Oh yes, timing is everything

In line with my concern yesterday about the little game we're playing...

President Bush found himself in the awkward position on Wednesday of calling the leaders of France, Germany and Russia to ask them to forgive Iraq's debts, just a day after the Pentagon excluded those countries and others from $18 billion in American-financed Iraqi reconstruction projects.

White House officials were fuming about the timing and the tone of the Pentagon's directive, even while conceding that they had approved the Pentagon policy of limiting contracts to 63 countries that have given the United States political or military aid in Iraq.

...[White House] officials apparently did not realize that the memorandum, signed by Paul D. Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, would appear on a Defense Department Web site hours before Mr. Bush was scheduled to ask world leaders to receive James A. Baker III, the former treasury secretary and secretary of state, who is heading up the effort to wipe out Iraq's debt. Mr. Baker met with the president on Wednesday.  article

Ever the sharp planners, these guys.

White House officials declined to say how Mr. Bush explained the Pentagon policy to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany.

But I would love to hear it.

A senior administration official described Mr. Bush as "distinctly unhappy" about dealing with foreign leaders who had just learned of their exclusion from the contracts.

Sputtering obscenities, was not the term used.

This is precisely the kind of crap that not only makes these people dangerous policy-makers, it also points up the deceitfulness of politics, as if you needed more evidence. The intention, clearly, was to get the agreement for forgiveness of loans first, and then tell these countries they wouldn't be invited to the benefits party. Another sure way to further alienate them, if that's possible. So, any way you look at it, the current bunch of madmen in the administration are dead set on carving out and carving into stone America's isolation from and antagonistic, domineering position toward the rest of the world.

Impeach.

And hurry up.

...Under the Pentagon rules, only companies whose countries are on the American list of "coalition nations" are eligible to compete for the prime contracts, though they could act as subcontractors. The result is that the Solomon Islands, Uganda and Samoa may compete for the contracts, but China, whose premier just left the White House with promises of an expanded trade relationship, is excluded, along with Israel.

Several of Mr. Bush's aides wondered why the administration had not simply adopted a policy of giving preference to prime contracts to members of the coalition, without barring any countries outright.

"What we did was toss away our leverage," one senior American diplomat said. "We could have put together a policy that said, 'The more you help, the more contracts you may be able to gain.'" Instead, the official said, "we found a new way to alienate them."

Never mind that we have just taken over another country's sovereign right to their own future. It's not a matter of whether we have the right to decide who does what, just how we go about divvying it up.

Too bad I don't think that part of the equation will be any different if Mr. Dean is in the White House.