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Monday, July 25, 2005
We don't get many ambassadorial nominees
wearing solid gold suits. Very nice though.
Sure, it's not a Medal of Freedom, but Richard Jones gets a new gig:
President Bush on Monday picked Richard Jones, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's senior adviser on Iraq, to be the next U.S. ambassador to Israel.
Before Jones joined Rice at the State Department, Jones was second-in-command at the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. civilian entity that ran Iraq after the American-led invasion in 2003. Jones, a career diplomat with long experience in the region, has also been the U.S. ambassador to Kuwait, Kazakhstan and Lebanon.
His nomination must be approved by the Senate.
Perhaps it's too much to ask, but maybe, just maybe, a Senator might gently ask, "So. Where did all the money go?"
...and speaking of the whiz kids of the CPA, we see in comments over at Voice of the Taciturn (which is like Captains Quarters but much more butch) that Michael Ledeen makes a cameo commenting appearance:
How right you are. Remember that, a few years back, Prof Kennedy said there were three world empires: the American, the Japanese, and the Russian (Soviet). He said, at enormous length, that the American Empire was the least stable, and would fall first.
But hey, he's at Stanford, hardly anyone holds him accountable for his errors, and so he's free to pronounce on a subject about which, as you say, he doesn't know S&%$.
A coupla months back I was involved in a debate with Buchanan and Novak, and Novak said that what really got to him was Washington intellectuals who never sent their own kids to fight, but sent the underclass to die for the intellectuals' crazy ideas.
I suggested that he NOT try that out on 2nd Lt Gabriel Ledeen, USMC, or on Simone Ledeen, now a civilian working with the Pentagon in Afghanistan, or countless other children of "Washington intelletuals" (and New York intellectuals, even). We've entertained a lot of young Marines in our house the past few years, and most people would be surprised at their backgrounds: kids with advanced degrees from places like U of Chicago, Yale, Berkeley and Rice (only college grads qualify for Marine Officer Training School, which most people do not know). And the same holds true for the other services; we've got many friends with children in the Army, some are Rangers, others have Seals, you name it.
The Kennedy article made me sick. Thanks for nailing it.
michael ledeen(my emphasis)
Leaving aside Ledeen's membership in the Washington Intellectuals He-Man Club, we note that his daughter who was such a help in Iraq during the CPA "Hey. Anyone seen my Hefty Bag full of hundreds?" era, is now in Afghanistan.
Simone says they did a good job in difficult circumstances, but as Krugman pointed out:
Checks and review? Yesterday a leading British charity, Christian Aid, released a scathing report, "Fueling Suspicion," on the use of Iraqi oil revenue. It points out that the May 2003 U.N. resolution giving the C.P.A. the right to spend that revenue required the creation of an international oversight board, which would appoint an auditor to ensure that the funds were spent to benefit the Iraqi people.
Instead, the U.S. stalled, and the auditor didn't begin work until April 2004. Even then, according to an interim report, it faced "resistance from C.P.A. staff." And now, with the audit still unpublished, the C.P.A. has been dissolved.
Defenders of the administration will no doubt say that Christian Aid and other critics have no proof that the unaccounted-for billions were ill spent. But think of it this way: given the Arab world's suspicion that we came to steal Iraq's oil, the occupation authorities had every incentive to expedite an independent audit that would clear Halliburton and other U.S. corporations of charges that they were profiteering at Iraq's expense. Unless, that is, the charges are true.
Looks like Krugman was right and...Simone landed herself another job, proving that, in the Bush Administration, the Peter Principle is no longer operative and the sky is the limit.
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