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worldbefree
09-24-2004, 12:13 PM
Bush Upbeat as Iraq Burns
By BOB HERBERT

eorge W. Bush was a supporter of the war in Vietnam. For a while.

As he explained in his autobiography, "A Charge to Keep: My Journey to the White House":

"My inclination was to support the government and the war until proven wrong, and that only came later, as I realized we could not explain the mission, had no exit strategy, and did not seem to be fighting to win."

How is it that he ultimately came to see the fiasco in Vietnam so clearly but remains so blind to the frighteningly similar realities of his own war in Iraq? Mr. Bush cannot explain our mission in Iraq and has nothing resembling an exit strategy, and his troops - hobbled by shortages of personnel and by potentially fatal American and Iraqi political considerations - are certainly not fighting to win.

As the situation in Iraq moves from bad to worse, the president, based on his public comments, seems to be edging further and further from reality. This is disturbing, to say the least. The news from Iraq is filled with reports of kidnappings and beheadings, of people pleading desperately for their lives, of American soldiers being ambushed and killed, of clusters of Iraqis being blown to pieces by suicide bombers, and of the prospects for a credible election in January tumbling toward nil.

The war effort has deteriorated so drastically that the administration is planning to take more than $3 billion earmarked for crucial reconstruction projects and shift them to security programs designed to ward off the increasingly deadly insurgency. A classified National Intelligence Estimate prepared for the president contained no really good prospects for Iraq. The best-case scenario was a country with only tenuous stability. The worst potential outcome was civil war.

The intelligence estimate was prepared in July, and the situation has only worsened since then.

Even Republicans are starting to voice their concerns about the unfolding disaster. When asked on CBS's "Face the Nation" whether the U.S. was winning the war in Iraq, Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, said, "No, I don't think we're winning." He said the U.S. was "in deep trouble in Iraq" and that some "recalibration of policy" would be necessary to turn things around.

Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, said on "Fox News Sunday": "The situation has obviously been somewhat deteriorating, to say the least." He said "serious mistakes" have been made and that most of them "can be traced back to not having sufficient numbers of troops there."

These are not doves talking. These are supporters of President Bush who support the war in Iraq and believe it can be won. But they're also in touch with reality.

President Bush does not share their sense of alarm. He acknowledged that "horrible scenes" are being shown on television and the Internet, but he was unmoved by the gloomy intelligence estimates. According to Mr. Bush: "The C.I.A. laid out several scenarios. It said that life could be lousy, life could be O.K., life could be better."

Que sera, sera.

The president said he is personally optimistic and he delivered an upbeat assessment of conditions in Iraq to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. Iraq, he said, is well on its way to being "secure, democratic, federal and free."

If you spend more than a little time immersed in the world according to Karl Rove, you'll find that words lose even the remotest connection to reality. They become nothing more than tools designed to achieve political ends. So it's not easy to decipher what the president believes about Iraq.

This is scary. With Americans, Iraqis and others dying horribly in the long dark night of this American-led war, the world needs more from the president of the United States than the fool's gold of his empty utterances.

Perhaps someone can dislodge the president from Karl's clutches, shake him and tell him that his war is a tremendous tragedy with implications far beyond the election in November.

At the moment there is no evidence the president understands anything about the war. He led the nation into it with false pretenses. He never mobilized sufficient numbers of troops. He seemed to believe the war was over in May 2003. And he seems not to know how to proceed now.

The tragic lesson of Vietnam is staring the president in the face. But he'll have to become better acquainted with the real world before he can even begin to learn from it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/opinion/24herbert.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

DrMaddVibe
09-24-2004, 01:30 PM
Kerry out attack
During a 1997 debate on CNN's "Crossfire," Sen. John Kerry, now the Democratic presidential nominee, made the case for launching a pre-emptive attack against Iraq.
So reveals Rep. Peter King, New York Republican, who appeared with Mr. Kerry on the program.
Mr. King says the U.N. Security Council had just adopted a resolution against Iraq that was watered down at the behest of the French and the Russians. Yet the candidate who now criticizes President Bush for ignoring French and Russian objections to the Iraq war blasted the two countries, claiming that they were compromised by their business dealings with Baghdad.







"We know we can't count on the French. We know we can't count on the Russians," said Mr. Kerry. "We know that Iraq is a danger to the United States, and we reserve the right to take pre-emptive action whenever we feel it's in our national interest."
While no "Crossfire" transcripts from 1997 are available, Mr. King in recent days produced a tape of the show, sharing it with New York radio host Monica Crowley for broadcast, and this Inside the Beltway column for publication. Stay tuned.

Hill harvest
In passing the 2005 Transportation, Treasury and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, Congress this week handed itself a pay raise — jacking up its annual salary nearly $4,000 above a current income of $158,000.
It marks the sixth straight year that Congress has accepted an automatic pay raise. Hats off to two-term Rep. Jim Matheson, Utah Democrat, who last week made a procedural attempt to prevent the annual pay increase, but his measure was voted down 235 to 170.
Does anybody care that the congressional paycheck is growing while the country is $422 billion in debt?
"Members of Congress must think that money grows on trees," says Council for Citizens Against Government Waste President Tom Schatz, who agrees that "one of the many perks of being a member of Congress is that it is the only job in which you can apparently get away with giving yourself a pay raise during a time of increasing red ink."

Flip-flopping
Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani told President Bush this week that he is sorry.
"I owe you an apology," Mr. Giuliani began. "I made a mistake during my [Republican National Convention] speech ... I said that with 64 days to go, John Kerry could change his mind five or six times about what to do in Iraq. Well, he's already changed his mind four or five times and I'm going to be proven wrong again because I think we're looking more like eight or nine times."

Outlasting Moses
"In all my years in the Senate, I have never seen the abusive tactics, shameless attacks, and polarizing and poisonous language they're now using in a desperate effort to cling to their narrow majority in Congress."
— Sen. Ted Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, who was first elected to the Senate 42 years ago in 1962, referring to the Republicans

Hairy Kerry
So much for Sen. John Kerry's hair.
Seventy-six percent of respondents to a Grooming Lounge (where political-party heads as well as celebrities such as Bruce Willis and Elliot Gould get coiffed while in Washington) poll say President Bush has better hair than his rival.
And don't think hair isn't important in this era of television campaigns, when elections can come down to whoever looks the part.
Bushier-browed candidates, for example, have lost the popular vote in the past four presidential elections. And 92 percent of those surveyed think Mr. Kerry has the most pronounced "eyebrows of mass destruction" of the two candidates.
"In order to prevent history from repeating itself, we believe Kerry needs to have his eyebrows groomed," says Mike Gilman, co-founder of Grooming Lounge.

Pence pending
A group of more than 90 House conservatives who make up the House Republican Study Committee have named Indiana Rep. Mike Pence their new chairman for the 109th Congress.
"I am deeply humbled to be elected to lead those in Congress I have long admired for their principled and conservative stands," says Mr. Pence, who points out that his very first task is to get re-elected to a third term.
•Fans of this column will enjoy John McCaslin's new book, "Inside the Beltway: Offbeat Stories, Scoops, and Shenanigans From Around the Nation's Capital." Mr. McCaslin, whose column is nationally syndicated, can be reached at 202/636-3284 or jmccaslin@washingtontimes.com.

ODShowtime
09-24-2004, 03:21 PM
Originally posted by DrMaddVibe

Hairy Kerry
So much for Sen. John Kerry's hair.
Seventy-six percent of respondents to a Grooming Lounge (where political-party heads as well as celebrities such as Bruce Willis and Elliot Gould get coiffed while in Washington) poll say President Bush has better hair than his rival.
And don't think hair isn't important in this era of television campaigns, when elections can come down to whoever looks the part.
Bushier-browed candidates, for example, have lost the popular vote in the past four presidential elections. And 92 percent of those surveyed think Mr. Kerry has the most pronounced "eyebrows of mass destruction" of the two candidates.
"In order to prevent history from repeating itself, we believe Kerry needs to have his eyebrows groomed," says Mike Gilman, co-founder of Grooming Lounge.

I'm glad you provided back-up documentation for such crucial facts. I'm sold now! Go Bush!