The Search For a Big Enough Fig Leaf
Last week, the President promised a major policy speech on Iraq before Christmas. Yesterday, the White House announced that the speech would be delayed until sometime after the first of the year. Bombs are still going off in Baghdad, dozens of bodies of murdered Iraqis are being found daily, the deaths of American troops already this month suggest that the magical 3000 number will reached by Christmas, and the President wants another couple of weeks to consider what exactly he should do. From today's NY Times:
The White House said Tuesday that President Bush would delay presenting any new strategy for Iraq until early next year, as officials suggested that Mr. Bush’s advisers were locked in internal debates on several fronts about how to proceed.
The absence of an immediate new American plan for Iraq is adding to anxiety among Iraq’s moderate neighbors, who identify with the country’s minority Sunni Arab population, and has opened the way for new proposals from many quarters, in Iraq as well as in Washington, about the next steps. But several administration officials said Mr. Bush had concluded that the decisions about troops, political pressure and diplomacy were too complicated to rush in order to lay out a plan to the nation before Christmas.
The war has been a disaster right from the start: poor to no planning, crippled execution of whatever plan had been contemplated, corruption amongst the private contractors supposed to be rebuilding the infrastructure, and now, open civil war. Conditions didn't just go sour in Iraq last month, they've been inexorably heading in that direction almost from the beginning of the attack on Baghdad. As a result we have thousands of American dead, tens of thousands of American maimed, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead and maimed, yet Mr. Bush wants another couple of weeks.
It took the national repudiation of the war in November to get Mr. Bush's attention, yet he still doesn't get it. The Iraq Study Group, whatever else it got wrong, did get one thing right: the current policy is a failure. Why is the President just now on one of his famous "listening" binges? And why is he still listening to those advisors who got it so flamingly wrong all along?
Now the Saudis are making noises that they will support the Sunni insurgents against the Shi'a majority, a move that suggests the possibility that the entire region will go up in flames, because they're tired of waiting for some kind of rational plan. But George doesn't want to rush things.
The deadly incompetence just never ends.
The White House said Tuesday that President Bush would delay presenting any new strategy for Iraq until early next year, as officials suggested that Mr. Bush’s advisers were locked in internal debates on several fronts about how to proceed.
The absence of an immediate new American plan for Iraq is adding to anxiety among Iraq’s moderate neighbors, who identify with the country’s minority Sunni Arab population, and has opened the way for new proposals from many quarters, in Iraq as well as in Washington, about the next steps. But several administration officials said Mr. Bush had concluded that the decisions about troops, political pressure and diplomacy were too complicated to rush in order to lay out a plan to the nation before Christmas.
The war has been a disaster right from the start: poor to no planning, crippled execution of whatever plan had been contemplated, corruption amongst the private contractors supposed to be rebuilding the infrastructure, and now, open civil war. Conditions didn't just go sour in Iraq last month, they've been inexorably heading in that direction almost from the beginning of the attack on Baghdad. As a result we have thousands of American dead, tens of thousands of American maimed, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead and maimed, yet Mr. Bush wants another couple of weeks.
It took the national repudiation of the war in November to get Mr. Bush's attention, yet he still doesn't get it. The Iraq Study Group, whatever else it got wrong, did get one thing right: the current policy is a failure. Why is the President just now on one of his famous "listening" binges? And why is he still listening to those advisors who got it so flamingly wrong all along?
Now the Saudis are making noises that they will support the Sunni insurgents against the Shi'a majority, a move that suggests the possibility that the entire region will go up in flames, because they're tired of waiting for some kind of rational plan. But George doesn't want to rush things.
The deadly incompetence just never ends.
Labels: Iraq War
posted by Diane at 3:53 AM
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