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Psycho
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Bush Defends Iraq War Strategy(a little different)...
This is the article I bolded what interested me, I don't know what to say that probably hasn't been said on this forum already. Anyway, I appreciate that he takes some responsibility. He should have done this a long time ago.
Quote:
Bush Defends Iraq War Strategy
By Warren Vieth, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- President Bush said today he accepted responsibility for deciding to wage war in Iraq on the basis of faulty intelligence, but remained convinced that history would conclude he had done the right thing.
Speaking only hours before Iraqis began arriving at the polls to elect a new government, Bush acknowledged that miscalculations had occurred and mistakes were made both before and after the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in March, 2003.
Yet the president said he believed his decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power would be vindicated, even though Iraq did not possess the weapons of mass destruction cited as justification for the military offensive.
"It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As president, I'm responsible for the decision to go into Iraq, and I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities," Bush told a group of political leaders and scholars at the nonpartisan Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.
Even so, he said, "Given Saddam's history and the lessons of Sept. 11, my decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision. Saddam was a threat, and the American people and the world [are] better off because he is no longer in power."
The president's critics said they were still not persuaded that Bush's original decision to enter Iraq was justified, or that Thursday's elections would lead to the kind of changes that would make the United States or the Middle East safer places.
"The election could lead to a change for the better, which is everybody's hope, but it might be a step towards crisis and towards all-out civil war," Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a press conference held shortly before the president's speech.
Levin and other Democrats said the outcome would depend in part on the administration's willingness to pressure Iraq's new government to revise its constitution so minority Sunnis would feel less excluded from the political process.
Bush's speech was the last of four major policy addresses on Iraq, and reflected a new communications strategy in which the president has been more forthright in discussing some of the flawed assumptions and unexpected setbacks in the war effort.
In three previous speeches, he admitted that the training of Iraqi security forces had proved more difficult than anticipated, that postwar reconstruction had proceeded in "fits and starts," and that the initial U.S. plan for establishing a new government was not acceptable to Iraqis. In each case, he said, the United States had learned from its mistakes and adapted to changing circumstances.
Bush also acknowledged for the first time earlier this week that 30,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed as a result of the war, in addition to 2,140 U.S. military casualties.
White House officials hope the president's new candor will help counteract a steep slide in his approval ratings, which have bounced around the 40% level for several weeks, as well as declining public support for the war, which a majority of Americans have said they viewed as a mistake in recent surveys.
A poll released today by the Pew Research Center suggested that the president's bully pulpit campaign was producing mixed results. While 61% of participants said Iraqi security forces were becoming more capable and 58% saw signs of progress in establishing a democracy, 53% thought the United States was losing ground in reducing civilian casualties.
The public disenchantment appears to reflect perceptions that the administration manipulated prewar intelligence to justify its agenda, engaged in a coordinated effort to discredit its critics, and had no clear strategy for extricating U.S. troops from the suicide bombings and other terror tactics employed by insurgent forces.
Bush characterized Thursday's parliamentary elections as part of a "watershed moment in the story of freedom," as Iraqis choose 275 members from a field of 7,000 candidates to serve four-year terms in a permanent General Assembly.
But he cautioned that it might be weeks before the election winners are known, and that it would take time to form a new government. Meanwhile, the insurgents are not likely to lay down their arms and put away their bombs, he said.
"These enemies are not going to give up because of a successful election," he said. "They know that as democracy takes root in Iraq, their hateful ideology will suffer a devastating blow. So we can expect violence to continue."
Bush expressed confidence that over time, Iraq's minority Sunni Muslim population will become increasingly involved in the political process, and less inclined to support insurgents' efforts to prevent democracy from taking hold.
Many Sunnis initially declined to participate in the formation of an interim assembly and the drafting of a constitution, fearing that the new government would be dominated by Iraq's two other key ethnic groups, the Shiites and Kurds. Bush cited signs that Sunnis would be more engaged in Thursday's elections.
"As Sunnis join the political process, Iraqi democracy becomes more inclusive, and the terrorists and Saddamists are becoming marginalized," Bush said.
Bush repeated his past claims that Iraq had become the "central front" in the war on terror, and rejected assertions by his critics that the U.S. presence there was inflaming, rather than containing, the insurgency.
The establishment of a democratic Iraq would serve as "a model for the Middle East," Bush said, and "inspire reformers from Damascus to Tehran."
It would be a mistake, he said, to withdraw U.S. troops before Iraq's new government was firmly established, its economy stabilized, its infrastructure repaired, and its security forces trained.
"By helping Iraqis build a nation that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself, we will gain an ally in the war on terror and a partner for peace in the Middle East," he said.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines |