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Senator Alleges White House Wrote Allawi's Speech

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the worked-for-caesar dept.

Jeremiah Cornelius writes "In a letter to the White House, a leading US Senate Democrat, Diane Feinstein, expressed 'profound dismay' that the White House allegedly wrote a large portion of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's speech to Congress last week. 'His speech gave me hope that reconstruction efforts were proceeding in most of the country and that elections could be held on schedule. To learn that this was not an independent view, but one that was massaged by your campaign operatives, jaundices the speech and reduces the credibility of his remarks.'"

6 of 1,281 comments (clear)

  1. Al Lorentz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Incidentally, Al Lorentz is under the threat of serious jail time for speaking out.

    1. Re:Al Lorentz by sedna · · Score: 5, Informative



      http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/29/milit ary_justice/

      Online media, but not a weblog and with sources to follow up on.

  2. Re:Debate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Will you ever stop beating your wife?

    Read Senator Kerry's testimony to the Senate from 1971. Read it all. Comprehend. Then form an opinion and speak.

    If you can read english, you will see that Kerry was relating details of war crimes related to him by over 100 other men. War crimes that they were coerced and abetted in committing by commanding officers. They knew it was wrong, and they admitted it out of shame, and because they knew that it tarnished the credibility of the United States, which they defended because they loved.

    Fast forward 33 years. Location: Abu Ghraib Prison, Iraq. Same story. Nothing learned. Our national credibility savaged. Maybe because we have a president who admittedly "doesn't read much".

  3. Re:Is this news? by Selanit · · Score: 5, Informative
    How is Iraq less of a dictatorship today than it was under Saddam Hussein?
    Easy: in a dictatorship, someone is in control of the country. In Iraq today, nobody is really in control of the whole country. We have:
    1. The interim government, which claims to have control, but hasn't so far been able to reign in the insurgents;
    2. The U.S. military, which definitely has control of some portions of the country, especially the "Green Zone" in Baghdad -- but lacks control of other places, eg Fallujah;
    3. The British military, which seems to have Basra pretty well in hand, but little influence anywhere else;
    4. And the insurgents, who seem to have pretty much free reign over Fallujah and Sadr City (which, if I understand correctly, is a neighborhood of Baghdad). And even if they don't have direct control anywhere else, they're certainly exercising a lot of influence over events all over the place.

    In short, no one entity, governmental, military, or otherwise, is calling the shots for the whole country. That doesn't sound like any kind of dictatorship to me -- it sounds more like chaos.
  4. BS Alert! by RealProgrammer · · Score: 5, Informative
    I am not an armchair quarterback. Nor am I some politically idealistic and naÃve young soldier...

    Al Lorentz is the former Chairman of the Constitution Party of Texas. He was against the war in Iraq, because Lorentz believes in isolationism (even after 9/11). So while he is not "some politically idealistic and naÃve young soldier", that's only true because he's not young. He is a political ideologue, with an anti-Bush paranoia.

    I am an old and seasoned Non-Commissioned Officer with nearly 20 years under my belt. Additionally, I am not just a soldier with a muds-eye view of the war, I am in Civil Affairs and as such, it is my job to be aware of all the events occurring in this country and specifically in my region.

    That made my Bullshit Detector go off like a Claymore in a cattle drive.

    Al Lorentz spent most of his career in the Reserves.

    A noncomm in Civil Affairs doesn't have a "muds-eye view" of the war at all. He may as well be back in Texas, for all the fighting he'll see. This guy is an armchair General. Why isn't he an officer? Because he's incompetent for a commission, that's why.

    Al Lorentz was a Bush basher before he went to Iraq, and he's a Bush basher now.

    From another article by Lorentz:
    Pigeon holing is a mental tool used by the ignorant to help them disregard information, ideas and people whom they are incapable or unwilling to understand. A good example of pigeon holing is to declare flippantly that anyone who believes any sort of conspiracy whatsoever as some sort of kook. Never mind that history is replete with proven conspiracies and that a conspiracy is merely two or more individuals conspiring together for any means.
    --
    sigs, as if you care.
  5. Re:The U.S. government is building 16 permanent ba by marsonist · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are more than 16 U.S. Bases in Germany, but does that make it not free? What about Japan, or Kosovo, or Korea... most reasonable people would concider them to be free. Not having permanent bases there after such a large scale change in governments would be short sighted and extremely hurtful to any chance Iraq has of being free of brutal murdering dictators.