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| Home Front: Politix |
| Bush defends Iraq record, concedes some setbacks |
| 2006-03-21 |
| President Bush on Monday held out the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar as an example of American success in the war, but he also acknowledged in remarks that were as grim as they were hopeful that the city's improvements were not matched in other parts of Iraq. In the second of a series of speeches meant to build up sagging support for the war, Mr. Bush said American forces had driven insurgents from Tal Afar in 2004, only to see them move back in two months later. The Americans learned from their mistakes, he said, and in 2005 worked with Iraqi forces to retake lost ground and begin to bring the city back to life. "I wish I could tell you that the progress made in Tal Afar is the same in every single part of Iraq," he told the City Club of Cleveland at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel. "It's not." Over all, Mr. Bush's speech was a positive message that conceded some of the setbacks on the ground, a formulation meant to portray the president as not living in a fantasy world about the three-year-long war. "In the face of continued reports about killings and reprisals, I understand how some Americans have had their confidence shaken," he said. "Others look at the violence they see each night on their television screens and they wonder how I can remain so optimistic about the prospects of success in Iraq. They wonder what I see that they don't." To answer that, Mr. Bush told his audience his story of Tal Afar, a city of 200,000 near the Syrian border that was a crucial base of operations for the Iraqi insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The insurgents had turned the city into a nightmare of violence, he said, with beheadings, kidnappings and mortars fired into soccer fields filled with children. "In one grim incident, the terrorists kidnapped a young boy from the hospital and killed him, and then they booby-trapped his body and placed him along the road where his family would see him," he said. "And when the boy's father came to retrieve his son's body, he was blown up." But Mr. Bush recounted how American and Iraqi forces initiated a major military offensive against the insurgents last fall, including the construction of an eight-foot dirt wall around the city to cut off escape routes. After successful combat operations were over, he said, more than 1,000 Iraqi forces were deployed to keep order. "In short, you see a city coming back to life," he said. Military analysts do not dispute Mr. Bush's version of events, and correspondents on the ground say that the security situation in Tal Afar is significantly better than it was before the military operation last fall. But the analysts also say that the offensive required so many American troops — 5,000 — that it would be difficult if not impossible to replicate in other parts of Iraq, particularly in Baghdad, and that success in Tal Afar does not translate into improved security for most Iraqis. Democrats used Mr. Bush's speech to step up their criticism on the three-year anniversary of the war, saying that the White House was on the verge of trading a brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein, for chaos. "That outcome looks increasingly likely because of the dangerous incompetence of this administration," Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, said in a statement. "We went to war without letting the weapons inspectors finish their job, without the support of our major allies, without enough troops to prevent a security vacuum, and without a plan to win the peace." After Mr. Bush concluded his remarks, he took numerous questions from the City Club, a nonpartisan group that calls itself the oldest free-speech forum in America and prides itself on asking sharp questions. Members of the audience queried him about the administration's secret eavesdropping program and the failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq, among other topics. Mr. Bush appeared relaxed throughout, and in a question about Iraq segued to Iran. "The threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel," he said, adding, "I made it clear, I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally, Israel." The crowd broke into applause and then Mr. Bush said, "At any rate, our objective is to solve this issue diplomatically." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 But the analysts also say that the offensive required so many American troops — 5,000 — that it would be difficult if not impossible to replicate in other parts of Iraq That makes no sense. As I recall, we have substantially more than 100,000 troops in Iraq from the U.S. alone, and even if only half of them are combat troops, that means this can be repeated ten times simultaneously. Given that there are lots of other troops in the Coalition, not to mention the Iraqi troops straining at the bit to demonstrate their abilities, that little bit of "Yes, but" analysis demonstrates the ability of the analysts to see considerably less deep into the rock than most. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-03-21 15:24 |