Title: BUSH LOST THE WAR IN IRAQ - PULL OUR TROOPS OUT NOW MR. LOSER PRESIDENT Source:
TRUTH URL Source:[None] Published:Jun 4, 2006 Author:TLBSHOW Post Date:2006-06-04 09:39:38 by TLBSHOW Keywords:None Views:3922 Comments:13
TRUTH - AMERICA IS NOT AMERICA ANYMORE - GOD HAS LEFT THE BUILDING
President Bush made a crucial point at his press conference .. when he warned America's "enemies" not to read the vicissitudes of our democracy as "a lack of will." Too bad he then undermined that message by accepting the "resignation" of .. Rumsfeld a day after his party's election defeat -- and ..a week after saying he wanted his defense secretary to serve out his term.
We realize Mr. Rumsfeld had become a political lightening rod, and that after six years Mr. Bush may want someone else to engage on defense policy with Democrats who have demanded the Pentagon chief's head. But the timing of the secretary's dispatch, and Mr. Bush's flustered explanation about the cause and timing, sent a message of retreat, rather than resolve. .. nomination of Robert Gates also doesn't reassure us about Mr. Bush's policy direction.
...Mr. Rumsfeld is likely to fare much better than his many critics assert...
Which brings us back to Mr. Gates, whose nomination makes us wonder if Mr. Bush is signaling a change in policy, or worse, a new resignation toward Iraq. Mr. Gates is a capable public servant with broad security experience. But much of that experience is with the CIA, which has misjudged the nature of the enemy throughout this conflict. Mr. Gates is also on the Baker-Hamilton study group that Congress established to examine policy options for Iraq, and we hope his nomination doesn't mean Mr. Bush has already signed onto its soon-to-be- released recommendations. One of those proposals is reportedly a new engagement with Iran and Syria, which would make a hash of the President's "freedom agenda."
Most troubling regarding Iraq, Mr. Gates was deputy national security adviser under Brent Scowcroft in 1991, when President Bush's father abandoned the Shiite uprising that followed the first Gulf War.
A stunning new death count emerged Thursday, as Iraq's health minister estimated at least 150,000 civilians have been killed in the war _ about three times previously accepted estimates. Moderate Sunni Muslims, meanwhile, threatened to walk away from politics and pick up guns, while the Shiite-dominated government renewed pressure on the United States to unleash the Iraqi army and claimed it could crush violence in six months.
After Democrats swept to majorities in both houses of the U.S. Congress and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld resigned, Iraqis appeared unsettled and seemed to sense the potential for an even bloodier conflict because future American policy is uncertain. As a result, positions hardened on both sides of the country's deepening sectarian divide.
Previous estimates of Iraq deaths held that 45,000-50,000 have been killed in the nearly 44-month-old conflict, according to partial figures from Iraqi institutions and media reports.
No official count has ever been available, and Health Minister Ali al- Shemari did not detail how he arrived at the new estimate of 150,000, which he provided to reporters during a visit to the Austrian capital.
But later Thursday, Hassan Salem, of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, said the 150,000 figure included civilians, police and the bodies of people who were abducted, later found dead and collected at morgues run by the Health Ministry. SCIRI is Iraq's largest Shiite political organization and holds the largest number of seats in parliament.
Whatever that is, it wouldn't be victory but a face-saving exit. History would call that a loss, and call Bush a loser. Which would make America the loser as well.
