Hi Gazzy--
You can run SFC that comes with Vista and several prior OS's but is changed
in Vista under the hood.
I would try running SFC and if you need to and have the Vista DVD (MSFT
bullies most OEM named partners who sell PCs into not shipping it because
they are greedy and lack ethics leaving their end users up a creek without a
paddle when they need many of the tools to fix a no boot Vista). The man
partially responsible for this is Scott Di Valerio the OEM VP at Redmond.
He's the head of all the hard working OEM system builders and his computer
engineering background consists of his accounting practice at MSFT--he done
be accounting da money at the expense of the MSFT customer who pays one to
four grand for a computer (except Dell with Vista).
SFC or System File Checker is a bit like the spare tire in your car or a
backup battery I suppose. In Vista of course, they have changed it somewhat
and come up with a new name--Redmond stands for name it something different
twice a year and now it's part of WRP or Windows Resource Protection. It
scans protected resources including thousands of files, libraries, critical
folders, and essential registry keys, and it replaces those that are
corrupted with intact ones. It fixes a lot of problems in Windows XP, OE,
Windows Vista, Win Mail, IE6, and on Vista or if it is installed on XP, IE7.
It protects these things from changes by any source including
administrators, by keeping a spare of most of them.
How to Run SFC:
Type "cmd" into the Search box above the Start Button>and when cmd comes up
at the top of the Start menu>right click cmd and click "run as Admin" and
when the cmd prompt comes up at the cmd prompt type "sfc /scannow" no quotes
and let it run. This may fix things quite a bit. It replaces corrupt files
with intact ones, if you're not familiar with it.
If no help from SFC, you can try a restore point to before this happened or
you try the steps below if you have a Vista DVD:
Startup Repair will look like this when you put in the Vista DVD:
http://www.vistaclues.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/click-repair-your-computer.png
You run the startup repair tool this way (and system restore from here is
also sometimes effective):
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925810/en-us
How To Run Startup Repair In Vista Ultimate (Multiple Screenshots)
http://www.windowsvista.windowsreinstall.com/vistaultimate/repairstartup/index.htm
I'm going to give you a bunch of links and most of them you won't have to
use, but they are alternative ways to fix Vista.
Right now I want you to put in the DVD and restart. It will automatically
take you to this on your screen:
http://www.vistaclues.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/click-repair-your-computer.png
That will allow you to go to the Vista setup that has a Repair link on the
lower left corner>click it and then you'll see a gray backgrounded list and
I want you to click Startup Repair from it and follow the directions.
The gray screen after you click the first link in the above pic will look
like this:
http://www.windowsreinstall.com/winvista/images/repair/staruprepair/Image17.gif
Click Startup Repair, the link at the top and after it scans>click OK and
let it try to repair Vista. It will tell you if it does, and if not
This should work, but if not,then you can follow the alternative ways to fix
this including booting into Safe Mode by tapping the F8 key and using System
Restore.
Directions and links for alternative ways to fix this are below, but I hope
you won't need them:
If you have any questions on getting the Startup Repair done, just post
them.
If you have a Vista DVD try Startup Repair. If that doesn't work, try
SafeMode>System Restore from the Recovery Environment, and you always have
the F8 advanced options ( five of them including Last Known Good
Configuration) and a repair install (with the DVD) as well.
In addition you can use the Bootsect tool to manually repair the boot sector
by accessing the command prompt from the DVD or from F8 and typing at the
prompt:
****Ten Methods to Repair BSOD No Boots or Serious Problems in Windows
Vista****
***Startup Repair and System Restore from the Win Recovery Environment on
the DVD***
You can run Startup Repair by putting your Vista DVD in after theanguage
screen in setup. You can also run System Restore from the same
location.
You run the startup repair tool this way (and system restore from here is
also sometimes effective):
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925810/en-us
How To Run Startup Repair In Vista Ultimate (Multiple Screenshots)
http://www.windowsvista.windowsreinstall.com/vistaultimate/repairstartup/index.htm
Note The computer must be configured to start from a CD or from a DVD. For
information about how to configure the computer to start from a CD or from a
DVD, see the information that came with the computer.
2. Restart the computer. To do this, click Start, click the arrow next to
the Lock button, and then click Restart.
This usually means that you enter bios setup by whatever key or keys
(sometimes there is more than one key that will do it for your model--go to
pc manufacturer site) and configure CD to be first in the boot order (this
will allow you to boot from the Vista DVD as well):
See for ref:
Access/Enter Motherboard BIOS
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm
Boot Order in Bios (Set Boot from HD 1st)
http://www.short-media.com/images/mm/Articles/build_computer/bios/bios03.jpg
Note If you cannot restart the computer by using this method, use the power
button to turn off the computer. Then, turn the computer back on.
3. Set your language preference, and then click Next.
Note In most cases, the startup repair process starts automatically, and you
do not have the option to select it in the System Recovery Options menu.
4. Click Repair your computer.
5. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click the operating system
that you want to repair, and then click Next.
6. In the System Recovery Options menu, click Startup Repair to start the
repair process.
7. When the repair process is complete, click Finish.
Additional References for Startup Repair With Screenshots:
How to Use Startup Repair:
***Accessing Windows RE (Repair Environment):***
1) Insert Media into PC (the DVD you burned)
2) ***You will see on the Vista logo setup screen after lang. options in the
lower left corner, a link called "System Recovery Options."***
Screenshot: System Recovery Options (Lower Left Link)
http://blogs.itecn.net/photos/liuhui/images/2014/500x375.aspx
Screenshot: (Click first option "Startup Repair"
http://www.leedesmond.com/images/img_vista02ctp-installSysRecOpt2.bmp
How To Run Startup Repair In Vista Ultimate (Multiple Screenshots)
http://www.windowsvista.windowsreinstall.com/vistaultimate/repairstartup/index.htm
3) Select your OS for repair.
4) Its been my experience that you can see some causes of the crash from
theWin RE feature:
You'll have a choice there of using:
1) Startup Repair
2) System Restore
3) Complete PC Restore
___________________
In addition you can use the Bootsect tool to manually repair the boot sector
by accessing the command prompt from the DVD or from F8 and typing at the
prompt:
Bootsect.exe is available from the \Boot\folder of the Windows Vista DVD and
can be run from within System Recovery or Windows XP on a dual boot.
1. Use Bootsect.exe to restore the Windows Vista MBR and the boot code that
transfers control to the Windows Boot Manager program. To do this, type the
following command at a command prompt: Drive:\boot\Bootsect.exe /NT60 All
In this command, Drive is the drive where the Windows Vista installation
media is located.
Note The boot folder for this step is on the DVD drive.
2. Use Bcdedit.exe to manually create an entry in the BCD Boot.ini file for
the earlier version of the Windows operating system. To do this, type the
following commands at a command prompt.
Note In these commands, Drive is the drive where Windows Vista is
installed. • Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /create {ntldr} –d "Description
for earlier Windows version"
Note In this command, Description for earlier Windows version can be any
text that you want. For example, Description for earlier Windows version can
be "Windows XP" or "Windows Server 2003".
• Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /set {ntldr} device partition=x:
Note In this command, x: is the drive letter for the active partition.
• Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /set {ntldr} path \ntldr
• Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /displayorder {ntldr} –addlast
3. Restart the computer.
____________________________
******Using the BootRec.exe Tool
Using the System Recovery Tool from the Repair link on the DVD after the
language choice in the lower left hand corner you can select command prompt
and you have the following options:
Bootrec.exe (You can use this tool to recover Vista even when you do not
receive the error message that is the title of the 2nd linked MSKB below):
How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to
troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows Vista
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392/en-us
Error message when you start Windows Vista: "The Windows Boot Configuration
Data file is missing required information"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927391/en-us
_____________________________________________________________
***Using the F8 Environment or a Repair Install from the DVD:***
See for ref:
Access/Enter Motherboard BIOS
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm
Boot Order in Bios (Set Boot from HD 1st)
http://www.short-media.com/images/mm/Articles/build_computer/bios/bios03.jpg
Repair Install
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/tips/doug92.mspx
Repair Install (Method 2):
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/315341
III Taking Full Advantage of the F8 Options (Windows Advanced Options Menu)
by startin gth ePC and tapping F8 once per second:
You could also:
Think: I have 4 different ways to get back my XP at F8 and try 'em in order.
1) Safe Mode 2) Safe Mode with Cmd to Sys Restore which is simply a cmd
prompt in safe mode 3) Safe Mode with Neworking 4) LKG or Last Known Good
Configuration
Try to F8 to the Windows Adv Options Menu>try 3 safe modes there (I don't
use WGA) and Last Known Good>then I go to Win RE in Vista. That gives you a
choice of Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking,and Safe Mode with Command
Prompt.
These methods are outlined in
A description of the Safe Mode Boot options in Windows XP/and Vista
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315222/
How to Use System Restore
http://bertk.mvps.org/
Frequently Asked Questions Regarding System Restore from MSFT:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/plan/faqsrwxp.mspx
Using System Restore
http://tinyurl.com/dvekb
System Restore for Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_restore.htm
How to start the System Restore tool at a command prompt in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304449
Repair Install: (This option has the best chance of succeeding and it
preserves everything in your OS--you do not lose anything with this option):
Make sure the DVD you have is a Vista DVD
Pitfalls: If the DVD came from friend or relative or P2P, you may have
problems. P2P besides being illlegal in many countries including the U.S.
can be corrupt. If CD came from friend or relative, they may have given
you the CD to use but if product key is in use, MSFT is not going to accept
it for activation. Make sure you clean the CD carefully using proper
cleaning fluid and strokes that radiate from center like spokes on a wheel.
Again a repair install has the most likely chance to succeed in XP, (and can
work in Vista) but you need
to have a Vista DVD.
First, in order to do a Repair Install You must boot to the bios setup and
position booting from the "CD" first in the boot order--it probably will not
say DVD but might.
Booting to Bios Setup:
For 85% of PC's and all Dells you can tap the F2 key to reach bios setup.
How To Enable DVD/CD Rom Support (put CD boot first) in bios setup boot
order:
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do_i_enable_cdrom_support_i.htm
Screen Shot of bios setup boot order:
http://www.poy.net/proxy/bios2.jpg
Repair Install Does Not Lose Anything; you may need to try 2-3 times but
that's rare.
How To Repair Install
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315341#XSLTH3127121122120121120120
Screen Shot Repair Install
http://www.windowsreinstall.com/winxppro/installxpcdrepair/indexfullpage.htm
Good luck,
CH
Go Danica--beat them ole boys this time! Use the draft.
Apathetic America shopping and running gas guzzlers, their Congress and
their moron leader are making lots more of these in the next few years:
Photos of Military Coffins
(Battlefield and Astronaut Fatalities)
at Dover Air Force Base
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/coffin_photos/dover/
War Without End
NYT Editorial
Never mind how badly the war is going in Iraq. President Bush has been
swaggering around like a victorious general because he cowed a wobbly
coalition of Democrats into dropping their attempt to impose a time limit on
his disastrous misadventure.
By week's end, Mr. Bush was acting as though that bit of parliamentary
strong-arming had left him free to ignore not just the Democrats, but also
the vast majority of Americans, who want him to stop chasing illusions of
victory and concentrate on how to stop the sacrifice of young Americans'
lives.
And, ever faithful to his illusions, Mr. Bush was insisting that he was the
only person who understood the true enemy.
Speaking to graduates of the Coast Guard Academy, Mr. Bush declared that Al
Qaeda is "public enemy No. 1" in Iraq and that "the terrorists' goal in Iraq
is to reignite sectarian violence and break support for the war here at
home." The next day, in the Rose Garden, Mr. Bush turned on a reporter who
had the temerity to ask about Mr. Bush's declining credibility with the
public, declaring that Al Qaeda is "a threat to your children" and accusing
him of naïvely ignoring the danger.
It's upsetting to think that Mr. Bush believes the raging sectarian violence
in Iraq awaits reigniting, or that he does not recognize that Americans'
support for the war broke down many bloody months ago. But we have grown
accustomed to this president's disconnect from reality and his habit of
tilting at straw men, like Americans who don't care about terrorism because
they question his mismanagement of the war or don't worry about what will
happen after the United States withdraws, as it inevitably must.
The really disturbing thing about Mr. Bush's comments is his painting of the
war in Iraq as an obvious-to-everyone-but-the-wrongheaded fight between the
United States and a young Iraqi democracy on one side, and Al Qaeda on the
other. That fails to acknowledge that the Shiite-dominated government of
Iraq is not a democracy and is at war with many of its own people. And it
removes all pressure from the Iraqi leadership - and Mr. Bush - to halt the
sectarian fighting and create a real democracy.
There is no doubt that organized Islamist terrorism - call it Al Qaeda or by
any other name - is a dire threat. There is also no doubt that terrorists
entered Iraq - mostly after the war began.
We, too, believe that Iraq has to be made as stable as possible so the
United States can withdraw its troops without unleashing even more chaos and
destruction. But Mr. Bush is not doing that and his version of reality only
makes it more unlikely. The only solution lies with the Iraqi leaders, who
have to stop their sectarian blood feud and make a real attempt to form a
united government. That is their best chance to stabilize the country, allow
the United States to withdraw and, yes, battle Al Qaeda.
The Democrats who called for imposing benchmarks for political progress on
the Iraqis, combined with a withdrawal date for American soldiers, were
trying to start that process. It's a shame they could not summon the will
and discipline to keep going, but we hope they have not given up. As
disjointed as the Democrats have been, their approach makes far more sense
than Mr. Bush's denial of Iraq's civil war and his war-without-end against
terror.
FRANK RICH: Operation Freedom From Iraqis
WHEN all else fails, those pious Americans who conceived and directed the
Iraq war fall back on moral self-congratulation: at least we brought liberty
and democracy to an oppressed people. But that last-ditch rationalization
has now become America's sorriest self-delusion in this tragedy.
However wholeheartedly we disposed of their horrific dictator, the Iraqis
were always pawns on the geopolitical chessboard rather than actual people
in the administration's reckless bet to "transform" the Middle East. From
"Stuff happens!" on, nearly every aspect of Washington policy in Iraq exuded
contempt for the beneficiaries of our supposed munificence. Now this animus
is completely out of the closet. Without Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz
to kick around anymore, the war's dead-enders are pinning the fiasco on the
Iraqis themselves. Our government abhors them almost as much as the Lou
Dobbs spear carriers loathe those swarming "aliens" from Mexico.
Iraqis are clamoring to get out of Iraq. Two million have fled so far and
nearly two million more have been displaced within the country. (That's a
total of some 15 percent of the population.) Save the Children reported this
month that Iraq's child-survival rate is falling faster than any other
nation's. One Iraqi in eight is killed by illness or violence by the age of
5. Yet for all the words President Bush has lavished on Darfur and AIDS in
Africa, there has been a deadly silence from him about what's happening in
the country he gave "God's gift of freedom."
It's easy to see why. To admit that Iraqis are voting with their feet is to
concede that American policy is in ruins. A "secure" Iraq is a mirage, and,
worse, those who can afford to leave are the very professionals who might
have helped build one. Thus the president says nothing about Iraq's
humanitarian crisis, the worst in the Middle East since 1948, much as he
tried to hide the American death toll in Iraq by keeping the troops' coffins
off-camera and staying away from military funerals.
But his silence about Iraq's mass exodus is not merely another instance of
deceptive White House P.R.; it's part of a policy with a huge human cost.
The easiest way to keep the Iraqi plight out of sight, after all, is to
prevent Iraqis from coming to America. And so we do, except for stray
Shiites needed to remind us of purple fingers at State of the Union time or
to frame the president in Rose Garden photo ops.
Since the 2003 invasion, America has given only 466 Iraqis asylum. Sweden,
which was not in the coalition of the willing, plans to admit 25,000 Iraqis
this year alone. Our State Department, goaded by January hearings conducted
by Ted Kennedy, says it will raise the number for this year to 7,000 (a
figure that, small as it is, may be more administration propaganda). A bill
passed by Congress this month will add another piddling 500, all
interpreters.
In reality, more than 5,000 interpreters worked for the Americans. So did
tens of thousands of drivers and security guards who also, in Senator
Kennedy's phrase, have "an assassin's bull's-eye on their backs" because
they served the occupying government and its contractors over the past
four-plus years. How we feel about these Iraqis was made naked by one of the
administration's most fervent hawks, the former United Nations ambassador
John Bolton, speaking to The Times Magazine this month. He claimed that the
Iraqi refugee problem had "absolutely nothing to do" with Saddam's
overthrow: "Our obligation was to give them new institutions and provide
security. We have fulfilled that obligation. I don't think we have an
obligation to compensate for the hardships of war."
Actually, we haven't fulfilled the obligation of giving them functioning
institutions and security. One of the many reasons we didn't was that L.
Paul Bremer's provisional authority staffed the Green Zone with unqualified
but well-connected Republican hacks who, in some cases, were hired after
they expressed their opposition to Roe v. Wade. The administration is
nothing if not consistent in its employment practices. The assistant
secretary in charge of refugees at the State Department now, Ellen
Sauerbrey, is a twice-defeated Republican candidate for governor of Maryland
with no experience in humanitarian crises but a hefty résumé in
anti-abortion politics. She is to Iraqis seeking rescue what Brownie was to
Katrina victims stranded in the Superdome.
Ms. Sauerbrey's official line on Iraqi refugees, delivered to Scott Pelley
of "60 Minutes" in March, is that most of them "really want to go home." The
administration excuse for keeping Iraqis out of America is national
security: we have to vet every prospective immigrant for terrorist ties. But
many of those with the most urgent cases for resettlement here were vetted
already, when the American government and its various Halliburton
subsidiaries asked them to risk their lives by hiring them in the first
place. For those whose loyalties can no longer be vouched for, there is the
contrasting lesson of Vietnam. Julia Taft, the official in charge of
refugees in the Ford administration, reminded Mr. Pelley that 131,000
Vietnamese were resettled in America within eight months of the fall of
Saigon, despite loud, Dobbs-like opposition at the time. In the past seven
months, the total number of Iraqis admitted to America was 69.
The diplomat Richard Holbrooke, whose career began during the Vietnam War,
told me that security worries then were addressed by a vetting process
carried out in safe, preliminary asylum camps for refugees set up beyond
Vietnam's borders in Asia. But as Mr. Holbrooke also points out in the
current Foreign Affairs magazine, the real forerunner to American treatment
of Iraqi refugees isn't that war in any case, but World War II. That's when
an anti-Semitic assistant secretary of state, Breckinridge Long, tirelessly
obstructed the visa process to prevent Jews from obtaining sanctuary in
America, not even filling the available slots under existing quotas. As many
as 75,000 such refugees were turned away before the Germans cut off exit
visas to Jews in late 1941, according to Howard Sachar's "History of the
Jews in America."
Like the Jews, Iraqis are useful scapegoats. This month Mr. Bremer declared
that the real culprits for his disastrous 2003 decision to cleanse Iraq of
Baathist officials were unnamed Iraqi politicians who "broadened the
decree's
impact far beyond our original design." The Republican leader in the Senate,
Mitch McConnell, is chastising the Iraqis for being unable "to do anything
they promised."
The new White House policy, as Zbigniew Brzezinski has joked, is "blame and
run." It started to take shape just before the midterm elections last fall,
when Mr. Rumsfeld wrote a memo (propitiously leaked after his
defenestration) suggesting that the Iraqis might "have to pull up their
socks, step up and take responsibility for their country." By January, Mr.
Bush was saying that "the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt
of gratitude" and wondering aloud "whether or not there is a gratitude level
that's significant enough in Iraq." In February, one of the war's leading
neocon cheerleaders among the Beltway punditocracy lowered the boom. "Iraq
is their country," Charles Krauthammer wrote. "We midwifed their freedom.
They chose civil war." Bill O'Reilly and others now echo this cry.
The message is clear enough: These ungrateful losers deserve everything
that's
coming to them. The Iraqis hear us and are returning the compliment. Whether
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is mocking American demands for timelines and
benchmarks, or the Iraqi Parliament is setting its own timeline for American
withdrawal even while flaunting its vacation schedule, Iraq's nominal
government is saying it's fed up. The American-Iraqi shotgun marriage of
convenience, midwifed by disastrous Bush foreign policy, has disintegrated
into the marriage from hell.
While the world waits for the White House and Congress to negotiate the
separation agreement, the damage to the innocent family members caught in
the cross-fire is only getting worse. Despite Mr. Bush's May 10 claim that
"the number of sectarian murders has dropped substantially" since the surge
began, The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the number of such
murders is going up. For the Americans, the cost is no less dear. Casualty
figures confirm that the past six months have been the deadliest yet for our
troops.
While it seems but a dim memory now, once upon a time some Iraqis did greet
the Americans as liberators. Today, in fact, it is just such Iraqis - not
the local Iraqi insurgents the president conflates with Osama bin Laden's
Qaeda in Pakistan - who do want to follow us home. That we are slamming the
door in their faces tells you all you need to know about the real morality
beneath all the professed good intentions of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Though
the war's godfathers saw themselves as ridding the world of another Hitler,
their legacy includes a humanitarian catastrophe that will need its own
Raoul Wallenbergs and Oskar Schindlers if lives are to be saved.
MAUREEN DOWD: Bush's Fleurs du Mal
WASHINGTON
For me, the saddest spot in Washington is the inverted V of the black
granite Vietnam wall, jutting up with the names of young men dying in a war
that their leaders already knew could not be won.
So many died because of ego and deceit - because L.B.J. and Robert McNamara
wanted to save face or because Henry Kissinger wanted to protect Nixon's
re-election chances.
Now the Bush administration finds itself at that same hour of shame. It
knows the surge is not working. Iraq is in a civil war, with a gruesome
bonus of terrorists mixed in. April was the worst month this year for the
American military, with 104 soldiers killed, and there have been about 90
killed thus far in May. The democracy's not jelling, as Iraqi lawmakers get
ready to slouch off for a two-month vacation, leaving our kids to be blown
up.
The top-flight counterinsurgency team that President Bush sent in after long
years of pretending that we'd "turned the corner" doesn't believe there's a
military solution. General Petraeus is reduced to writing an open letter to
the Iraqi public, pleading with them to reject sectarianism and violence,
even as the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr slinks back from four months in
Iran, rallying his fans by crying: "No, no, no to Satan! No, no, no to
America! No, no, no to occupation! No, no, no to Israel!"
W. thinks he can save face if he keeps taunting Democrats as the party of
surrender - just as Nixon did - and dumps the Frankenstate he's created on
his successor.
"The enemy in Vietnam had neither the intent nor the capability to strike
our homeland," he told Coast Guard Academy graduates. "The enemy in Iraq
does. Nine-eleven taught us that to protect the American people we must
fight the terrorists where they live so that we don't have to fight them
where we live."
The president said an intelligence report (which turned out to be two years
old) showed that Osama had been trying to send Qaeda terrorists in Iraq to
attack America. So clearly, Osama is capable of multitasking: Order the
killers in Iraq to go after American soldiers there and American civilians
here. There AND here. Get it, W.?
The president is on a continuous loop of sophistry: We have to push on in
Iraq because Al Qaeda is there, even though Al Qaeda is there because we
pushed into Iraq. Our troops have to keep dying there because our troops
have been dying there. We have to stay so the enemy doesn't know we're
leaving. Osama hasn't been found because he's hiding.
The terrorists moved into George Bush's Iraq, not Saddam Hussein's. W.'s
ranting about Al Qaeda there is like planting fleurs du mal and then
complaining your garden is toxic.
The president looked as if he wanted to smack David Gregory when the NBC
reporter asked him at the news conference Thursday if he could still be "a
credible messenger on the war" given all the mistakes and all the
disillusioned Republicans.
"I'm credible because I read the intelligence, David," he replied sharply.
But he isn't and he doesn't. Otherwise he might have read "Bin Laden
Determined to Strike in U.S." in August 2001, and might have read the prewar
intelligence reports the Senate just released that presciently forecast the
horrors in store for naïve presidents who race to war because they want to
be seen as hard, not soft.
Intelligence analysts may have muffed the W.M.D. issue, but they accurately
predicted that implanting democracy in Iraq would be an "alien" idea that
could lead to turbulence and violence; that Al Qaeda would hook up with
Saddam loyalists and "angry young recruits" to militant Islam to "wage
guerrilla warfare" on American forces, and that Iran and Al Qaeda would be
the winners if the Bushies botched the occupation.
W. repeated last week that he would never retreat, but his advisers are
working on ways to retreat. After the surge, in lieu of strategy, come the
"concepts."
Condi Rice, Bob Gates and generals at the Pentagon are talking about
long-range "concepts" for reducing forces in Iraq, The Times reported
yesterday, as a way to tamp down criticism, including from Republicans; it
is also an acknowledgment that they can't sustain the current force level
there much longer. The article said that officials were starting to think
about how to halve the 20 American combat brigades in Iraq, sometime in the
second half of 2008.
As the Hollywood screenwriter said in "Annie Hall": "Right now it's only a
notion, but I think I can get money to make it into a concept and later turn
it into an idea."
http://johnedwards.com/news/speeches/20060622/
Jun 22, 2006
Senator John Edwards
Washington, DC
