Who Stole the American Dream? Hedrick Smith's Healing Mission

Hedrick Smith is on a mission to: Reclaim the American Dream. The Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter, and multiple Emmy award-winning producer and correspondent for PBS and FRONTLINE is on a mission to expose: "Who Stole the American Dream" (his must-read book), and how we became a divided America that left the Middle Class behind with an educational and action-based initiative: "Reclaim the American Dream" at this website: reclaimtheamericandream.org/.

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Frontline's Exposé of Iraq War Endgame Strategy

by Janet Ritz

Frontline's latest documentary, ENDGAME (what when wrong, and why, in America's tragically failed effort to find a strategy for success in Iraq), shows a shocking level of incompetence leading to the options we face now:

On Dec. 19, 2006, President George W. Bush said for the first time that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq. It was a dramatic admission from a president who had insisted since the start of the war that things were under control.

Now, as the U.S. begins what the administration hopes is the final effort to secure victory through a "surge" of troops, [snip] military and government officials talk to FRONTLINE about both the military and political events that have led up to the current "surge" strategy.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/endgame/

The fifth in a series on the Iraq war, this documentary casts a clear light on the mistakes made at the highest levels, both from a civilian and military point of view.

In a particularly telling segment, Thomas Ricks from the Washington Post refers to the army's early strategy as: "War Tourism."

"You have war tourism. Units based on big forward operating bases - FOBS, going out and doing patrols from Humvees, usually not foot patrols, but mounted patrols, and then coming back to their base. If that's the way you're operating, you're not in the war. You're simply a war tourist."

General Jack Keane (Ret.), former Army Vice Chief of Staff, added:

"When you look back on that, and analyze that, it's a short war strategy. Nowhere in there, is a plan to defeat the insurgency."

The documentary points out that the original strategy was to leave Iraq by Sept. '03, that the top generals in charge were brought back shortly after the invasion and command was assigned the "lowest ranked three start general in the Pentagon" (Sanchez) for what what was, essentially, supposed to be a mopping up and withdrawal operation.

The narrator says the planning did not account for an insurgency.

One can't help but remember Saddam Hussein saying -- prior to the start of the war -- if you attack we'll turn Iraq into another Vietnam.

In fairness to Gen. Casey (the four star general brought in to replace Sanchez after Abu Ghraib), he was one of the first to point out that the solution needed to be political, not military, after he realized his requests for more troops would not be met.

He brought in a large group of military strategists (Casey's Ph.D's) who tried to figure out the best way fight the insurgency without alienating moderate Sunnis. At one point, they suggested the military hold off on attacking the insurgents at Fallujah until they could figure out a way to reach out to the moderate Sunnis.

That strategy lasted until Nov. 8, 2004 (just after the Iraqi election). Then the army was sent in to take Fallujah.

"Ultimately," according to Major Thomas Mowle, one of the advisers that Casey had assembled, "if you draw out all the events that followed Fallujah, that certainly decreased the Sunni Arab support and, in that sense, it did help the insurgency."

The Iraqi elections produced warnings from Casey's Ph.D's that the Sunni boycott had split the Iraqi government into something that would increase the insurgency and prevent a political solution at the same time that Bush's rhetoric was painting the result at Fallujah as a success.

It's important to note that it was not that the military on the ground that failed. Specifically, the successful strategy created by a Col. H.R. McMaster (Clear, Hold and Build), where his troops went into a city, lived among the population in small units, built trust and protected the population while they fought the insurgents.

Requests to implement his strategy that went up the ranks were stopped at the highest levels. The reasons given: it would take more troops and put them in more danger. Thomas Rick's reaction: you can't fight a war as a tourist." It was not implemented by the Pentagon.

The State Department representative in Iraq heard about "Clear, Hold and Build" and flew back to tell Condoleeza Rice. Rice then went before Congress and, in what turned out to be a direct challenge to Rumsfeld, formally recommended the Clear, Hold and Build strategy during a hearing that was broadcast live.

Rumsfeld quickly held a press conference where he said (paraphrase): we didn't have the troops to implement it and it wasn't our responsibility to protect the Iraqis.

The insurgency exploded.

The State Dept and several generals did not give up on the idea of Clear, Hold and Build, however. While acknowledging it would put more troops at risk, they pointed to Col. McMasters' success as the only feasible strategy, and also noted, in what was described as an act of sheer will on McMasters' part, that he managed to do it with the limited number of troops he'd been given.

Limited was the condition during the summer of '06 when Clear, Hold and build was tried on a "limited" basis -- enough resources to clear but not to hold, with Iraqi troops for the hold part.

Which Gen. Keane says was doomed to failure.

Which it did (just before the '06 elections).

Rumsfield's departure soon followed. After that, the drive for the strategy of Clear, Hold and Build began to gain momentum, renamed "Surge", which Keane was told to put together for a presidential briefing. He says he was clear with President Bush about the resources needed, the risks, the need for a political solution, etc.

Keane came away from the meeting thinking he had a consensus.

But Thomas Ricks, referring to Dick Cheney as the "Moby Dick" of the administration, said that Vice President "Cheney, as a rule, goes in after meetings and works on Bush until he changes the outcome of decisions."

As a result, the Clear, Hold and Build, which had worked with McMasters, began with exponentially less troops than were needed to provide success.

Gates and Petraeus then came on board. General Petraeus, who Ricks describes as a realist, a strong advocate of Clear, Hold and Build, brought both Keane and McMasters into his inner circle once he took command and ordered the implementation of the "Surge" years after McMasters had proven its feasibility.

Some conclusions after viewing the documentary:

1. The planning from the start was to go in and get out within a few months. Anything that didn't fit in with that strategy was disregarded.


2. The bases and embassy planned were part of a combination army and contractor force that would stay to protect oil resources and as a forward operating base on both Syria and Iran's borders, while the combat invasion forces would be withdrawn.


3. The experienced commanding generals were called back within a few months of the invasion and the command.


4. The successful strategy developed early on by Col. McMasters, Clear, Hold and Build, was not supported by Rumsfeld and, as such, was not implemented until the arrival of Gates and Petreus.
   


5. Condolezza Rice did see the value in Clear, Hold and Build enough to challenge both Cheney and Rumsfeld by going before Congress to advocate for it.


6. The Clear, Hold and Build strategy was refused by Rumsfeld at a time when the circumstances on the ground might have allowed that strategy to provide for a political solution.


7. After Rumsfeld was ousted, Clear, Hold and Build was put into planning stages, resulting in what is described now as "The Surge."

LINKS:

FRONTLINE: ENDGAME on PBS.

And the five part FRONTLINE ENDGAME SERIES ON THE IRAQ WAR (Video)

The Hot Politics Behind Global Warming

by Janet Ritz

PBS's Frontline has produced a well researched and troubling documentary entitled: "Hot Politics - Examining the politics behind the US Government's Failure to act on the biggest environmental problem of our time"

As more and more Americans look for a response to the realities of climate change, FRONTLINE correspondent Deborah Amos investigates the political decisions that have prevented the United States government from confronting one of the most serious problems facing humanity today.

Starting with the first Bush administration, the documentary shows the purposeful neglect and obscurification behind the politics of global warming, from both sides of the aisle.

Timeline: A chronology of the strengthening science on global warming -- and the United States' failure to address the issue.

Co-produced by the Center for Investigative Reporting, the documentary reveals an action plan memo from Joe Walker, a public relations representative of the American Petroleum Institute, that:

describes a strategy that had been used effectively by the tobacco industry in earlier years: attack the science. "Because the science underpinning the global climate change theory has not been challenged effectively in the media or through other vehicles reaching the American public," states the memo. "[T]here is widespread ignorance, which works in favor of the Kyoto treaty and against the best interests of the United States."

The coalition sought to recruit five scientists to speak to the media, distribute research papers undercutting conventional scientific wisdom, funnel a steady stream of information to science writers at newspapers and magazines, produce opinion pieces authored by scientists, and convince journalists to re-examine the theory of global warming. Scuttling Kyoto and making climate change a "non-issue" were the stated goals of all this work.

http://www.pbs.org/...

The report identifies which senators, congresspeople, business and administration officials worked to solve the problem and those whom worked aggressively to keep it from being solved.

At a press conference last year the president told a reporter that the "fundamental debate" was whether climate change was "manmade or natural." Vice President Dick Cheney echoed that view in a recent interview with ABC News.

Christie Todd Whitman is interviewed and does not pull her punches on the Bush Administration:

"The way it happened was the equivalent to flipping the bird, frankly, to the rest of the world ... on an issue about which they felt so deeply." That is how former New Jersey governor and the former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Christine Todd Whitman describes the Bush administration's decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol...

Robert Byrd, Chuck Hagel and others, do not come out so well.

As Bush says: "Climate Change, with its potential to impact every corner of the world, is an issue that must be addressed by the world."

He then goes on to trash the Kyoto accords and refuses to sign them...

Well, he got part of it right.

The documentary also pins down the infamous Frank Luntz, the Republican strategist whose global warming denying memo became the talking points of the GOP:

The full text of pollster and political consultant Frank Luntz's memo coaching Republicans on how to speak about global warming -- or, as Luntz might counsel, "climate change." While Luntz says he now believes global warming is real, his strategy of doubting the science was embraced by some prominent Republican politicians.

Rick Piltz and other scientists and journalists describe how the science was suppressed and James Hansen relays how he was told not to speak about science or policies on climate change:

"I don't think my opinion about policies has any more weight than anyone else, but I don't think I should be prevented from saying it or from connecting the dots."

James Hansen - NASA Goddard Space Sciences Institute

The surprise of the report? The coalition of big business and environmentalists (The United States Climate Action Partnership - USCAP) that has come together to demand that Congress cap C02:

USCAP Members Include:

• Alcan Inc.
• Alcoa
• American International Group, Inc. (AIG)
• Boston Scientific Corporation
• BP America Inc.
• Caterpillar Inc.
• ConocoPhillips
• Deere & Company
• The Dow Chemical Company
• Duke Energy
• DuPont
• Environmental Defense
• FPL Group, Inc.
• General Electric
• General Motors Corp.
• Johnson & Johnson
• Marsh, Inc.
• National Wildlife Federation
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• The Nature Conservancy
• PepsiCo
• Pew Center on Global Climate Change
• PG&E Corporation
• PNM Resources
• Shell
• Siemens Corporation
• World Resources Institute

http://www.us-cap.org/

This is a stunning documentary that presents its evidence in a clear and irrefutable manner. It should be shown in every science and political science classroom and, as we face fires, floods, tornadoes and environmental refugees, by everyone else, as well, so we know who to curse as our planet shudders in horror at our neglect.

Here's a link the video of the documentary.

Here's a link to the PBS page on the story.

And this link to see where your state stands on the issue.