No End in Sight in the Iraq War

Yesterday on NPR's Fresh Air program, they interviewed Washington Post special military correspondent Thomas E. Ricks, who has been on the ground in Iraq, almost from the start.

It's a sobering analysis of the situation in Iraq that most people consider stabilized and "won." Far from it. Two main points that raised my eyebrows:

1. He talked about the "surge" and what was behind the success. I thought I'd heard it all but the real reason behind the success was directly paying off Sunni insurgents to join their side. The same guys who were planting roadside bombs and killing US troops were now on the payroll. In a chilling account, he talks of a US marine who asks an ex-insurgent, who was manning a check point, if he'd like to kill him, an American soldier. The Iraqi replies: "Yes, but not right now." I'm shocked that they think bribery is a long term solution. When the money runs out they will turn.

2. There's no way in the world US troops will be able to leave by 2011. No way. Ricks explains that all the problems are merely on hold. If the US makes a move to leave, the bad guys will start up. On top of that he believes the US are obligated to stay, in order to prevent a genocide. If they want to exit, it is going to be extremely ugly.

If you have half an hour, click here to listen.

US Congress Becoming the Roman Senate: No Real Power

I was wondering how, a week after the Senate shot down the bailout for the automotive industry, the Bush administration went ahead and bailed them out anyway? George F. Will takes notice in this Washington Post piece:

On Friday the president gave the two automakers access to money Congress explicitly did not authorize. More money -- up to $17.4 billion -- than had been debated, thereby calling to mind Winston Churchill on naval appropriations: "The Admiralty had demanded six ships: the economists offered four: and we finally compromised on eight."

The president is dispensing money from the $700 billion Congress provided for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The unfounded assertion of a right to do this is notably brazen, given the indisputable fact that if Congress had known that TARP -- supposedly a measure for scouring "toxic" assets from financial institutions -- was to become an instrument for unconstrained industrial policy, it would not have been passed.
....

For decades, imperatives of wars hot and cold, and the sprawl of the regulatory state, have enlarged the executive branch at the expense of the legislative. For eight years, the Bush administration's "presidentialists" have aggressively wielded the concept of the "unitary executive" -- the theory that where the Constitution vests power in the executive, especially power over foreign affairs and war, the president is immune to legislative abridgements of his autonomy.

The administration has not, however, confined its aggrandizement of executive power to national security matters. According to former representative Mickey Edwards in his book "Reclaiming Conservatism," the president has issued "signing statements" designating 1,100 provisions of new laws -- more designations than have been made by all prior presidents combined -- that he did not consider binding on him or any other executive branch official.

A healthy Republic needs its Legislative Branch. Lame Duck Bush is spending unprecendeted amounts of the public's money, seemingly illegally and law makers are standing by without comment. Is anybody paying attention? Does anybody care? Where are the checks and balances?