Quiet Bush Aide Seeks Iraq Czar, Creating a Stir (Hadley)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: NY Times

Stephen J. Hadley would be the first to tell you he does not have star power. But Mr. Hadley, the bespectacled, gray-haired, exceedingly precise Washington lawyer who is President Bush’s national security adviser, is in the market for someone who does — with the hope of saving Iraq.

Mr. Hadley is interviewing candidates, including military generals, for a new high-profile job that people in Washington are calling the war czar. The official (Mr. Hadley, ever cautious, prefers “implementation and execution manager”) would brief Mr. Bush every morning on Iraq and Afghanistan, then prod cabinet secretaries into carrying out White House orders.

It is the kind of task — a little bit of internal diplomacy and a lot of head-knocking, fortified by direct access to the president — that would ordinarily fall to Mr. Hadley himself. After all, he oversaw the review that produced Mr. Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq. But his responsibilities encompass issues around the globe, and he has concluded he needs someone “up close to the president” to work “full time, 24/7” to put the new policy into effect. He hopes to fill the job soon.

“What we need,” he said in a recent interview, “is someone with a lot of stature within the government who can make things happen.”



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/washington/30hadley.html?hp

[pinkpops]

1. Help wanted: Fall Guy

[SalmonChantedEvening]

2. Lipstick, meet Pig.

Lipstick: "I quit."

[MetaTrope]

3. Applicants are lining up now!

[dave_p]

4. Darn

"What we need is someone with a lot of stature within the government."

Oh well. What was Plan B?

[grytpype]

5. Who on Earth would want that job?

Hey, why don't they offer it to Colin Powell.

[Straight Shooter]

6. Wasn't Hadley Rice's number 1 guy when she was National Security Advisor?

Absolutely, let's put Mr. Peter Principle in the position of choosing War Czar, because he's got such a stellar performance record.

:sarcasm:

[TexasLawyer]

7. Hadley is a liar and war pimp

From the way-back machine:

July 28, 2003

One of Bush's Scapegoats, Stephen Hadley, Has His Own Credibility Problems

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

<snip>

Last week, Hadley was trotted out to loyally take the blame for a phrase included in the State of the Union that he admits he knew was lacking in credibility as early as October of 2002. According to a July 22, Associated Press Article:

As a result, Hadley said the offending passage was excised from a speech on Iraq the president gave in Cincinnati last Oct. 7. But Hadley suggested that details from the memos and phone call had slipped from his attention as the State of the Union was being put together. Hadley had received not just one, but two CIA warnings about the Niger uranium claims:

According to Hadley's account, an unsigned CIA memo was sent to him and to presidential speechwriter Michael Gerson in an Oct. 5 memorandum advising that "the CIA had reservations about the British reporting" on Iraq's alleged attempts to buy uranium from the west African country of Niger.

"These reservations were confirmed by the CIA" in a second memo on Oct. 6, a day before Bush's Cincinnati speech, Hadley said.

Well, we guess Hadley just kept having the two CIA warnings to him in October about the claim continue to "slip from his attention," because he repeats the claim in February of 2003, more than two weeks after the State of the Union address.

[mark414]

8. "someone with a lot of stature...who can make things happen"

isn't that the president's job?

[whatelseisnew]

12. Yes! How is 'War Czar' different from C.I.C. ? W** Cant Do His Job

they are pathetic

[JDPriestly]

9. Hadley outed Plame. He is a kind of Girl Friday for dirty jobs for the administration.

THE mysterious source who gave America’s foremost journalist, Bob Woodward, a tip-off about the CIA agent at the centre of one of Washington’s biggest political storms was Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, according to lawyers close to the investigation.

Woodward, the Washington Post reporter who broke the Watergate scandal that forced President Richard Nixon out of office, has refused publicly to divulge the name of his informant without permission, which has thus far been withheld.

The naming of CIA agent Valerie Plame as the wife of Joseph Wilson, the former US ambassador sent to Niger to investigate disputed claims that Saddam Hussein was trying to purchase uranium yellowcake for the manufacture of nuclear weapons, led to the indictment last month of Vice-President Dick Cheney’s top aide, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, for lying to a grand jury.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article592180.ece

[Ms. Clio]

10. "prod cabinet secretaries into carrying out White House orders"

and

"someone with a lot of stature within the government who can make things happen.”

WTF?

Isn't that aka "The Commander in Chief???" The Decideror? He Who Hears God?

[intaglio]

11. I found this interesting

Mr. Hadley is interviewing candidates, including military generals,

Emphasis mine

From previous reports we know that the military are very wary about being the sacrificial lamb .... sorry I mean "War Czar" .... for the Dear Leader so who else is being interviewed?

A select list might include the following:

• Non-military Generals
  
• Non-naval admirals
  
• People with amnesia
  
• House interns
  
• Condaleeza, Condaleeza (men have named you, You're unlike the lady with the mystic smile - with huge apologies to Nat King Cole)
  
• "Fredo" Gonzales
  

[gratuitous]

13. Barney! Stop digging in the Rose Garden! Master needs you!

This is looking more and more like a pro wrestling match, where the loudmouth "manager" has pissed off the "hero," and keeps shoving more and more guys in front of him. The hero keeps dispatching the distractions with an assortment of head butts, suplexes, stunners and so forth, until he finally gets to the manager and to the cheers of the crowd polishes him off with a patented finishing maneuver.