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Monday, August 30, 2004 |
 WSJ. Negroponte hits the claxon over Iraq. John Negroponte, who arrived at his post in late June, described the dire security situation in a lengthy cable sent last week to his superiors at the U.S. State Department. The new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, arguing that the insurgency there has become more protracted than anticipated, wants to shift more than $3 billion in U.S. aid away from reconstruction projects and into efforts aimed at improving Iraqi security, creating local jobs and boosting oil output, U.S. officials said. More than $1.8 billion of the $3.37 billion would be used for hiring, training and equipping more Iraqi security forces, including 45,000 additional Iraqi police, 16,000 national-guard troops and 16,000 border guards, according to a breakdown of the spending. Unfortunately, global guerrillas have learned the methodologies necessary to keep up their pressure on Iraq's infrastructure, even in the face of improved security. We are at least a year behind the powercurve in Iraq, and falling farther behind.
7:18:45 PM 
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Juan Cole riffs on how the US is becoming Israel.
4:16:42 PM
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I forgot to thank Britt. Thanks!
12:45:56 PM
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AT. Handicapping the election. Bush will win. I agree. It will come down to security. Kerry's defense team is essentially a technocratic version of Bush's. Without major differences, people will opt for the devil they know.
Frankly, neither of the candidates have any new ideas on fighting terrorism -- particularly a vision for how to fight this war without writing a blank check for a defense bill that currently runs at $140,000,000 a year for each global guerrilla. We are light years away from any sustainable formula for dealing with this threat over the long term.
10:24:49 AM
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NYTimes. Cryptome in the news.
8:54:13 AM
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The cumulative impact of the attacks mentioned below (particularly the attack on five pipelines from Rumaila -- the King of Iraq's oil basin), has caused the shut down exports from Iraq. The shutdown is anticipated to last a week at a potential loss of $400 m ++.
8:32:53 AM
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© Copyright 2004 John Robb.
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