Sadly, No!

The New York Times, the newspaper of record unless Judith “Chalabi” Miller is writing, in which case it’s the newspaper of the Iraqi National Congress, reports:

MIRIYA, Iraq ? A seeming lapse in surveillance by American forces has led to the looting of dangerously radioactive capsules from Saddam Hussein’s main battlefield testing site in the desert outside Baghdad and the identification of at least one 30-year-old Iraqi villager, and possibly a village boy, as suffering from radiation sickness.

The liberal media, in its continued quest to suck up to the armed forces in general and Donald Rumsfeld in particular, labels this a “seeming” security lapse. Beholden to no one, we here would label this as a “WTF was that” kind of development. Especially given what follows in the NYT article:

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the American commander in Iraq, has ordered an investigation to discover why an arc of eight 75-foot radioactive testing poles at the site was not more closely guarded after American nuclear experts filed a report to the Pentagon identifying them as dangerous after a visit to the site on May 9, American officers said. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has also taken a personal interest in the case.

Under investigation is how American surveillance of the area, now under the control of the 82nd Airborne Division, failed to spot villagers entering the testing site with heavy vehicles to dismantle three of the poles, or towers, for scrap, leaving heavy tire tracks in the desert. …

American officers who oversaw the complex operation to recover the two unshielded capsules of cobalt-60 have hinted that the failure to identify the looting in September until two weeks later may have resulted from a work overload among experts who gather data from spy satellites.

Oh yeah, that makes us feel a whole lot better — the spies are overloaded with work, and people can get away with the theft of radioactive material from an area under US Army surveillance.

Thanks to Blair for the NYT article.

Last week we commented on something we’d read on Andrew Sullivan’s blog. Frankly our visits there are quite rare — we find that reading the incomparable SullyWatch is a much better use of our time instead. But this morning we were bored and made a quick stop at the Daily Dish. Oh my.

Ponder this: If you were asked to guess Sullivan’s (or any other similarly inept rightist blogger out there) “solution” to the recent bombings in Turkey, what would it be? Send more troops to Afghanistan to get rid of the Taliban and al-Qaeda? (For real this time, not pretend eliminate like 2 years ago.) Help the Turks apprehend those responsible? Make sure that Iraq gets better sooner rather than later? Or would you say: “Oh I know, the EU should let Turkey in, because that would, uh, well, it would, you know, let Turkey into the EU and that would mean, uh, you know, that Turkey is in the EU.” If you guessed the latter, please go to the service counter to claim your prize:

Now is surely the time to bring Turkey into the EU and to reassure them of our solidarity.

Note the comical use of the pronoun as well — “our” should be taken to mean the EU’s, an organization the right usually considers to be the creature of transnational progressivism, that mythical beast rumored to exist in the hallways of the European Commission. We bet that it would take anyone interested 30 seconds to find countless criticisms of the EU by our American friend Andrew Sullivan. But now, the EU (i.e. them, the Europeans) must let in Turkey into its ranks to show “our” solidarity. Looks to us like someone just hired Rush Limbaugh’s former maid — that Oxycontin is powerful stuff.

Andrew Sullivan offers this knee slapper today:

GOOD NEWS FROM AFGHANISTAN: 83 percent of a large polling sample say they are better off than three years ago.

The polling sample was large, but it didn’t cover the entire country. And why is that you ask? If you clicked on the link, you know why:

The aid groups stressed the survey does not necessarily represent the views of all Afghans, because security concerns prevented them from getting the opinions of those living in the most dangerous areas.

Sullivan concludes happily thus:

There is still much work to do in that country. But liberation has worked there. It can still work in Iraq.


Has worked? Let’s hope the people in charge are using a different definition of worked. Sadly, No! brings you this Afghanistan roundup:

The world according to David Frum:

So I had my own first-hand encounter with the BBC’s famous bias ? and it was indeed breathtaking. I took part in the BBC?s “Newsnight” program with two other guests … Before the three of us got to business, “Newsnight” broadcast an introductory video clip. It was that clip that was my perfect moment of news slanting. A reporter at the gates of Buckingham Palace told us that a small crowd was waiting for President Bush, and that its mood was mixed. Cut to clips from three members of that crowd: all negative. (One of the negative voices was American ? that was apparently all the balance the broadcaster required.) Now here’s the punchline: I recognized one of the three ? I’d seen him earlier that day at an anti-Bush rally in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. In the interim, he’d changed into casual tourist clothes ? and the BBC was now presenting him as a representative of ordinary British opinion.

I pointed out this distorting selection bias in my first answer to one of moderator Jeremy Paxman’s questions. He was very impatient with me.

Poor, poor David. Was the host impatient? Straight from the exclusive Sadly, No! transcript room, we offer the following:

Paxman: There were lots of people in that piece that were very supportive of George Bush. What is your point? [Although Frum wrote as though the Buckingham gates piece preceded the studio segment, it did not.]

Frum did concede that he referred to the first taped segment, and Paxman argued that one of the three people quoted was not, in fact, negative. Frum disagreed (“you’re quite wrong” he offered.) What had the first man said? This:

As a Londoner, I think we should respect the fact that he’s here. Yes, make your demonstration, at least it’s gonna be heard this time rather than, you know, from 7 or 6000 miles away in Washington, he’s not gonna hear, now at least you’ve got a chance to make your say.

And the second, “anti-Bush” fellow — the one who Frum presumably claims organized an anti-Bush rally? He offered this anti-American attack:

Him coming to this country is gonna make things worse than they already are. They’ve closed most of London just for this one person. 15,000 police officers, you know, it’s ridiculous.

Such vicious attacks on Bush, it’s a wonder he’s still alive over there. And by the way, is David Frum a moron or does he actually think that someone who organized an anti-Bush rally should not be quoted (for a few seconds) by the BBC? Did the BBC know the man to be the organizer of a rally? In Frum’s paranoid mind, they probably did it on purpose. And needless to say, the host of the BBC program might have acted surprised because the studio interview followed a long (and quite boring we thought) piece where many people were pro-Bush, pro-US or anti-European. (Using the somewhat infantile strategy where anyone that says something negative is anti- something and so on, you know, like Frum does.)

We suspect that Frum did not see the entire show he was on, but nevertheless drew conclusions about 30 seconds of a taped segment he did see. And frankly his assessment of said segment strikes us as, well, pretty incompetent.

There is no transcript online, but you can watch the video here. The Buckingham gates segment with the interviews starts about 2:30 minutes into the program. The studio interview with Frum & friends? Right around 19 minutes.

The Saddam-Osama Memo (cont.)

It depends on what the meaning of the word inaccurate is.

More for your money — shorter # 2:

I can assess the validity of intelligence reports better than the Pentagon.

Special bonus edition: two shorters for the price of one!

Safety First

Version 1

400 dead American soldiers, 11,000 Iraqi civilians killed, poorly trained domestic security forces, a slow slide into chaos like the one we see in Afghanistan, hospital looting… You know what? Maybe this war isn’t going well after all.

Version 2

The messes in Iraq and Afghanistan are the Democrats’ fault because they haven’t come up with any solutions for them.

David Frum has an offer you can’t help laughing at:

After years of monopolizing most of my house?s storage space, I have reluctantly been persuaded by wife and family that the time has come to part with my extra copies of my old books. So, question: would any NR readers be interested in purchasing signed copies?
... Hardcovers are available for $27 (or $34 in Canadian funds); paperbacks for $16 (or $20 Canadian). We pay shipping. Please send checks or money orders to...

Of course, we’re convinced Mr. Frum will be telling Mr. IRS about this latest ‘enterprise.’

The administration likes to highlight positive developments in Iraq. When electricity production equaled (and then exceeded) pre-war levels in October, the Coalition Provisional Authority was quick to trumpet this as proof that, however slowly, things are getting better.

On November 2, ABC reported that electricity production was, according to the CPA, at 4,518 MW. [Pre-war level was 3,300 – 4,400 MW, and the CPA has used 4,400 as its point of comparison.] There’s only one problem: It’s now been over a month since Iraq produced as much as 4,518 MW in a single day. The closest it’s come since was 4,237 MW, achieved the very next day, below what the CPA describes as the pre-conflict level.

In the 45 days since, Iraq has seen an average of 3,847 MW per day. So far this month the daily average has been 3,787 MW. The 7-day average has been under 4,000 MW/day since October 15.

Electricity production was at pre-war levels in mid-October. But a month later, it no longer is by the very standards the CPA has set. And yet, Paul Bremer brags about a level of electricity production not achieved in over a month. In the current issue of WORLD, Bremer is quoted as follows:

“Essential services are coming back,” Mr. Bremer said. Many towns and cities have 24-hour electricity for the first time ever. Mr. Bremer beams when he announces that Iraq now produces more than 4,400 megawatts of electricity, the peak of Saddam’s electricity. [Emphasis added.]

It might be time to stop beaming, because after coming back it looks like some basic services are going away again.

Update: uggabugga has been kind enough to post a graph showing peak production and MW hours since August, based on the CPA data.

The Coalition Provisional Authority has posted additional results and analysis from a Gallup poll conducted in Baghdad in late August/early September. The findings, to put it kindly, are a very mixed bag — and some defy our feeble analytical skills. To wit:

Exclusive to Sadly, No!, EvilWatch? seeks to keep you updated on the use of the word “evil” in L. Paul Bremer’s speeches to the citizens of Iraq.

Two weeks ago the word evil was used 9 times in Bremer’s address on the eve of Ramadan. And this week? Things seem to have gotten slightly less evil, as the term was used only 7 times.

There is dignity in serving your country under arms to ward off evil … Every person is born with dignity and keeps it until he forfeits it by evil acts … For years the evil one and his henchmen stole your dignity in ways large and small. … the fear that an evil-doer will destroy your family with a car bomb, … the fear that some evil-doer will govern through greed, ignorance and cruelty, … The evil-doers, those who bring suicide bombs to your cities and threats to your schools, will be captured or killed. … Together we shall defeat the evil-doers. … And after you have elected that government, the indignity of occupation will end.

The word of the week was (in)dignity, which appeared 31 times.

Letters, they get letters. In other news, part of the latest letter posted on the CPA web site:

The world should realise that Saddam himself is the WMD, he is the most evil killing machine the world has ever known recently.

The worst the world has ever known recently. That’s something.