Y’think we’ll be hearing about this in the State of the Union tonight?

A second U.S. aircraft carrier strike group now steaming toward the Middle East is Washington’s way of warning Iran to back down in its attempts to dominate the region, a top U.S. diplomat said here Tuesday.

Nicholas Burns, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, ruled out direct negotiations with Iran and said a rapprochement between Washington and Tehran was “not possible” until Iran halts uranium enrichment.

“The Middle East isn’t a region to be dominated by Iran. The Gulf isn’t a body of water to be controlled by Iran. That’s why we’ve seen the United States station two carrier battle groups in the region,” Burns said in an address to the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center, an influential think-tank.

“Iran is going to have to understand that the United States will protect its interests if Iran seeks to confront us,” Burns continued.

This reminds me of something I was thinking the other day. Perhaps I’ve been watching too much 24 and Jericho, so I’ve got nukes on the brain, but: suppose, God forbid, a nuclear bomb went off tomorrow in an American city, and two days later, President Bush came on TV and said, “We have intelligence that Iran is behind these attacks, and we will retaliate.” Would you believe him? Would you at least have doubts? I’m talking not to the liberals so much — I know you guys would at least have doubts — I’m talking to the conservatives, the hawks, the people who (like me) supported both the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq. If such a ghastly scenario occurred, would you have sufficient faith in both the honesty of the Bush Administration and the accuracy of our intelligence services that you’d feel 100% confident when the bombs start falling on Tehran that we aren’t being led astray, again?

Because I don’t think I would.

P.S. To clarify… I don’t mean that I fear Bush would orchestrate a conspiracy to set off a nuke in order to implicate Iran, obviously. Nor do I even mean that I fear Bush would lie about who set off the hypothetical nuke. I just mean that, after the Iraq WMD intelligence debacle and the general tendency of this administration to fudge things a bit, I don’t know if anything Bush could say would be sufficient to convince me that we’re really, really positive it was Iran — which would obviously be necessary to justify, oh I dunno, a nuclear counterstrike.

I asked Becky this question, and she said confirmation from other countries’ intelligence services — I think she cited Israel, the U.K. and Germany, in that order — would help. Yeah, it would. A different president would help, too.

ABC News reports:

Mimicking the hijackers who executed the Sept. 11 attacks, insurgents reportedly tied to al Qaeda in Iraq considered using student visas to slip terrorists into the United States to orchestrate a new attack on American soil. …

Sources tell ABC News that the plot may have involved moving between 10 and 20 suspects believed to be affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq into the United States with student visas — the same method used by the 19 al Qaeda terrorists who struck American targets on Sept. 11. …

The plot was discovered six months ago, roughly the same time that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed by coalition forces. Sources tell ABC News that the suspects involved in the effort to launch the U.S. attack were closely associated with Zarqawi.

The plan also came only months after Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s No. 2, had requested that Zarqawi attempt an attack inside the United States.

“This appears to be the first hard evidence al Qaeda in Iraq was trying to attack us here at home,” said ABC News consultant Richard Clarke, former chief counterterrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council.

The plan was uncovered in its early stages, and sources say there is no indication that the suspects made it into the United States. Officials also emphasize that there is no evidence of an imminent attack.

Cue the arguments from both sides: This proves that the war in Iraq has made us less safe. This proves that Iraq was always a threat to our interests. This proves that we need to get out of Iraq. This proves that we need to win in Iraq. Et cetera, et cetera.

From the Yahoo! News homepage:

Heh.

There has been some press about an exchange on Thursday between Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice regarding the Bush administration’s troop surge plan for Iraq. Most of the coverage has been focused on whether Sen. Boxer’s comments about Rice’s lack of children making it more difficult for her to understand the sacrifice of a parent as she has no children (somehow feminists are up in arms because they think its an attack on a single, unmarried succesful women) but more important I think, is this part of the exchange:

SENATOR BARBARA BOXER: Do you have an estimate of the number of casualties we expect from this surge?

SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE: No, Senator, I don’t think there’s any way to give you such an estimate.

SENATOR BARBARA BOXER: Has the president — because he said expect more sacrifice, he must know.

SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Senator, I don’t think that any of us have a number that — of expected casualties. I think that people understand that there is going to be violence for some time in Iraq and that there will be more casualties.

Are you serious??? Secretary Rice would have us believe that no one in this administration has asked for or seen a casualty estimate for this proposed action? Do they honestly expect us to believe that? Come on, military leaders have been doing casualty estimates for hundreds if not thousands of years! So either this administration is lying to the American people or it is grossly incompetent. I’m not sure which is worse.

Hot Air asks: “Is Bush about to repeat one of his biggest mistakes by fighting the post-surge war on the cheap? According to Gen. Jack Keane, who co-authored the blueprint Bush is using: yes.” From the latter link:

The military mastermind of President George W Bush’s new troop “surge” strategy for Iraq has hit out at signs that the Pentagon is watering down the proposal for political reasons.

“You cannot try and do this piecemeal. We have to implement the whole package,” retired Gen Jack Keane, the former Army vice chief of staff, who co-authored the “Choosing Victory” strategy paper, told The Sunday Telegraph.

He expressed his alarm after Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, told congressmen that the troop build-up was expected to last “a matter of months” - rather than the 18 months proposed by Gen Keane.

Mr Gates also told hearings on Capitol Hill that the full deployment of 21,500 extra troops, announced by Mr Bush last week, might not be implemented. He suggested that only two or three of the five brigades proposed for Baghdad could initially be deployed, while the rest are held in reserve.

“That makes no military sense, although it might seem to make political sense,” said Gen Keane.

“We need all five brigades in Baghdad as soon as possible. It will take three to four months to clear neighbourhoods of death squads and insurgents, and at least the rest of the year to establish proper security for the population. If you only wanted to stage a clearance operation, you could do that in a few months. But if we left then, the militia would just return as they have in the past.”

In my previous post about the “surge,” I wrote that, given the disastrous consequences of failure in Iraq, victory is “worth one more shot, provided we’re going to really take a serious shot at it.” This latest report raises grave concerns about whether Bush’s “surge” is truly a “serious shot.”

On a related note, the Hot Air post, as well as this InstaPundit post, quote a UPI reporter as suggesting that the media isn’t asking the key question — “what happens if we lose? … If we lose, how are we going to mitigate the consequences of this?” — because “it seems that if as a reporter you do ask the national security question, all of a sudden you’re carrying Bush’s water.” As Glenn says: “Better that the story should be missed, and the country screwed, than that a reporter might look unacceptably friendly to Bush!”

I’m not sure what to make of this. Time will tell, I suppose. (Hat tip: Insty; also Sully.)

Drudge has President Bush’s speech to the nation, a few minutes early.

“The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people – and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me. ”

UPDATE: Did he have to mention Lieberman? Oy veh!

President Bush will announce plans for a troop “surge” in Iraq this evening, and will — far more shockingly — acknowledge that mistakes were made:

President Bush will tell the nation Wednesday night he will send more than 20,000 additional American forces to Iraq, acknowledging that it was a mistake earlier not to have more American and Iraqi troops fighting the war.

Seeking support for a retooled strategy to win support for the unpopular war, the president will acknowledge that the rules of engagement were flawed because certain neighborhoods in Baghdad were put off limits by the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, White House counselor Dan Bartlett said. “Military operations sometimes were handcuffed by political interference by the Iraqi leadership,” he said.

I’m not sure if blaming the Iraqis is a good move, but I do have the sense that our military has been handcuffed — whether by the Iraqi leadership, our own leadership (or lack thereof), or some combination of the two — and I’m inclined to support the “surge,” if I can be convinced that it has a reasonable possibility of success. I feel that way because, regardless of whether the war ever should have been started, and regardless of the mistakes that have clearly been made in waging it, it’s now extremely important that we achieve some sort of victory. Walking away with our tail between our legs would be absolutely disastrous in terms of perceptions — which are pivotal in the war on terror — and also in terms of the reality on the ground in Iraq. Thus, I believe it’s worth one more shot, provided we’re going to really take a serious shot at it. (I wonder if 20,000 is enough, personally.)

Of course, it wouldn’t be worth sending more troops and extending the war if there is no realistic possibility of victory and we’re just delaying the inevitable. The sentiment, vis a vis the troops who have already given their lives to this effort, that “they must not have died in vain” isn’t enough, by itself, to support continuing the war. Sending more troops to their deaths because a lot of troops have already gone to their deaths is a recipe for, well, death, lots of it, and nothing more. There needs to be, as I said, a realistic possibility of victory. Otherwise, it isn’t worth risking a single life, regardless of what happened before, and we should withdraw immediately. I don’t think that’s the case. But I’m not entirely sure what to think at this point. Anyway, Bush’s speech is at 9:00 PM EST. I’ll be watching.

P.S. More:

U.S. security operations in Baghdad are fundamentally flawed, and President Bush will propose a “new course” during a televised address Wednesday night, a White House official said.

Bush wants to send 21,000 to 24,000 additional U.S. troops to Baghdad and Anbar province over the next few months, and the first of five U.S. Army brigades could leave within weeks, senior White House officials said Wednesday.

The White House will ask Congress for $5.6 billion for the additional troops, and $1.2 billion for rebuilding and jobs programs in Iraq, senior administration officials said.

Democrats leading the House and Senate are under pressure from opponents of the war to block money for additional troop deployments. …

“What we’ve seen time and time again, the security operations we’ve attempted in the past in Baghdad had two real fundamental flaws,” Bartlett said. Operations did not include enough Iraqi or U.S. troops “to hold the neighborhoods we had cleared throughout Baghdad,” he said.

“Rules of engagement — where troops could go, who they could go after –were severely restricted by politics in Baghdad,” Bartlett said. “That’s going to change as well.

“The president will chart a new course in Iraq tonight, one that will expect very different results, particularly from the Iraqis.”

Iraq’s fledgling government has been strained by infighting while sectarian violence and insurgent attacks have plagued many parts of the capital.

“It gives us the best chance to give the Iraqi government the kind of breathing space they’re going to need to have political reconciliation,” Bartlett said.

Reacting to the plan, an influential group of Sunni Muslim scholars in Iraq said additional U.S. troops will result in the deaths of “many, many more innocent Iraqis.”

“The inability of 140,000 soldiers to achieve their goals in battle makes it unlikely that another 20,000 will be able to do that,” said the Association of Muslim Scholars.

In a White House briefing, officials said the president will propose sending five additional Army brigades of 3,000-4,000 soldiers each to Baghdad, spread among nine districts. Also, the plan calls for 4,000 Marines to go to the troubled Anbar province west of Baghdad, the officials said.

There are about 135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

In Baghdad, Iraqi soldiers will take the lead, with backup from the Americans, the officials said. The Iraqi army will add three army brigades to Baghdad to make it an Iraqi-led operation. The additional troops will be sent to Iraq in phases, officials said.

To accomplish the plan, the normal tours of duty for soldiers and Marines will be extended, the officials said. Marines who usually spend seven months in Iraq will be there three or four months longer; soldiers who normally serve for a year will be there up to four months longer.

To sustain the increase, the Pentagon is expected to have to activate more National Guard and Reserve units, according to the officials.

The plan, which U.S. officials said the Iraqis helped prepare, would add billions of dollars to the cost of the war.

It’s midnight on January 1, 2007 in Tehran. Here’s hoping the new year brings a change of direction in that country, with less warmongering and more heckling.

To see what time it is elsewhere around the world, visit WorldTimeZone.com. They’re a half-hour away from 2007 in Moscow, Baghdad, Riyadh and Mogadishu, among other places. Cairo has an hour-and-a-half to go, Paris 2 1/2 hours. And if there’s a single “official” start of the new year, it isn’t when the ball drops in New York in 8 1/2 hours, but when Greenwich, England enters 2007 in 3 1/2 hours and the official “Zulu time” turns over to 01/0000Z.

P.S. Here’s a Java applet counting the time left till 2007 in various major cities. And here’s a static list of all the time zones and when they hit local midnight.

Here in Arizona, we’re in the UTC+7 time zone, meaning we’ve got seven more hours than Greenwich, England to wait — which is to say, we’re 10 1/2 hours away from 2007 yet. It’ll be 2:00 AM EST when we enter the new year. At least, that’s the official view, and the Brendan Loy view. Here in the Zak household, though, the prevailing wisdom is that it’s the new year when the ball drops in New York. I dispute this every year, but Ted and Ginny are unyielding in their adherence to what you might call the “Dick Clark principle” of New Year’s countdowns. :) Never mind that one channel actually re-runs the Times Square countdown two hours after the fact, so it’s actually possible to watch the ball drop at midnight local time. Anyway, I’ll be staying up till midnight, that’s for damn sure. Whether I’m here in Gold Canyon, or out at the Insight Fiesta Bowl Block Party in Tempe, has yet to be decided.

Unlike the official video of Saddam Hussein’s execution, which shows only the final preparations before the hanging, an unofficial video — apparently taken by someone in the room with a cell-phone camera (!) — has appeared online, and it shows the whole thing, albeit with a lot of jerky and erratic camera movement. WARNING: Do not click the previous link unless you want to see Saddam Hussein hanged! (Obviously.)

Meanwhile, the American Thinker offers some historical perspective:

Most of the great butchers of the 20th century died of old age, in their own beds, some of them honored by millions. Not a single one met justice in the sense accepted in free states across the world. The handful who died otherwise are aberrations, victims of strange events that act as models for nothing.

There is one single exception - the hanging of Saddam Hussein on December 30, 2006 after a careful, lengthy trial carried out under extremely difficult circumstances according to internationally recognized judicial norms. The state of Iraq has succeeded where the rest of the civilized world has failed. It is a singular achievement, and it will stand.

(Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

As of 10 minutes ago.

According to the U.S.-backed TV channel in Iraq, Al Hurra. So says CNN.

May he rot in Hell.

UPDATE, 10:09 PM EDT: Al-Arabiya now also reporting that Saddam has been executed.

UPDATE, 10:10 PM EDT: We just did our toast. “To the death of the tyrant.”

UPDATE, 10:34 PM EDT: The execution was filmed, according to the BBC.

So says CNN (which has better coverage than Fox — they actually have people reporting live from Baghdad, not just stock footage of Saddam and live images from Dearborn, Michigan).

Saddam has arrived at the execution site, according to Arab TV, via CNN.

Larry King says the dictator’s death is “really imminent.” And now, in a wonderfully inappropriate segue, he’s plugging Jack Hanna on tomorrow’s show.

As noted below, Saddam Hussein is set to be executed between 9:30 and 10:00 PM Eastern time tonight. That’s between 7:30 and 8:00 here in Arizona. We’re having dinner at 6:00, so if all goes as planned, the dictator will face the gallows while we’re lounging around after dinner, watching the Champs Sports Bowl. I’ll probably learn the news from the telltale buzz of my cell phone, vibrating as the first of several breaking-news text messages arrives.

When the first Gulf War happened, I was nine years old. At nine, I was an even bigger dork than now (believe it or not), and I used to love writing “alternative” versions of Christmas carols. So when we attacked Iraq in January 1991, I conceived of the idea of singing “Joy to the world, Saddam is dead” when that moment — which I presumed was inevitable — came. A bit distasteful, I suppose, turning a song about the birth of the savior into a song about the death of a dictator, but I was a nine-year-old boy, and I thought it was pretty funny. Needless to say, I was bitterly disappointed when President Bush stopped short of invading Baghdad and finishing Saddam, and thus denied me the opportunity to sing my song and mean it.

In a sense, then, I suppose you could say I’ve been waiting almost 16 years to sing those words — “Joy to the world, Saddam is dead” — and the wait ends tonight. But will I sing them? Probably not. I’m a bit more reflective at 25 than I was at 9 (one would hope!), and in addition to the general distastefulness of the lyrical adaptation, I recognize now that there will be nothing joyful about Saddam’s death; it is simply justice long delayed, and woefully inadequate. As Casey wrote: “Vengeful Iraqis seem to grasp this concept with their notion that ‘A thousand deaths would not be enough for a man like Saddam.’ While the American press and politicians take satisfaction in the man being ‘held accountable by a due process that he denied his own people’, Iraqis intuitively reject the petty fiction that due process somehow instills proportion where none is possible.”

So I won’t sing. But if I happen to have a drink in my hand when the news breaks, I might propose a toast to the richly deserved end of an unspeakably evil tyrant. J.R.R. Tolkien urged Frodo (and through him, us), “Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment,” but in this case I must disagree with the good professor. I have no qualms whatsoever about judging Saddam worthy of his fate. My only wish is that it had come sooner, before he had killed so many innocents, and at a less horrific cost to those who liberated the people he enslaved, and to the liberated people themselves. But his death is still cause for — well, not for celebration, exactly, but for raising one’s glass and saying words to the effect of, “Finally. Good riddance.”

UPDATE: Welcome, InstaPundit readers!

According to TVnewser, the networks will break into programming to announce the news of Saddam’s death. I wonder, for those of us who will be watching Purdue vs. Maryland, will there will be some message on ESPN (perhaps in the scrolling bar at the bottom of the screen) breaking the news and telling people to tune to ABC?

Also, TVnewser quotes NBC as saying, “We will use care and caution in airing whatever video becomes available and will make a final decision about which images to use only after we have seen them.”

UPDATE 2: In comments, wolfwalker makes an excellent point in Tolkien’s defense:

He (or rather Gandalf, his Wise One) didn’t say “don’t deal out death.� He said “Don’t be too eager to deal out death� — in other words, don’t do it hastily or in the heat of the moment. You never know when you might need somebody later … like Gollum or Wormtongue.

But Gandalf himself never hesitated to deal out death, once he decided it was deserved — to Orcs, to dragons, to the Balrog, to the Nazgul. Saddam is at least a mortal analog of a Ringwraith; he’s earned death, and worse than death, a hundred times over.

Well said.

PLEASE NOTE: Further updates will be in new posts. If you’re viewing this post at the permalink URL, please visit my homepage for the latest.

Saddam Hussein’s execution is expected to occur within the next few hours, before 10pm EST.

UPDATE, 6:23 PM EST: What the heck does this mean?

Is he dead?

UPDATE, 6:26 PM EST: Okay, Drudge has now clairified his siren with the message: “State TV: Mounts the gallows between 9:30-10:00 pm ET…”

So, he’s not dead yet. But soon.

UPDATE, 7:24 PM EST: More in a new post above.

Casey says of “Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg, Charles Krauthammer, and the entire nexus of idiots who bugled the Iraq war into being”:

I am disgusted by how these men are still trumpeting belligerence from the mountaintops with only the most superficial and self-serving of soul-searching over their previous fatal blunders. I don’t just question the competence of these men. I question their character, their morality, and to be frank, their faith in God.

And their timing. Always question the timing.