NYT: Amid Hints Bush Will Change Policy, Clues He Won’t

[kskiska]

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — The debate that will engulf Washington and much of the country this week centers on a question that lurks at the intersection of war strategy and the personality of the commander in chief: after three and a half years, is President Bush ready to abandon his declaration that American forces cannot begin to leave Iraq until the Iraqis demonstrate that they are capable of defending themselves?

As administration officials tried to prepare the ground over the weekend for the release of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group’s long-awaited report on Wednesday, the president’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, repeatedly sidestepped questions about how the administration would react to the panel’s recommendations.

On three television news programs on Sunday, he offered assurances that Mr. Bush would look at all the new ideas landing on his desk to develop what Mr. Hadley referred to — 12 times — as a “new way forward,” one that the president would announce to the nation in “weeks, not months.”

But Mr. Hadley knows that one of the commission’s core conclusions is that the White House should announce a plan for American forces to begin pulling back, whether the Iraqis are ready or not.

(snip)

Commission members say they concluded that Mr. Bush’s strategy so far has created an expectation that the United States will always be there to hold Iraq together. Breaking that culture of dependency, they concluded, is the key to making the long-discussed “Iraqification” of the country’s security a reality. But they are uncertain whether they can persuade a famously stubborn president to adopt that view.

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/world/middleeast/04assess.html?hp&ex=1165208400&en=c1eab4a7ddf0d17c&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[JoFerret]

1. Sauce talk?

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=1&subID=929

[Drum]

2. W has painted himself into a rhetorical corner, just like his dad

with the "Read my lips" thing. Bush has avowed (and early on declared) total victory, no cut-and-run, etc, and now reality will teach another generation of Bushes about intractibility and oaths.

Interesting enough rhetorically, but I wish we could stop the killing and bring our folks home already.

[cornermouse]

3. I think Poppy's buddies are trying to force Bush in the

right direction. I just don't think I believe he's either smart enough or flexible enough to do the intelligent thing.

[mallard]

4. correct and those who want permanent bases...

...in Iraq won't budge.

The agenda is not really in Bush's hands as much as in his lap; the communication is output only; they don't even have ears, nevermind listen!

[bklyncowgirl]

5. I'd bet the rent money that he won't--It'll be interesting to see what the GOP does then.

Bush won't change.

If he reality of the debacle he has created in Iraq hasn't permeated through the thick bones of his skull into the seemingly empty space between his ears, if seeing his party go down in flames wasn't a wake up call for this man then it's hard to see how Poppy and his Pals are going to get him to see reason.

At some point the Republicans in Congress are going to lose patience and that may be the time that we see some action on impeachment.