Bush Shakes Up Iraq Administration

Washington Post ^ | May 11, 2003 | Peter Slevin

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

She was ambassador(ess) to Yemen during the Cole disaster and subsequent investigation. She did her level-best to deep-six the investigation. The DOD wasn't too happy with her appointment as mayor of Baghdad. It wouldn't totally surprise me if Mr. Bush got some bum advice when he first appointed her, and is repenting now...

[lilylangtree]

Is her replacement Robin Rafael? From a small blurb in the local paper about Robin Rafael, it reads as follows:

The U.S. diplomat now assigned to help decide who will lead Iraq is Robin Rafael, the same woman who, in 1996, helped choose the Taliban to take control in Afghanistan. Joel Mowbray of National Review writes that "Rafael obviously had no idea at the time the true nature of the threat posed by the Taliban, but there were plenty of indications that she--and the rest of State Department--willingly ignored."

Just more of the incompetence and appeasement attitude from the State Dept.

[Paul Ross]

She also insisted that intelligence reports that Yemen's harbor was unsafe were 'totally unfounded' just a week before the USS Cole was attacked.

[Paul Ross]

Barbara K. Bodine, a former ambassador to Yemen and the highest-ranking woman in the U.S.-led interim administration in Iraq, said she intended to leave for Washington on Sunday to fill a senior post at the State Department

How about the senior latrine-cleaner at Foggy Bottom? Anything more than that would be proof of the Peter Principle...