United Press International: Coalition losing war for Iraqi arms

Dealing In Lead
Part of the problem with Iraq is that it's one of the most heavily armed countries in the world. And I'm not talking about Scuds and WMDs. I mean everybody and their grandma has at least an AK-47, and more than a few people have a working knowledge of explosives and small ordinance.

In response, the US Military and the Coalition Provisional Authority have initiated a sort of Iraqi gun buy-back program to try to make the streets safer.

The only problem is, Saddam's agents, the foreign terrorists, and all the international gun runners who flocked to Iraq once Bagdad collapsed all offer more money for these weapons to the civilians than the Americans are offering.

So the resistance stays heavily armed, in part, because the bad guys are out-bidding the U.S.

This would almost be laughable if it wasn't for the stench of dead bodies that permeates every strand of news that comes out of that country.

Fingerprints
So, as the President's situation grows increasingly tenuous, I've found myself "digging in the crates", so to speak, pulling all sorts of goodies out of the Macroscope archives that now have relevance in today's climate.

Case in point, last December, I made a post entitled "The Man Behind The Curtain", about an Esquire article by Ron Susskind that gives the skinny on Karl Rove, the President's Svengali. At the time, I just wanted to point out what a ruthless and scary guy Rove had managed to become without an actual official job in the White House. But, lo and behold, after scanning the Howard Dean blog, I came across this little quote in that December article:

Sources close to the former president say Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief and Bush loyalist Robert Mosbacher Jr. It was smoked out, and he was summarily ousted.

Hmn.

Karl Rove.

Robert Novak.

Planted negative story.
Where have I heard THAT before?