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Documents Reveal US Incompetence with Word, Iraq

notNeilCasey writes "The U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority, which formerly governed Iraq, accidentally published Microsoft Word documents containing information never meant for the public, according to an article in Salon. By viewing the documents using the Track Changes feature in Word (.doc), the author has been able to reconstruct internal discussions from 2004 which reflect the optimism, isolation and incompetence of the American occupation. Download the author's source document or look for more yourself. 'Presumably, staffers at the CPA's Information Management Unit, which produced the weekly reports, were cutting and pasting large sections of text into the reports and then eliminating all but the few short passages they needed. Much of the material they were cribbing seems to have come from the kind of sensitive, security-related documents that were never meant to be available to the public. In fact, about half of the 20 improperly redacted documents I downloaded, including the March 28 report, contain deleted portions that all seem to come from one single, 1,000-word security memo. The editors kept pulling text from a document titled "Why Are the Attacks Down in Al-Anbar Province -- Several Theories." (The security memo and the last page of the March 28 report can be seen here, along with several other CPA documents that can be downloaded.)'"

9 of 419 comments (clear)

  1. The "U.S".? by sycodon · · Score: 0, Troll

    So a handful of people don't know about or how to use the track changes features in Word and that means the "U.S." is incompetent?

    Then, they are discussion the reasons for success and they means are incompetent?

    I suspect if the original poster held him/herself to the same standards they would hold everyone else, they would probably just kill themselevs for being incompetent.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  2. Re:The deleted section from the sample by frazzydee · · Score: -1, Troll

    Have you looked at the actual word document? Here's one sentence in particular that really sounds like they want the attacks to continue:
    "Over the past month attacks against the Coalition Forces in Al Anbar province have gone down from over 20 per day to next to none. There are a number of theories for why this is. It is entirely possible that this is merely a blip on the screen or a statistical aberration and we will return to larger numbers of attacks, but it has held for nearly five weeks now."

    So they're not merely pondering why attacks have decreased; it would seem that they want them to continue. After all, it would be difficult to justify staying in Iraq if there are no attacks against them.

  3. Re:Those who don't learn from history... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    And if I were to reply to that asinine comment with some countering witticism about the Anti-Bush crowd, I'd get modded to Troll, not insightful. C'est La Vie.

  4. Typical Bush-appologist Christer rhetoric. by FatSean · · Score: -1, Troll

    You truely are funny. Pray a little harder, douchebag, and maybe your crazy dreams about the Iraq Occupation will come true!

    --
    Blar.
  5. Re:I learned a long time ago... by Skapare · · Score: 0, Troll

    Sheesh! I know these steps and I don't even use Windows (I prefer Linux, usually text console command line).

    They will never be able to understand how to follow your steps. You'd have to show them how to do this in terms of pull down menus and mouse clicks, with full illustrations of every step. I bet some of them haven't even taken the coffee shield off their keyboard by half way through the day. They only understand mouse and graphics.

    --
    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
  6. Re:This "Feature" Has Been Known For Years by ShieldW0lf · · Score: -1, Troll

    The moral of the story is that secrets are bad. Secrets represent either conspiracy, incompetence or both. Without fail. They have no place in either government or business. It's time to insist on utter transparency in both.

    Publicly execute Bush and his crew and let weapons inspectors into the US. If you don't, you'll see what WWII looked like from the German side before you die with your cities in flames.

    --
    -1 Uncomfortable Truth
  7. Re:I agree (with your first bit), it was just a jo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    "Mainly, it was a joke. Don't take it too seriously."

    Ok. Now go and do it to the dumbocraps...

  8. Re:Those who don't learn from history... by The+New+Stan+Price · · Score: -1, Troll

    1) He was in violation of 12 UN resolutions as well as his surrender agreement. We could not verify that he destroyed the weapons that we verified he had during the first gulf war. We had proof that he had many at that time, and could not verify that he got rid of all of them. We could not take the chance after 9/11.

    2) While I agree that it doesn't make it right, if other people did it to then why do you choose to have selective moral outrage? These people lied, the press lied, our intelligence lied, German intelligence lied, British intelligence lied. The UN was corrupt in oil for food dealings. France and Germany (our "allies") were making secret deals with Saddam behind our backs. Where's the outrage over this?

    3) You have it backwards. The rich are who create the wealth in this country, and we owe them for giving us the opportunity to feed our families and buy big screen TVs. The average person doesn't apparently want to start new business, they'd rather work for someone else. The country is not a limited pie of wealth. Google didn't take wealth from some rich guy when they started their business. They created it, and they employed people and payed them a good salary. You are spewing Stalinist propaganda that only makes everyone broke in the end.

    4) You mentioned Bush screwing up in Afghanistan. The Taliban and Al Qaeda were allied in Afghanistan.

    5) Proof: France and Germany were dealing with Saddam, and the UN had its own little oil for food racketeer going...

    6) You call Bush a liar, then hand me a lie:

    A Portion of George Washington's personal prayers:

    "O Most Glorious God, in Jesus Christ, my merciful and loving Father; I acknowledge and confess my guilt in the weak and imperfect performance of the duties of this day. I have called on Thee for pardon and forgiveness of my sins, but so coldly and carelessly that my prayers are become my sin, and they stand in need of pardon." ...

    [from a 24 page authentic handwritten manuscript book dated April 21-23, 1752]


    In fact, in his first inaugural address:

      ..."it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government" ...

    What if Bush said something like that today in one of his speeches?

    7) Apparently, you are not aware of the pork that was included in the "surrender bill" handed to Bush? How about Murtha's latest deal for his district?

    You are the one being conned. Early mankind used spirituality to explain the laws of nature because they didn't know any different. Religion allowed societies to survive because it provided rules to live by that were built from experience and passed down from generation to generation (so that each generation would not repeat the same mistakes). Although people forgot why they had these rules to begin with, they followed them because they were part of their religious beliefs. Now that we have science, we throw out all those rules and call them religious dogma, not realizing that they served a greater purpose in society. Now we follow new rules made up by special interest groups, the media, the medical industry, sociologists and scientists. The rules are generally just pseudo-science dogma based on what is popular at the time. It will not be long before we suffer the consequences of our actions.

    BTW: Even Atheists have a god, they just don't realize it. Everyone bows to the alter of something.

  9. Re:Those who don't learn from history... by The+New+Stan+Price · · Score: -1, Troll

    1. George Washington was very religious, and there is a lot of proof that he was a Christian. He spoke of his faith in his inaugural address, asked for a King James Bible, and began the tradition of saying "so help me God." He spoke of the creator more times than George W. ever did. Although a few of the founding fathers were Deist, this was the exception and not the rule. In fact, those who were Deist can be divided into Christian Deists and non-Christian Deists. Saying that you are a Christian Deist is like saying you are non-denominational. You have to understand what was happening with the church at that time.

    2. There is no separation between church and state like most people want you to think. Congress cannot DISESTABLISH religion as much as it cannot establish it. The disestablishment clause is often conveniently ignored. George Washington's speeches prove this, our historical government documents prove this, state constitutions that mention God prove this, our money (in God we trust) proves this, other official's speeches prove this, the prayer in congress proves this, the inaugural process proves this. In fact, the Supreme Court violated the first amendment by ruling that that Alabama Judge could not display the 10 commandments in his courtroom. The Supreme Court was actually making a legal ruling, whereas that Judge was not. The next Judge to succeeded him had every right to take it down and put up a Buddha statue (albeit he would probably get flack from citizens). The government IS the people. If the majority is Christian, then the government will look and sound Christian. This is evident in our nation's history. Congress just cannot make laws establishing or disestablishing religion.