Cheney may snub outspoken Japan Defense chief

February 12, 2007
Cheney may snub outspoken Japan Defense chief

TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States has asked Japan not to arrange a meeting between Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma, an apparent response to Kyuma's criticism of U.S. policy, Kyodo news agency said on Monday.

Last month, Kyuma irked the U.S. administration by saying the United States was wrong to start the war in Iraq. He also criticized Washington's handling of the relocation of a U.S. base in Japan.

Iraq VP: Iraqi occupation was idiotic

January 25, 2007
Iraq VP: Iraqi occupation was idiotic

DAVOS, Switzerland - The US-led occupation of Iraq after Saddam Hussein was toppled was an "idiot" decision, Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi said Thursday during the World Economic Forum here.

However, Mahdi cautioned that winning the "war" in Baghdad, where US troop levels have recently been reinforced, would be crucial to ending the spiral of violence in the country.

Blame the Top Brass

January 22, 2007 issue (posted January 16, 2006)
Blame the Top Brass

Petraeus was an exception. While other generals were trying by force to crush the insurgents,
Petraeus was working to isolate them by winning the population's hearts and minds. The commander of the 101st Airborne, he labored to pacify Mosul, the area of northern Iraq under his control in the first year after the invasion, by satisfying the people's needs: security, jobs, the repair of local utilities and the rebirth of local democracy. His success there led the press and military
establishment to regard him as a "water walker"; the praise heaped on him—NEWSWEEK ran a
cover story in July 2004 asking, "Can This Man Save Iraq?"—is qualified only by
jealousy.

Ex-Rice speechwriter: She doesn't have 'vaguest notion' of Middle East history

January 19, 2007
Ex-Rice speechwriter: She doesn't have 'vaguest notion' of Middle East history

Garfinkle added, "No one in a senior position in this administration seems to have even the
vaguest notion of modern Middle Eastern history."

"The reason that I cite some of these other times, like Europe, is that it is so clear in
everybody's mind that the United States and its allies came out victorious at the end of the Cold
War," she said in Kuwait. "But if you...look at the events that ultimately lead to that, you would
have thought that this was failing every single day between 1945-1946 and probably 1987 or
1988."