First the Washington Times "Inside the Beltway" columnist John McCaslin reports information he received from Rep. Peter King(R-NY) about an Iraq statement Kerry allegedly made when the two were on a Crossfire show in November, 1997. The gist of King's claim was that Kerry, during the show,endorsed a preemptive strike against Iraq. King claimed he had a videotape to prove Kerry made the statement. The Washington Times said no transcripts were available.

Drudge picked the story up. But even Tom MacGuire and Powerline were skeptical.

Lexis to the rescue. Of course there are Crossfire transcripts from 1997. Transcript obtained. Kerry never said it.

Today's Washington Times contains this retraction by McCaslin:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday said elections in Iraq will take place as scheduled in January--with some exceptions. Here's SK Bubba's take:

I'm guessing these would be the Shiite regions. Because if they could vote, they would control the government and install an Islamic theocracy. Which would not be good for business. Better to have a secular Baathist government run by the Sunnis. You know, like they had under Saddam. Like the one Cheney and Rumsfeld did business with in the 1980s. Meet the new boss...

Salem Chalabi, the former director of the Iraqi war crimes tribunal, warns that the interim Allawi government intends to hold a quick and dirty show trial of Saddam Hussein to boost Allawi's chances in the January elections:

"The caretaker government wants to begin the trials, and possibly even conclude them, before the Iraqi elections scheduled for late January because they believe this will help their popularity in the country," Chalabi said in the statement. "In addition, the accused have not had access to lawyers. How could fair trials begin quickly without the accused having access to legal counsel?"

He said the investigations were not ready for indictments or trials that would meet minimum legal standards. "It is increasingly clear that the interim government does not intend to honor these principals," he said.

Chalabi said the charges brought against him in August have been dropped, although he is still under investigation for murder of a foreign ministry official.

The military has announced it's recruiting goal for Army national guard soldiers will fall short by 5,000.

It will be the first time since 1994 that the Guard has missed its sign-up goal.

Two reasons are given:

One reason is the active-duty Army is prohibiting soldiers already in units in Iraq or Afghanistan — or preparing to deploy there — from leaving the service, even if their enlistment term is up. The other reason, [Army Lt. Gen. H. Steven]Blum said, is that active-duty soldiers know a growing number of Guard units are being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, so they figure there is little to be gained, in terms of reduced personal risk, by switching from active duty to the Guard.

The New York Times Opinion section rocks today:

Editorial: The Face of Iraqi Democracy

Iraq's appointed leader, Ayad Allawi, put on an impressive performance yesterday in Washington. Addressing Congress and then holding a joint news conference with President Bush, he thanked America in the name of the Iraqi people for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Challenging the news reports that Americans get daily, Mr. Allawi claimed that security is improving, economic reconstruction is progressing and democratic institutions are taking root. It was everything the Bush re-election campaign could have asked for. Unfortunately, most of it was wrong.

Bush Upbeat as Iraq Burns
By BOB HERBERT

In the October 7 issue of the New York Review of Books, Mark Danner reviews the final official Abu Ghraib report , also known as the Schlesinger Report, and notes:

Out of the interlocking scandals and controversies symbolized by Hooded Man and Leashed Man, the pyramids of naked bodies, the snarling dogs, and all the rest, and known to the world by the collective name of Abu Ghraib, one can extract two "master narratives," both dependent on the power and mutability of the images themselves.

The first is that of President Bush, who presented the photographs as depicting "disgraceful conduct by a few American troops, who dishonored our country and disregarded our values"—behavior that, the President insisted, "does not represent America." And the aberrant, outlandish character of what the photographs show—the nudity, the sadism, the pornographic imagery—seemed to support this "few bad apples" argument, long the classic defense of states accused of torture.

The facts, however, almost from day one, did not: the Red Cross report, the Army's own Taguba report, even the photographs themselves, some of which depicted military intelligence soldiers assisting in abuses they supposedly knew nothing about—all strongly suggested that the images were the brutal public face of behavior that involved many more people than the seven military police who were quickly charged.

George Bush, fearmonger.

Another first. Two U.S. soldiers have been charged with pre-meditated murder in the deaths of three Iraqi prisoners. Very few details are being made available.

The military named the two soldiers, Sgt. Michael P. Williams and Spec. Brent W. May, but did not provide further details about the deaths. Williams also was charged with obstruction of justice and making a false official statement, the military said. "The specific events relating to these charges cannot be discussed at this time because of the Army Criminal Investigation Division's ongoing investigation," the military said in a statement.

The soliders were members the 1st Battalion , 41st Infantry Regiment, Fort Riley, Kansas.

The 1st Battalion, whose soldiers are nicknamed "hell-raisers," according to a newsletter posted on an Army Web site, spent their first few weeks in Iraq fixing their vehicles. In August, the soldiers began accompanying other units in the area to "become familiarized with the city and to hear lessons learned to help us patrol the streets," the newsletter said.

An Islamic website is reporting that two female Italian aid workers, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, who were taken hostage September 7 in Iraq, have been killed by the Iraqi militant group known as Jihad Organization. Background on the kidnapping of the workers is here.

Just found this in the TalkLeft archives, and in recognition of TalkLeft's growing number of younger readers, I thought I'd repost it (scroll down to the last paragraph):

"If you grew up in the 60s, you grew up with war on tv every night. A war that your friends were involved in...and I want to do this song tonight for all the young people, if you're in your teens... because I remember a lot of my friends when they we were 17 or 18, we didn't have much of a chance to think about how we felt about a lot of things. And the next time, they're gonna be looking at you, and you're gonna need a lot of information to know what you're gonna wanna do. Because in 1985, blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed. Because what I'm talking about here is: War!
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.... --Bruce Springsteen, introducing his band's rendition of "War" by Edwin Starr, Los Angeles, September, 1985.

Via Tapped, a quote from Richard Perle a year ago:

And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they've been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation.

British hostage Kenneth Bigley cried and pleaded for his life in a video posted today on an Islamic website. You can watch the video here.

The captive, Kenneth Bigley, appealed to British Prime Minister Tony Blair to intervene. ''I think this is possibly my last chance,'' he said. ''I don't want to die.''

As we wrote earlier, the Iraqi justice minister announced they would release one of the two female detainees on bail, only to be subsequently contradicted by a U.S. official.

a U.S. Embassy spokesman ruled out any immediate release. The two female scientists from Saddam's regime ''are in our legal and physical custody. Legal status of these two and many others is under constant review,'' the spokesman said.