Here is a story that should be getting a lot more play, but doesn't because it makes the major news outlets look bad. It explains how the Pentagon controlled many of those military analysts who appear on TV, getting them to give a Bush-friendly view of the war, while hiding the fact that they were carrying water for the administration.

I haven't followed the story that much. What really gets me is the almost complete silence about this program on TV. Not even Keith Olbermann wants to take it on. So much for that liberal media mantra. Check out Glenn Greenwald's report, that shows, in the Pentagon's own words, how it controlled the news, and did so illegally.

Greenwald quotes from a Pentagon memo, and the words are damming. These military officials knew exactly what they were doing. If this story does anything, it should convince the networks to fully disclose the ties their talking heads have to the subjects they are reporting on.

John McCain is going to really, really wish he hadn't said he was OK with American troops staying in Iraq for 100 years. Actually, he's said it more than once, and even said 1,000 years, and 10,000 years.

And surprise, surprise, the Democrats have finally learned a few GOP tricks, and they are now using the 100 years remark over and over and over.

Republicans aren't too happy about this, and they are pushing back. They realize that this one remark could very well define McCain for this election.

Now, to cut McCain a little slack, he qualifies his 100 year statement by saying only if Americans aren't getting killed or wounded. That begs the question, how long does he think we should put up with Americans getting killed before we pull the plug?

I want to see someone ask McCain this question. Until then, that 100 year tag is going to stick.

With the price of oil triple what it was before the invasion the war, the Iraqi government is now sitting on a nice surplus of money, what hasn't be siphoned off by the insurgents or stolen by corrupt ministers. Now we have calls for Iraq to pay us to stay:

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California, proposed the Iraqi government pay the cost of stationing U.S. troops in its country under any future agreement between Washington and Baghdad -- and said he would introduce legislation to require that.

"The United States government and the people of the United States have paid an awful price," Rohrabacher said. "It's time for the Iraqis to pay that price for their own protection."

I think Rep. Rohrabacher has a great idea. Tell the Iraqis if they don't pay up, we're leaving. I wonder what would happen if (or rather when) they refuse to pay us for creating such a disaster. Maybe this is a great way to finally get the GOP to end this war.

It's statements like this that make me wonder what's in the water supply in Washington that makes peopple so stupid:

Before testimony began, a senior official said Petraeus would likely stick to his guns and maintain that troops reductions should be dictated not by politics, but conditions on the ground.

They still have not figured out that the problem in Iraq is entirely political, that it can't be solved militarily. Before the surge, we had basically one civil war between Sunnis and Shiites, and the insurgency against the American presence. That battle has cooled down as mass areas of Iraq have been cleansed of one sect or the other, and Sunni leaders were bought off to turn against al Qaeda fighters.

Now we have a second civil war between Shiite groups battling for control of the country. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki went on the attack against Muqtada al-Sadr's forces ahead of the elections they had just agreed to hold later this year. It was a bold political move to eliminate his main rival, and it backfired. Now this fighting threatens to engulf the entire country.

What Bush & Co. don't seem to understand (or just ignore) is the role American troops are playing in the escalation of this civil war. Maliki could not have moved against Sadr without the backing of American troops. It was American military power that kept Maliki's army from being defeated outright.

It was bad enough that we had taken sides in the Sunni-Shiite civil war. Now we have sided with just one part of the Shiite majority against another. Oh, by the way, the side we are sided with is the one who is allied with Iran.

This is a political war. Try to impose a military solution, and Iraq will make 1980s Beirut look peaceful. Our presence there impedes the political process that must be made to bring peace to the country. America can't be the peacemaker her. We are an active and biased participant in this fight.

George W. Bush last week was praising the Iraqi government's crackdown on anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militias that control large swaths of Southern Iraq and Baghdad. The Iraqi army, with a lot of help from American and British air and ground forces, tried to take out Sadr's forces, and Sadr won.

Not only did Sadr basically hold on to all of that territory, he has basically destroyed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's credibility, and brought the Iranians in to help broker the peace.

Tell me how this is good for American interests?

The fighting in Iraq is not going well.

Essentially what has happened is that Shiite majority is split among the pro-U.S. government forces, and al-Sadr's Mahdi army which wants the U.S. out of Iraq. With American military now taking a even more visible role in the fighting, it threatens to rip the country apart. As troops are shifting to deal with the problems in the south, mortar shells are raining down on the Green Zone, and watch what the Sunnis start doing in Anbar.

Iraq now seems to have fallen into a mult-faceted civil war, with Shiites killing Shiites in the battle to control Basara, mortar shells raining down on the Green Zone and other neighborhoods in Baghdad, and U.S. forces winning hearts and minds by killing an Iraqi judge and his family.

Congrats, George. You've just created a new Lebanon. If there were any justice in the world, maybe after you are out of office, you can go over there and fight.

Before the war, I wrote a column about how it would likely end up that we would need to install "Saddam-lite" to rule the country, since Bush really had no political interest in installing democracy.

Meet Saddam-lite, police chief of Fallujah:

But the security that has been achieved here is fragile, the result of harsh tactics recalling the rule of Saddam Hussein, who was overthrown five years ago. Even as they work alongside U.S. forces, Zobaie's men admit they have beaten and tortured suspects to force confessions and exact revenge.

In the city's overcrowded, Iraqi-run jail, located inside a compound that also houses a U.S. military base and U.S. police advisers, detainees were beaten with iron rods, according to the current warden. Many were held for months with no clear evidence or due process. They were deprived of food, medical care and electricity and lived in utter squalor, said detainees, Iraqi police and U.S. military officers, who began to address the problems three weeks ago. Last summer, the warden said, several detainees died of heatstroke....

His men, he added, abuse suspects because "they don't surrender easily. They don't confess. They say: 'I am innocent. I haven't done anything.' They start to defend themselves."

He has also launched a network of intelligence operatives around the city, a system that was the backbone of Hussein's security apparatus, police officials said.

That is how Zobaie's men control Fallujah. With two U.S. Marines a few feet away, Fezaa said that if he caught a criminal or terrorism suspect in front of people, he would not hurt him. And if he captured him alone? "I wouldn't even let him walk afterward," he said. He pulled an electric stun gun from his leg holster. "I've used this before," he declared.

Capt. Mohammed Yousef, a ruddy-faced police investigator in another joint security station, said he sometimes has to beat suspects to make them confess. He has interrogated suspects since 1994, he said, and sees no need to change his methods.

"Since Saddam Hussein until now, Iraq obeys only the force," said Yousef. "We are practicing the same old procedures."

With American help, Zobaie's influence is growing. He presides over school graduations and launches municipal projects. He helps approve reconstruction contracts and meets with tribal sheiks. Last week, a member of parliament visited his office: He needed Zobaie's help to settle a land dispute.

"This politician came to me to solve the problem and not the city council," Zobaie said, beaming. He was wearing a dark suit with a black and silver tie, not his uniform.

What Zobaie wants is for the U.S. military to hand over full control of Fallujah. He believes Iraq's current leaders are not strong enough. Asked if democracy could ever bloom here, he replied: "No democracy in Iraq. Ever."

"When the Americans leave the city, I'll be tougher with the people," he said.

Here is Bush's foundation for peace and democracy that 4,000 Americans gave their lives for.

There are many tragedies spawned by the Iraq disaster. But for the good Christian supporters of President Bush, perhaps they should be reminded that the war has pretty much destroyed the Christian community in Iraq.

Under Saddam Hussein, Christians had protections and could practice their faith freely. His second in command, Tariq Aziz, is a Christian and made very public displays of his faith. Muslims accepted the Christian minority.

But the hell that was released with the invasion has forced most Christians into hiding or exile. They are targets of Islamic extremists, marked for assassination, their churches bombed and burned, their clergy killed.

Our tax dollars support the Iraqi government that is riddled with these extremists, and has no interest in reining them in. Why is there no outcry among those hard-core Christian Bush supporters?

This is a rundown of how money was blatantly wasted in Iraq.

Here's a sample:

[A]fter the money was delivered to Iraq, oversight and control evaporated. Of the $12 billion in U.S. banknotes delivered to Iraq in 2003 and 2004, at least $9 billion cannot be accounted for. A portion of that money may have been spent wisely and honestly; much of it probably wasn't. Some of it was stolen.

Once the money arrived in Iraq it entered a free-for-all environment where virtually anyone with fingers could take some of it. Moreover, the company that was hired to keep tabs on the outflow of money existed mainly on paper. Based in a private home in San Diego, it was a shell corporation with no certified public accountants. Its address of record is a post-office box in the Bahamas, where it is legally incorporated. That post-office box has been associated with shadowy offshore activities.