Bush Takes Responsibility For Bad Intelligence
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On Terrorism, War
Apparently the buck does stop as the President’s desk, but does that really mean anything anymore? What does “taking responsibility” mean if Bush thinks we still should have gone in there regardless?
“It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong,” Bush said during his fourth and final speech before Thursday’s vote for Iraq’s parliament. “As president I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. And I’m also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities. And we’re doing just that.”“My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision,” the president said. “Saddam was a threat and the American people, and the world is better off because he is no longer in power.”
“We are living through a watershed moment in the story of freedom,” Bush said. “Iraqis will go to the polls to choose a government that will be the only constitutional democracy in the Arab world. Yet we need to remember that these elections are also a vital part of a broader strategy in protecting the American people against the threat of terrorism.”
And while I’ve hammered the Dems lately on their rhetoric, their response is appropriate and on-point.
First Murtha:
Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania — a usually hawkish Democrat who has called for a quick withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq — criticized Bush’s policy again after the address.“We’ve got nation building by the U.S. military, and that’s not a mission for the U.S. military,” Murtha said. “I’ve said this over and over again: They’re not good at nation building. You’ve given them a mission which they cannot carry out. They do they best they can, but they can’t do it.”
And then others:
Before the speech, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said 41 Democratic senators had sent a letter to Bush “to show that we need to get things right in Iraq after these elections.”“The president has had a number of speeches — three in number — and he has still not focused on what needs to be done in convincing the American people and showing the American people what his plan is in Iraq,” Reid said.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, said the letter urges the Bush administration “to tell the leaders of all groups and political parties in Iraq that they need to make the compromises necessary to achieve the broad-based and sustainable political settlement that is necessary for defeating the insurgency.”
“The president still has not stated how long his administration believes the (war) will take and how much it will cost in terms of funding and in terms of the commitment of American military and civilian personnel,” Reed said.
However, that last point is pretty pointless. How can you set a timetable on “to achieve the broad-based and sustainable political settlement that is necessary for defeating the insurgency” when its success isn’t determined by time?
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 14th, 2005 and is filed under The War On Terrorism, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 15th, 2005 at 12:56 am
I really can’t find much merit in the Democratic response to Bush’s speech. It seems painfully clear to me that the military is doing nation building successfully in Iraq. Murtha’s previous claims that the military is broken and now that they can’t do nationbuilding seem to me more reliving Vietnam than seeing what is going on in Iraq. When I read what the troops have to say they want to finish the job and see their work in the context of nationbuilding. And I think the time to urge the president to get things right in Iraq was around the time of First Fallujha – after that we have been getting it increasing right because we have been effectively training Iraqi troops who are now fighting well in increasing numbers. These actions are the successful blend of military and political actions that constitute nationbuilding, as opposed to the purely militarily crushing of resistance. Read Michael Yon’s accounts of the many meetings with Iraqis that made up the work of the Lt. Col. Kurilla’s work in Mosul.
As to the stating the plan I get the distinct impression that the president did just that – even declassified an older actual plan in his Annapolis speech which clearly includes nation building as its central goal. As to telling the Iraqis to cooperate against the insurgency there is plenty of evidence that we have been doing just that, despite the fact that we can’t just tell the Iraqis what to do, and that the Sunnis are getting a chance to include themselves in the government by voting. Some of the Sunni rejectionists and Al Qaeda are taking opposite attitudes toward the current election – striking evidence of progress. The balance of power in the new government will be more balanced. It remains to be seen how balanced and if it can protect minority rights – Sunni and Kurd as well as all the small minorities.
I don’t understand the timing of the Democrat’s current wave of negative commentary on the war. They are in danger of looking foolish and in a way that will hurt them in 2006, and 2008. The struggle in Iraq is not over, but I think there is ample evidence that the insurgency has passed its high water mark and a unarguably legitimate Iraqi government is about to be put in place by the Iraqi people. This is not the time to be seen claiming things are hopeless.