ahh he of NewsCorp, Sky TV et al?
I’m just glad that someone has managed to find a decent account of the event. Pulling out of a city is only a failure if you had no intention of leaving it in the first place, which would mean that the reasoning behind the war and the subsequent occupation, were all lies.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22342096-28737,00.html
What was clear from yesterday’s 45-minute audience with Bush is that with 16 months left of his administration, this is not a President disengaging. If anything, the deadline to his tenure - January 2009 - appears to be energising Bush. While his domestic agenda is hamstrung by a Democratic-controlled Congress, as President and commander in chief Bush has wide powers to pursue foreign policy as he sees fit. It shows.
He’s making no apologies for the administration’s military response to the September 11 attacks and is urging Muslim countries in our region, for instance - Malaysia and Indonesia - not to view the US’s war on terror as an attack on Islam but “an attack for liberty”.
In one of the more compelling moments in yesterday’s interview with five Asia-Pacific regional journalists, including me, Bush singles out the two female reporters at the roundtable meeting, Tia Mutiasara of Indonesia’s Antara news service and Salmy Ghleblawi of Malaysia’s Bernama agency and, pointing to them, says: “Think about a society in which you two could not function in what you’re doing because of your gender. Why? Because the vision of these people - who murder the innocent, by the way, to achieve their vision - is that women aren’t equal. And it just so happened that, given the way the world is today, that that kind of ideologue provided safe haven for people who plotted and killed people in our country.
“One, I’m not going to stand for it. I’m going to protect America, just like any other leader would protect their own country. And two, one way to achieve long-term peace is to help people realise forms of government that give hope.
“And so whether it be in Afghanistan or Iraq, we’re helping people realise the blessings of freedom. And frankly the world ought to be in there helping. And they are, many are.”