Editors of The New York Times: President Bush's Speech About Iraq

[Jack Rabbit]

From The New York Times
Dated Wednesday June 29

President Bush's Speech About Iraq

President Bush told the nation last night that the war in Iraq was difficult but winnable. Only the first is clearly true. Despite buoyant cheerleading by administration officials, the military situation is at best unimproved. The Iraqi Army, despite Mr. Bush's optimistic descriptions, shows no signs of being able to control the country without American help for years to come. There are not enough American soldiers to carry out the job they have been sent to do, yet the strain of maintaining even this inadequate force is taking a terrible toll on the ability of the United States to defend its security on other fronts around the world.

We did not expect Mr. Bush would apologize for the misinformation that helped lead us into this war, or for the catastrophic mistakes his team made in running the military operation. But we had hoped he would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks. We had hoped that he would seize the moment to tell the nation how he will define victory, and to give Americans a specific sense of how he intends to reach that goal - beyond repeating the same wishful scenario that he has been describing since the invasion.

Sadly, Mr. Bush wasted his opportunity last night, giving a speech that only answered questions no one was asking. He told the nation, again and again, that a stable and democratic Iraq would be worth American sacrifices, while the nation was wondering whether American sacrifices could actually produce a stable and democratic Iraq.

Read more.

[mikehiggins]

1. I guess they didn't like the speech.

The slide into oblivion continues for the neocons.

[Jack Rabbit]

5. I'd say the early reviews are not positive

The Times seems to be trying to take the Kerry-esque approach of let's try to salvage this thing, but how? About all they can say with any certainty (again like Kerry last Fall) is that whatever Bush is doing isn't working.

That is the consensus of American opinion right now: what Bush is doing isn't working.

Sadly, I don't think there's a lot we can do in Iraq that will work. The Iraqi government will have to take responsibility for the fighting insurgents sooner rather than later. The argument that it will take years for the government to build an army to fight rebels seems disingenuous. How long did it take the rebels to organize?

Something that few seem to want to discuss is that civil strife, not unlike what we are seeing, would probably have resulted as soon as Saddam passed the scene, as he would have soon enough without any help from Mr. Bush.

I voted for Kerry last November not because I agreed with his pronoucements about Iraq (I didn't) but because I think him a pragmatist. Kerry might have tried two or three plans to salvage something in Iraq and then, once they had failed, brought the troops home. Bush would rather march us all off a cliff than admit to a mistake, let alone admit that he lied. We need to do something else than what we are doing. However, the sad truth is that in order to change policies, we will have to institute our own regime change.

[bemildred]

6. Perhaps Mr. Friedman will comment.

That should be interesting.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. Like Bush, Friedman will still sing the same tune

Of course, while it's similar, it isn't quite the same tune Bush has been singing.

Friedman seems to forget that he is not the President of the United States and that it is unlikely that he will ever run for the office. He also seems to forget that G. W. Bush is the President (well, kinda sorta) and that G. W. Bush is, first and formost, a crook who isn't going to do anything to undermine his cronies' war profits.

Somebody's getting rich off this occupation, and it's not me.

[bemildred]

8. "Iraq is flat"?

:rofl:

[Virginian]

2. He's down in the polls

He needed to say the magic word to get his base back in line.

9/11....9/11....9/11

There, now his polls will go back up.

[bejammin075]

3. When will the Admin's rosy predictions stop being wrong?

prediction after prediction. always wrong, very wrong. stong asertions, always wrong. why are we supposed to now belive he will be right? where is the track record?

when will our long national nightmare be over?

[mom cat]

9. After we declare a victory and get the hell out!

[fishnfla]

4. They make some good points: failure cant be our cause

nor, with bush* and inadequate troops and planning, can success be achieved.

31/2 more years, then what?

[ixion]

10. so BushCo lied and thousands have been killed because of that, but

I should 'get over' my anger, give the chimp a pass and talk about how to move forward and 'win'? That's it?

Sorry, no dice. :grr:

[90-percent]

11. end of Iraq adventure

If the Iraqi's were smarter, all they have to do is greet us as liberators and throw flowers at us in a parade and then the whole USA Armed Forces would promptly go home. We could be outta there in less than a week.

-85%

[newscott]

12. I hope the backlash leaves this administration a smoldering ruin