Political Pundit Place: Giuliani's Iraq scandal

This weekend, Rudy Giuliani launched a series of attacks on us for exposing the White House spin on the "surge."

Giuliani is hoping to scare war critics into staying silent. But that isn't going to happen. We've put together a rapid-response ad which demonstrates that Giuliani doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to leadership on Iraq: He was booted from the Iraq Study Group after missing meeting after meeting so he could make millions of dollars giving speeches.

We want voters to know that Giuliani can't be trusted on Iraq. Can you help with $10 to get this ad on the air in Iowa? Click here to see the ad and contribute:

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/giuliani.html?id=11257-7018451-xkHJNM&t=3

The facts are very clear: When it really mattered, Giuliani chose to make big money from speeches rather than helping figure out a strategy for Iraq.

The Iraq Study group (ISG) was a bipartisan panel appointed by Congress in March of 2006 to evaluate the situation in Iraq and make policy recommendations on the war. Sometimes it's referred to as the Baker-Hamilton commission.

Giuliani originally said that he looked forward to participating in the group,¹ but then he never showed up to any of the meetings.

Newsday reported earlier this year that, "Rudolph Giuliani's membership on an elite Iraq study panel came to an abrupt end last spring after he failed to show up for a single official meeting of the group, causing the panel's top Republican to give him a stark choice: either attend the meetings or quit, several sources said."²

Giuliani later said that he couldn't participate in the group because of "time constraints." A close look at his financial records shows that those time constraints actually consisted of a series of speeches that he made millions of dollars on.³

In April of last year. Giuliani skipped a meeting and made $200,000 giving a keynote speech at an economic conference in South Korea.⁴
The next month he skipped another meeting to give a $100,000 speech on "leadership" in Atlanta. Later that day, he attended a $100-a-ticket political fundraiser for conservative activist Ralph Reed.⁵

For Giuliani to claim any authority on handling the war in Iraq when he abdicated his responsibilities to the Iraq Study Group is a plain betrayal of the nation's trust. In fact, Stephen Hess, who served on the panel and has served in Republican and Democratic administrations, said, "Leaving that study group was not exactly an act of courage."⁶

While the media spotlight is on Giuliani and MoveOn, we've got an opportunity to remind voters about his real record on Iraq. Can you chip in $10 to help us get this ad on the air?

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/giuliani.html?id=11257-7018451-xkHJNM&t=4

Giuliani's ad against us is in response to the ad we ran in the New York Times last Monday. The ad really got under Republicans' skin—Senator John McCain even called for MoveOn to be "thrown out of the country."⁷(His campaign later conceded that we have the right to free speech.)

But Republicans are right to be nervous about the facts that ad brought to light. As cognitive scientist George Lakoff said, "The ad worked brilliantly to reveal, via its framing, an essential but previously hidden truth: the Bush Administration and its active supporters have betrayed the trust of the troops and the American people."⁸

With your help we can make sure we continue to highlight these important truths.

Thanks for all you do.

–Nita, Eli, Justin, Jennifer and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Monday, September 17th, 2007

This weekend, Rudy Giuliani launched a series of attacks on us. We put together an ad showing that Giuliani doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to Iraq: He was booted from the Iraq Study Group after missing meeting after meeting to make millions of dollars giving speeches. Can you help with $10 to get this ad on the air in Iowa?