Congresswoman Boyda held a teleconference today to discuss her just-completed trip to Iraq and Turkey, where she met with Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus in Iraq, and in Turkey the US Ambassador Wilson and the Turkish Defense Minister Gönül, Prime Minister Erdoğan and President Gul. I'm going to focus on Iraq.
In her prepared remarks, she made clear she believes that the downward spiral of escalating violence has stopped, and begun a slow, upward, positive trend. Or, as she said, "The undeniable fact is, violence is significantly down in Iraq, and everyone should be extremely grateful for that."
Which she then caveated thusly: "General Petraeus and General Gaskin do not want to overstate what is going on - they don't want to jinx it. It is very fragile, and they know it."
A sensible caveat on the part of the Generals, methinks.
Explaining why she thinks things are showing an uptick, she made 4 points.
1. She talked about the "Awakening" or Sunni Tribal Revolt and how that set the stage for the Sunnis to begin to move towards a reconciliation with the Shi'a-dominated government, at least in uniting to rid Iraq of the foreigners running AQI.
2. The Surge. The increased troop presence and stepped-up operations that started taking apart AQI and providing time for Iraqi security forces to organize and train.
3. The "outstanding leadership" of General Petraeus in both managing the application of violence and engaging with leaders of both sides of the Shi'a-Sunni divide, with the premise that "we are not going to continue to infuriate the Iraqis all the time, we are going to understand their culture and work within it." Clearly, Nancy is *not* a subscriber to the "General Betray-us" viewpoint.
4. And lastly, she credits Defense Secretary Gates with his comments to the Congressional "Army Caucus" and the press that the debate in Congress was helping advance things in Iraq - not only was it Congress' job to ask the questions, it was sending a clear message to the Iraqi government that the American presence was not going to be open-ended - the Iraqis were going to have to come to grips with their problems.
Bill Felder of the Manhattan Mercury asked Representative Boyda what her comfort level was with what she was being told about how things were going? In other words - was Petraeus and Co. just making smoke? Her response was that on her first trip over, General Petraeus was clearly nervous about how things were progressing, but now he seemed relaxed and confident. Plus, on her first trip, the travel restrictions were much greater, but this time around the security situation was such that they could move around much more freely than before. Ambassador Crocker had more news to relate regarding positive (if glacial) political trends. She noted that the troops morale was high, as they could see (and were eager to relate) the fruits of their efforts... and that in general, the message she got was consistent, and she didn't have the sense that people were sugar-coating things, and in fact were trying to keep expectations down.
Boyda was pushed by Peter Hancock from Kansas Public Radio who asked about the surge - the purpose of it being to buy the Iraqis time to get their political act together - where was the political surge?
Nancy responded that things are beginning to happen, albeit slowly (something I referenced in a post earlier today). Oil profit sharing is happening in a de-facto manner, even though the enabling legislation has not been passed. The Iraqi gov't is preparing a pension law that will reinstate government pensions earned under the Hussein regime, and that they are grappling with how to reintegrate the Ba'athists into civil and government life - recognizing that a lot of the experience needed to make things work lies with the Sunnis who ran most of the basic services under Saddam.
She was then pushed on the issue of how long will she support maintaining the current troops levels in Iraq. Her response there was her weakest of the telcon - she didn't give an answer, truly (She's starting to get some political skillz). She reiterated her concern that, as events in Pakistan show, the world is a dangerous place, and as a parade of senior military personnel have told the HASC, we would be hard-pressed to respond in a timely fashion to any new threat requiring a military response. She does not believe the "reset" of our military forces is proceeding fast enough - but didn't offer any way forward on how to reconcile the continued support of Iraq with the other imperatives of resetting the military's posture and readiness, and none of us pressed her on that.
I justified my presence on the call by asking if she had anything to say regarding the President's pending veto of the bill funding DoD. She said she didn't think there was anything "nefarious" in the President's decision to veto - she just wished that the Administration had noticed the Section 1083 problem before this point... She said she believes as soon as Congress gets back in session they will work with the President to make sure the troops get their raises and DoD gets it's funding.
We certainly hope so!
Update: Ms. Boyda complained that she wished the Administration had brought up it's objections to the bill prior to passage. In the Flash Traffic/Extended Entry the Administration posits that it did just that - by objecting to Section 1087 in the Senate version (which became in Section 1083 in the version passed) and did so in November.
Ms. Boyda, not being on the conference committee for the bill obviously didn't see the issue - and this is indicative of the huge flaws in the budget process, where the lack of transparency allows all sorts of mischief to sneak in - especially in huge bills, passed late and under a lot of pressure.
Hell of a way to run a business. Heh. No business could run this way. And the only reason countries can is because they can change the rules when they want and not be held accountable. And since *we're* the ones who are supposed to be the check and balance on the government, we're a lousy shareholder class!
Setting The Record Straight:
Defense Authorization Bill Veto Necessary To Secure Gains In Iraq
Administration Committed To Working Quickly With Congress To Secure Military Pay Raise And Provide Technical Fix Protecting Political And Economic Progress That Is Critical To Bringing Our Troops Home
"Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have acknowledged the importance of political and economic progress in Iraq, yet Congressional Democrats are now decrying the President's action to keep a flawed provision in the defense authorization bill from unacceptably interfering with progress that is critical to bringing our troops home. The Administration is committed to working quickly with Congress as soon as they return to fix this provision and ensure the gains our troops have fought for in Iraq are not endangered."
─ White House Deputy Press Secretary Scott Stanzel, 12/28/07
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Have Acknowledged The Importance Of Political Progress In Iraq, Yet Today Inconsistently Call A Veto Of The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) "Needless" ("Pelosi And Reid Condemn Bush Plan To Veto Of Defense Authorization Bill," Press Release, 12/28/07)
· Provisions included in the NDAA will hurt the interests of the United States by unacceptably interfering with political and economic progress in Iraq that is critically important to bringing our troops home.
o By tying up Iraqi assets in litigation, Section 1083 of the NDAA would have a potentially devastating impact on the democratically elected Government of Iraq . Among other things, Section 1083 of the NDAA was crafted to allow plaintiffs' lawyers pursuing claims against Iraq for Saddam-era acts of terrorism to freeze Iraq 's assets in the amount of damages claimed in their lawsuits, and would permit the relitigation of billions of dollars of lawsuits against Iraq that have already been dismissed by our courts.
o Section 1083 would allow plaintiffs' lawyers to tie up billions of dollars in Iraqi funds for reconstruction that our troops in the field depend on to maintain security gains.
o Section 1083 would also pose extraordinarily grave financial risks to Iraq at a crucial juncture in that nation's reconstruction efforts.
Sen. Reid And Speaker Pelosi's Opposition To A Veto Of The NDAA Is Inconsistent With Their Previous Statements About The Importance Of Political Progress In Iraq
· Sen. Reid called political reconciliation the "primary goal" in Iraq . (Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "Bush Sees Iraq Progress From Troop Buildup," The New York Times, 11/3/07)
· Speaker Pelosi acknowledged "the purpose of the surge was to create a secure environment in which the Iraqi government would have the opportunity to make … political change." (Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Press Conference , U.S. Capitol, 11/15/07)
Sen. Reid And Speaker Pelosi Also Misleadingly Claim The President's Veto Would "Needlessly [Delay] Implementation Of The Troops' Pay Raise" Authorized By The NDAA
· Even without the NDAA, our troops will receive a 3 percent pay raise as of January 1. The NDAA includes authorization for a 0.5 percent additional pay raise for U.S. troops.
· The Administration has committed to acting quickly with Congress to ensure the full 3.5 percent military pay raise provided by the NDAA will go into effect as quickly as possible and be retroactive to January 1.
In Addition, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) Wrongly Claims "The Administration Failed To Identify The Concerns Upon Which This Veto Is Based Until After The Bill Had Passed Both Houses" (Sen. Carl Levin, Statement On The President's Veto Of The National Defense Authorization Act, Press Release, 12/28/07)
· The Administration raised serious objections to this proposal during the legislative process and commented on its potential adverse impact on Iraq .
o Letter From Attorney General Michael Mukasey, 11/13/07: "Section 1087 of the Senate version [which contained similar objectionable provisions as Section 1083 of the enrolled bill] would disturb the tradition of official immunity by extending [the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act's] statutory abrogation of immunity to official foreign acts that, unlike the acts currently covered by the FSIA, the United States has long treated as immune in accordance with international law absent an Executive branch recommendation to the contrary. For these legal reasons, as well as many policy reasons, we have grave concerns about whether this provision should be enacted. …[P]aragraph (d)(2), seems intended to revive a case against Iraq ... Reinstatement of this case would result in the resuscitation of asserted claims of almost a billion dollars against the Government of Iraq, which could disrupt current foreign policy economic recovery initiatives in that region." (Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Letter To Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, 11/13/07)
o Letter From State Department Assistant Secretary For Legislative Affairs Jeffrey Bergner, 10/30/07: "[T]he Administration strongly opposes section 1087. The Administration urges conferees to strike these provisions as they are also not germane to this bill and warrant careful consideration by committees of relevant jurisdiction and close consultation with the Administration." (Assistant Secretary For Legislative Affairs Jeffrey T. Bergner, Letter To Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, 10/30/07)
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