How about the future shams? These people need to be exposed before they do more damage.

Pollack: Finally, and only as part of a new containment of Iran, the United States should look hard at the possibility of waging a targeted air campaign intended to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities and so set back the entire program. At present, this policy has little to recommend it since Western intelligence agencies do not believe they know enough about the Iranian nuclear program to know all of the sites to be hit; there is reason to believe that even strikes that successfully destroyed the entire program as it currently exists would not set Iran’s efforts back for very long since Iran is probably far enough along in its efforts to be able to reconstitute quickly; and Iran can do considerable damage to Western interests, with terrorist attacks, subversion, and clandestine operations against Coalition forces in Iraq. However, in time, Western intelligence efforts might be able to answer most, if not all, of the uncertainties regarding such a campaign. In addition, if Iran has demonstrated such recalcitrance that it is withstanding multilateral sanctions to try to hang on to its nuclear program, U.S. policy-makers should consider the possibility that Iran’s intentions are truly nefarious, and so should be stopped even if there are considerable risks and costs involved in trying to do so. Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, September 2005

http://www.brookings.edu/views/testimony/pollack/20050929.pdf

Kagan & O'Hanlon: Sound US grand strategy must proceed from the recognition that, over the next few years and decades, the world is going to be a very unsettled and quite dangerous place, with Al Qaeda and its associated groups as a subset of a much larger set of worries. The only serious response to this international environment is to develop armed forces capable of protecting America’s vital interests throughout this dangerous time. Doing so requires a military capable of a wide range of missions—including not only deterrence of great power conflict in dealing with potential hotspots in Korea, the Taiwan Strait, and the Persian Gulf but also associated with a variety of Special Forces activities and stabilization operations. For today’s US military, which already excels at high technology and is increasingly focused on re-learning the lost art of counterinsurgency, this is first and foremost a question of finding the resources to field a large-enough standing Army and Marine Corps to handle personnel intensive missions such as the ones now under way in Iraq and Afghanistan. (From the April, 2007 “Grand Plan” Glenn linked to)

before the House Armed Services Committee.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 1:00 pm – 2212 Rayburn – Open

The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee will meet to receive testimony on A Third Way: Alternatives for Iraq’s Future (Part 4 of 4)

The audio seems to be broken (http://armedservices.house.gov/audiocast.shtml), but it should be posted here later today or tomorrow: http://armedservices.house.gov/hearing_information.shtml

The Hill: House Democrats canceled Tuesday’s planned hearing with Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, prompting a rebuke from Republicans who want Congress to proceed quickly on updating a key surveillance law.

The cancellation of the hearing comes amid an uproar in Congress over Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s perceived lack of candor about a warrantless surveillance program and the Bush administration’s insistence that reform of the court process governing the eavesdropping program is needed in the face of a heightened terrorist threat.

http://tinyurl.com/2lrzcm

Matthew Yglesias blogged a bit of today's hearing--

[O'Hanlon] Totally backed down. Said the progress has only been against aqi, that sectarian violence and the civil war is as bad as ever, and that the current strategy will probably fail. He thinks we should partition the country. Why the turnabout from the optimistic op-ed? He didn't say....

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/ohanlon.php

Put in broad terms, about 50,000 American troops might be needed for the first several years after soft partition was implemented. That would follow, as noted above, the transition period of 12 to 18 months [if the plan is started this fall] when forces would not decline at all from current levels of roughly 150,000 Americans.

http://www3.brookings.edu/fp/saban/analysis/june2007iraq_partition.pdf

Larry King interview a short while ago:

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I believe so. I think we're seeing already — from others; don't take it from me, look at the piece that appeared yesterday in The New York Times — not exactly a friendly publication — but a piece by Mr. O'Hanlon and Mr. Pollack on the situation in Iraq. They're just back from visiting over there. They both have been strong critics of the war, both worked in the prior administration; but now saying that they think there's a possibility, indeed, that we could be successful. So we'll know a lot more in September, when General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker come back and report to the Congress and the President on the situation in Iraq and whether or not we're making progress. Obviously we want to get it done as quickly as possible. http://tinyurl.com/2tlkq4

According to Dick Cheney: The executive branch has conducted the TSP, from its inception on October 4, 2001 to the present, with great care to operate within the law, with approval as to legality of Presidential authorizations every 45 days or so by senior Government attorneys.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/pdf/0608cheneyresponse.pdf