Reaction To Bush's New Plan For Iraq

I will decide whether or not I will post my reaction to Bush's address describing his "new plan for Iraq," but the links below provide reactions, analyses, feedback and transcripts, as well as related links.


Text of President Bush's Address

Good evening. Tonight in Iraq, the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged in a struggle that will determine the direction of the global war on terror — and our safety here at home. The new strategy I outline tonight will change America's course in Iraq, and help us succeed in the fight against terror.

When I addressed you just over a year ago, nearly 12 million Iraqis had cast their ballots for a unified and democratic nation. The elections of 2005 were a stunning achievement. We thought that these elections would bring the Iraqis together — and that as we trained Iraqi security forces, we could accomplish our mission with fewer American troops.

Text Of Joint Statement From Democrats

Last November, the American people delivered a strong message of no confidence in the president's Iraq policy and clearly expressed their desire for a new direction. The president had an opportunity tonight to demonstrate that he understood the depth of the concern in the country, make a long overdue course correction, and articulate a clear mission for our engagement in Iraq. Instead, he chose to escalate our involvement in Iraq's civil war by proposing a substantial increase in the number of our forces there. This proposal endangers our national security by placing additional burdens on our already over-extended military thereby making it even more difficult to respond to other crises.

While we all want to see a stable and peaceful Iraq, many current and former senior military leaders have made clear that sending more American combat troops does not advance that goal. Our troops have performed the difficult missions given to them in Iraq with great courage. The Congress and the American people will continue to support them and provide them with every resource they need. But our military forces deserve a policy commensurate with the sacrifices they have been asked to make. Regrettably, the president has not provided that tonight.

Bush Adds Troops In Bid To Secure Iraq

President Bush embraced a major tactical shift on Wednesday evening in the war in Iraq when he declared that the only way to quell sectarian violence there was to send more than 20,000 additional American troops into combat.

President Bush said, "the situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people – and it is unacceptable to me."

Yet in defying mounting pressure to begin troop withdrawals, the president reiterated his argument that the consequences of failure in Iraq were so high that the United States could not afford to lose.

In a speech to the nation, Mr. Bush conceded for the first time that there had not been enough American or Iraqi troops in Baghdad to halt the capital’s descent over the past year into chaos. In documents released just before the speech, the White House acknowledged that his previous strategy was based on fundamentally flawed assumptions about the power of the shaky Iraqi government.

News Analysis: Bush’s Strategy For Iraq Risks Confrontations

By stepping up the American military presence in Iraq, President Bush is not only inviting an epic clash with the Democrats who run Capitol Hill. He is ignoring the results of the November elections, rejecting the central thrust of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and flouting the advice of some of his own generals, as well as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq.

In so doing, Mr. Bush is taking a calculated gamble that no matter how much hue and cry his new strategy may provoke, in the end the American people will give him more time to turn around the war in Iraq and Congress will not have the political nerve to thwart him by cutting off money for the war.

The plan, outlined by the president in stark, simple tones in a 20-minute speech from the White House library, is vintage George Bush — in the eyes of admirers, resolute and principled; in the eyes of critics, bull-headed, even delusional, about the prospects for success in Iraq. It is the latest evidence that the president is convinced that he is right and that history will vindicate him, even if that vindication comes long after he is gone from the Oval Office.

Promising

Troops Where They Aren’t Really Wanted
As President Bush challenges public opinion at home by committing more American troops, he is confronted by a paradox: an Iraqi government that does not really want them.

The Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has not publicly opposed the American troop increase, but aides to Mr. Maliki have been saying for weeks that the government is wary of the proposal. They fear that an increased American troop presence, particularly in Baghdad, will be accompanied by a more assertive American role that will conflict with the Shiite government’s haste to cut back on American authority and run the war the way it wants. American troops, Shiite leaders say, should stay out of Shiite neighborhoods and focus on fighting Sunni insurgents.

Military Analysis: Bid to Secure Baghdad Relies on Troops and Iraqi Leaders

With his new plan to secure Iraq, President Bush is in effect betting that Iraqi leaders are committed to building a multisectarian state, and his strategy will stand or fall on that assumption.

The plan differs in several respects from the faltering effort to bring stability to Baghdad that began last summer. It calls for a much larger American force. There are to be no havens for renegade militias. And, importantly, Iraqi security forces throughout the city are to be put under the direct control of a new Iraqi commander — and backed by American Army battalions.

But the new plan depends on the good intentions and competence of a Shiite-dominated Iraqi government that has not demonstrated an abundant supply of either.

“Everybody raises a question about the intentions and capability of this government,” a senior American official said, referring to the Iraqi government. “Is this a government that really is a unity government or is it in fact pursuing, either explicitly or implicitly, a Shia hegemony agenda?”

Bush's New Plan For Iraq Echoes Key Parts Of Earlier Memo

President Bush's new Iraq policy was said to be the product of weeks of meetings, discussions and analysis by the president and his national security advisers. Yet core elements of the plan were contained in a classified memo that national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley sent to members of Bush's Cabinet on Nov. 8 -- a month before the bipartisan Iraq Study Group issued its report.

Most news accounts about the Hadley memo, which was published by the New York Times in late November, focused on his critique of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. But the 1,800-word document was composed mostly of recommendations for Bush on how to bolster Maliki and improve the security environment.

Military Analysis: Intensified Combat on Streets Likely

President Bush's plan to send tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi reinforcements to Baghdad to jointly confront Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias is likely to touch off a more dangerous phase of the war, featuring months of fighting in the streets of the Iraqi capital, current and former military officials warned.

"The terrorists and insurgents in Iraq are without conscience, and they will make the year ahead bloody and violent," the president said last night in explaining his revised approach. "Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue -- and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties."

Poll: Most Americans Opposed to Bush's Iraq Plan - Majority of Those Surveyed Are Skeptical That Surge Would Make Victory More Likely

Most Americans oppose President Bush's call to send additional U.S. military forces to Iraq and just over a third say the new plan makes victory there more likely, an initial public rebuke of the strategy he unveiled last night in a nationally televised address.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted following the President's speech finds broad and strong opposition to his call to send about 21,500 more troops to Iraq: 61 percent oppose the force increase, with 52 percent "strongly" opposing the build-up. Thirty-six percent support the additional troops; only one-quarter of the public is strongly supportive.

To Counter Iran’s Role in Iraq, Bush Moves Beyond Diplomacy

In promising to stop Iran from meddling in Iraq, President Bush returned Wednesday night to a strategy of confrontation in dealing with Tehran, casting aside what had been a limited flirtation with a more diplomatic approach toward it.

Mr. Bush accused Iran of providing material support for attacks on American troops and vowed to respond. “We will disrupt the attacks on our forces,” he said in his speech. “We will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

Mr. Bush said the United States would send another aircraft carrier and its supporting ships to the Persian Gulf. Administration officials said the battle group would be stationed within quick sailing distance of Iran, a response to the growing concern that Iran is building up its own missile capacity and naval power, with the goal of military dominance in the gulf.

Bush Accepts Responsibility For 'Mistakes'

President Bush said Wednesday that he will raise U.S. troop levels in Iraq by 21,500 to try to break "the current cycle of violence" there, and he conceded for the first time that he has not sent enough military forces.

Although Bush warned of more bloodshed, he said benefits will be seen over time. "If we increase our support at this crucial moment … we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home."

Bush's plan includes $5.6 billion for the troop increase and more than $1 billion in new economic aid for Iraq. It also calls for better performance by the Iraqi government to control its own security.

The president said previous plans failed because there were not enough U.S. and Iraqi troops to protect Iraqi neighborhoods and to contain violence between Sunnis and Shiites.

Iraq's Government Welcomes Bush's New Strategy And Promises

Iraq's government welcomed President Bush's new strategy and promised it was committed to making sure it succeeds. But ordinary Iraqis gave it mixed reviews, with many expressing skepticism that an increase in U.S. troops would quell the violence ransacking their country.

A Sunni lawmaker also rejected Bush's plan to send more troops, calling instead for a timetable for them to withdraw and for direct negotiations with insurgents.

"Bush's plan could be the last attempt to fix the chaos created after the invasion of Iraq. Yet, sending more troops will not end the problem, on the contrary, there will be more bloodshed," said Sunni lawmaker Hussein al-Falluji.

Democrats Reject Bush's 'Way Forward'

Democrats launched an immediate counterattack against President Bush's new Iraq strategy Wednesday. Rep. John Murtha vowed to try to block Bush's plan from his perch as chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee.

"Escalating our military involvement in Iraq sends precisely the wrong message, and we oppose it," the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate said in a statement released after the speech.

Hours before Bush outlined his "new way forward" in Iraq to the nation, Murtha told USA TODAY that he plans to use his subcommittee's control over the Pentagon budget to force a new direction in Iraq.

Specifically, Murtha, a former Marine and Vietnam War veteran from Pennsylvania, said he'll focus on the administration's supplemental spending request for Iraq, which is expected to be as high as $160 billion.

Murtha says he will hold extensive hearings on the budget request. "We're going to make them justify every cent," he said. He also said he may use the funding bill to hamstring the efforts to add more troops to Iraq.

Among the options Murtha said he's considering: barring the redeployment to Iraq of troops who haven't had the recommended one-year respite in the United States and prohibiting those who are in Iraq from having their tours of duty extended.

Analysis: A 'Make-It-Or-Break-It Moment' On Iraq

Not since the Vietnam War has a president faced such a daunting policy challenge: Rallying Americans behind a costly military venture that already has lost much of its support among the public and in Congress.

President Bush chose the unusual setting of the White House library — where Jimmy Carter donned a cardigan for his 1977 energy speech — to deliver a long-awaited address outlining his "new way forward" in Iraq.

He chose not so much a change of direction as an acceleration, committing 21,500 more U.S. troops and demanding political progress from Baghdad. Even Arizona Sen. John McCain, a supporter, calls the plan a "last chance" to avoid a decisive setback in Iraq.

And, some say, to his presidency.

"This is a make-it-or-break-it moment," says Ken Duberstein, a chief of staff in the Reagan White House. "This is as much about Bush and his leadership for the last two years as it is about Iraq."

After the congressional elections in November, Bush seemed ready to change course in Iraq. He said voters had delivered "a thumpin' " by handing control of Congress to Democrats in an election driven in large part by anxiety about the war. He replaced Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

New York Times Editorial: The Real Disaster

President Bush told Americans last night that failure in Iraq would be a disaster. The disaster is Mr. Bush’s war, and he has already failed. Last night was his chance to stop offering more fog and be honest with the nation, and he did not take it.

Americans needed to hear a clear plan to extricate United States troops from the disaster that Mr. Bush created. What they got was more gauzy talk of victory in the war on terrorism and of creating a “young democracy” in Iraq. In other words, a way for this president to run out the clock and leave his mess for the next one.

Mr. Bush did acknowledge that some of his previous tactics had failed. But even then, the president sounded as if he were an accidental tourist in Iraq. He described the failure of last year’s effort to pacify Baghdad as if the White House and the Pentagon bore no responsibility.

Network of Spiritual Progressives Response to Bush's Escalation--An Effective Strategy

I know I don't have to convince you that Bush's plan to escalate the war in Iraq is yet another amazing blunder by a president who seems determined to prepare us for yet more escalations, probably in Iran or Syria before he leaves office. His intention to dump the mess in the lap of the next (likely Democratic) president who will then take the rap for Iraq's further disintegration when the U.S. pulls out makes a certain political sense to ultra-right-wingers who may use the old fascist "the liberals stabbed us in the back" rhetoric to rally support in the next ten years. Yet, if you take one step back, you can see how totally insane the role our country is playing in the world, from torture to modeling the destruction of human rights to environmental insensitivity to economic selfishness. The Bible and its prophets taught what the modern social theorists and psychologist teach again: this path will lead to self-destruction. I write to you because I know you already know this, and, like me, want to change the direction of our society which has truly lost its moral center and spiritual direction.

War’s Rorschach Test

MY father once told me that he and his mother read the body count in the newspaper together. He didn’t tell me the exact day or time, or precisely where they were when they read it, but I like to imagine that they sat at the long, wooden table in the kitchen of the farmhouse where the Trussoni children, all 12 of them, used to eat. It was only a month or so before my father left for the war, the winter of 1967, a time of year when Wisconsin is cold and harsh and so dismal that the red barn sitting just beyond the house would have appeared as a splotch of divine color in a field of gray.

Tax Cuts and Consequences

Given the tax burden that the cost of running the "War On Terror," the loans we are forced to take to fund it, and the numerous frauds and wasteful mismanagement occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan, this article is definitely related to the war stories. The history of tax cuts under Bush's two terms in office points to the corporatism and pro-big business approach to elitism that is the legacy of Bush and the entire GOP plan for America (c.f. Michael Lerner's The Left Hand of God and website for Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives).

The tax system in the United States is supposed to mitigate inequality. But a recent report by Congress’s budget agency provides fresh evidence that Bush-era tax cuts have done more to reinforce inequality than to redress it.

The agency found that in 2004, the latest year for which comprehensive data were available, the top 1 percent of households pocketed 14 percent of total after-tax income in the United States, up from 12.2 percent in 2003. That increase, the third largest in one year since the agency started keeping track in 1979, works out to an extra $128 billion. And yet despite that hefty gain, the effective federal tax rate of the top 1 percent decreased slightly.

In contrast, the share of after-tax income going to households in the middle of the income distribution fell to 15 percent in 2004, down from 15.4 percent in 2003 — the equivalent of a $29 billion loss. In that time, the share of their income going to federal taxes stayed about the same.

Storm Left New Orleans Ripe For Violence

In the category of paying too much attention to matters overseas and ignoring the home front, the problems of national security in terms of border control, immigration, port security, transportation security, safeguarding chemical plants, and addressing the safety of ordinary citizens seem to be on a back burner while our Coast Guard is soon to be without workable vessels, our Border Patrol is still not up to full readiness and hamstrung with ridiculous regulations, and our National Guard is deployed overseas rather than being on guard of our states and nation.

The storm of violence that has burst over this city since New Year’s Day can be traced in part to dysfunctional law enforcement institutions, aggravated by a natural disaster that turned the physical and social landscape of New Orleans into an ideal terrain for criminals.

Eight killings have occurred in 10 days. New Orleans, the United States’ murder capital by many measures in 2006, is well on its way to keeping that distinction in 2007. Since July 2006, there have been at least 95 murders per 100,000 residents, and possibly a higher ratio depending on how the city’s depleted population is counted, said Peter Scharf, a criminologist at the University of New Orleans.

Frightened citizens now see their city as a stalking ground, roamed with impunity by teenagers with handguns — an image that may not be far off the mark, experts here say.