qaida had
regenerated its ability to attack the United States and had succeeded
in establishing a safe haven" in the unpoliced region, the report
says.

U.S. intelligence officials have previously portrayed the
proliferation of fighters in the Pakistani tribal areas as a central
threat to U.S. security and have expressed frustration at the lack of
progress there by Pakistan forces.

But the report also supports an argument by congressional Democrats
that the war in Iraq and administration bungling have helped create
new danger in an area largely out of the control of any sovereign
state. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Taliban and al-Qaeda
leaders, including bin Laden, are believed to have fled across the
border to Pakistan.

"The Bush administration's limitless commitment of our limited
resources to the war in Iraq has compromised our focus," Senate
Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement. Rep.
Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.), chairman of the Foreign Affairs
Committee, which commissioned the study, called the GAO findings
"appalling" and said a "lack of foresight is harming U.S. national
security."

Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council at the
White House, said the administration "is dealing with the terrorist
threat in Pakistan through a variety of means," including "health,
education, economic development, political reform" and military
resources. "This is going to be a long battle against a determined
enemy," Johndroe said.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence agreed that the
United States had not met its national security goals in the tribal
areas, while the Defense Department said it agrees with the need to
develop a comprehensive plan.

The State Department, however, said the GAO report "does not
acknowledge that the United States had an overall plan for Pakistan"
and that U.S. government efforts have been comprehensive.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/17/AR2008041703721.html

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"U.S. Effort To Rebuild From War Criticized"Oversight of Teams In
Iraq, Afghanistan Faulted in Hill Report
""
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 18, 2008; A18



The U.S. effort to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan through local
reconstruction teams lacks clear goals, organizational structure and
lines of command, according to a new congressional report.

Funding for the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, which President Bush
has called the leading edge of stabilization efforts in the two
nations, is ad hoc and comes from so many sources that congressional
investigators were unable to determine how much has been spent on the
joint military-civilian teams, the report by the House Armed Services
oversight and investigations subcommittee says.

The subcommittee, which conducted a six-month investigation,
recommends that the State and Defense departments develop a "unity of
command" for the PRTs, as they are known, along with specific
objectives and ways to ascertain whether they have been met. It also
urges more intense and streamlined congressional oversight.

The United States has been in Iraq for five years "and in Afghanistan
even longer," the subcommittee's chairman, Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.),
said yesterday. "If the current [PRT] structure was working well, we
should have a smooth operation now. But we don't."

Rep. Todd Akin (Mo.), the subcommittee's ranking Republican, agreed.
"The organizational structure is a little goofy," he said, adding that
it had been "put together with glue and baling wire."

Both lawmakers praised the theory behind the PRTs, which focus on
community and local governmental capacity-building in urban
neighborhoods and in areas outside the capitals of Iraq and
Afghanistan. They also recognized the dedication of individuals
working on the teams, often under dangerous conditions. But the report
notes that the success of the teams depends heavily on the
"personalities" of staff individuals. It says that training is
insufficient and that many staffers are unsuited for the jobs they are
expected to perform.

The PRT program began in 2002 in Afghanistan, where 12 U.S.-led teams
and 14 run by other NATO member countries now operate. The U.S. teams
are made up of 50 to 100 people, most drawn from the military. In
Iraq, where the program began in November 2005, the State Department
operates 11 PRTs. As the Bush administration increased the U.S.
military presence last year, it added 13 PRTs that are embedded with
military combat teams.

The report cites PRT projects that overlap with those run by other
U.S. entities and an indecipherable chain of command. It says the
program lacks "strategic guidance and oversight" and "clearly defined
PRT objectives and milestones for achieving larger operational and
strategic goals."

Meanwhile, three senators called on the Bush administration and Senate
leaders yesterday to make Iraq's government spend more of its money on
the war and reconstruction.

"The time has come to end this blank check policy and require the
Iraqis to invest in their own future," they say in a letter to Defense
Secretary Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the
Senate leadership. Signed by Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson (Neb.) and
Evan Bayh (Ind.) and Republican Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), the letter
says that the United States has spent more than $45 billion on Iraqi
reconstruction over the past five years and that Baghdad now enjoys
budget surpluses and a $56 billion windfall from rising oil prices.

When the two top U.S. officials in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus
and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, appeared before Congress last week,
lawmakers across party lines protested the high cost of the ongoing
U.S. involvement there. The three senators said yesterday they would
introduce legislation requiring that many U.S. costs to be borne by
Iraq in the form of a loan and that some expenditures, including the
cost of fuel consumed by U.S. forces there, be directly reimbursed.

A number of lawmakers raised similar questions about Iraq expenditures
at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing yesterday, after White
House budget director Jim Nussle criticized Congress for attempting to
add domestic expenditures to the administration's request for $108
billion in new war funding.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/17/AR2008041703701.html