A poll of 100 foreign policy heavyweights Monday showed most believe we're losing the war on terror, we're less safe because of Iraq, and that Islamic fanatics will mount another U.S. strike.

The bipartisan panel including Madeleine Albright and Lawrence Eagleburger, secretaries of state for former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, also defied views held by leading presidential candidates such as Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Nine out of 10 of the former top government, military and intelligence leaders surveyed warn that Americans now face greater danger and anticipate a new spectacular attack in the next decade, Foreign Policy magazine and the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress found.

That contradicts statements by both President Bush and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who jarred liberals at a presidential debate in June when she said, "I believe we are safer than we were."

Most of those surveyed - including prominent conservatives - blamed the Iraq war for increasing perils at home and its negative impact worldwide.

We've had an extraordinary week of leaked candor about the catastrophic state of US foreign policy under the Bush/Cheney regime, predictably followed by Presidential denials that al Qaeda is back and blatant propaganda that we're making "satisfactory" progress on the few Iraq benchmarks that are virtually meaningless. The White House, which has always confused inflexible standards and testing with genuine education and wisdom, has been reduced to giving out report cards on itself that translate to "improvement needed" on everything that really matters.  

But the reality based assessments dominated the news.  First it was the intelligence community's pre-denial assessment that al Qaeda has been allowed to regroup along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to become as threatening as ever, both for Europe and possibly the US. The obvious conclusion is that the President's six year global war on terror is not only an abject failure but a growing threat to our security.
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I fear we will stay in Iraq, not because it makes any sense, not because there is even a remote connection between staying and the furtherance of any justifiable US strategic objective in that region, and certainly not because it helps deal with radical terrorism when it so plainly exacerbates it.  No, we will stay because to do otherwise would require our leaders and the media to acknowledge their collective responsibility for the suffering we have unleashed on the Iraqis and our own soldiers.  Has any nation ever managed in its own time such painful self recognition?

Staying the course, even under the dishonest guise that it represents a "consensus" rather than a moral quagmire is not a defensible policy. Rather, it is an implicit punishment imposed on the hundreds or perhaps thousands of US soldiers who will yet die or be maimed to atone for the errors of everyone who first authorized or still promotes and sanctions this war.

How to talk of of both side of your mouth, by Ryan Crocker:

The Sept. 15 deadline for Bush's next progress report to Congress is fast approaching, leaving the president little time to show that his U.S. troop buildup is succeeding in providing the enhanced security the Iraqi leaders need to forge a unified way forward.
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U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, co-author of the highly anticipated report to Congress, also said Tuesday that Washington's blueprint for reconciliation was insufficient to win back control of Iraq. Congressional benchmarks such as laws to share oil revenue and reform security services don't tell the whole story, he said Tuesday.

Crocker, who will present the report with military commander Gen. David Petraeus, called Iraq's problems difficult but fixable, arguing for more time for his diplomacy and operations by the bolstered American military force.

"Failure to meet any of them (congressionally mandated benchmarks) does not mean the definitive failure of the state or the society," Crocker said. "Conversely, to make them all would not by any means mean that they've turned the corner and it's a sun-dappled upland from here on in with peace and harmony and background music. It's just a lot more complex than that."

Maliki is not the problem.

President Clinton was aware of the Balkans crisis when he entered office. Similarly, George W. Bush SHOULD HAVE considered the issues of Al Qaida's presence in Afghanistan:

This sounds like he did.

RICHARD CLARKE: Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.

Second point is that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998. And there were a number of issues on the table since 1998. And they remained on the table when that administration went out of office -- issues like aiding the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, changing our Pakistan policy -- uh, changing our policy toward Uzbekistan. And in January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years.

And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, in late January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent.

And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.

So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda