Bush Marks Anniversary, Never Says 'War'

[zimv20]

link (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1743653)


Bush Marks Anniversary, Never Says 'War'

Bush Marks War Anniversary Without Using the Word 'War,' Instead Toutin (sic) Democracy Efforts

WASHINGTON - President Bush marked the anniversary of the Iraq war Sunday by touting the efforts to build democracy there and avoiding any mention of the daily violence that rages three years after he ordered an invasion.

The president didn't utter the word "war."

"We are implementing a strategy that will lead to victory in Iraq," the president assured a public that is increasingly skeptical that he has a plan to end the fighting after the deaths of more than 2,300 U.S. troops.

Administration officials repeated the mantra that progress continues toward building a unified Iraqi government and nation.

"Now is the time for resolve, not retreat," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote in a column for The Washington Post. "Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis."

Yet there were acknowledgments from the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq that the situation is fragile and that he did not predict the strength of the insurgency.

"I did not think it would be as robust as it has been," Gen. George W. Casey said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "And it's something that, obviously, with my time here on the ground, my thinking on that has gained much greater clarity and insight."

Bush did not mention the insurgent attacks, the car bombs or the mounting Iraqi deaths in a two-minute statement to reporters outside the White House after returning from a weekend at Camp David. Avoiding the word "war," he called the day "the third anniversary of the beginning of the liberation of Iraq."

The president only indirectly referred to the violence when he said he spent the morning reflecting on the sacrifices made by U.S. troops. Bush said he spoke by phone earlier in the day with the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, and had received a positive report.

The White House is trying to remind the disapproving public of Bush's vision for Iraq with a public relations blitz. The president plans to give a series of speeches on Iraq, beginning Monday in Cleveland.

More than three-fourths of the public thinks it's likely that Iraq is headed toward civil war, according to an AP-Ipsos poll taken in early March.

And two-thirds of Americans say the U.S. is losing ground in preventing civil war in Iraq, according to a Pew Research Center poll taken in the same period. That's up from 48 percent in January.

On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney did not express any regret for predicting in the days before the invasion that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators or his assessment 10 months ago that the insurgency was in its "last throes." On the contrary, he said the optimistic statements "were basically accurate, reflect reality."

(more)

interesting how cheney's take on reality is anything but realistic.

[Thomas Veil]

From today's (Cleveland) Plain Dealer: (http://www.cleveland.com/news/esullivan/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1142674860192320.xml&coll=2)

Military planners usually work backwards from the mission, to design a troop structure and number suited to it.

But for the Iraq attack of March 19, 2003, planners built around an arbitrary figure of 125,000 thrown out by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld late in 2001.

And through every permutation of the plan, Rumsfeld was there, hectoring, chipping at the numbers. The defense secretary even vetoed use of deployment software he feared would generate too many troops overseas. He personally wanted to oversee which units would go.

We know this in excruciating detail, thanks to a new book that lays out just how few U.S. officials were actually in on the ground floor of Iraq war decision-making.

President George W. Bush was not always among them, according to "Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq," by Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor.

Bush signed the orders. He made the decisions. But he was often the last person consulted, rather than the first.

The people generating the ideas and enforcing the vision were farther down the food chain -- Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and policy chief Doug Feith at the Pentagon; combatant commander Gen. Tommy Franks in Tampa; U.S. Ambassador and Iraq occupation czar Jerry Bremer in Baghdad.

Even the fateful decision to disband the Iraqi army, violating U.S. promises and putting 300,000 armed men in the streets to fuel the insurgency, was made by a relative handful of officials -- mainly Bremer, with Rumsfeld's acquiescence, according to the book.

President Bush -- who'd been briefed only on the need to keep the Iraqi army intact, according to Gordon and Trainor -- wasn't consulted. Neither were National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also were blind-sided. And the policy ran counter to the wishes of U.S. field commanders.

Yet the end run went even deeper.

Rumsfeld's directive to the military to draft a new Iraq war plan came Sept. 13, 2001 -- two days before he and his aides broached the idea to the president, at a Camp David war council.

And it was Rumsfeld, Gen. Franks once acknowledged to Gordon, who pressed, successfully, in the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad, to cancel the planned deployment of a 16,000-strong cavalry division sorely wanted by U.S. commanders in Iraq.

Franks himself never appreciated the need for detailed post-war planning, according to Gordon and Trainor. He repeatedly let Rumsfeld's vision of lean, fast, extra-lethal war-making cloud his ability to see that the reality of Iraq required something quite different.These people are morons. Absolute morons.

They have this childish view of American hegemony. They are draft-dodgers themselves, yet were chomping at the bit for a chance to play soldier and kick the ass of an obviously weaker opponent. They are all balls and no brains. They are tactically incompetent and deaf to people who are competent. And now they're running all over the country, still trying to sell this piece of cow poop by telling us it's actually a chocolate eclair.

Just incredible. http://users.adelphia.net/~tjveil/images/yeahright.gif

[Danksi]

Why does that read like Rumsfeld's being set up as the fall guy to me?

[zimv20]

a real leader would have ousted rumsfeld after abu ghraib, if not before. but bush treasures loyalty above little else. so if rumsfeld is being set up: 1) by whom, and 2) what of those things about rumsfeld's role in planning iraq is untrue?

[solvs]

interesting how cheney's take on reality is anything but realistic.
And this surprises you?

As for Rummie, technically you can't be the fall guy if it's your fault. Not saying we can blame it all on him, there's plenty of blame to go all around. But he was in charge when it happened, ordered a lot of the things that went wrong, and attempted to cover up the mistakes, defending things no matter how bad they got. Iraq is a mess, most people know it, and all we're getting is more of the same rhetoric about freedom terrorism. Yeah, that'll fix things.

The comment about Nazi Germany just pisses me off, and I have a feeling most people will feel the same way.

[skunk]

They are all balls and no brains.I'd question the balls bit, too.

[Thomas Veil]

a real leader would have ousted rumsfeld after abu ghraib, if not before. but bush treasures loyalty above little else.And don't forget...Rummy offered to resign after Bush's first term, and Bush refused to accept his resignation!

That's not loyalty, that's stupidity above and beyond the call.

[skunk]

And don't forget...Rummy offered to resign after Bush's first term, and Bush refused to accept his resignation!He probably couldn't afford to. Rumsfeld knows where all the bodies are buried.

[Dont Hurt Me]

Zimv20 i saw Cheney on face the nation yesterday and i had to laugh, he stated the President was doing a "Superb" job. I hate to see Bush's poor work. These guys are not connected to reality. I still have yet to see one word about what they are doing about the core problem. Islam? How can you do anything when kids are being taught to hate the infidel,kill the American,Jew and the infidel,Jihad and what have. The whole problem in this part of the world is the brain washing of the young, then add Bush's bombing of all their relatives and you have the "Superb" job Bush is doing.

[miloblithe]

That always seemed to me to be fake. They agreed Rumsfeld would offer his resignation and Bush would refuse it. In their minds, it made them both seem "noble".

[Danksi]

Is there such a thing as a no-confidence vote in the US?

[mactastic]

Funny how Bush was the swaggering 'War President' a year ago. Now he won't say the word?

And the phrase is "All hat, and no cattle".

[Thomas Veil]

Is there such a thing as a no-confidence vote in the US?No...sadly enough. :(

[leekohler]

Is there such a thing as a no-confidence vote in the US?

No- but we need to follow your lead and get one soon. No better reason than this President.

[StarbucksSam]

Unbeeffinglieveable.

[Thomas Veil]

Bush was here earlier today, in Cleveland, giving a speech to the City Club telling us why we just need to be patient and how everything will turn out all right.

I went.

As a protester. :)

Stood outside in the cold on Public Square with about a hundred other people for over an hour, chanting and holding up homemade signs.

[IJ Reilly]

Bush was here earlier today, in Cleveland, giving a speech to the City Club telling us why we just need to be patient and how everything will turn out all right.

I went.

As a protester. :)

Stood outside in the cold on Public Square with about a hundred other people for over an hour, chanting and holding up homemade signs.

Good for you. Did you get any media coverage?

[aquajet]

Protest in Cleveland (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060320/ap_on_re_us/iraq_war_protests_48;_ylt=ApCJBLrPeqI1Nnv1.z.g5IfQ2wwi;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl)

[zimv20]

Stood outside in the cold on Public Square with about a hundred other people
About 100 war protesters gathered outside
finally! the protestors and media agree on a number!

...maybe it's just easier when the crowd is small enough to count...

[Thomas Veil]

Good for you. Did you get any media coverage?At least three local TV news stations were taking pictures of us. There were also a few photographers who might've been from the local papers...and one guy I talked to who had a rather fancy industrial-level video camera and said he was shooting a documentary on Bush protests. Since I work for a local cable operation, I gave him my card and told him to call me when he gets his program finished.

There were two or three pro-Bush counter-protesters there. One had a sign that said, "Grow up, hippies." :rolleyes:

I have to say...it doesn't help the cause when our side has people who hold their signs upside down:

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20060320/capt.cd10103202015.bush_ohio_cd101.jpg?x=380&y=288&sig=f2VEvxRV.LkNEwJhmdDbIA--

Of course, I was there, and even I didn't see this sign. Of course the media did, however. :rolleyes:

[scem0]

It's not a war, it's just a Middle Eastern 'boo-boo'.

e

[solvs]

It's not a war, it's just a Middle Eastern 'boo-boo'.
At least that's shorter than "Epic Global Struggle Against Terrorist Extremism in the Middle East" or whatever they called it.

[scem0]

Maybe they'd prefer "The Epic Middle Eastern Boo-Boo :(".

Yes, with the frowny face ;).

e

[solvs]

Maybe they'd prefer "The Epic Middle Eastern Boo-Boo :(".
You're still thinking too negatively. They have to put a smiley face on it. That's why they used to call it "Operation Iraqi Freedom".

We just didn't realize they meant freedom from US!

[mactastic]

That's why they call it Mess 'O' Potamia!