- OLEAN, NY - Yes, Christmas
is nigh, but I'll bet they're not exceedingly jolly at the White House.
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- The wholesale makeover of the returning Bush administration
may find the public in its usual slumber and general torpor over governmental
news, but Dubya took two big news hits over the weekend that -- as they
say in the trade -- have "legs."
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- These stories have the potential to continue smoldering
on their own -- with repeated updates and sidebars and spinoffs -- until
combustion occurs and Dubya is facing a bona fide scandal of politically
damaging proportions. You think he doesn't care, now that he's re-elected?
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- If he's a student of presidential history, he'd better
care. Richard Nixon thought Watergate was a "third-rate burglary"
when it first appeared in print. Bill Clinton figured Ken Starr would never
find the pizza-fetching intern's blue dress.
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- The first story involves -- big surprise -- Iraq.
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- About half the country has already faded in its initial
support of Bush's unilateral invasion of that country and now adamantly
opposes that war, which continues to go badly. Yes, yes -- I can hear you
protesting that many of those protesting are liberal wussies. The point
is, Dubya is in danger of losing a huge portion of his vaunted conservative
support if this story in question turns out to be reflective of Standard
Operating Procedure.
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- It turns out the military has been charging some injured
combat soldiers travel expenses to and from hospitals and billing them
for equipment that got lost in the chaos of their woundings.
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- Talk about adding insult to injury.
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- This came to light after Army Spc. Robert Loria, a 27-year-old
member of the Fourth Division, was injured by a bomb last February, and
ended up losing much of his left forearm.
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- He's from Middletown, N.Y., and went through lengthy
treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
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- Loria suffered extensive shrapnel injuries along the
left side of his body, a torn tendon in one ankle, and a left thigh bone
that was split right in two. Those were only the "minor" injuries.
He is now an amputee, with no left hand. Loria was looking forward this
month to going home for Christmas and toward being discharged early in
the new year. He was also looking forward to receiving a pay check for
more than $4,500. Instead, he was told by the Army he actually owed the
Army money, and instead of receiving any had to cough up $1,800 or he couldn't
leave his temporary duty station at Fort Hood in Texas. Wow, the Pentagon
has some tough bill collectors.
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- Loria's wife called her husband's hometown paper, the
Middletown Times-Herald Record, which ran the story. Pretty soon, New York
senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, plus Hudson-area congressmen,
were all over the Pentagon -- which was initially claiming that while Loria
was "deployed" at Walter Reed and losing what was left of his
arm, he was not entitled to a family separation allowance. This was bogus.
The nation's capital is not exactly on the Hudson River, and he was effectively
separated from his family.
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- Even after the Army relented, the brass and bean-counters
claimed it was merely a bureaucratic snafu. Damnable paperwork, don't you
know. It must be tough for a bureaucrat to keep track, what with almost
400 combat amputees coming home from Iraq at twice the lost-limb rate of
past American wars.
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- A couple of factors are at work here. Those who admire
Bush's invasion of Iraq generally say they do so because he's proactive
in fighting terrorism, because his iron will and toughness will keep America
safe, and because he is genuinely concerned with the welfare of this country's
fighting men and women. I suspect Bush supporters -- and even many of his
detractors on the war -- could generally give a rat's patootie about the
human rights of Iraqis, or whether they get the crap beat out of them in
Abu Ghraib prison, or whether the Sunnis or Shiites win the upcoming elections,
or what the native body count is. Concern for the survival and safety of
the American combat trooper is what you hear first and foremost in casual
conversation about Iraq.
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- You even hear it from the pulpit: We are against this
war, but let's all pray for the health and welfare of our brave young men
and women over there. All kneel.
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- If the public gets the idea Bush's brass, who have no
qualms about paying Halliburton and other no-bid providers gazillions of
taxpayer dollars for apparent phantom services, are now trying to diminish
the horrendous expenses of the Iraq misadventure by nickel-and-diming injured
soldiers -- amputees, for pity's sake! -- over hospital travel expenses
and bogus deployment costs, what support exists for the White House will
blow away in the winter wind.
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- And it appears that's what's happening. Clinton's office
is looking into at least 19 other cases in which similar payroll snafus
have landed on injured combat veterans.
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- Another factor is Dubya's desire to promote the Bush
family image of being able to boast there will be no more Vietnams.
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- The man who actually came up with that military promise
-- and executed it smartly in 1991 -- is Colin Powell, who was then chairman
of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff. Define your military goal, Powell
held, determine your offensive strategy, then crush the enemy with overwhelming
force. He meant what he said, and took only 42 days to drive Saddam Hussein's
vaunted troops from Kuwait and back to Baghdad. We were in and out.
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- Yet as Bush's secretary of state, ironically, Powell
was continually bad-mouthed by the neocons in Washington as a simpering
pansy who was not tough enough to administer American diplomacy in the
Middle East. Basically, he was driven from office -- and every day Iraq
is beginning more and more to resemble Vietnam.
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- Equipment is but one example. Citizens of a certain age
can remember combat troops returning from Vietnam constantly grumbled --
even testified before Congress -- that their rifles, small arms and other
weaponry were outdated, ill-designed and cheaply made. This time around,
we have supplied the combat units with very sophisticated modern weaponry,
immense fire power and innovative and advantageous fighting materiel --
but they have to scrounge through Iraqi dumps and garbage piles for metal
to armor their vehicles, especially Humvees and transport trucks. Some
practical grunts have even welded old refrigerator doors to their vehicles'
flanks.
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- The Bush administration initially blamed the shortage
of vehicle armor on delay in ramping up production lines back home. Not
to worry, the Pentagon said, our armor manufacturers are producing more
every week. Then somebody got the bright idea of asking the actual makers
of the scarce armor. Not our fault, they said -- the Pentagon never ordered
an increase in production, despite our sales efforts.
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- What is clear here is that the White House and Pentagon
never anticipated the power and scope of the insurgency in Iraq, nor understood
the depth of Islamic hatred for American hegemony. The Bush administration
went into Iraq on a wing and a prayer -- thus ignoring another principle
that Powell, ironically, successfully established for Bush the Elder: patient
planning to prevent poor performance.
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- The second bad news surprise for the White House just
before the weekend reflected another lack of diligence by the Bush administration.
After Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge resigned, the White House either
was lax in vetting his announced replacement, did so with a wink and a
nudge, was misled by the appointee, or discovered some very disturbing
personal history about the appointee but ignored it in the forlorn hope
the public would not learn of it.
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- Former New York City police commissioner Bernard B. Kerik
surprised even Dubya by abruptly withdrawing his nomination to replace
Ridge in the crucial Cabinet job. Kerik at first said it was for "personal
reasons" -- but his vanishing act occurred after questions bubbled
up about the immigration status of a housekeeper-nanny he employed but
apparently was paying without determining her illegal alien status, or
making Social Security deductions. If so, that's illegal. This certainly
would doom any chances of confirmation in the post, because Kerik would
have been in charge of enforcing and tightening immigration laws. How could
he have an illegal alien in his own home?
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- This curious facet of our rich culture has derailed other
Cabinet nominees. Clinton lost a potential attorney general to "Nannygate"
when Zoe Baird suffered the same problem. Dubya suffered the same problem
during his first month in office when he saw his nomination of prominent
conservative Linda Chavez for labor secretary similarly go up in smoke.
She had taken in and financially helped support a native of Guatemala without
proper papers -- then didn't tell Bush aides about it when nominated.
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- It must seem somewhat ironic to Kerik that his federal
career got blown up by an undocumented babysitter-maid when he had seemingly
negotiated far rockier shoals.
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- The current Bush administration didn't seem the least
bit concerned about previous news stories that Kerik, 49, was not your
average police chief. Securities and Exchange Commission records showed
Kerik made $6.2 million in exercise of stock options from Taser International,
the stun gun company. He had been a consultant with the big firm, and still
serves on the board of directors. The Taser company has already done substantial
business with the Department of Homeland Security -- which Kerik was supposed
to run -- and was unabashed in saying it intended to seek even more sales
to that agency, even if its own man was running it. The White House saw
no conflict of interest.
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- What's going on here? How many millionaire police chiefs
do you know? How many sit on the boards of directors of weaponry companies
with which they do business? Ridge, an honest man devoid of scandal, never
exhibited these problems.
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- The public could soon get the idea the current Bush administration
may be all about national security and anti-terrorism -- but, in its waning
years, more about collusion and profiteering.
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- http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/hanchette139.html
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