Lies And Damned Lies: DOD Gates Says Iraq Surge Begins In February

I see the new Defense Secretary is making up for lost time lying while Mr. Bush pretended to "deliberate" his new (same ol') Iraq plan: Robert Gates says the Iraq surge begins in February.

But we know from multiple sources that the call-up began in early December, that some of the surge troops were already on the ground before the New Year and that more arrived there in at least two batches this past week.

For all the talk, too, that the very first unit to ever get its third deployment to Iraq was shipping this week, I heard sometime last year of units already on their fourth deployment.

They changed rules of length of service for "citizen soldiers" this past week, but these rules had already been broken for years and that we had many guardsmen and others who had long ago passed the 24-month service mark.

I won't even touch their claims - Bush and Gates - that money for the surge is already in the budget because we know damned well that Bush has NEVER added any of the Iraq war costs to the budget where it might get hit. For the $550 Billion price tag currently attributed to the Iraq war so far, I read a lot that indicates the current price tag closer to $2.5 Trillion which does NOT cover the surge, does NOT cover the costs needed for the troops as they come home and deal with the physical/psychological fallout, and does not include the money we flushed into Halliburton, Bechtel, et al for "rebuilding" and other services in Iraq where we paid and these Bush-buddy corporations did not perform.

I'm really, really tired of the fairy tales. You?