Joe's War

Until he was in an election fight Joe Lieberman offered only support for Donald Rumsfeld and the administration policy in Iraq. There was more criticism coming from neocons like Bill Kristol. A few weeks from the election we have a national Intelligence Estimate that says that Joe's Iraq war has made us less safe. So what headlines do we have today?

• Army extends troops' Iraq duty yet again;
  The Army is stretched so thin by the war in Iraq that it is again extending the combat tours of thousands of soldiers beyond the promised 12 months — the second such move since August.
  
  Soldiers of the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division had been expecting to return to their home base in Germany in mid-January. Instead, they will stay an extra 46 days in Iraq, until late February, the Pentagon announced Monday. The soldiers are operating in western Anbar province, one of the most violent parts of Iraq.
  
  The Pentagon also announced that the 4th Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division will deploy to Iraq 30 days earlier than scheduled, starting in late October. The announcement did not say why the speedup was deemed necessary, but three officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said it is part of a plan to beef up forces in Baghdad, where U.S. and Iraqi troops are struggling to contain insurgent and sectarian violence.


• Army Warns Rumsfeld It's Billions Short;
  The Army's top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level of activity in Iraq plus its other global commitments without billions in additional funding.
  
  The decision by Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, is believed to be unprecedented and signals a widespread belief within the Army that in the absence of significant troop withdrawals from Iraq, funding assumptions must be completely reworked, say current and former Pentagon officials.


• Ex-military officers criticize Rumsfeld;
  Retired military officers on Monday bluntly accused Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld of bungling the war in Iraq, saying U.S. troops were sent to fight without the best equipment and that critical facts were hidden from the public.
  
  I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq," retired Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste told a forum conducted by Senate Democrats.
  
  A second military leader, retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, assessed Rumsfeld as "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically."

So who does Joe attack? Ned Lamont of course.

Sen. Joe Lieberman argued on Monday that anti-war rival Ned Lamont's call for a troop withdrawal timeline in Iraq is "doomed to fail" and could leave the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorism.

"The clear choice before Connecticut's voters in this campaign is Ned Lamont's plan for giving up on Iraq and my plan for getting the job done there," Lieberman said in a speech at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post.

Perhaps Joe should take some time off from the campaign to read a few newspapers.