Hume failed to challenge Hastert's assertion that "disruptive" "foreign influence" in Iraq is "getting shut down"
SUMMARY: On Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume failed to challenge House Speaker Dennis Hastert's assertion that the "disruptive" "foreign influence" in Iraq is "getting shut down." In fact, a Congressional Research Service report found that foreign influence -- political, economic, and military -- in Iraq, particularly by Iran, remains considerable and is not likely to subside in the near future.
On the July 23 broadcast of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, Fox News Washington managing editor Brit Hume, who was guest-hosting the program, failed to challenge House Speaker Dennis Hastert's (R-IL) assertion that the "disruptive" "foreign influence" in Iraq is "getting shut down." In fact, a June 13 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report found that foreign influence -- political, economic, and military -- in Iraq, particularly by Iran, remains considerable and is not likely to subside in the near future.
The CRS report by Kenneth Katzman -- which documented evidence of extensive political and military ties between Iran and Iraq -- concluded:
Iran appears to be pursuing multiple options in Iraq. ... Iran's influence in Iraq positions Iran to retaliate against the United States should the United States succeed in persuading the United Nations to impose economic sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear program. Iran might also retaliate through Iraqi proxies if the United States were to undertake direct military action against Iran's nuclear facilities or other installations. ... It is unlikely that Iran's influence will fade unless the Shiite Islamist factions in Iraq were to somehow suffer diminished political power. At current levels of Iranian influence, it is likely that the Iraqi government will continue to offer general support to Iranian foreign policy, including its attempts to continue to advance its nuclear program.
According to the CRS, "the thrust of Iran's strategy in Iraq has been to perpetuate domination of Iraq's government by pro-Iranian Shiite Islamist leaders." Katzman noted the success of Iran's alleged strategy to dominate the political process in Iraq by pointing to the success of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), a Shiite Islamist political bloc, in both of Iraq's 2005 National Assembly elections. Katzman reported:
"The UIA bloc, which won 128 of the 275 Assembly seats in the December election, includes all of Iran's Shiite Islamist protégés in Iraq, including the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the most pro-Iranian of the groups, the Da'wa (Islamic Call) party, and Moqtada Al Sadr's faction."
A separate report by Vali Nasr, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, has also discussed the continuing strength of the "foreign influence" in Iraq that Hastert sought to downplay. In the July/August 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs, Nasr elaborated on how Iran "has a vast and intricate network of influence among the Shiites across the Middle East, most notably in Iraq." As Nasr noted, "Many leaders of the main Shiite parties, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and Dawa ... spent years of exile in Iran before returning to Iraq in 2003." Nasr wrote that the former and current Iraqi prime ministers -- Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Nuri Kamal al-Maliki -- both lived in exile in Iran prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, though, according to the CRS report, Maliki spent most of his time in exile in Syria. Nasr also noted that Iran "was the first country in the region to send an official delegation to Baghdad for talks with the Iraqi Governing Council."
Through these political parties and others, Iran has also provided military assistance to numerous Shiite-dominated Iraqi militias. Notably, SCIRI's militia, the Badr Brigades, was, as Nasr wrote, "trained and equipped by Iran's Revolutionary Guards"; according to CRS, the Badr Brigades are "politically aligned with Iran's hardliners." The Badr Brigades was established during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, during which the group would launch guerrilla attacks against Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime. In the report, CRS estimated the Brigades to number close to 20,000. CRS also noted that Sunni groups have accused the Brigades of launching "retaliatory attacks on Sunnis suspected of links to the insurgency," and that numerous Brigades members are thought to have joined the Iraqi military and police forces, even though they "are widely said to retain their loyalties to Badr and SCIRI."
Another prominent militia receiving Iranian support is that of Sadr, whose militia engaged in two notable standoffs with U.S. and coalition troops in Sadr City and Najaf in 2004. Sadr and his militia, the Mahdi Army, do not have the same longstanding ties with Iran as does the Badr Brigades but have now apparently come to receive significant Iranian support. As Nasr noted, "The Revolutionary Guards supported Sadr's Mahdi Army in its confrontation with U.S. troops in Najaf in 2004, and since then Iran has trained Sadrist political and military cadres." The CRS report noted that in October 2005, British Prime Minister Tony Blair "back[ed] up press comments ... from an unnamed British government official who alleged that Iran had supplied explosive devices to Sadr's Mahdi Army" and "asserted that the explosives had been used to kill eight British soldiers in and around Basra since July 2005."
From the July 23 broadcast of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday:
HUME: The Iraq war looks like a drag. You've got Congressman [Gil] Gutknecht [R-MN], Congressman [Christopher] Shays [R-CT] saying that this is going badly.
Gil Gutknecht, who once supported the war, came back from there and said that the conditions in Baghdad are far worse than we'd been led to believe. He wanted troop withdrawals to begin soon. Your reaction to his view?
HASTERT: Well, you know, I've been in Iraq, and I've talked to the new prime minister. I've talked to the new speaker of the house. We are standing up a government there. They're going to be here in Washington this week. We're going to have that dialogue.
You know, thousands of people went to the polls and dared to stick their finger in that purple ink and hold it up and show that they voted, a very, very high percentage. They want a democratic government.
And they are standing up police forces. They are standing up military. As they stand up that military, we'll start to bring our people home.
HUME: How do you think it's going?
HASTERT: I think it's not going as well as I would like to see it go. But as soon as you get the -- between the Shiites and the Sunnis -- that strife settled, I think we can move forward. I think there is a foreign influence there that's disruptive, and I think that's getting shut down.
HUME: And how do you think the issue plays in this election?
Hastert did admit that "I think it's not going as well as I would like to see it go. " What we're seing in Iraq is, to use military parlance, "marking time". My suspicion is that many in the Bush administration have already realized that invading Iraq was a mistake, but don't want to reverse course because that would be tantamount to admitting the mistake. In the end, Bush is going to have made the Middle East worse off than it was when Saddam was around.
2. .... 3. Profit!
I'm not certain, but I think step 2 has something to do with the price of oil.
"But as soon as you get the -- between the Shiites and the Sunnis -- that strife settled, I think we can move forward."
Sounds easy enough. How long have they been enemies anyways?
Hastert went on to say that as soon as the strife between Republicans and Democrats ends, we can move forward here, too.
It is as simple as that then. How do you sing Kumbayah in Arabic?
I will fly to the Moon
A theory recently posed about the Bush administration's REAL reason for the Iraq War goes thusly:
Bush, et al were worried that Saddam's weakened position as dictator was an open invitation for Iran to invade and take over Iraq. So instead WE invaded and took over Iraq. Fine so far. But then WE set up a democratic system which now resembles an Islamic Republic and allowed Shiite clerics from Iran to dominate all levels of government.
Deeming this a bungled operation just doesn't cut the falafel, does it?
Or at the least gave false infomation. I am shocked, shocked I say. I am also shocked to find that rain is actually water and makes you wet
"I think there is a foreign influence there that's disruptive, and I think that's getting shut down."
Maybe Hastert is talking about the US.
What strife?? Everybody is happy as long as they are not they dead ones. George the Decider, George the Uniter, George the Wartime President, George the Massager, George the Communicator,sorry, went way overboard with that last one, will make things right. My prediction, for you war people out there, is that Iraq will be a bad place even after we leave. Sounds childish but it will be bad for a long time. Unless of course, Superman makes the world go backwards and we find the WMD's in Saddam's spider-hole. George the Boy King will believe that one.
For doing the same thing that the U.S. is doing in Iraq, trying to exert pressure on the government for its own advantage!
Oh, except for the fact that unlike the U.S., Iraqis (the Shiites) approve of Iran and want to foment close ties to the mullahs. Also, that and the Iraqi government actively cozying up to Iran while throwing darts at the U.S. for the widespread atrocious behavior committed by the occupying army.
why politicans and the media in this country excoriate Iran for acting clearly in its own interests by influencing developments in Iraq, WHEN THE U.S. HAS 140,000 ARMED TROOPS ON THE GROUND OVER THERE!!
Not to mention that the spiritual leader Ayatollah Sistani is very pro-Iranian as is the majority of the Iraqi government. The iraqi Shiite community definiotely favors iran. On the other hand, the one thing unifying the three factions in Iraq is their hatred for the U.S.
Got the scoop from him; we are winning.
and then he described anyone who says we're not as "invested in defeat".
Maybe if I start saying I have rock-hard abs, I won't be so invested in flabbiness.
Do the rest of you wonder about the actual vision of victory that these meat heads have in mind ? Is it Iraqis in big 4x4 chevys with Old Glory sticking out of the back, drinking bud with Charlie Daniels blasting?
Or is it just no Iraqis at all, just American contractors and execs doing the above?
Maybe if I start saying I have rock-hard abs, I won't be so invested in flabbiness.
What a great analogy! How true, how true. Alas, once upon a time our foreign policy was run by ADULTS not children who think that wishing upon a star makes all your problems go away in poof of magic fairy dust.
Yes, and this sort of behavior didn't cut it when Clinton tried it, as in saying "I did not have sex with that woman" so he wouldn't be invested in adultery.