Buried in the middle of the NYT article headed "Pressure Builds Over Plan for Troop Increase" is the following report:

Mr. Bush's National Security Adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, said in an interview on "Meet the Press" on NBC that the White House has sufficient money under its control to deploy the troops as planned, and he suggested that once the troops are in place, Congress would be reluctant to cut off funding.

"I think once they get in harm's way, Congress's tradition is to support those troops," Mr. Hadley said.

Just in case the meaning of this is not instantly clear, let me spell it out with as much objectivity as I can muster.



Hadley is saying that the opposition of the recently elected majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate to the escalation of troop numbers in Iraq can be circumvented by using existing money, unallocated and unapproved for the purpose, to put young American women and men under fire, in "harms way", to force the continuation of such funding.



There are no words that I can bring to bear to express my disgust. This is not just an ugly and cynical piece of political exploitation but it has to be the sickest and most repugnant manipulation that has ever been publicly acknowledged by any administration of any Western Government.



Like the worst atrocities of the very insurgents, whose vile acts have fuelled so much hatred amongst our people, Hadley is saying that the White House will use the military men and women of its own nation as hostages in return for a demand that Congress pays a ransom in the form of approving the Iraq appropriations bill.



There is not a mother or father in the United States who hears this and who at this very moment is witnessing the notification, assembly and redeployment of their children that cannot but weep for them. And weep for the state of their nation.



It is not simply that these young men and women will be deliberately exposed to what has been called the cross fire of a brutal civil war to extract money from Congress. It is not simply that this is being done despite the knowledge that the majority of lawmakers are opposed to it. It is not simply that it disregards the wishes so clearly expressed by the people of the United States. It is that it is done so blatantly, so arrogantly, so imperiously without sense of shame, embarrassment or guilt at it being known that their lives are being used to blackmail Congress.



Is this the service that our troops signed up for when they took their oath of allegiance to the flag of their nation? Is this the level to which the nation that they have sworn to defend is sunk?



Who is this man Stephen Hadley, who so despicably and carelessly is prepared to reveal the intentions of the White House?







He is a lawyer, who has served the Republicans and Bush diligently. His biography can be read here and here. Here you can read not just of his rise through the ranks of full-time servants of the Bush administration that led to him replacing Condoleezza Rice as National Security Advisor, after having been part of that amorphous group known as "The Vulcans", but you can also read of those activities in which he has played a central part that have put to question the whole basis on which our nations were taken to war.



What you will not read is that he ever served in the military, that he ever faced the bullets and the mortar bombs and the IED's of an enemy determined to kill him. In other words, that he has never been in what he casually, and thereby callously, terms the "harms way" in which he would place young men and women to force the majority of Americans to capitulate to the demands of the few.

If you want to know what this has to do with a British contributor to an American Internet site, then I would simply refer you to the latest death of one of your allies, Kingsman Alexander Green, from 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, who died after being shot by small arms fire whilst on a task in Basra City. Let this be the photograph of a twenty-one year old that I place alongside that of the smiling war planner Stephen Hadley, who tonight will sleep easy in his bed as he contemplates with satisfaction how he has overcome the opposition to more of America's young being exposed in harm's way .

In my lifetime, I have seen my country join with France and Israel in the construction of a lie to take our three nations to war against Egypt. I have felt deep shame at this and cannot disguise my contempt at the last of the aristocratic Prime Ministers, Sir Anthony Eden, for his role in this act of deceit. I remain deeply antagonistic to the way that Margaret Thatcher took my country into war in the Falklands and cannot forgive her for her grand visions and lack of realization of the full price. Yet neither of these do I accuse of doing these acts with a truly uncaring concern for the lives of the men and women that served our country .



Stephen Hadley: J'accuse and, in so much as you reflect those whom you serve, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney: J'accuse.



I would ask all on our liberal blogs to recommend this diary so that as wide a readership as possible can see, more clearly than has ever openly been revealed before, the true face of this administration.

Further, I would ask that you bring this extract from the New York Times to the attention by e-mail of your representatives in Congress with the request that they ask for the resignation of Mr Hadley. This goes to the heart of all that has gone wrong over the last six years.