Bush Trying to Win Over Americans on Iraq

[FUZO]

TweetBush Trying to Win Over Americans on Iraq


WASHINGTON - As public support for his Iraq policy declines, President Bush is working to convince wary Americans that he has a military and political strategy for success in the war in which 1,730 U.S. troops have been killed.



In his radio address on Saturday, Bush warned that there is likely to be more tough fighting to come in Iraq. And, as he did in his meeting at the White House Friday with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Bush urged Americans to share their confidence in a positive outcome to the war.

"The Iraqi people are growing in optimism and hope," Bush said. "They understand that the violence is only a part of the reality in Iraq."

In the Democratic radio response, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser in the Carter administration, alleged that the war has been conducted with "tactical and strategic incompetence."

"Two years later, America finds itself more isolated than ever before, the object of unprecedented international mistrust," Brzezinski said. "As a result, we are not as safe as we should be here at home."

He said the war has turned Iraq into a training ground for terrorists and noted that Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has not been captured. "The violence in Iraq continues at increasing rates and American casualties continue to mount," Brzezinski said.

Bush's message that Iraqis are overcoming their fears and working to defeat those opposed to an Iraqi democracy is likely to be echoed in a prime-time address he'll make Tuesday from Fort Bragg, N.C. The address at the home of the Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division will mark the first anniversary of the transfer of power from the U.S.-led coalition to Iraq's interim government.

The president told radio listeners his strategy for military success is to defeat members of Saddam Hussein's former regime and foreign and Iraqi terrorists and criminals responsible for the violence. At the same time, the United States is helping train Iraqi security forces so U.S. troops can eventually return home. Bush again turned aside calls in Congress and elsewhere for him to set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. troops.

"The terrorists' objective is to break the will of America and of the Iraqi people before democracy can take root," Bush said.

"Two years ago, they tried to intimidate the Iraqi Governing Council — and failed," he said. "Last year, they tried to delay the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq — and failed. This year, they tried to stop the free Iraqi elections — and failed. Now the terrorists are trying to undermine the new government and intimidate Iraqis from joining the growing Iraqi security forces."

On the political front, Bush said the United States would continue helping Iraqis build a democracy. He said al-Jaafari assured him the Iraqi government would meet its deadline to draft a new constitution. By Aug. 15, Iraq's National Assembly is to unveil the draft of a constitution. A ratification referendum would follow within two months. If approved, the constitution will provide the basis for general elections by Dec. 15.

Trying to build public support and ally the concerns of Americans anxious for the war to end, Bush said, "Americans can be proud of all that we and our coalition partners have accomplished in Iraq. Our country has been tested before, and we have a long history of resolve and faith in the cause of freedom. Now we will see that cause to victory in Iraq."

Ongoing violence in Iraq has taken a political toll on Bush and has raised alarms in Congress. Just over half of Americans now say the United States made a mistake going to war, and almost six in 10 say they don't approve of the way Bush has handled Iraq, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.

Friday evening, al-Jaafari told questioners at the National Press Club that the violence would not deter establishment of an Iraqi democracy. "The challenges are very, very real but also is the determination of the Iraqi people." He thanked Americans for their support and sacrifices on Iraq's behalf.

While Bush says progress is being made, Brzezinski points to a Pentagon warning that the Army Reserve is turning into a "broken" force.

In January, the military services' own estimates indicated that at the pace of U.S. deployments to Iraq, the Pentagon would be hard pressed by next year to provide enough reserve combat troops. Army Reserve chief Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly advised at the time that his citizen militia was "rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force."

"Patriotism and love of country does not demand endless sacrifice on the part of our troops in a war justified by slogans," Brzezinski said.

[T-Man007]

TweetThe fact is you can not bring order to chaos overnight. Period. Look how long it took Russia to turn. These people will take a long time to see the light as well because they have never seen it before. There is fear in change and it takes time.

What kind of moron really thought this would be a smash and grab job? Let's not forget, we still have bases and soldiers in Germany and Japan. Why? That war has been over for how many decades now, and yet people are dumb enough to think we should be out of Iraq already. Get a clue. You can't leave until things are right. Things are just fine in Germany and Japan but we still have men there. Hmmm

[mick-G]

TweetI don't know T-Man?? I suspect that they never wanted us there, and thats what lead to 9/11. We're kind of in a "Catch 22" if you will.

[daved150]

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I don't know T-Man?? I suspect that they never wanted us there, and thats what lead to 9/11. We're kind of in a "Catch 22" if you will.

your right. but, we still cant go...i'm betting bases will be built (have been) and will be manned for many years, regardless.

[Th3w0rld1sm1ne]

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The fact is you can not bring order to chaos overnight. Period. Look how long it took Russia to turn. These people will take a long time to see the light as well because they have never seen it before. There is fear in change and it takes time.

What kind of moron really thought this would be a smash and grab job? Let's not forget, we still have bases and soldiers in Germany and Japan. Why? That war has been over for how many decades now, and yet people are dumb enough to think we should be out of Iraq already. Get a clue. You can't leave until things are right. Things are just fine in Germany and Japan but we still have men there. Hmmm

I'm with you (mostly) on everything but the last part bro. You and i have both said we must finish what we have started, or else create power vacuum. And i feel like we must move quickly and effectively to create an exit strategy so we do not turn Iraq into the largest terrorist training camp in the world... that means suppressing the insurgency and getting more funding and personnel for training the Iraqi security forces to hold down the fort when we pull out.

Also, we are in Germany and Japan because it strategically beneficial... to us, not to the stability of the region. We stayed in both Germany and Japan because of the soviet threat initially. Now it allows us to have men and eyes on the ground at strategic places around the world.

I doubt we will retain a base in Iraq more than a few years after the war... if we do it will not be anywhere near our presence in either Germany, Japan or Korea. The human and material expense from attacks that WILL continue is just not cost effective for the minimal strategic value we would gain. The only exception would be if bush somehow makes the catastrophic mistake of an overt invasion of Iran or Syria, in which case we are completely fu^&ed and it doesn't matter.

This conflict is also much different than the Russian conflict in so many ways. Russians were never fanatical like the insurgents we are dealing with now. The cold war was VERY VERY conventional... these people believe they will go to paradise if they die in battle. Makes for an enemy that never stops... They hate us more than you can possibly imagine. it's gonna be interesting to see how this plays out for sure.

The obvious solution is to begin fighting this war the way the Israelis would have. On the same terms as the insurgents. Instead of a crowd pleasing, redneckish, do the right thing all out invasion, we should have been developing intelligence assets and subverting terrorist networks from the inside. Saddam Hussein, while a horrible dictator, was no worse than the leaders, warlords and dictators of several African countries and villages involved in mass ethnic cleansing and genocide RIGHT NOW as you are reading this post. These men commit atrocities far more grotesque than anything saddam could have ever dreamed of, but we don’t give a shit because there is no strategic or economic gain to be had by removing them from power. In iraq, There were no WMD’s, no terrorist training camps any more developed than those in any number of other middle eastern countries, and any ties to al queida iraq had were far less significant than those of Iran, Syria, and even our good friends the Saudi’s. It is the biggest con in American history and bush is somehow dodging the bullet by appealing to American fear and ignorance. At any rate, forgetting all of that for a moment and assuming this war was a righteous cause (there is the argument that not going to war invites more attacks), and that the war was helpful, not hurtful to the war on terrorism… If it could have been run any more poorly, I’m don’t know how. It’s no less than the metaphorical equivalent of swinging a sledgehammer at a hornet’s nest. It's fun to watch, it makes a bold statement and it gets rid of the nest, but it’s something you would see on America’s funniest home videos, not an effective solution to the problem… what a pity for all of our brothers and sisters laying their lives down every day.

Prey for our troops, and prey for our government to find the wisdom to do the hard thing and admit a horrible mistake. Then, let's pull our heads out of our asses, get our s#it together in iraq, and concentrate on taking this fight to terrorists and insurgents on their own terms. Take no prisoners, and if the opinion polls suffer, so be it.

[paperbolix]

TweetI think you guys tend to be overly influenced by America's news media, which is extremly biased when it comes to the middle east, it exagerates the Arab/Islamic militants and they're ideology and glosses over the extremist's in America and in Israel..

the comparison to Japan/Germany: America was never faced with an insurgency in those countries. and if they resisted the western capitilist model-which they had previously been a part of, the only alternative was to become a Soviet satelite; and those were developed countries.
The better comparison is to Vietnam-a nationalist developing country, the Iraqi's will never stop fighting until the occupation is over, just like Lebanon. Americas relationship with Israel just makes them even more determined and the population less willing to cooperate with and American installed govt.

And lets not forget..prior to the 1st Gulf war there was no American military presence in the Gulf-and no Al-queda.bin-laden, after the war the US decided to keep bases there which created a backlash-the bombing of kobar towers, US African embasseys etc., now the US keeps getting into this area deeper and deeper and the conflict esculates..and so many people die. These people do not want to take over the world (and they couldn't anyways) they want the US military off Arab and Afghan soil and for the US to end it's support for Israel's extreme agenda-particularly the billions in cash/weapons aid it receives.

Maybe it's time America considers doing that-pull out completly and let Israel pay it's own way..they'll still sell you the oil and there will be no terrorist threat.

[Th3w0rld1sm1ne]

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And lets not forget..prior to the 1st Gulf war there was no American military presence in the Gulf-and no Al-queda.bin-laden, after the war the US decided to keep bases there which created a backlash-the bombing of kobar towers, US African embasseys etc., now the US keeps getting into this area deeper and deeper and the conflict esculates..and so many people die. These people do not want to take over the world (and they couldn't anyways) they want the US military off Arab and Afghan soil and for the US to end it's support for Israel's extreme agenda-particularly the billions in cash/weapons aid it receives.

Maybe it's time America considers doing that-pull out completly and let Israel pay it's own way..they'll still sell you the oil and there will be no terrorist threat.

bro... where do YOU get your information? Not trying to flame or be combative but you are coming out of nowhere with some of this stuff.

Prior to the first gulf war there WAS a bin laden and there certainly was an Al queida (al quedia was not called al quedia, but it was a formation of seasoned veterans of the afghan/soviet conflict, spread out and fighting since 1989 in Bosnia, Chechnya, the Philippines and parts of Malaysia)... US army special forces and various three letter agnecy handlers trained him and several other mujahideen soldiers in Afghanistan in the 70's to use the same insurgent tactics on the soviets that they are using on us now. Schools were set up in Pakistan to educate these people and fuel the Islamic idealism that gave them strength to fight the soviets. These schools spawned our current enemy.. the taliban. In 1989 after the soviet pull out, Osama bin ladin and other mujahideen soldiers became disgruntled with the Saudi government when the Saudi’s rejected their help to push back saddam in the early 90's and instead accepted US aid. This however is not the "straw that broke the camel's back" and started the terrorists war against America. That war has been brewing for the last 40 years. Additionally, while this war may be unjustified, the 1990 war was of critical importance as sadam's army was in a position to threaten the oil supply/economy of the entire world... (hence more international support for the first war) Bin Laden's idealist anger that erupted from this "infidel" incursion of the holy land in 1990 is nothing compared to what would have happened if saddam would have swept through Kuwait and into Saudi taking control of oil facilities and then burning them/destroying him when he was eventually pushed back by whoever. Ask an economics professor what kind of impact this would have on the world...

That aside, you make a few good points which I also said in my previous post.

when you say this war is not like wwII and more like Vietnam, I agree with you... that's what I was saying above.

When you say we should pull out and the terrorist attacks will stop... you are out of your mind.

You have no idea how much they hate us. If we pull out now and leave the unready and poorly trained IP's to handle this mess we will have created the largest terrorist training camp in history. I MIGHT agree with you that we shouldn't be there in the first place but now that we are there, we unfortunately have to finish this hard and make sure we give the IP's the tools they need to "watch our back" when we step out... with the aid of our intelligence and sof's on the back end.

I say this with as much respect as possible... before you tell us we get too much information from the "media", you should make sure you have your facts straight. Also, I’m curious as to where one might find information if not from the media. The internet is media, your history books are media, the underground news network you may or may not belong to is media... all with their biases. just curious about your sources, always looking for new information. Thanks.

[paperbolix]

TweetI think what your saying is true, but you agree that Bin-Laden was once an aly..when I said there was no al-queda, I meant that we never really heard about it because the movement had a limited following to the point of irrelevance., and it wasn't attacking US targets in the Gulf because they were not there.

I aggree that Saddam had to be removed from Kuwait in 1991, but after his army was devestated-The US should have pulled out again after building up Kuwaits military, especially it's air-force. I see no reason why Kuwait/SA couldn't defend themselves and this massive military presence was needed, constantly patroling no-fly zones and bombing. Israel is a small country with a small population but it has no-problem defending itself and it can even go on offense anytime it wants. The American military is very mobile, if it needed it could back in the Gulf on short notice to help if it was necessary.

When you talk about schools set up, your talking about a general regional movement which is bread by the situation, it's not something that can be traced back to bin laden and his little gang.

The situation in which there were sanctions on Iraq that blocked food and medicine-and US S. State Madeline Albright said "it was worth it" that a 100,000 Iraqi children die so the US could pursue a policy to destablilize the Iraqi govt; large US military bases on Arab land close to Mecca and Medina-bases that could be used to attack Iraq or any other muslim country, and Iraq continued to be bombed with civilian casualties.
The botched peace process between Israelis and Palestinians in which Israel had doubled and tripled the number of settlements during the oslo accords when they were supposed to be creating a Palestinian state-to the point where the end result was aphartied--a double standard where Israel is allowed to do whatever it wants.

All of these things increased support in the Arab region for Bin-Laden, especially since the "corrupt" Arab governments were too weak to do anything to bring justice to these suffering Arabs, so angry Arabs turn to BL.

I don't buy the 'terrorist breeding ground' theory, the rebels in Iraq are becoming better at using IED's, rockets, and ambushes, this is guerrilla warfare, not terrorism; I don't see how it can be applied to a terrorist attack on American soil in which they smuggle explosives in and make a truck bomb or hijaak a plane..if they want a place where they don't have to worry about US troops breaking down their doors-so they can congregate and plot against the US - they can go to ALgeria, or the Suddan, that mountainous part of Pakistan or a corner of Libya-there are plenty of places that could be a "terrorist breeding ground" I don't see what occuping Iraq accomplishes.

As far as the Iraqi Police, I wouldn't count on them to watch your back the police chief in Basra-which is the most stable part of Iraq, has said that only 20% of his men are reliable-the rest are loyal to Muqtada Al-Sadr or other islamic militias, some of them are even Baathists.

[T-Man007]

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I don't know T-Man?? I suspect that they never wanted us there, and thats what lead to 9/11. We're kind of in a "Catch 22" if you will.

Catch 22 for sure. It sucks. GW's situation after 9/11 was "damn if I do and damn if I don't". No matter how you slice it, people are pissed he went to Iraq and people would have been pissed if he didn't go to Iraq. That is one guys shoes I would never want to have to be in.

[T-Man007]

TweetAlthough not possible, it seems very clear that if one could go back in time the best thing to have ever been done would be to 1: never ever get involoved in the Soviet invasian and 2: set up drilling rigs all over Alaska as soon as we purchased it. Then, in this critical time of today we would be self sufficiant in the oil game and have to record or sticking our noses into the Middle East. Furthermore, by being self sufficiant in oil the ME would be far less wealthy today becuase they would have never had our dollor comming to them.

However, since that is impossible we must live up to our choices, right or wrong, and finish what we started. No matter how bad it is or how much we disagree the right thing to do is not to leave these people on their own. Every person who supports our presence gets killed. These extremists are taking the Quran way out of context. I have read it and it reads very clearly that no believer (Islam) will have anything to do with a Chritian or a Jew, if so they will be considered one of them. They are now killing Muslims by the dozens for not fighting against the Americans. You hear about it every day where they find 40 bodies of men, women and children who were executed and left in a field somewhere. These people are like the ****s. If you don't do our will you die. Period. Do you think the ****s would have just stopped on their own? No! Neither will these people. However, I will say this, I have a much more respect for the ****s because atleast they didn't hide like cowards. They were right in your face and said what they believed and they they would look you in the eye and tell you what they were going to do. They weren't cowards who hide in caves or covered their faces. If these people really believe in what they are doing why don't they say so publicly? It's because they are psycho extremists and there is only one way to deal with people like that, extermination. If we don't they will just continue. Maybe not this year or this decade but they will strike again and it will be huge next time.

[paperbolix]

TweetJust a few more thoughts: I think the oil problem is exagerated because the US only gets 6% of it's oil from the gulf, mostly from Saudi Arabia, and even Saddam and Iran will sell oil to the US-moneys money, they need the money, or they will sell to a third party like Spain who will transfer it to the US, but Saddam was selling direct to the US.

Your right, if the Iraqi people want the US to continue occupying their country and fighting these people, then the US should stay. But I have heard polls that show most of them want the US out, then I hear that many want the US to stay.. maybe the answer is to simply referendum during the next election: Do you want the coalition troops in or out, that simple; f they vote out the US pulls out in 6 months.