Four powerful Democratic lawmakers on Friday warned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that “endemic corruption” in Iraq was fueling the insurgency, and accused her department of covering it up.
The House of Representatives committee chairmen also accused US officials of refusing to answer questions on corruption in Iraq, and complained the department had reclassified data on the issue after it had been released.
A former top US military commander in Iraq said the current White House strategy in Iraq will not achieve victory in the four-and-a-half-year war, which he described as “a nightmare with no end in sight” in a hard-hitting speech.
In the bluntest assessment of Iraq by a former senior Pentagon official yet, retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez also lambasted US political leaders as “incompetent,” “inept,” “derelict in the performance of their duty” and suggested they would have been court-martialed had they been members of the US military.
Republican Mitt Romney criticized presidential rival Rudy Giuliani on Friday, arguing that his own real-world experience and socially conservative values represent the “Republican wing of the Republican Party.” The former Massachusetts governor, who espoused moderate views in his 1994 bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, said that when Republicans act like Democrats, the nation loses.
Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards are criticizing presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton for her latest comments on negotiating with leaders of Iran and other countries that are on poor terms with the U.S.
Obama noted on Friday that when he said in July he would meet with such leaders without setting any conditions, Clinton called his stance “irresponsible and frankly naive.”
Questioned Thursday by a voter in New Hampshire, Clinton said twice that she would negotiate with Iran “with no conditions.”
An Oscar, an Emmy and the Nobel Peace Prize. Will Al Gore now seek the ultimate reward and Oval Office mantel space? Don’t count on it. Odds are that the former vice president won’t risk his Nobel-burnished image and huge public platform with a return to the rough-and-tumble world of presidential politics — at least not in 2008, advisers say.
“We face a true planetary emergency,” Gore said in a statement shortly after winning the prize on Friday. “The climate crisis is not a political issue.”