Cheney’s World

In the long tradition of abysmal Republican Vice Presidents – Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, and Dan Quayle - Dick Cheney has quickly surmounted even their combined records. While they displayed in varying degrees annoying, corrupt, and stupid behavior, Cheney appears to have undue influence on the policies and decisions of the Bush administration, which makes his history of lies, distortions, and advice detrimental to the well being of the country.

Following the Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote opposing Bush’s troop increase, Cheney stated that the administration had achieved “enormous success” in Iraq. Even the President admitted last week that his Iraq policy should be considered a “slow failure.”

When Wolf Blitzer of CNN asked whether the administration's credibility had been hurt by "the blunders and the failures" in Iraq, Cheney interjected: "Wolf, Wolf, I simply don't accept the premise of your question. I just think it's hogwash."

For a different view of the situation in Iraq, Peter Beinhart, editor-at-large at The New Republic in a column published 1-29-2007, comes a little bit closer to the reality facing us than does the Vice President who predicted the insurgency was in its “last throes” back in May 2005:

When will we finally take no for an answer? In December, Bush administration officials began talking about a surge of U.S. troops to Baghdad to create the military conditions for political reconciliation. Such an effort, they said, would only succeed if Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki reached courageously across sectarian lines, disarming the Shia militias that buttress his government and sharing political power with Iraq's beleaguered Sunnis. "If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises," President Bush declared when he unveiled the surge plan to the nation, "it will lose the support of the American people."

And, since December, here's what Maliki has done: First, his aides told reporters that he didn't want any more U.S. troops in Baghdad. To the contrary, he wanted all U.S. troops out of Iraq's capital. Maliki, it turned out, had a plan of his own. Iraqi troops would attack Sunni insurgents only, while ignoring the Shia militias. In other words, in a city increasingly cleansed of Sunnis and run by Moqtada Al Sadr's brutal Mahdi army, Maliki would hasten the job.

American officials threatened and cajoled, and Maliki supposedly backed down. But, at a January 11 press conference where he was expected to endorse Bush's surge, Maliki didn't show up. Instead, a spokesman told the press that Iraq's government "will not stand against it" before adding that "what is suitable for our conditions in Iraq is what we decide, not what others decide for us."

Behind the scenes, it seems, American and Iraqi officials had reached a deal. Maliki would appoint a commander for Baghdad to oversee Iraq's share of the new military offensive. Maliki agreed, according to The New York Times, because the commander would be less beholden to the Defense Ministry, which is run by a Sunni and closely monitored by the United States. And, on January 12, he made his pick, rejecting America's preferred candidates and picking an obscure Shia naval officer. None of the non-Shia parties in Iraq's supposed national-unity government had been consulted. "Nobody asked us," one Sunni legislator told the Los Angeles Times about the man charged with leading the military effort to close Iraq's gaping sectarian divide. "This is the first I've heard."

Nobody asked the Sunnis about Saddam Hussein's execution, either. There were, after all, good reasons to postpone the hanging. For one thing, Saddam had only been convicted of murdering Shia (in retaliation, as it happens, for an execution attempt by Maliki's Dawa party). He was still awaiting trial for his crimes against Kurds and other Iraqis. Moreover, he was set to be executed on the day Sunnis begin celebrating the holiday of Eid Al Adha. (Shia begin celebrating a day later.) And, finally, his execution violated Iraqi law. In Iraq, a death sentence requires the approval of the country's president (a Kurd) and two vice presidents (a Shia and a Sunni). But Maliki, channeling Dick Cheney, insisted he had all the legal authority he needed and rushed Saddam to the gallows, where the former dictator was mocked by Sadr's henchmen, prompting mass Sunni outrage.

Does this sound like a man interested in courageous efforts to bring Sunnis and Shia together? Of course not. Before becoming prime minister, Maliki was known as a Shia hard-liner who wanted to limit Sunni influence in the committee drafting Iraq's constitution--and tried to bar virtually all former Baath party officials from government office. He became prime minister largely because of Sadr, who functions as a kind of Tom DeLay to his Dennis Hastert. After he was sworn in last May, the United States urged him to rewrite Iraq's oil law, soften de-Baathification, and rein in the Shia militias, all to show Sunnis that he was their prime minister, too. Eight months later, we're still asking.

Maliki's behavior is a big part of the reason so many in the U.S. military opposed the surge. Over the past year, he has repeatedly blocked them from going after Sadr's men, and, when they have captured members of the Mahdi army, he has sometimes intervened to secure their release. "Repeated reports from our commanders on the ground contributed to our concerns about Maliki's government," wrote National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley last November in a memo leaked to The New York Times. Pressed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about Maliki's government last week, Condoleezza Rice lamely replied that "the fact that they didn't act properly in the past does not mean that they won't act properly in the future."

As evidence of Maliki's change of heart, Bush administration officials are claiming they finally have the green light to go after Sadr. Except that Maliki's advisers say the opposite, insisting that U.S. troops can only go into the sprawling Shia slum known as Sadr City with their approval. We are, to put it bluntly, being used. Maliki has only consented to more U.S. troops because he thinks they will help him cleanse Baghdad of Sunnis. Already, there are reports that Sadr's men are taking off their uniforms, stashing their weapons, and dismantling their checkpoints. As they go underground, Maliki will declare the Shia militia problem solved and push the United States to throw its full weight against the Sunni insurgents who are guarding Sunni neighborhoods from Shia takeover.

This is what it means to send more U.S. troops into the teeth of a civil war. President Bush says we are surging to support Iraqi leaders committed to reconciliation across sectarian lines. But the Iraqi leaders he's conjuring up no longer live in Iraq. Defeated at the polls and fearful for their lives, they now reside in Amman, London, or the United States. Maliki, the sectarian, fundamentalist leader of a sectarian, fundamentalist government, has taken their place. And, given the political climate in Iraq today, even if he were overthrown, the likely successors would be just as bad.

"Do we and Prime Minister Maliki share the same vision for Iraq?" wondered Hadley in his November memo. Virtually everything Maliki has done in recent weeks screams no. How much more evidence do we need, and how many more Americans must die, before we take that no for an answer?

The Speech

The President did the best he could given his present unpopular predicament facing a majority opposition party and an unimpressed public. He trotted out a few potential domestic programs that might draw bi-partisan support while at the same time referring to the “Democrat” (rather than the Democratic) Party guaranteed to annoy the Democrats. His Iraq plea repeated the lie that things were going well in Iraq until that dastardly mosque bombing in 2006. Here is his first substantive statement, filled with claims that are outright lies:

Congress has changed, but not our responsibilities. Each of us is guided by our own convictions, and to these we must stay faithful. Yet we're all held to the same standards, and called to serve the same good purposes: to extend this nation's prosperity; to spend the people's money wisely; to solve problems, not leave them to future generations; to guard America against all evil; and to keep faith with those we have sent forth to defend us.

“Spend the people's money wisely” – the 2000 surplus converted into a massive deficit due to tax cuts for the rich and an unnecessary war in Iraq.

“Solve problems, not leave them to future generations” – the deficit, the dependence on foreign oil, global warming, and the looming entitlement problems will be there long after Bush leaves office.

“Guard America against all evil” – instead of using our resources to fight al-Qaeda terrorism and the causes of terrorist support throughout the world, Bush squandered our resources in Iraq.

“Keep faith with those we have sent forth to defend us” – sending our troops into a war with no planning, insufficient armor, and inadequate numbers.

Fortunately, the night was salvaged by an eloquent and forceful rebuttal by Virginia Senator Jim Webb. It deserves close reading and here it is in its entirety:

I'm Senator Jim Webb, from Virginia, where this year we will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown - an event that marked the first step in the long journey that has made us the greatest and most prosperous nation on earth.

It would not be possible in this short amount of time to actually rebut the President's message, nor would it be useful. Let me simply say that we in the Democratic Party hope that this administration is serious about improving education and healthcare for all Americans, and addressing such domestic priorities as restoring the vitality of New Orleans.

Further, this is the seventh time the President has mentioned energy independence in his state of the union message, but for the first time this exchange is taking place in a Congress led by the Democratic Party. We are looking for affirmative solutions that will strengthen our nation by freeing us from our dependence on foreign oil, and spurring a wave of entrepreneurial growth in the form of alternate energy programs. We look forward to working with the President and his party to bring about these changes.

There are two areas where our respective parties have largely stood in contradiction, and I want to take a few minutes to address them tonight. The first relates to how we see the health of our economy - how we measure it, and how we ensure that its benefits are properly shared among all Americans. The second regards our foreign policy - how we might bring the war in Iraq to a proper conclusion that will also allow us to continue to fight the war against international terrorism, and to address other strategic concerns that our country faces around the world.

When one looks at the health of our economy, it's almost as if we are living in two different countries. Some say that things have never been better. The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits. But these benefits are not being fairly shared. When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it's nearly 400 times. In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.
Wages and salaries for our workers are at all-time lows as a percentage of national wealth, even though the productivity of American workers is the highest in the world. Medical costs have skyrocketed. College tuition rates are off the charts. Our manufacturing base is being dismantled and sent overseas. Good American jobs are being sent along with them.

In short, the middle class of this country, our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table. Our workers know this, through painful experience. Our white-collar professionals are beginning to understand it, as their jobs start disappearing also. And they expect, rightly, that in this age of globalization, their government has a duty to insist that their concerns be dealt with fairly in the international marketplace.

In the early days of our republic, President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy - that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base. Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street. We must recapture that spirit today.
And under the leadership of the new Democratic Congress, we are on our way to doing so. The House just passed a minimum wage increase, the first in ten years, and the Senate will soon follow. We've introduced a broad legislative package designed to regain the trust of the American people. We've established a tone of cooperation and consensus that extends beyond party lines. We're working to get the right things done, for the right people and for the right reasons.

With respect to foreign policy, this country has patiently endured a mismanaged war for nearly four years. Many, including myself, warned even before the war began that it was unnecessary, that it would take our energy and attention away from the larger war against terrorism, and that invading and occupying Iraq would leave us strategically vulnerable in the most violent and turbulent corner of the world.

I want to share with all of you a picture that I have carried with me for more than 50 years. This is my father, when he was a young Air Force captain, flying cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift. He sent us the picture from Germany, as we waited for him, back here at home. When I was a small boy, I used to take the picture to bed with me every night, because for more than three years my father was deployed, unable to live with us full-time, serving overseas or in bases where there was no family housing. I still keep it, to remind me of the sacrifices that my mother and others had to make, over and over again, as my father gladly served our country. I was proud to follow in his footsteps, serving as a Marine in Vietnam. My brother did as well, serving as a Marine helicopter pilot. My son has joined the tradition, now serving as an infantry Marine in Iraq.

Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues - those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death - we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm's way.

We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us - sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.

The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable - and predicted - disarray that has followed.

The war's costs to our nation have been staggering.

Financially. The damage to our reputation around the world. The lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism. And especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve.

The majority of the nation no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the majority of our military. We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos. But an immediate shift toward strong regionally-based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq's cities, and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.

On both of these vital issues, our economy and our national security, it falls upon those of us in elected office to take action.

Regarding the economic imbalance in our country, I am reminded of the situation President Theodore Roosevelt faced in the early days of the 20th century. America was then, as now, drifting apart along class lines. The so-called robber barons were unapologetically raking in a huge percentage of the national wealth. The dispossessed workers at the bottom were threatening revolt.

Roosevelt spoke strongly against these divisions. He told his fellow Republicans that they must set themselves "as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other." And he did something about it.

As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. "When comes the end?" asked the General who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War Two. And as soon as he became President, he brought the Korean War to an end.

These Presidents took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.

Thank you for listening. And God bless America.

The Bush Legacy

Where the US stands in world opinion may not be an issue for people who scream USA USA at international sporting events, but it is an increasing problem for this country. The last six years have shown how difficult it is to act on a global stage without friends. Our esteem has plummeted even further in the past two years and is constraining our actions more and more. Two more years to go in the Bush Presidency; how difficult will it be for the next President to resurrect our former position? The following is from today’s Washington Post:

Global opinion of U.S. foreign policy has sharply deteriorated in the past two years, according to a BBC poll released on the eve of President Bush's annual State of the Union address.

Nearly three-quarters of those polled in 25 countries disapprove of U.S. policies toward Iraq, and more than two-thirds said the U.S. military presence in the Middle East does more harm than good. Nearly half of those polled in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America and the Middle East said the United States is now playing a mainly negative role in the world. More than 26,000 people were questioned for the survey.

"It's been a horrible slide," said Doug Miller, president of GlobeScan, an international polling company that conducted the BBC survey with the Program on International Policy Attitudes, an affiliate of the University of Maryland. He said views of U.S. policy have steadily declined since the annual poll began two years ago.

In the 18 countries previously polled by the BBC, people who said the United States was having a generally positive influence in the world dropped to 29 percent, from 36 percent last year and 40 percent the year before.

"I thought it had bottomed out a year ago, but it's gotten worse, and we really are at historic lows," said Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Kull attributed much of the problem to a growing perception of "hypocrisy" on the part of the United States in such areas as cooperation with the United Nations and other international bodies, especially involving the use of military force.

"The thing that comes up repeatedly is not just anger about Iraq," Kull said, adding that the BBC poll is consistent with numerous other surveys around the world that have measured attitudes toward the United States. "The common theme is hypocrisy. The reaction tends to be: 'You were a champion of a certain set of rules. Now you are breaking your own rules, so you are being hypocritical.' "

The BBC survey found that a majority of those polled hold negative views on U.S. policies on a wide range of issues. Sixty-seven percent disapproved of U.S. handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Sixty-five percent disliked the U.S. stance on last summer's military conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, 60 percent opposed U.S. policies on Iran's nuclear program, 56 percent opposed Washington's position on global climate change and 54 percent disapproved of U.S. policies toward North Korea.

"If this keeps up, it's going to be very difficult for the United States to exercise its moral suasion in the world," Miller said.

The survey of 26,381 people was conducted in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States. The polling took place from November to January.

Although Prime Minister Tony Blair has been Bush's chief foreign ally in the Iraq war, British views of U.S. policies were particularly negative. Fifty-seven percent of Britons surveyed said the United States plays a mainly negative role in the world; 33 percent said the U.S. influence was mainly positive, down three percentage points from last year.

Eighty-one percent of Britons opposed U.S. actions in Iraq, while 72 percent said the U.S. military presence in the Middle East provokes more conflict than it prevents. Just 14 percent of Britons said the United States was a "stabilizing force" in the region.

Globally, the most common view in 23 of the 25 countries is that the United States is causing more Middle East conflict than it is preventing; the most common view in only one country, Nigeria, was that U.S. policies were "stabilizing" the region.

Views of U.S. foreign policy are also becoming more negative among U.S. citizens, the poll found. Of the 1,000 Americans surveyed, 57 percent said the United States is having a mainly positive influence in the world. That is down from 63 percent last year and 71 percent two years ago.

Failure

In his attempt to justify and explain his newly announced Iraq approach, The President falls back on two assertions that he accepts unquestioningly and, which to me, are striking evidence of everything that is wrong with his policy and thought. First is his claim that things were going well in Iraq until the “killers” decided to blow up the Samara Mosque in early 2006. How anyone could look at Iraq in 2003, 2004, and 2005 and conclude that the looting, de-Baathification, lack of services, roadside bombs, and sectarian violence were actually a success, other than in comparison to the increased violence in 2006, is misconstruing reality, almost at the level of seeing WMD and Al Qaeda in Iraq before the start of the war.

More egregious is his second assertion: that he and his critics agree, “failure is not an option.” Once he says this he then justifies his revised approach as the best of any option that he has heard. He also uses this to accuse the Democrats of not having any plan (although in truth they have a few).

The reality is that not only is failure an option, it has already occurred and it can’t be reversed. Last year according to the most recent UN reporting 34,452 Iraqis were killed, which doesn’t include the 60 yesterday at Baghdad University; 1.7 million Iraqi’s have been displaced from their homes; and the brain drain of educated Iraqis leaving the country exceeds 100,000. Nothing about the Unity government appears to strengthen the unification of Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites.

Too many people in the area of the world where Muslims and Christians have fought for centuries attribute present-day actions to events of the far distant past. Antagonism in Kosovo referred to battles that took place 600 years ago. The enmity between Shia and Shiites goes back further. On top of that intense bitterness are the events of the past few years where sectarian death squads abound. It doesn’t take much for an Iraqi to be bitterly aggrieved by what has happened recently to family members at the hands of other Iraqis.

There is no doubt that our presence in the country contributes to stopping an all out Civil War, assuming the above statistics don’t represent one already. But when we leave Iraq, whether in six weeks, six months, or six years, the catastrophe will occur. The Iraqis will wait us out as long as it takes. What are a few years compared to hundreds of years of hatred?

So just what does the Bush approach achieve: nothing but the deferral of our departure and the killing and wounding of many more Iraqis and US soldiers. It will not bring peace or stability. It just postpones a decision until the end of his term in office.

If he were capable of looking rationally at Iraq’s condition and our role in it today, anyone who puts himself forward as does Bush as a person of strong and decisive character, would stand up in public and state that he and his advisors miscalculated greatly by invading Iraq, were unable to manage the country we occupied, weakened the United States materially and in the esteem it used to be held throughout the world, and announce that we are now going to cut our losses and leave Iraq to concentrate on our real enemy: fundamentalist terrorism. Bush cannot bring himself to do this and we are burdened with two more years of disaster.

United We Stand

Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican:

I have to say, Madam Secretary that I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam.

To ask our young men and women to sacrifice their lives to be put in the middle of a civil war is . . . morally wrong. It's tactically, strategically, militarily wrong.

Sen. George Voinovich, an Ohio Republican:

You're going to have to do a much better job. I've gone along with the president on this, and I bought into his dream, and at this stage of the game, I don't think it's going to happen.

I send letters out to the families and tell them about how brave their sons were and that the work they're doing there and the deaths were as important as what we had in the Second World War. But I have to rewrite the letter today.

Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, a moderate Democrat:

Madam Secretary I have supported you and the administration on the war, and I cannot continue to support the administration's position… I have not been told the truth over and over again.

Specialist Daniel Caldwell, Apache Company, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, Stryker Brigade in Iraq:

They're kicking a dead horse here. The Iraqi army can't stand up on their own.

The general feeling among us is we're not really doing anything here. We clear one neighborhood, then another one fires up. It's an ongoing battle. It never ends.

Sgt. Jose Reynoso, 24, of Yuma, Ariz. speaking of the Iraqi Army:

We're constantly being told that it's not our fight. It is their fight. But that's not the case. Whenever we go and ask them for guys, they almost always say no, and we have to do the job ourselves.

Faiz Botros, 50, an Iraqi Christian in central Baghdad:

The main reason for what's taking place in Iraq is the settlement of historical paybacks. Neither 20,000 soldiers, nor 100,000, nor hundreds of thousands, will change anything. In Iraq, the politicians are still living in a mentality from 1,400 years ago. And this is the disaster of Iraq.

One senior Shiite politician, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, phrased what he called the country's "million-dollar question" this way, as summarized by The Washington Post:

Will Maliki continue to allow the powerful Mahdi Army militia, led by his political supporter Moqtada al-Sadr, to act as the local embodiment of the law in mainly Shiite neighborhoods such as Baghdad's Sadr City?

Qasim Sabti, an Iraqi gallery owner, who agrees with many of the goals Bush espoused: amending the constitution, disbanding the militias, giving Sunnis an equitable role:

In my opinion, disbanding the militias and the entire American plan -- it might fail for one particular reason. The militias are actually the Ministry of Interior itself. And the national guards are infiltrated by other militias. So the most basic, the most important, pillars on which the plan is based, I think they will fall.

Mariam Rayis, a foreign affairs adviser to Maliki, said she had "reservations" about Bush's remarks regarding Iran and Syria. In his address, Bush said, "These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq," and he vowed to disrupt their efforts to influence Iraq.

They are regional states. There is a sense that opening up a dialogue with those states would offer a better chance of reaching an agreement instead of taking hard-line policies toward them.

A Shiite political leader who has worked closely with the Americans in the past said the Bush benchmarks appeared to have been drawn up in the expectation that Mr. Maliki would not meet them.

He cannot deliver the disarming of the militias. He cannot deliver a good program for the economy and reconstruction. He cannot deliver on services. This is a matter of fact. There is a common understanding on the American side and the Iraqi side.

Surge

Last night, under fire from the 2006 elections, President Bush unveiled his new approach to Iraq. He intends to add 21,500 troops in a concerted effort to create stability in Baghdad. The rationale is that our leaving Iraq in its current chaotic condition will lead to unparalleled gains for terrorist forces in the Middle East, with dire consequences for the US, and will cause the US to lose credibility in the world, as if we currently enjoy respect anywhere. Uncomprehending, delusional, and an inability to assess facts continue to characterize Bush and his isolated followers.

Once again he is rejecting the advice of military leadership who are against the surge. Of course he has now replaced Generals Abazaid and Casey, who were opposed to this tactic, as he did General Shinseki in 2002, who wanted 200,000 troops for the occupation of Iraq. Typically, repeated claims that he always listens to the advice of senior military leadership are proven false.

What he wants to do is put our troops into the middle of a civil war, fighting in urban locations, which the military has done its best to avoid. He claims that the Iraqi military will lead the way. It, however, is permeated with Shiite supporters. Just imagine the reaction to their foot patrols in Sunni neighborhoods.

He also implies that the Sadr army will be confronted. The Washington Post quotes military experts who estimate that the Mahdi Army consists of 60,000 trained members who are more effective than the Iraq army. They will either choose to fight, which will ensure casualties to US troops and Iraqi citizens that will dwarf present numbers, or just wait it out until we leave. Bush is just postponing the inevitable.

The reality is that Iraq has descended into Shia/Sunni violence as both sides kill each other to make up for yesterday’s killings and in their quest to monopolize power in Iraq. 20,000 American troops fighting valiantly are not going to change Iraq into a stable and peaceful country. Maybe 50 or 75 thousand might be able to quiet things down except that once they were to leave, violence would resume. But we don’t have that many available as the military is stretched beyond its capacity.

The only explanation for Bush’s decision is his unwillingness to admit failure and his belief, probably somewhat true, that Americans have difficulty doing the same. His real goal appears to be to just stay for two more years (American and Iraqi deaths be damned) until his successor is inaugurated, at which time he will blame our defeat on the next President.

Bush had to do something. Other than beginning to pull out and cut our losses, there is no good plan for a disaster that we created and now cannot resolve. But having to act, he chose an approach that was tried this past summer and saw an escalation in violence, not a decrease. He is now going to bring out the big guns of fear and hype to convince the public that he is right, starting today in Georgia, one of the few places in the country where he might find a supportive reaction rather then face the 75% of Americans who are opposed to his policies as reported in the latest Post/ABC poll.

As he has done from the start, his speech described our opponents as “killers” and “terrorists”, implying that Al Qaeda jihadists are the enemy and will attack the US if allowed to win in Iraq. He doesn’t understand the warring factions of Iraqis. If he actually does, he doesn’t seem capable of explaining that fact in his speeches. He used the tired term “mistakes were made” but never described who made them or what they were. All of this goes back to the original misguided decision to invade Iraq. If you don’t understand where you went wrong; if you don’t know who you are fighting, there is no way to formulate a tactic, let alone a strategy, that will extricate the US from its present untenable situation.

Ironically, if the recent report from Somalia is true, we can see what should have been our course of action in the years following Afghanistan: surgical strikes against Al Qaeda that disrupt our real enemies without dragging the US into a quagmire.

Its time to find one of those Bush backward countdown clocks that show how many days, hours, and seconds remain in his term. It is still frighteningly too long.