Other Stuff You Won’t See in the Press About Iraq; What We’ve Found in 6 Months

“We Have Discovered Dozens Of WMD-Related Program Activities And Significant Amounts Of Equipment That Iraq Concealed From The United Nations During The Inspections That Began In Late 2002.”  (David Kay, Statement On The Interim Progress Report On The Activities Of The Iraq Survey Group, 10/2/03)

“In Addition To The Discovery Of Extensive Concealment Efforts, We Have Been Faced With A Systematic Sanitization Of Documentary And Computer Evidence In A Wide Range Of Offices, Laboratories, And Companies Suspected Of WMD Work.” (David Kay, Statement On The Interim Progress Report On The Activities Of The Iraq Survey Group, 10/2/03)

Here’s a group of accomplishments you don’t hear about in the news, and not in the Democrats loudmouthing…. which amounts to the same thing of late.

Six months ago there were no police on duty in Iraq.
· Today there are over 40,000 police on duty, nearly 7,000 here in Baghdad alone.
· Last night Coalition Forces and Iraqi police conducted 1,731 joint patrols.

Six months ago those elements of Saddam’s military that had not been destroyed in combat had buried their airplanes and melted away.
· Today the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty. 
· Across the country over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.

Six months ago there were no functioning courts in Iraq.
· Today nearly all of Iraq’s 400 courts are functioning. 
· Today, for the first time in over a generation, the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.

Six months ago the entire country could generate a bare 300 megawatts of electricity.
· On Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts—exceeding the pre-war average.
·· If we get the funding the President has requested in his emergency budget, we expect to produce enough electricity for all Iraqis to have electrical service 24 hours daily—something essential to their hopes for the future.

Six months ago nearly all of Iraq’s schools were closed.
· Today all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
· Many of you know that we announced our plan to rehabilitate one thousand schools by the time school started—well, by October 1 we had actually rehabbed over 1,500.

Six months ago teachers were paid as little as $5.33 per month.
· Today teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.

Six months ago the public health system was an empty shell.  During the 1990’s Saddam cut spending on public health by over 90 percent with predictable results for the lives of his citizens.
· Today we have increased public health spending to over 26 times what it was under Saddam.
· Today all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
· Today doctors’ salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.
· Pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.
· Since liberation we have administered over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq’s children.

Six months ago three-quarters of Iraq’s 27,000 kilometers of irrigation canals were weed-choked and barely functional.
· Today a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of those canals.  They now irrigate tens of thousands of farms.  This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.

Additionally, we have restored over three-quarters of pre-war telephone services and over two-thirds of the potable water production.

Before the war there were 4,500 Internet connections and important services, such as instant messaging were forbidden.
· Today there are 4,900 full-service connections.
· We expect 50,000 by January first.

Six months ago Iraq’s economy was flat on its back.
· Today anyone walking the streets can see the wheels of commerce turning.  From bicycles to satellite dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities and towns.

Six months ago all banks were closed.
· Today 95 percent of all pre-war bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily.
· Today Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.
· Today the central bank is fully independent.
· Today Iraq has one of the world’s most growth-oriented investment and banking laws.
· Next week Iraq will get a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.

Six months ago there was no freedom of expression.  Satellite dishes were illegal.  Foreign journalists came on 10-day visas and paid mandatory and extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for “minders” and other government spies. 
· Today there is no Ministry of Information.
· Today there are more than 170 newspapers.
· Today you can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street corner.
· Today foreign journalists and everyone else are free to come and go.

Six months ago Iraq had not one single element—legislative, judicial or executive– of a representative government.
· Today in Baghdad alone residents have selected 88 advisory councils.  Baghdad’s first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened when the city council elected its new chairman.
· Today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.
· Today 25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in Iraq’s history, run the day-to-day business of government.
· Today the Iraqi government regularly participates in international events.  Since July the Iraqi government has been represented in over two dozen international meetings, including those of the UN General Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank and IMF and, today, the Islamic Conference Summit.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs today announced that it is reopening over 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.

Six months ago Shia religious festivals were all but banned.
· Today, for the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.

These are all things the left would have us not doing.
Had they their own way, Iraq would still be ruled by SoDamn Insane.
The arguments I hear last night sounded like they wanted to return to 6 months ago.
Can’t one Democrat come forward and say that we’ve done a good thing over there?

Normally, I don’t bother with TIME…. their leanings have been all too clear the last 20 years.
But, this story caught my eye.
The problem of removing Arafat as a prelude to peace in the middle east, would seem to have been solved…. and this may explain why Israel hasn’t moved to oust him, as they threatened to do some months ago.

A few have written to ask where my comments are as regards the Kobe Bryant case.
Frankly, the case doesn’t interest me.

From what little I’ve followed, there’s a lot of BS coming out of both sides of that case, but I doubt the case should have been brought in the first place. My guess is that we’ll see this going on for months.

And isn’t it interesting that the case serves as such a neat distraction from the successes of the Predient and his leadership of our people in Iraq,, and the Republican win in California?

Did anyone else watch the loser Democrats debate each other last night? I was in the mood for a little fantasy based comedy, so I tried it.

Before I fell asleep, a few things I noticed;

How many times John Kerry reminded us all, (With a sanctimonious flair of his nostrils) that he’s served in Vietnam. One must needs ask the question; what the beep would this guy be running on, had he not done so? He’s clearly in trouble, and knows it. Will someone please explain to me how having served in what most Democrats regard as an illegal immoral and totally unjustified war against socialism, can score any points with said Democrats?

Same question could be asked of the one of the bigger problems Kerry has… Bozo the Clark, who is now also is losing his grip. The waffling on Iraq didn’t help. Being a general, the war was the only thing he ever brought to the table, anyway.  Other, of course than he’d been fired by the Pentegon… Always a plus for a liberal. And of course the idea that he led the bombing campaign in Kosovo… a country that posed no threat whatever to the US, an attack which was without the UN’s authorization. (Funny how the leftists fail to mention this)
Clark is history, having ticked both sides of the isle off.

Then of course there’s Dean… the only Democat besides Bill Clinton who can play Doctor without being removed from office over it.  Aside from his usual mantra about George Bush, he’s still borderline on on his open support of terorists. With his statements about how we shouldn’t take sides in the Israel – PLO conflicts, and calling the terrorists ‘soldiers’, it’s clear he has no clue on the Military. or on reality in the middle east… which makes him marginally worse than the aforementioned Kerry and Clark, but possibly more popular among the know-nothigs.

Bob Graham was noteably absent, apparently not being able to steal enough money to continue his campaign. (Well, isn’t the Democrats claim to fame that if you’ve got money, you stole it, unless the government gave it to you?)

All this puts an interesting wrinkle in Hillary’s plans. Her stalking horse isn’t doing so well, anymore… and California is now no longer a lock for the Democrats, given Arnold the other day, which changes the dynamic for everyone, particularly her.  It’ll be mildly amusing to see what she does.

The rest were about what I expected, too. All of them complaining about President Bush’s handling of the Economy.

To listen to them, you’d think they hadn’t been watching the economy; the picture they paint is a vastly different one from reality. ..  NYSE is up around 32%… NASDAQ by nearly 70% last I looked. Productivity numbers are going through the roof and the unemployment numbers are dropping steadily.  But to listen to the idiots trying to get you to vote for them last night, you’d think we were still in the middle of the great depression.

Of course Iraq was on their complaint list too, and this was just about the time I dropped off. Only so much fantasy I can deal with for one night.

I’m sure that this is a happy side effect, but let’s face it; Bush’s chances at being re-elected in ’04 can only improve with the Republican victory in California. Face it, if you don’t carry California, you generally don’t have a prayer of being elected… and Bush now has several points in his favor, on that score he didn’t have previously.

Then, again, let’s imagine that the state HAD no recall initiative on the books. Imagine the voter anger against Democrats had they actually been forced to wait until ’04 to remove that idiot, Davis. Think that wouldn’t have translated to the national level voting, form that state?

I have reason to doubt it. Questions of who had the larger motivation arise… Questions the leftist press hasn’t been asking, no shock there.

But think….

When a crime is committed, and is being investigated. One of the key factors, generally speaking, is who would be motivated by some kind of gain to do the crime; either financial, status or both.  Thusfar, investigators have been considering that ether as only one group of people that stood to gain anything by leaking the info about Wilson’s wife. Thing is, the administration’s gains are at best questionable, and in truth, imperceptible.

There are, however, a couple people who stood to gain quite a bit from such a leak; Joe Wilson and his wife, Valarie Plame. It shouldn’t shock you that the press hasn’t thought of this one, given their own leanings.

Let’s consider this from their perspective for a moment, though, and you’ll see what I mean.

Wilson’s wife, by all accounts has been in the field as an agent for 20 years or so. After so long in any business, particularly a higher pressure one as being a operative must be, one starts thinking about retirement. Wilson himself hasn’t had a job in years, and money’s likely getting tighter than they’d like.

Then too, Wilson and his wife are both tight with the Democrat party’s inner circle.  They are disturbed by the loss of the White House, and the Iraq war, both of which apparently, they’d both been rather outspoken about.

Being assigned to the mission in Niger must have seemed an open invitation to Wilson and his wife.

Leak info to the press that Plame is a CIA operative, and then blame the White house.

What will that get?  Several things;

1: It attempts to discredit Mr Bush and his administration both on the Iraq War and on its honesty, thus advancing the agenda of their fellow liberal Democrats. 

2: It gets Wilson lots of money from doing TV stand-ups from the news agencies for the next several months, which both makes Wilson lots of money, but also gives him a bully pulpit to further pursue point number 1. (Is there any TV outlet that didn’t have the publicity hound Wilson on as a “guest”?)

3: Plame claims she can no longer work. So, she gets retired early, and will undoubtedly pick up a large sum of cash for unspecified damages in civil suits against the administration she claims leaked her identity…. thus ‘endangering’ her.

The two of them go off and live out their remaining days in government provided leisure in the south of France somewhere, with the world-wide left thinking them heroes. Except of course when the DNC needs to trot them out as martyrs to the revolution at or near election time. On these points alone this is a win/win situation for Wilson his wife and the Democrats.

Then, there’s the little matter of the carpet bombing the Democrats have been doing of late, as I mentioned in last weeks’ BIT. (link) With all the underhanded dealing by the Democrats of late, doing everything they can to muddy the water, this would be just one more such ‘operation’.

Add all these factors up, and the moral assurity with which the Democrats have been making their case in this matter, becomes a rather large question mark.

Granted that this is speculation, but that’s what investigators do. And the only speculation I’ve seen so far involves some White House source or another. Given the above does it really make sense for the press to exclude Wilson and Plame for the list of culprits?

Only if they’re trying to use this as a club to beat up the White House with….

… and two Clinton operatives take over.
I suspect Mr Clark is now starting to understand he’s there at the behest of the Clintons, and will only serve to remove the competition… namely, Howard Dean, for Hillary…. as the Clintons designed it.

The Whining and gnashing of teeth has begun in the national media.  They’re screaming about the Republicans having turned over an election.

Bustamante slaims Prop 54 was the most critical part of last night.
McCauluffe is saying the voters were taking it out on Davis.
The far left on USEnet is screaming the Republicans have stolen the election.

Are these people on the same planet?

Their problem with this argument…. and I wish I could see someone in the national media actually have the testicular fortitude to say this to one of these liars… California is an overwhelmingly Democrat state. The Republicans most certainly did not and do not have the kind of power an election ‘overturning’ would require. They needed an overhwhelming number of Democrats to vote with them to do it.

The Democrats lost. Not only did they loose, they got embarrassed, bigtime… and the numbers as they get more and more final, keep getting more one-sided…

All this in spite of having the usual Clintonite brass, including Bubba himself, McCauluffe, and Hollywood behind them, to say nothing of a corrupt press… the LA TIMES for example…  Or was it BECAUSE they had all that working with them? That’s the question the DNC is going to have to deal with, and I doubt they’ll be able to spin this one away…. though it should be amusing to watch them continue to try.

Interesting wrinkle, and I’m not sure what to make of this yet; Did you notice that Arnold had more Democrats on stage during his acceptance speech, than Davis had on his for his 20 minute long whine?

And what of the rumors of a recall attempt against Arnold after, say 100 days or so? While I have no doubt some of the Democrats will try, I wonder how much traction it will get, given the overwhelming nature of the number of voters turning out against the Democrats…. even among their own party.

Cubs lost last night. I doubt this is a trend, but we’ll see.

This could be a nice time for MLB. Cinderella lives in Chicago, and in Boston.

Only wrinkle on the tablecloth is the garbage strike going on in Windy; apparently a 25% raise isn’t enough to get the government workers off their collective butts. As a result, Wriglyville smells more like the stockyards, than a showplace.
Just at the right time, too.

(Shake of the head) Is there nothing unions won’t screw up for us?

The good news just keeps coming.

An article in the UK Guradian reports that

Yasser Arafat has suffered a mild heart attack but the Palestinian leadership has sought to keep his health problems secret for fear it will “create panic”.

The 74-year-old Arafat, who is suffering from Parkinson’s disease, disappeared from public view last week and re-emerged at the weekend looking extremely ill. His face was pale and pinched, he had lost weight and he was almost inaudible. He had trouble standing for more than a few minutes at a time.

Not enough pain in this end for this murderous bastard. But, it’ll serve.

The exit polls usually don’t say very much. However in this case they’re so universally for the recall, and for Arnold, I’d say barring any more last minute tricks by the Democrats, it’s all over. Frankly, the turnout was larger than I figured it would be. As a result the absentee ballots won’t be able to swing the vote to the Democrats in any event, which was the only chance I ever saw for a delay of outcome.

The only mystery left is what the Democrats will do now. A lot of THAT depends on how they see the raw numbers. It’s interesting; the early comments are that the voting public hasn’t turned out in numbers like this in many years, even for a Presidential election. Assuming Arnie wins tonight, this turnout can only mean that my original comments were correct; even the Democrat voters are motivated to get rid of GreyOut Davis. The early numbers show that nearly 70% of the voters either voted for Arnold, or for Tom McClintock. Talk about your ground shifting!!!

The early comments I saw from the DNC Chair was pure spin. He claims people are angry at EVERONE, not just the idiots the DNC has been coughing up, and that the President will taste that anger as well. Personally, I doubt it. He’s trying to ignore this is yet another major DNC defeat under his watch.

The next few months in California will be very telling. Expect to see a lot of roadblock tactics from the Democrats out there, should Arnie take this one. If they pull that garbage long enough, and we do a good job of telling people the truth about it, Californians will likely toss the Democrats out of their legislature, as well. And remember the electoral votes of the nation’s largest state, hmmm?

And McClintock? He’ll run for the Senate, I’ve little doubt.
Oh, yeah, this will be sweet.

… but don’t expect the final count to be in anytime soon. Around 2 milion votes are abenstee… and the Democrat contrllled eection board in CA is complaining they won’t be able to process that amount of votes anytime soon. Plus, given the tricks they’ve been playing so far, expect a lot of challanges to be raised in the district courts.

From elsewhere..

ARNOLD ACCUSER IS DRUGGIE, PROSTITUTE, FORGER!
John and Ken Show, KFI Los Angeles | 10-6-03 | DFU

I have followed politics since my teens. This is the worst campaign of slime I have ever seen. It shows the utter desperation of the RATS as they are about to lose the governorship of California. Bob Mullholland, I hope you are on suicide watch, you disgusting pathetic piece of human debris.

Sullivan posted this one. His point about exposure works, is well taken… it does. Thus, this article of his bears repeating.

“BAATHIST BROADCASTING CORPORATION: Worth watching what the BBC does on its website. It often dramatically alters copy after it’s posted – and not for legitimate reasons, like typos or minor amendments. In an earlier draft of this piece, for example, the following sentence appeared: “Syria is, of course, Israel’s enemy. The two countries are still in an official state of war, caused by Israel’s occupation and illegal annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights.” Now it reads:
Syria is, of course, Israel’s enemy. The two countries have been in a state of war since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The Israelis have long charged that Damascus uses the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah as a proxy army to launch attacks along Israel’s border with Lebanon. And since the beginning of the Palestinian uprising, Israel has increasingly focused on the Palestinian opposition groups hosted by Syria. It accuses the exiled leaderships of planning attacks carried out by their military wings in the occupied territories, and accuses Syria (as well as Iran) of backing them.
An improvement, no? But still no mention of the 1967 or Yom Kippur wars. What you see in the first draft, I think, is what the BBC really believes: that the Jews are responsible for all the ills in the Middle East. But even they feel obliged to respond to public pressure. Which is good news, after all. If we can’t get rid of them, we can at least moderate their extremism. Keep sending me BBC lies and propaganda. Exposure works.”
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