I think that's the same excuse they used for all those bricks of money that they Iraqis walked out with.

"Look, we didn't lose them, we just have no fricking clue where they are!"

This clusterf*ck is in a category all it's own!

This is old news already. Come on Jon get ahead of the curve!

In the interview, Petraeus also said he will tell Congress in his September report that the “surge” is working.

“We are making progress. We have achieved tactical momentum in many areas, especially against al-Qaida in Iraq and to a lesser degree against the militia extremists,” Petraeus said. “We are also heartened by the number of Iraqi tribes and local citizens who have rejected al-Qaida.”

For the Doublethink impaired, a translation:

"Yes. We are making progress in Iraq. However, this progress is all completely subjective, and is all in areas that we cannot actually measure with any numbers, quantify in any sense, or in any other way provide factual proof of. I can assure you, we have lots more 'heartening,' 'momentum,' and 'tacticalness.' No, I do not have any proof of this, you America hater."

draft should be considered? per the Pres. new war advisor.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8QUECGG1&show_article=1

aw come on. profound incompetence? major incompetence, even incredible incompetence?? we have to save "profound" incompetence for what is yet to come.

oh and Petraus is turinging in to a BushCo political hack as well

Gen. Petraeus should have watched that episode of M*A*S*H where 100 dinner trays went missing.

General Betray-Us will go down in history as the BIGGEST POLITICAL HACK that the US military has ever produced.

Bush wanted a YES MAN, and he combed the General Ranks till he found one... then put him in charge of SPINNING THE WAR TO CONGRESS.

Why the Democrats in Congress are falling for this Dog And Pony Show I will never understand.

I wonder how much an AK-47 is going for on the streets of Baghdad these days? I'd like to mail-order one for a little extra "protection" here on the home front. Where do I send a check... Headquarters Platoon in the Green Zone??

General Betray-Us LOST THAT KIND OF FIRE-POWER under his command?

No, no, of course we didn't.

He says we just forgot to write it down when we handed all those weapons over to Iraqi security forces.

I think today I'll walk on to a new car lot, grab the keys, and drive off.

When I'm arrested for stealing, I'll just say I already gave them the money, but I forgot to write it down.

L.A. Confidential @ 4:

This is old news already. Come on Jon get ahead of the curve!

To be fair, it's just that theres too much to cover.

The Daily Show producers need at least three more spin-off shows just to keep up with the scandals from the White House alone.

Why of course it's just a clerical error. I misplace 200,000 guns clerically every day, and 100s of thousands of barrels of oil every day too.

99 @ 19:

What makes anyone think those weapons went anywhere other than where they were intended to go?

Well, if you mean Blackwater or even insurgents, I guess it's like a cat when it accidentally falls on its feet with the look, "I meant to do that".

BTW 99, 86 is on his shoephone, saying he missed those weapons BY THAT MUCH.

I hope people aren't generally so naive that they would think this is actually only due to incompetence. How much "coincidental incompetence" does the people need to see before they realize there is something more sinister behind it?

One of the reasons the Bush administration has been able to keep up the destruction and looting and banana-republic-police-state'iziation of America (and screwing the rest of the world while at it), is that the media has always been very good at describing Bush as "incompetent" and "stupid" when the disastrous consequences of his policies gets knows to the public they hurt. It's a way of perfuming the truth, even when having to tell the people how bad things are going.

I have come to the conclusion that the truly ignorant, irrational and psychopathic Bush is there to be framed for everything that went "wrong" in the people's eyes, while the people behind him, that exploited him to do their bidding, will have completed their objectives.

For corporatists NeoCon elitists, it will always be "Mission Accomplished".

They got their money and contracts and deals. They got their surveillance to protect them from the people. They got their oil in Iraq and Afghanistan. They got their fear of terrorism for many years ahead. They got their diversions and their even stronger media consolidation. They got your Habeas Corpus and your Magna Carta and thus your BIll of Rights.

Also, they proved that they could do all this, almost in the open daylight (of the "educated thought" and "historical knowledge" we somehow is supposed to have in the West), without getting caught, and they might even get a small-minded fool like Bush to take the blame throughout history for their crimes.

They will surely keep doing it until it stops working. The Bush presidency has so far been a marvelous success.

I am disgusted that America could be deceived by the same Nihilist Machiavellian self-proclaimed-elitist and hostile-to-humanity philosophy that gave us Fascism and Communism 80-90 years ago.

When you find out that part of the NeoCon ideology is to tell lies and confuse a public "unworthy" of true freedom, things start making sense.

The public will need to have some more faith in the planning ability of his fellow men instead of blaming stupidity and incompetence for everything the elite does "wrong" in the publics eyes. Remember, the NeoCons regard themselves as an elitist cult destined to rule over the inferior masses. They probably laugh at how they are getting away with the equivalent to a pickpocket saying his hand accidentally fell into your pocket.

Life is beautiful. They sent fewer feet on the ground initially possibly
because of WMD's. They didn't want a large force disabled by nerve gas.
This is giving Cheney the (undeserved) benefit of the doubt.
But even after declared victory they still didn't guard the weapons dumps.
This is not the fog of war, this is something else. If I were a crazy guy
I would call it deliberate.

Another classic!!!!!

Thanks Jon.

Are We Just Playing Dumb

If there were ever a case for a misguided impression of people's intelligence, this is one of those instances. The masterful General David Patreaus cannot account for almost 200,000 Russian made AK47 assault rifles and pistols. This is not the first time this has happened; in 2004, 14,000 rifles came up missing. In fact, government accountability office (GAO) reports showed 30% of weapons issued to Iraqis could not be found.

"The highest previous estimate of missing weapons was 14,000, but a new report from the government accountability office (GAO) said US military officials did not know what had happened to 30% of the weapons the US had given to Iraqi forces since 2004."

This lack of accountability falls directly on the back of General Patreaus. The "Golden Boy" with the up coming progress report of our successful endeavors in Iraq. For the rifles alone, he has failed to make an impression that the surge did any good except possibly arm Al Qaeda or who ever it is we fight in Iraq.

This is really trying the patience of the anti-war factions. They can only see this as a accumulation of, I don't know what happen to things, military write offs.

First there was the 9,I don't know where it went, billion unaccounted for dollars for which no one kept account of. Who could forget Paul Bremer who could only say, in affect, he gave the money away, but he did not keep records as to who they gave the money to.

"At the end of the Iraq war, vast sums of money were made available to the US-led provisional authorities, headed by Paul Bremer, to spend on rebuilding the country. By the time Bremer left the post eight months later, $8.8bn of that money had disappeared. Ed Harriman on the extraordinary scandal of Iraq's missing billions."

When we first invaded Iraq, many critics claimed the US just wanted their oil. To lose money is one thing, but to lose oil is almost unbelievable. At one point, Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq's declared oil production was unaccounted for.

"Using an average of $50 a barrel, the report said the discrepancy was valued at $5 million to $15 million daily."

To steal oil in this way takes major hardware. Would you believe this has been going on for the last four years? This is food feast for conspiracy theorist. Hell, you don't have to be a theorist to believe something is going on. If you don't have some suspicions, you lack the ability to use commonsense.

To maintain some measure of trust and respect, the information concerning missing goods and money is given freely. The Bush administration and his Generals have adopted honesty for their primary defense. They assert, if they tell you some portion of the truth, you are more likely to believe the lie attached to the small portion of truth they have provided.

This issue needs to be kept before the American people. Americans need to tell their congressional rep. to count this shit up, so whenever this is brought up, it will have the accumulated sense of outrage this lie deserves.

Joseph

Incompetence? Surely you jest. This has been the most successful presidency in the history of our country. They have succeeded beyond even their wildest dreams I suspect. They have looted our treasury, shredded the constitution, turned us into a virtual dictatorship, exposed our "democracy" for what is really is/was, and will walk away scott free.

Loosing hundreds of tons of explosives, thousands of weapons, millions of barrels of oil and billions of dollars requires the talents of many purpose driven, highly motivated and well organized professionals.

I really thought is going to do a take off on the Bermuda Triangle for that one, certainly we've seen to lost more things in the Euphrates Triangle then possibly anywhere else on the planet.

I wonder? Does the new Iraqi Constitution have a Second Amendment?

I just don't think that there enough guns in Iraq.

Interesting. Since the US military uses M-16s and the "terrorists" use AK47s, I'm just wondering why the Pentagon had this type of weapon in Iraq in the first place. Sure reeks of a Kissenger style proxy war.