Posted on 06/25/2005 8:08:08 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
With Democrats and even a few Republicans escalating their criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq, and with polls indicating shrinking public support, a top terrorism strategist Friday said the president should "stop talking down" to Congress and the American people.
Anthony Cordesman, a strategist with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, blamed the Bush administration for "major strategic mistakes in preparing to deal with Iraq once Saddam Hussein was overthrown.
Cordesman, who traveled to Iraq earlier this month, said he "did not see progress in aid. I did not see progress in economics. I did not see that the U.S. has a plan for using the aid they are providing."
On Tuesday night, President Bush will deliver a nationally televised speech on the situation in Iraq, at a time when at least one poll indicates nearly two-thirds of Americans feel it would be wise to bring the American troops home in the next year, rather than waiting for Iraq to stabilize.
The latest Harris Interactive survey showed that 63 percent of Americans want the troops brought home in the next year, up from only 47 percent who felt that way on Election Day last November.
Still, as he hosted Iraq's prime minister at the White House Friday, the president assured the new Iraqi leader that "there are not going to be any timetables," for the departure of U.S. troops from Iraq.
"There's no question there's an enemy that still wants to shake our will and get us to leave," the president told reporters. "They try to kill and they do kill innocent Iraqi people - women and children - because they know that the carnage that they reap will be on TV and they know that it bothers people to see death."
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari added that "this is not the time to fall back."
Cordesman said the U.S. demonstrated "that it could fight the war it planned to fight -- a conventional regional war with remarkable efficiency, at low cost, and very quickly." But, he added, "the problem was that the U.S. chose a strategy, whose post-conflict goals were unrealistic and impossible to achieve and only planned for the war it wanted to fight and not for the 'peace' that was certain to follow."
The lack of adequate planning will result in an Iraqi insurgency that will last at least several more years, Cordesman said. Thousands of additional coalition forces and tens of thousands of Iraqis will die, he added. "Iraq is five to ten years of instability regardless of military outcome."
On Thursday White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said President Bush agrees with the earlier remarks of Vice President Dick Cheney, who said the Iraqi insurgency will end "in the months immediately ahead."
And Friday, Bush said American forces retain a clear goal in Iraq: "a democratic and peaceful Iraq that represents all Iraqis.
"Our troops will continue to train Iraqi security forces so these forces can defend their country and to protect their people from terror. And as Iraqis become more capable in defending their nation, our troops will eventually return home with the honor they have earned." Bush said.
Bush added, "There aren't going to be any timetables" because that would be "conceding too much to the enemy."
Cordesman agreed with President Bush that it would be unwise to establish a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. "Anyone who calls for a timetable is part of the problem, not the solution," Cordesman said. "We cannot force them into readiness. An exit strategy, rather than a success strategy is not going to produce anything but serious issues."
Do really mean glibness? If so, your mind is easily boggled.
I took exactly the same stance on the Viet Nam debacle. Neither I nor any other American "won" there either
I wouldn't change your stance for all the tea in China. Indeed, I encourage you to stand tall and speak your voice loud and clear.
The saddest losers were the parents of the kids that gave their lives in vain for old men far too willing to put them in peril.
Parents are always losers when their children die before them, in or out of wars.
May god save you from that fate.
God save me, and everyone else, from an epitaph you might write. I prefer mine written by those who do not see the world through a glass darkly.
My youngest brother chose Armor. The middle brother chose to enlist in the Air Force. The other two decided three of us in uniform was more than enough family representatkon!
But you're right, you never can tell.
These centers are nothing but socially constructed realities which constitute themselves in their own images and likenesses for their own self-aggrandizement. Get a letterhead with the words "center for" on it and any piece of crap you put on the letterhead paper is on the fast-track to publication in the main-stream media. As WS said, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
You're darn right I'm sticking up for the President, and I don't apologize for it.
Even the biased MSM polls show Republicans favor the President's handling of Iraq by 85-15, but it sure seems like there are more than 15% of Freepers trying to be critical of him. Maybe the complainers are just the loudest.
And if being on President Bush's side makes me a Bushbot, them I'm a Bushbot.
Or, gets them an attribution in support of some lame statement in some lame editorial.
That number is hard to reconcile. Where did you get it?
The public also is showing concerns about the direction of the country as the war in Iraq drags on. Only about one-third of adults, 35 percent, said they thought the country was headed in the right direction. Forty-one percent said they supported Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, also a low-water mark.
ABC Poll .... June 11, 2005
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