You may have heard the reports that the former US commander in Iraq has said the war is now an unending mess. Turns out that he said a whole lot more (which includes a link to the speech, so you can judge for yourself).

[I]t seems highly ironic that the journalists covering the story attempted to cover up the acidic, biting, and mostly accurate criticisms of their own performance in this war while giving front-page treatment to Sanchez' criticisms of the political structure at the same time. If Sanchez has such credibility and standing to bring this kind of criticism to bear on Washington, why didn't the Post and other news agencies give the same level of exposure to his media criticisms as well? He basically accuses them of cynically selling out the soldiers to defeat American efforts to win the war ... but you'd never know that from the Post.

The Post then goes on to obfuscate a key part of the second half of Sanchez' speech. While he criticizes the Bush administration in sharp terms, Sanchez blames the Democrats in equal measure. ...

And most importantly, none of the press has managed to pick up on this key sequence in Sanchez' broadside at the American political establishment:

America has no choice but to continue our efforts in Iraq. A precipitous withdrawal will unquestionably lead to chaos that would endanger the stability of the greater Middle East. If this occurs it would have significant adverse effects on the international community. Coalition and American force presence will be required at some level for the foreseeable future. Given the lack of a grand strategy we must move rapidly to minimize that force presence and allow the Iraqis maximum ability to exercise their soveriegnty in achieving a solution.

UPDATE I probably ought to make this its own post, but the general theme of the speech is that Iraq need bipartisan support in our government. The military never promised to fix everything, and no matter how much military success we enjoy (and it has been a lot, by any real measure of military success), it won't be enough by itself. This is a very good point. How often do we hear the Democrats say that there is "no military solution" to Iraq? And how often do they propose something to help solve the non-military questions? How often do they, instead, try to upset Turkey by talking about a massacre that took place 90 years ago in the Ottoman Empire? Make no mistake, by upsetting Turkey, Congressional leaders are hoping that more US military will die. Sanchez's speech appears directed at Congress to get it involved in a much better way than to try to disrupt our own supply lines in a war.

I finally got around to reading the most recent New York Times article about torture. The Times really ought to consider raising its hiring standards.

With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture.

This doesn't pass the smell test, and the reporter should know it. The CIA doesn't have a spotless record, but every once in a while it does capture a mole. How does the Agency determine that one of its employees is passing on secrets to another government? One technique is interrogation.

Also, we are supposed too believe that while US military training includes a course on resisting interrogation -- with the mock interrogations based on former Soviet techniques -- and while many CIA agents are former military, the CIA never got around to working up an interrogation policy before 2002? And the CIA went straight to the Saudis instead of, say, the British or the Israelis? This reporter really needs to think things through before typing up a story.

The list of interrogation techniques the Times wrings its hand over is made of "slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding. ... 'We were getting asked about combinations — "Can we do this and this at the same time?"'"

Yes, slaps to the head, and hours of rock music. That's uncomfortable, sure, but does it qualify as torture? Or would it make for a decent challenge on a "reality TV show" like Survivor? What if they're combined? "It was cold, and then he slapped my head! Those barbarians."

I'll admit I'm uncomfortable with the waterboarding accusation. However, I understand that the military routinely waterboards special forces trainees. Does the military torture its own people? Besides, it's also something I can see on a "reality TV show."

Likewise, US prisons often place solitary confinement cells strategically so that the temperature in the cell will be unusually hot or unusually cold. Is that torture? Do we torture our inmates? I don't think so.

The concept of these "aggressive interrogation" techniques is that the prisoner doesn't want to talk. The prisoner's will to be quiet can be measured. If you can make being quiet cost more than that amount, then the prisoner will talk. Would you jump into a pool filled with cockroaches? No? Would you do it for $1 million? How about $10 million? At some point, jumping in that pool becomes bearable in exchange for enough money.

Would you rat out your family to a foreign military? Probably not. But history has shown that your resolve to keep your family safe has a limit. At some point, nearly everybody decides that keeping quiet is no longer worth the effort. A captured terrorist doesn't want to talk. It's not a yes/no desire, but a desire that until the cost reaches X, he will not talk. So it seems that when other techniques (PDF) have been tried, we must either accept that we won't raise the cost higher, or we must raise the cost higher. At some point, decent humans will refuse to raise the cost (we don't want to use the rack on terrorist suspects); but we won't get any results if we aren't willing to raise the cost to a respectable level.

"No Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

After all the noise, Congress appears ready to justify the Terrorist Surveillance Program, a.k.a. the warrantless wiretaps. One of the proposed solutions would create something called "umbrella warrants," which would essentially be open-ended permission to the NSA to listen in on phone calls.

Although it's essential that the US listen in on potential terrorist communications, I believe the idea of an umbrella warrant is unconstitutional. An umbrella warrant would not "particularly describe" much of anything, and would not be based on probable cause.

That's OK, because searches don't require warrants, and the vast majority of searches are done without a warrant. The basic Constitutional protection is that all searches must be reasonable. If a warrant is required, then it must fit certain criteria.

Does the US military get warrants every time it intercepts radio communications in Afghanistan or Iraq? What about when it sends spy planes to international waters? For that matter, did Union commanders need warrants to spy on the Confederacy? Of course not. Congress can easily solve the "warrantless wiretapping" problem by allowing the NSA to cooperate with the US military in the course of regular military operations. That is, clarify in the law that if there is an ongoing military operation (like in Afghanistan) and evidence that the enemy communicates with people in the US, then the NSA has the ability to provide signals intelligence for the military so that the military doesn't need to maintain that kind of equipment in the US.

The umbrella warrant is a bad idea. And it will be challenged. I don't think the Democrats are creating a bad law with the intention of having the courts throw it out (so that the Democrats can look tough), but that is always a possibility. Instead it looks more like they made a big deal about the NSA not getting warrants, and ended up painting themselves into a corner. Umbrella warrants look like a face-saving solution. But it's a very bad idea.

UPDATE By the way, if the FISA court were to refuse to issue the first umbrella warrant on these grounds, I would applaud them. A judge is required to sign a warrant so that the judge can review if the warrant is legal. The judge is expected to say "no" once in a while. If the warrant is not legal because it's unconstitutional, then the FISA court most definitely ought to say "no."