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WaPo Changes Direction: Sez Bush is Confused
The Bush administration has sent seemingly conflicting signals in recent days over the duration of the U.S. deployment to Iraq, openly discussing contingency plans I think the MSM is the one "discussing" the plan, to Bush, it was just a contingencey plan to withdraw as many as 30,000 of 138,000 troops by spring, then cautioning against expectations of any early pullout. As he has been doing every time the MSM asks "Well, when are we gonna withdraw?" Finally yesterday, President Bush dismissed talk of a drawdown as just "speculation and rumors" and warned against "withdrawing before the mission is complete." Do I sense a certain consistency here in the Bush position?If the public was left confused, thanks to the MSM, and especially the WaPo it may be no more unsure than the administration itself, as some government officials involved in Iraq policy privately acknowledge. The shifting scenarios reflect the uncertain nature of the mission and the ambiguity of what would constitute its successful completion. For all the clarity of Bush's vow to stay not one day longer than needed, the muddled reality is that no one can say exactly when that will be. Pretty clear to me, but you guys have to keep muddying the waters, to make it "muddled". The events of the past week have brought home once again the difficulties confronting the president as he prosecutes what polls suggest is an increasingly unpopular war. The WaPo advances!With surging raging, escalating, bigger than any time since the day-before-yesterday violence claiming more U.S. forces on the ground in Iraq and the angry mother of a dead soldier camping out near his ranch in Texas, Bush plainly cannot count on indefinite public patience. This is NEWS? Administration officials have all but given up any hope of militarily defeating the insurgents with U.S. forces, instead aiming only to train and equip enough Iraqi security forces to take over the fight themselves. So now we spin the original plan to make it look like a change in the plan, since unnamed "Administration Officials" have given up hope. I can't take anymore. See the rest at the link. Posted by: Bobby 2005-08-12 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=126569 |