Hostilities force Bush into deep hole
The Guardian 05/19/04


The Pentagon was attempting the difficult task of digging itself out of the hole dug by the Abu Ghraib prison outrage when it suffered yet another potentially serious setback in Iraq.
As in Najaf and Falluja and at other flashpoints, US forces appeared to have been sucked in by the insurgents' strategy: fighting back, killing civilians and in turn strengthening the rebels' support base.

George Bush continued to paint a determinedly optimistic picture, insisting that "a lot of progress" had been made towards the transfer of sovereignty on June 30, despite the assassination at the weekend of the head of the US-appointed governing council, Abdul Zahra Othman, also known as Izzadine Salim.

He also claimed that 11 ministries were being "capably run by Iraqi citizens".

But across town in Congress even those instinctively sympathetic to the US military cause in Iraq were warning that America was facing a strategic disaster.

"I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss," General Joseph Hoar, a former commander in chief of US central command, told the Senate foreign relations committee.

The apocalyptic language is becoming increasingly common here among normally moderate and cautious politicians and observers.

Larry Diamond, an analyst at the conservative Hoover Institution, said: "I think it's clear that the United States now faces a perilous situation in Iraq.

"We have failed to come anywhere near meeting the post-war expectations of Iraqis for security and post-war reconstruction.

"There is only one word for a situation in which you cannot win and you cannot withdraw - quagmire."

The growing fear is that the US will able neither to defeat the insurgents in Iraq nor to find an honourable means of withdrawal, while every week there will be an haemorrhaging of US credibility in the Arab world and far beyond.

"With at least 82% of the Iraqis saying they oppose American and allied forces, how long do you think it will be before the Iraqi government asks our departure?" said Senator Joseph Biden, the senior Democrat on the foreign relations committee.

Meanwhile, traditional conservatives who see American interests in the Middle East as focused on a regular supply of oil are anxious because it has pulled its troops out of one big producer, Saudi Arabia, without establishing a sustainable military presence in another, Iraq.

"Anyway you look at this, outside the most extreme optimistic assessments, we end up weaker," a senior Republican international strategist said.

The conservatives' growing awareness that failure may be imminent has generated a backlash against the more radical "neo-conservatives" such as Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith at the Pentagon, who are blamed for persuading President Bush that an invasion would be relatively easy.

Anthony Cordesman, a military scholar at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said the most serious problem in US government was "the fact that a small group of neo-conservative ideologues were able to substitute their illusions for an effective planning effort by professionals".

General Hoar was equally scathing about the calibre of the Bush administration.

"The policy people in both Washington and Baghdad," he said, "have demonstrated their inability to do a job on a day-to-day basis this past year."

Administration critics, as well as a growing number of Republican moderates, are arguing that to salvage the situation in Iraq the administration will have to jettison many of its other policy goals and political ambitions.

For example, it will have to give up all hope of establishing permanent military bases in Iraq, securing advantages for US firms, and staying out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Phebe Marr, an Iraq expert at the National Defence University, says the minimal US goals should include "a state free of terrorism, a state free of weapons of mass destruction, a government, if not friendly, at least not hostile to the US and Israel", and a clear intention not to have "long-term designs on military bases or control of oil".

First, the US has to be seen to be transferring at least some power to Iraqis. Mr Bush predicted yesterday that the leaders of a new caretaker government would be picked "in the next couple of weeks".

But Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN envoy who is supposed to select that government, is reported to be facing extreme difficulties in finding fresh faces to fill the top jobs, particularly since the assassination of Mr Salim.

There is increasing speculation that, in the absence of any better options by the transfer date of June 30, nominal sovereignty will be handed to the governing council, which has very limited credibility with ordinary Iraqis.

Meanwhile, the head of US central command, John Abizaid, warned that the period after the handover could be even more violent than the present, perhaps requiring the deployment of more US troops.

That would be politically damaging for the president, but so would a descent into more chaos in Iraq.

As Mr Bush nears re-election, the burden of Iraq grows heavier with every passing week.

Kerry has already said that he is going to stay the course in Iraq as well. Vote left, vote right, don't vote at all! It doesn't matter so waht is the point of your argumentt??

That is, the mainstream press coverage of the situation in Iraq would immediately improve.

RLTW

The point is we are in deep sh*t and getting deeper everyday.

The best thing you could is sack Bush, if you can't impeach him, no matter what the next guy in office can or can't do.  From the point of view of justice, I know I couldn't screw up my job as much as he has and still keep it.  Everyone in the world will be watching how America votes in the next election.  Till now, there has been some forebearance for the American people, especially in the Arab countries, who have made a distinction between how they feel about the American government and how they feel about the American people.  That will evaporate if Bush is elected.  We will be renounced, and ultimately, isolated.    

Iraq goes to show how one incomptetent person's effort can ruin a situation to a point that it may take the work of many geniuses and many decades to correct.  Bush couldn't hit the nail on the head, and if couldn't, he shouldn't have tried.  

/Zin

Cheney/Bush's arrogance, and the simple fact that they're the folks who created this mess, has created a situation where the leadership of the rest of the international community simply cannot offer us assistance while they are in office.  If they've been punted by us, then our allies can save face, and finally act in their own self-interest to help us in cleaning up the mess that Cheney/Bush have made in Iraq.  Simply having a "mea culpa" from the American people in the form of throwing them out of office will go a long way toward enabling our allies in Europe and the Middle East to support us in this effort.  The REST of the effort is that the largess of the contracts to clean the place up must also be made available to the other companies in the world on an equitable basis, thus establishing that this whole effort was not some Halliburton Business Development project (which understandibly, they currently believe).

Some members of the much vaunted "international community" are too busy covering their asses as the U.N. oil-for-food debacle slowly begins to see sunlight. You quickly condemn an imaginary Halliburton "conspiracy" while conveniently ignoring the fact that the U.N., France and Russia were complicit in a corrupt, scandalous program that in addition to stealing billions of dollars from the Iraqi people, contributed to their emmense suffering. While operating under the guise of "helping" them.

What is truly sad is that those same countries scuttled an opportunity for the U.N. to act as a credible organization for the sole purpose of covering their asses. But still, it's all the fault of EvilBush(tm).

RLTW

For the most liberal president we had since FDR, war news definitely didn't get any better.  Now that I think about it, it didn't get any better for Truman, either.

How will Kerry hold up, especially with the conservative propaganda industry hounding him?  No, I find it hard to believe that the news will improve when Kerry is in office, but I, for one, am not going to forget who started this mess, and I am never going to stop reminding people of it and how arrogantly W and his friends made it.  

/Zin

Why do so many Americans seek the approval from European countries?? I find it amazing with Germany's and France's track record we could need their approval? I believe you have the roles reversed, they should be learning from this side of the pond...

What should they be learning from US?

How to lie to get your country and as many others to back you in a war that is part of a personal agenda?

How to drive your country into bankruptcy?

How to hire foreign con artists to sell your secrets to other enemies?

How to torture, kill, rape and sodomize low level prisoners that have absolutely no knowledge of military secrets?

etc. etc.

I think the Germans already know some of these lessons from first hand experience.

Lesson 1 - How to kill millions of jews in the span of a few years

Lesson 2 - How to start 2 World Wars in the same decade

Lesson 3 - How to roll over and play dead as an enemy army rolls into you capital city

Lesson 4 - How to whore yourself out for Oil Contracts

Which class would you enroll in first??

this path of self destruction.

As far as your list:
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'Lesson 1 - How to kill millions of jews in the span of a few years'

I believe the actions that have been taking place, the torture and killing of low level fighters (in some cases civilians) with no knowledge of their military secrets, is putting all involved on a similar path.
__________________________________________________________________
'Lesson 2 - How to start 2 World Wars in the same decade'

Bush & admin. are angering enough of our allies and the Middle East region to start a 3rd world war if they do not start treading more carefully.
_________________________________________________________________
'Lesson 3 - How to roll over and play dead as an enemy army rolls into you capital city'

I hope and pray we never get a leader that allows this to happen. Complete opposite of what America was built on and I doubt we would ever allow it to happen.
_________________________________________________________________
' Lesson 4 - How to whore yourself out for Oil Contracts'

Why bother? We have enough might to take what we want and pay con artists to organize the groundwork for US.

So in answer to your question, I would not enroll in any. Sadly,  Bush & admin. have begun to revisit the path that few others would choose to take and make US look like the evildoers that we are going trying to crush in the process of doing so.

I can see by the lack of an answer, that you have no defense for what path Bush & admin. is leading US down

I wish more where as articulate as this instead of a lot of the bashing I see on this board. At least you took the time to read and respond based on what you believe to be as facts.

In regards to responding to support the Bush policy in Iraq:

1) This is a war on terroist, NOT JUST AL QUIDA. Saddam was actively paying 10K to the families of suicide bombers.

2) Iraq was consistently firing on our airplanes in the no-fly zones during the "peace"

3) As long as Saddam could thumb his nose at the US and the UN, it made us look very weak in the Middle East. (Not a good thing in Middle Eastern cultures). Like it or not, the #1 thing that gets respect in the Middle East is strength. Remember, we were trying to be good buddies and get along with everyone before 9/11. Well, I guess that plan didn't work out so well.  

In regards to your responses to the Lessons:

1) This is NOT government sanctioned as in Nazi Germany, and don't bother trying to draw a moral equivalent between an enemy combatant and a 5 year old Jewish Girl. Besides, I seem to remember that those guilty of mistreating prisoners are being tried as we speak.

2) If you haven't been keeping up with events, those who hate us hated us before the war as well. Remember, we have allies in the Middle East that support the war

3) What can I say, we agree on this one!!

4) You are right about the might, but if we are so bad, how come we have not done it? The reason gas is so expensive is because we pay for it, we don't take it