Never Served

When asked if he stood by his 2005 statement that the insurgency was in its last throes Dick Cheney re-wrote some past and future history.
Cheney Sees Success in Warding Off Attacks. Dick Cheney said Monday that aggressive U.S. action is responsible for preventing new terror attacks since the Sept. 11 strikes. "Nobody can promise that we won't be hit," Cheney said. "I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we've encountered," Cheney said. We were "attacked" on the Bush/Cheney watch in the first place, no matter how many times they spin it, they didn't stop it. Since they attacked Iraq, the "insurgency" continues unabated. The man who had "other priorities" sought and received five deferments. Two more U.S. troops are now suffering the consequences of this "war" with no plan. No plan for occupation, no plan to rebuild, no exit plan. Just terror and more killing. Report: Insurgents captured soldiers. Iraqi witnesses say they saw two U.S. soldiers who survived an attack at a checkpoint near Baghdad being led away by masked insurgents to a pair of cars, The New York Times is reporting. "There are intelligence indicators [that] they may have been captured alive rather than killed," a senior military official told CNN on Saturday night. Last week Rove attacked Democrats. What the hell else is new? His JOB (paid for by the taxpayers) is to smear opponents and elect more fascists. He picked the wrong guy to swiftboat this time:
He specifically targeted Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha. "Like too many Democrats it strikes me they are ready to give the green light to go to war, but when it gets tough, they fall back of that party's old platform of cutting and running. They may be with you for the first few bullets but they won't be there for the last tough battles," he said.
Nice, from a guy who took student deferments to avoid Vietnam without even taking enough units to fulfill the legal requirements.

Murtha fought back + Videos:
+ Update:
Crooks and Liars:
Murtha to Rove: He's sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big- fat backside- saying stay the course!
Russert: Cutting and Running

MURTHA: He's in New Hampshire. He's making a political speech. He's sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big, fat backside-saying stay the course. That's not a plan! We've got to change direction. You can't sit there in the air-conditioned office and tell troops carrying seventy pounds on their backs, inside these armored vessels-hit with IED's every day-seeing their friends blown up-their buddies blown up-and he says stay the course? Easy to say that from Washington, DC.

Cheney now says he didn't anticipate the insurgency's strength

Update: Two more sons killed while staying the course.
Iraqi official says bodies of missing GIs found
Signs of 'barbaric' torture; U.S. military awaiting positive ID from DNA
NBC News and news services

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The bodies of two U.S. soldiers reported captured last week have been found and the men appear to have been "killed in a barbaric way," a senior Iraqi general said Tuesday. A statement posted on a militant Islamic Web site said the two men were killed by the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.

U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the remains, found late Monday by American troops, were believed to be those of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore.

Caldwell said the cause of death was “undeterminable at this point,” and that DNA tests would be conducted to confirm the identities.

The two disappeared after an insurgent attack Friday at a checkpoint by a Euphrates River canal south of Baghdad and near the town of Youssifiyah. Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., was killed. The checkpoint was in the Sunni Arab region known as the “Triangle of Death” because of frequent ambushes there of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi troops.

The three men were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

'Barbaric' deaths
The director of the Iraqi defense military’s operation room, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed, said the bodies showed signs of having been tortured. “With great regret, they were killed in a barbaric way,” he said.

Mohammed also said the two bodies were found on a street near Youssifiyah. The U.S. military could not confirm that account.

The bodies are to be flown to the military's forensics lab in Dover, Del., for autopsies and to make positive identifications, U.S. military officials said. Any formal declaration of death will be withheld until the bodies are positively identified.
...

Just three more numbers. Tony Snow said of the 2,500 dead U.S. Troops, it's a number
Snow on 2,500 U.S. Fatalities In Iraq: ‘It’s A Number’
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was asked this afternoon if President Bush had any reaction to the death toll for U.S. troops in Iraq reaching 2,500. Snow responded: “It’s a number.”
Compassionate conservatism.
U.S. casualties, not including the two boys above:
2,504