In this photo provided by CBS, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley appears on CBS's 'Face the Nation' in Washington, Sunday, Dec. 3, 2006. (AP Photo/CBS Face the Nation, Karin Cooper)
Posted on 12/03/2006 4:16:28 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - While President Bush acknowledges the need for major changes in Iraq, he will not use this week's Iraq Study Group report as political cover for bringing troops home, his national security adviser said Sunday.
"We have not failed in Iraq," Stephen Hadley said as he made the talk show rounds. "We will fail in Iraq if we pull out our troops before we're in a position to help the Iraqis succeed."
But he added: "The president understands that we need to have a way forward in Iraq that is more successful."
The White House readied for an important week in the debate over Iraq: Bush planned a meeting Monday with Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the Shiite leader of the largest bloc in Iraq's parliament, and awaited the recommendations Wednesday from the bipartisan commission.
Yet his administration, hoping to find a new way ahead in Iraq, found itself on the defensive from the second recent leak of an insider's memo on Iraq in a week.
The latest, first reported in Sunday's New York Times, showed that Donald H. Rumsfeld called for a "major adjustment" in U.S. tactics on Nov. 6 — the day before an election that cost Republicans the Congress and Rumsfeld his job as defense secretary.
Hadley played down the memo as simply a laundry list of ideas rather than a call for a new course of action.
He said that Bush — just before a pivotal election — was not portraying a different sense of the war to the public than his own defense secretary was giving him in private.
The president "has said publicly what Rumsfeld said, that things are not proceeding well enough or fast enough in Iraq," Hadley said.
Democrats did not buy that.
"The Rumsfeld memo makes it quite clear that one of the greatest concerns is the political fallout from changing course here in the United States," said Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), D-Del., the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "The bottom line is there is no one, including the former secretary, who thought the policy the president continues to pursue makes any sense."
Bush has nominated Robert Gates to replace Rumsfeld. His confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee is on Tuesday.
As pressure builds for a new strategy, the report from the Iraq Study Group increasingly is viewed as perhaps clearing the way for a U.S. exit strategy in Iraq. Hadley, though, said the review will be just one factor the White House considers, along with views of congressional leaders, U.S. military commanders and the Iraqi government.
Once the president is comfortable on how to proceed, he will spell out his plan publicly in the coming weeks, Hadley said.
Bush repeatedly has rejected a wholesale pullout or what he calls artificial deadlines, saying Thursday, "This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all."
Hadley said Bush was trying to address those who contend the commission "was just going to be cover for an American withdrawal, almost regardless of what was happening on the ground. And the president needed, and felt he needed to stop that right there. That isn't graceful withdrawal, that's cut and run. And, of course, as the president's said, cut and run is not his cup of tea."
Hadley said the goal remains to shift responsibility to Iraqi forces, an increasing point of emphasis as the unpopular war rolls on.
Bush, after a meeting last week in Jordan, expressed confidence that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government can lead the country toward peace with support from the United States.
Yet Hadley was left Sunday to defend his own memo that called that very point into question.
Written on Nov. 8 but disclosed just before Bush's meeting with the Iraqi leader, the memo described al-Maliki as "either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action."
Hadley said Sunday about the memo: "I made an assessment, raised a number of questions, hard questions that should have been raised. But if you look at that memo and if you look at what the president said in the press conference after the meeting with Prime Minister Maliki, it is clear that this government shares our objective for Iraq and has the will and desire to take responsibility."
The White House maintains that, taken as a whole, the memo was an expression of support for al-Maliki. Hadley rejected the suggestion that Bush administration hadn't shown much displeasure about the leak — or even that it had been authorized to pressure al-Maliki.
"It's unconscionable," he said. "It's an effort to embarrass those two leaders. It could have cast a pall over this meeting."
In Congress, Democrats and Republican continue to wrestle with how and when to withdraw troops without leaving a mess in Iraq, the kind of instability that could jeopardize the region and the United States.
The outgoing Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., said Bush is "listening, learning, and he's open to take a change in course."
Bush says the U.S. will stay in Iraq as long as it takes to get the job done. That is the wrong message to Iraqis, said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"It tells them that it's not their responsibility, it's ours," said Levin, pushing for the start of a phased troop withdrawal.
"Nothing has changed," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., about the president. "He said he'll continue to be flexible. But he hasn't been flexible. He doesn't listen. And that's just a fact."
Hadley appeared on ABC's "This Week," NBC's "Meet the Press," and `Face the Nation" on CBS. Warner and Levin were on NBC, Biden was on "Fox News Sunday" while Feinstein appeared on "Late Edition" on CNN.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
In this photo provided by CBS, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley appears on CBS's 'Face the Nation' in Washington, Sunday, Dec. 3, 2006. (AP Photo/CBS Face the Nation, Karin Cooper)
I didn't add all those keywords but you already know that. ;-)
I hope President Bush won't be cowed by the MSM when the time comes to do what he needs to do with Iran. Just recently there's been an almost overwhelming whoosh to the side of the naysayers on Iraq. Even the people who have been supporting the president sound unsure of themselves.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
The implications of that sentence sum up the source of disenchantment with this thing. Had he said, "...before the Iraqis succeed", then, okay.
But to say "...before we're in a position to help...", he should be angering EVERY supportor of this war. My God, we've BEEN in a position to help for years, and these are weasel words that can only be interpreted as, "we've made no progress along those lines, but we will, Real Soon Now."
No doubt about it, the Administration is in disarray, irrespective of hostile media, Democrats, or anyone else. It's becoming more and more difficult to have any confidence it it.
If it was me, I sure wouldn't be stating it like this. Once you start denying assertions of your opponent, you are lending credibility to the premise. Like Nixon's "I am not a crook." But what do I know...
You hit the nail right on the head. This ain't Vietnam. We either win this one, or start that long descent to defeat, and ultimate demise. I hope that this naive nation learns that before it's too late.
The Kurd are our only ally there.
www.kurdmedia.com
It's about "IRAQ'S" ability to prevail.
Sorry, I don't buy this arguement. And I'm tired of getting sucked into this 'idelogical' war game ("it's do or die"), just because the RATs were never in for this war.
And yes, it is like Vietnam, because the Vietnamese couldn't hold up their end, and we (Johnson) decided that it was "do or die" for the USA (i.e. "domino theory").
I supported this war, and we won the war. BUT, we sure as hell blew it after that. So, now we have to make the Iraqis stand up and fight - AND FAST.
We'd be finished there if the politicians and the MSM would just STFU.
But what if we can't?
Only Iran and Syria can save us now!!
Armies, even the best in human history like ours, are not designed to build nations or nursmaid civil wars. I hope the Administration can prevent this catastrophe from morphing into a cataclysm as we go for the exits. I wish I had better reason to be hopeful.
Saddams army prevented a civil war while he was running things
If we can't make the Iraqis fight for their own freedom, then in the end the IRAQIS will have lost - NOT the USA!
We should supply all the elimentary military hardware to whatever 'good guys' remain in Iraq, and they will have to fight it out to control their country. Our fight is done, and we should not get in the middle of a civil war.
Remember, in WWII, during our fights and invasions, the USA 'liberated' countries from foreign occupiers (NAZIS and JAPS), and the populace welcomed that, so it was easy to immediately act and rebuild. This is not the case in Iraq. There were no foreign occupiers, like in Kuwait during Gulf War I.
To finally overcome the culprit regimes themselves, JAPAN and GERMANY, we had to drop a nuclear bomb on one, and obliterate and pulverize the other. Something, unfortunately, which is not possible in this current scenario.
the only failing I see is we're losing too many of our own troops
there's got to be a way to increase the enemy's casualties while decreasing our own
I agree with Barnes: fire the top generals, bring in some others. When a team is losing, shake up the coaching staff.
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