The Dish

Here’s a more prosaic account of the extraordinary work that the U.S. armed services have been doing in Iraq. It’s from the CPA’s new official website. Yesterday, Paul Bremer gave a brief overview. (And, believe it or not, even the anti-war New York Times covered it.) My highlights:

Six months ago there were no police on duty in Iraq.

• Today there are over 40,000 police on duty, nearly 7,000 here in Baghdad alone.
• Last night Coalition Forces and Iraqi police conducted 1,731 joint patrols.
• Today nearly all of Iraq’s 400 courts are functioning.-
• Today, for the first time in over a generation, the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
• On Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts-exceeding the pre-war average.
• Today all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
• Many of you know that we announced our plan to rehabilitate one thousand schools by the time school started-well, by October 1 we had actually rehabbed over 1,500.

Six months ago teachers were paid as little as $5.33 per month.

• Today teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.
• Today we have increased public health spending to over 26 times what it was under Saddam.
• Today all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
• Today doctors’ salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.
• Pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.
• Since liberation we have administered over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq’s many children.

This is what some in this country want to stop. This is what would never have happened if we’d let Saddam Hussein stay in power. It’s simply beyond me how anyone can describe this war as about “oil” or about “imperialism” or about “greed” or “militarism.” It remains one of the most humanitarian acts in modern history. And, if successful, it could turn an entire region around – a region that has been the main source of real danger to itself and to the West in my lifetime. I’m banging on about this not simply because it’s by far the most important issue in our politics right now, but because a wilful and petty disinformation campaign is being waged to distort this achievement, undermine it, and reverse it. We mustn’t let that happen. We cannot let these people – and ourselves – down again. (Hat tip: Simmins blog.)

HOW THE ANTI-WAR LEFT SPINS: You might recall the recent news stories where various media outlets gleefully reported that Fox News viewers were more likely to believe facts about the Iraq war that were “demonstrably untrue.” When you look at the questions asked, you find one that simply says: “As you may know the Bush administration has said that Iraq played an important role in the September 11 attacks.” Huh? Unless you define “important role” as the part played by Saddam in the nexus of terrorists and terrorist-states that threaten the West, then this is untrue; or at least a matter of interpretation. The study strikes me in part as a test of whether the respondents have imbibed liberal propaganda. No wonder NPR listeners did so well.

The Orthodox church responds to a gay wedding.

THE REAL AGENDA: Focus on the Family is now not only concerned about gay weddings, but about straight civil ones as well. Every now and again, you get a glimpse of what they really want.

Great little nugget in ABC News’ insidery blog, The Note:

In our Bernie Goldberg thought of the day, imagine the howls of outrage from the Los Angeles Times and the dominant media if Karl Rove or some other Republican spent the last 72 hours of the campaign touting – usually on the record! – “internal” campaign polling purporting to show dramatic tightening in a race that was not supported by either pre-election public polling or the election results.
Here is the harsh-but-spot-on analysis of what happened from a Brilliant Democrat:

1. Optimism trumps pessimism.

2. Referendum on hated incumbent will produce defeat no matter how flawed challenger is (see: Florio versus Whitman, 1993)

3. Democratic Party does not have moral platform to attack sexually harassing candidates (notice absence of either Clinton during the final stretch, once the charges broke)

4. Was there a real difference between our tracking polls and the Republican tracking polls the final week post-LA Times allegations? If so, pollster problems in Democratic Party (so evident in 2002) seem to persist.

When was the last time a Democrat lost 30% of the African-American vote in any race, any time? This is some achievement for Mulholland, South, Doak et al.

Or maybe they just lied.

Irwin Stelzer picks apart the economic tea-leaves. Mostly good news. But who knows for sure?

They’re mad as hell and the canceled subs keep piling up.

The domestic media insurgency continues.

READERS RESPOND: At least a few readers have responded to my WSJ piece. I should add that my mentioning that 67 percent of the 18 – 29 age group in the USAToday poll thought same-sex marriage would benefit society was mistaken. It should be that 67 percent thought it would be harmless or a benefit to society. An innocent mistake, I assure you. And the point endures.

Americans’ job prospects are looking up.

The donors for Iraq are beginning to line up. Money quote from a senior administration official: “The Japanese are talking in the billions. The Europeans are revisiting their earlier numbers. They’re all beginning to look at this as a security issue, not a development issue, and they’re scrounging for money from other places in their budgets.” Imagine that: Iraq as a security issue. Those Europeans. Always thinking ahead of the game.

Dan Drezner parses new reports that suggest that there was only one leak from the administration (not six) and thta it might well have been unintentional. It’s plausible – well, about as plausible as any of these scenarios has been to me.

BARONE ON ARNOLD: A judicious round-up, for British readers.

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “The September 11 attacks were probably closer to Dresden or Hiroshima in that a lot of planning and resources were put into deliberately killing civilians in large numbers. The IRA’s killing of civilians is equally wrong, but the IRA would argue that it did so by accident. That is no succour to the victims’ families, but the IRA was one of the few guerrilla organisations that gave warnings.” – Gerry Adams, IRA front-man, interviewed in the anti-war newspaper, the Independent. I love the idea of terrorists killing civilians “by accident;” and the equation of America in 2001 with Nazi Germany or Fascist Japan in the last world war. And then there’s this answer to the wonderfully blunt question: “Was the IRA right to try to blow up Mrs Thatcher?” Adams’ answer begins, “Well, you have to see it in the context of the time …” Every now and again, the mask slips and you realize that many people out there are not just anti-American. They are actually pro-terror.