Posted on 09/06/2003 8:39:16 PM PDT by dogbyte12
President Bush will use a prime-time address tonight to make a conciliatory appeal to countries that opposed the war in Iraq and will warn Americans that peace will take much more time, administration officials said yesterday. He also will reveal the amount of money he plans to request from Congress for Iraq next year, officials said.
(snip)
The president will reflect on the fact that we didn't all agree on how to confront the threat from Iraq, but that's behind us and we need to focus on the future," a senior administration official said. "Iraq is now the central battlefield in the war on terror. These attacks have been on the civilized world. Collectively, we have an interest in getting this right."
(snip)
A major section of the speech will be devoted to progress that the administration contends is occurring. The U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council named a 25-member cabinet Monday to take over key ministries, and the administration says that 46,000 Iraqi police officers are on the job and that 90 percent of towns and cities have functioning local governments.
Bush does not plan to announce the discovery of any nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, his staff said. He will defend the U.S. troop level in Iraq but does not plan to announce any increase, officials said.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Will he even mention the status of WMD? We are owed at least that!
There is no reason to go to the reast of the world.
He have the resources and the man power to do any job we put our minds to, of course, maybe we no longer have the will and we should all submit to Allah.
FMCDH
The problem is cost and troops. I do blame some of the president's advisors for this one. Wolfowitz was bragging right as the Saddam statue fell that we would be scaling back to 30,000 troops in country by the fall. He really believed that the Baathists would just give up.
The problem as I have seen it, from sources that I believe are non-biased, is that we won too quickly in the south. We basically only did structural damage in the north, but not much damage to personnel.
It was always one of my worries. Some of Saddam's people are so evil, that there is no place for them other than in a grave. The people who were abused by these murderous scum, are not going to forgive and forget. These Baathists are stuck. They can't all just blend in, and let bygones be bygones. They have every incentive to keep attacking us, and hoping our will falters.
In their place, (if I was a murderous scum sucker like them), I would be doing the same. Unless they get a genuine amnesty,(which in itself is unacceptable) there really is no reason for them to quit fighting a guerrilla war.
A guerrilla war takes time, it takes money, it takes bodies. Wolfowitz was wrong. We need help from other nations now that it has devolved into this. The president is doing right by our troops by asking for assistance. Losing face is less important than losing any troops unneccessarily.
Congress aint paying a nickel of this...the taxpayers are
Right. They've had a long time to prepare. This will shore up domestic support, as people who want to believe we did the right thing will hear what they want to hear (minus WMDs).
Noone in their right mind will think it will sway any Dean lefties! Nor many Euros. But this will start a drumbeat for the international push.
"Why can't we all just get along" -- Rodney King.
They're now spending close to $400 billion for defense. If this Iraqi campaign is stretching our forces to the breaking point, then where is all that money going? We still have 110,000 troops in Germany. Bring them in if more force is required in Iraq. Don't go begging to the french. The President has no right to have our country humiliated like this.
Of course, we don't know what's in the speech, do we? He may announce that they found those 38,000 liters of anthrax for all I know. What I do know is that there is a perception that things are going wrong. If that perception is false then the administration has done a terrible PR job, and if it's right then we need better solutions than asking the french to save our bacon.
I'm really steamed. Ted Kennedy is running our domestic agenda and we need the french to save us in Iraq. At this rate they'll be swearing in Hillary Clinton before you can say "hail to the chief".
Heck I'll tell you that and you won't even have to watch. Hussein didn't have them at the levels suggested by this administration. Did he have any? Frankly I don't know and don't care. Iraq did not present a direct and immediate threat to this nation of states. The WMDs weren't moved to Syria, Iraq, or Lebanon either. This is a speech that I expected to come. Bush realizes now they weren't prepared for 'post liberation' (although I have heard the 'O' word coming from some reports) Iraq. The PNAC has got better things to do now with Liberia and Iran. So they're just going to hand it over to the UN to clean up.
Granted Wolfowitz was right in that troops will be there for 10-12 years at least (I suspect longer) but that's no nevermind. We're fighting the 'war of terror'! How we've somehow missed Saudi Arabia, our 'ally', in this war, I'll never know....
Isn't that what we had in Somalia?
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