Iraq Denial

Denial ain't a river in Egypt, but it does appear to be a bay in Cuba. The U.S. government, from George W. Bush on up to Dick Cheney, repeatedly dismisses Amnesty International's claim of torture, solitary imprisonment, and worse at the Guantanamo Bay prison where several combatants who may or may not be connected with al-Qaeda are held. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in fact, says that no one in their right mind should take claims from the London-based human rights group seriously. Never mind that Rumsfeld cited Amnesty International's record of Saddam Hussein's human rights violations in Iraq as a reason for invading that country. Guess he wasn't in the right frame of mind at the time, but then Rumsfeld - who once met with Saddam in the eighties as a liaison for President Ronald Reagan to help Iraq build up its military arsenal - hasn't been in anything resembling a right frame of mind for thirty years now.

Vice President Cheney, meanwhile, has cited the lessening number of attacks in Iraq as proof that the insurgents are losing. Oh yeah? Then how come their attacks are killing more people than when the strikes were more frequent, as Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers admitted in an unguarded moment? Cheney believes that the United States can withdraw from Iraq before the Bush administration leaves office in January 2009 - or even before the 2008 election to, I'm sure, help the Republican presidential nominee - but it's increasingly likely that the next President will either have to keep troops in Iraq or send them back. It's going to get worse there before it gets even worse.