Search Results for: chandrasekaran

Iraq war myths — Rajiv Chandrasekaran responds

Featured image Yesterday, I disagreed with Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s claim that it’s a “myth” that “the troop surge succeeded” in Iraq. Rajiv has done me the favor of commenting, on Power Line, about my post. I thank him for doing so. Here is Rajiv’s comment: Paul, the surge also had *political* goals. “The Government of Iraq commits to: Reform its cabinet to provide even-handed service delivery. Act on promised reconciliation initiatives (oil law, »

Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s myths about Iraq

Featured image Rajiv Chandrasekaran is a Washington Post reporter who has written extensively, and inaccurately, about U.S. involvement in Iraq. Years ago, I criticized his reporting here, here, here, and here. Now, for the tenth anniversary of our invasion of Iraq, Chandrasekaran is back with what he claims are “five myths about Iraq.” His analysis is as distorted as ever. Parts of Chandrasekaran’s piece are just silly. For example, he cites as »

The Iraq surge — one last point

Featured image I’d like to make a final point in my exchange with Rajiv Chandrasekaran about the success (or not) of the Iraq troop surge. My initial post is here. Rajiv’s response and my reply are here. Rajiv and I agree that important political goals of the surge have not been achieved. But it may be worthwhile to consider why they weren’t. Here is Max Boot’s take: The “surge” of 2007-2008 reduced »

Tom Cotton’s truths about Iraq

Featured image Arkansas Fourth District Rep. Tom Cotton appeared on CNN’s State of the Nation yesterday along with his colleague Hawaii Second District Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (video below). Our friend Rep. Cotton set forth a few significant truths about the American effort in Iraq that should not be obscured by Rajiv Chandrasekaran and his media colleagues. In the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, Naval War College professor of national security affairs »

The news that’s fit to print on the Iraq War

It is an amazing fact that neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post saw fit to review Douglas Feith’s War and Decision when it was published last year. Feith provides an inside account of the debates within the Bush administration on the war to remove Saddam Hussein and related issues. The book has just been published in the (linked) paperback edition. The Claremont Institute has now posted Stanley »

A hit piece becomes swiss cheese

In this Washington Post op-ed, Dan Senor destroys whatever might have been left of Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s credibility. Shortly after it ran his splashy piece on the Iraqi reconstruction, the Post was forced to correct (albeit incompletely) Chandrasekaran’s false statements about Simone Ledeen. His attack on James Haveman has also been exposed as grossly misleading. Now Senor shows that, in order to sell his thesis that “ties to GOP trumped know-how »

A hit piece takes more hits

Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s hit piece on the Bush administration’s Iraq reaconsturction program — “Ties To GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq” — was unpersuasive on its face. Before long, moreover, we learned that Chandrasekaran failed to get simple facts (those pertaining to Simone Ledeen) at the core of his story straight because he didn’t bother to check them with Ms. Ledeen. Now Pat Cleary gives us “the rest »

It’s not as easy as it looks, Part Two

Frank Howard, the football coach at Clemson decades ago, once defined the college football fan as a 40 year old man who screams at a 20 year old for not completing a 50 yard pass, and after the game can’t find his car in the parking lot. Although the age angle doesn’t apply, I sometimes have similar thoughts about the MSM, some of whose mainstays criticize the administration for, say, »

It’s not as easy as it looks to the Washington Post

“Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq,” blares the headline on the front-page of the Washington Post. If true, this would constitute serious malfeasance by the Bush administration, but the Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran doesn’t manage to make the case. He shows that seven senior-level members of the Coalition Provisional Authority had ties to President Bush, his administration, or another Republican administration. But the scant pieces of »

Media alert

I’ll be a guest on the Diane Rehm show which airs in the Washington D.C. area on WAMU-88.5 FM. Here’s a list of stations around the country that pick up the show. I’ll be on the segment that begins at 11:00 a.m. (eastern time). Apparently I’ll be joining in at around 11:20, following Arianna Huffington. The topic is alternative media and how the traditional media is responding to it. Rajiv »

From Wapo’s man in Baghdad

We have received a message from the Washington Post’s man in Baghdad, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, regarding Ambassador Bremer’s farewell address. It’s a long message, but of sufficient interest and importance that I’m simply posting the message in its entirety below: For those of you who have been interested in the subject of why The Washington Post reported that U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer did not deliver a “farewell address” before departing »