Buzzflash asks, Can You Feel the Draft?

The military has already wasted millions of dollars trying to boost recruitment through entertainment like NASCAR. Not surprisingly, recruitment goals have fallen far short of expectations. Current soldiers, meanwhile, have made it clear that they want out. Not even signing bonuses are coaxing them to re-enlist. Why go through this mess again?

The draft is the only remaining option. Bush will start implementing a draft through reactivation of the Selective Service Boards, shortly after he is sworn in for a second term, if that nightmare scenario of his election should come to pass. But not to worry for the offspring of the Bush dynasty. The Bush loyalists will find a way to keep the twins and other Bush kin from serving. None of the Bush brothers, including George, have fought in a war. They don't plan on starting any new Bush traditions now with the "next generation."

It's our sons and daughters who will be drafted not the kin of the Bush family. You can be sure of that.

Here are some details of post-9/11 bills calling for the draft. More here.

For those who haven't read our many, many posts on the draft, we unequivocally oppose it. You can access them by placing "Rangel" or "country joe" "military draft" in the search box. (Our archives have moved so internal links within the posts won't work, but the search box does.)

Where's Country Joe when we need him? And Arlo? And Bruce? (scroll to the bottom for that one.)

The U.N. Security Council has adopted a resolution to back the investigation of the "oil for food scandal", which will include a probe of contracts with Iraq around the world. We don't know enough about this to opine yet, but if you do, feel free to comment.

Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, began a high-level investigation yesterday into allegations of kickbacks and bribes in the U.N.-run oil-for-food program for Iraq. Volcker assumed his post as head of a three-man team after he was assured all 15 members of the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution to back the investigation, which will include a probe of contracts with Iraq around the world. "We will be following the money as well as we can," Volcker told a news conference.

....Under the now-defunct program, Iraq was permitted to sell oil in order to buy civilian goods. Its purpose was to ease the impact on ordinary Iraqis of sanctions imposed after the 1991 Persian Gulf War...The panel intends to hire investigators, accountants and legal specialists in an effort to analyze contracts, he said. The program allowed Saddam's government to choose buyers of its oil and suppliers of goods. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he took the allegations seriously, which include accusations that a senior U.N. official took a bribe from Saddam's government.

Kelley at Demopower writes that the woman who allowed the rarely shown photo of coffins of U.S. troops awaiting transport back home to be published has been fired. The news report of the firing is here.

Tim Dunlop has more over at Road to Surfdom.

68 Iraqis were killed, 17 of them children on schoolbuses, in the southern Iraqi city of Basra today.

Suicide bombers killed at least 68 people, 17 of them children incinerated in minibuses taking them to school, in coordinated strikes on police stations in Iraq's southern city of Basra on Wednesday.

Basra is a stronghold of Iraq's Shi'ite majority. It had been relatively quiet lately. President Bush has blamed al Qaeda for the deaths.

The Guardian has more.

Kevin at Political Animal notes that a Republican is complaining that Bush isn't leveling with the American people about the continued cost of the war in Iraq. Who is it? Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

From the Washington Post:

Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, charged that the president is playing political games by postponing further funding requests until after the election, to try to avoid reopening debate on the war's cost and future. Weldon described the administration's current defense budget request as "outrageous" and "immoral" and said that at least $10 billion is needed for Iraqi operations over the next five months.

David Sirota reports:

Desperate to tamp down outrage from Congress, the White House and its allies yesterday spun out various responses for Bob Woodward's allegation that the Administration secretly took $700 million from the hunt for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and diverted it into Iraq war planning in 2002. Yet no one provided any proof that Woodward's charges were inaccurate, nor fully denied that a secret transaction occurred. Check out today's Progress Report which analyzes the White House's reactions. Notice the last bullet showing how by Condoleezza Rice's logic, Austin, Texas is the same region as Nicaragua...

There's more on David Sirota's blog here.

by TChris

Another grim day in Iraq, as five bombings near police facilities in and around Basra took the lives of at least 68 Iraqis, including 18 children.

Ten boys and girls being driven to kindergarten in a minivan and eight girls in another minivan headed to a high school were killed in one of the blasts, according to police official Col. Ali Abdullah.

by TChris

Bob Woodward's book says that President Bush started spending money to prepare for the war in Iraq in July 2002. But Bush didn't go to Congress at that point to ask for money to invade Iraq. Instead, the administration diverted money that Congress had appropriated to fight terrorism.

Congressman David Obey wants the administration to explain where the money came from for pre-war preparation. He thinks "the administration owes Congress a full, detailed and immediate accounting."

"If this is all true, it is ironic that the president was surreptitiously authorizing expenditures to begin a plan for war at the very same time he was resisting bipartisan congressional efforts to provide desperately needed funds for homeland security," Obey said.

The Iraqi Governing Council has named a bunch of Iraqi judges and prosecutors to a tribunal to try Saddam Hussein. They chose an opponent of Saddam's to play a major role--which may turn out to be a controversial move:

A senior member of Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress was appointed to head the all-Iraqi tribunal - a potentially controversial choice. Chalabi, a longtime exile who returned to Iraq and was named to the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, is mistrusted as an outsider by many Iraqis who want to see Saddam prosecuted by Iraqis who were present under his brutal rule. ....In the tribunal appointments, Salem Chalabi, a U.S.-educated lawyer and nephew of Ahmad Chalabi, was named by the Governing Council as director-general of the court, said INC spokesman Entefadh Qanbar. Salem Chalabi named seven judges and four prosecutors, and further judges will be appointed, Qanbar said.

Though INC head Ahmad Chalabi played a leading role in the opposition abroad to Saddam, many Iraqis consider him and other Governing Council members as American implants. Chalabi has been trying to gain grassroots support for his faction after decades in exile. On the council, Chalabi, a favorite of the Pentagon architects of the Iraq invasion, has been a fierce proponent of expunging traces of Saddam's regime. He heads an official De-Baathification Commission that has been aggressive in purging Iraqis with links to Saddam's dissolved party from government positions - so aggressive that even some U.S. officials have complained that it was getting rid of needed expertise.

For more on Chalabi and his tightness with the U.S., see TChris's posts here, here and here.

The trial would not begin before the June 30 handover of power.

If Chalabi's status is diminished in that handover, "there is a very good chance ... this court may see a change in its membership," said Adeed Dawisha, professor of political science at Miami University in Ohio.

Who's amassing the evidence? The Justice Department:

A team of Justice Department prosecutors and investigators has been gathering evidence for a war crimes case against Saddam, while other international groups have been sifting through the mass graves where U.S. officials say 300,000 victims of Saddam's regime were buried.

And who will foot the bill? Don't be surprised if we end up paying for it.

What else is wrong with trying Saddam by Iraqi tribunal instead of by international tribunal? We tell you here.

First Spain, then Honduras and now the Dominican Republic is set to withdraw their troops from Iraq.

Talk about reinstating the military draft is making the rounds on Capitol Hill. Leading the charge is Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska who says the U.S. may need compulsory service to boost forces in Iraq:

There's not an American ... that doesn't understand what we are engaged in today and what the prospects are for the future," Senator Chuck Hagel told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on post-occupation Iraq. "Why shouldn't we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?" Hagel said, arguing that restoring compulsory military service would force "our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face."

Send this guy back to Nebraska to peddle his piddling idea there.

More violence in Baghdad:

Insurgents fired 12 mortars into Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison Tuesday, killing 22 detainees and injuring 92, U.S. military officials said....All of those killed or injured in the mortar attack on the U.S.-run prison were security detainees, said Col. Jill Morgenthaler, meaning they were held for suspected involvement in the anti-U.S. insurgency or remnants of Saddam Hussein's ousted Baathist regime.