Bush* Seeks an Exit Strategy as War Threatens His Career

[kskiska]

The President will make a dramatic U-turn on Iraq in a TV broadcast tonight to try to salvage his hopes of re-election amid Americans' growing hostility to the casualties and chaos. Report by Paul Harris in New York, Jason Burke and Gaby Hinsliff


George Bush will attempt tonight to convince the American people that he has a workable 'exit strategy' to free his forces from the rapidly souring conflict in Iraq, as Britain prepares to send in thousands more troops to reinforce the faltering coalition effort.

Frantic negotiations continued this weekend in New York to secure a United Nations resolution that would open the way for other countries to deploy peacekeeping troops to help after Bush - with one eye on next year's presidential election - signalled a change of heart on America's refusal to allow any but coalition forces into Iraq.

The President has been left with little practical choice. Concern among the American public has reached such a pitch that, with his approval ratings plummeting, he will deliver a televised address to the nation tonight to reassure them that they do not face another Vietnam. With their sons and daughters dying daily in guerrilla attacks, Americans may now be becoming more frightened of being bogged down in a hostile country than of the terrorist threat against which Bush has pledged to defend them.

(snip)

The question now being asked on both sides of the Atlantic is how the allies could find themselves in such trouble. One key mistake both Washington and London made was to assume that, once Baghdad fell, countries such as France and Germany, which had stood on the sidelines, would relent and offer peacekeeping troops. They underestimated the unexpected domestic popularity of anti-war leaders.

'That was the diplomatic advice. That was what we believed would happen, and it didn't,' said one Whitehall source. 'What we were unable to read was how popular the decision would be in the long run for the leaders who took it.'

more…
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1037015,00.html

[barbaraann]

1. Geez. Now they are blaming the "diplomatic advice."

Blame, blame, blame. Where do they learn how to do this?

[ixion]

4. yep... the only ones to blame are the neocons

their arrogance will be their downfall.

[aquart]

2. Let me get this straight. They thought they could insult and threaten

France, Germany, and the entire UN, and then they would come racing to be part of the glowing success once America licked the bad guy?

Did George think they were afraid of Saddam?

[sendero]

36. exactly...

... I just dont' get these people sometimes. Are they *really* that stupid?

I hope the UN holds out until Bush* nose is buried so far in the shit he cannot breathe. *He* created this situation, why should the rest of the world, who he ridiculed endlessly, bail him out?

[calimary]

38. But that's his pattern. Fuck up royally, then get somebody to bail him out

It's happened time and time again throughout his life. Either it was his father and his family wealth and connections that finally got him into the good schools his own grades and performance couldn't. Got him leapfrogged over hundreds of others on the waiting list to the Texas Air National Guard. Got him employed high-up in a succession of companies that, once on the board of directors or the CEO's office, he screwed the whole company up, and then had to be bailed out by some friend of his dad's who agrees to buy the company or buy him a seat on a NEW board of directors. His bigshot buddies bailed him out in the election madness by grandstanding so piously before the Supreme Court, when he wasn't good enough to eke out a fair-n-square win on his own.

This guy CANNOT, congenitally, do anything right. He fucks up. Then looks for someone to rescue him and clean up his mess, then he goes waltzing off, facing no consequences, to fuck up again at his next stop.

He's used to this. NOW, it's the whole UN he's expecting to come ride in like the Cavalry to bail out his ass and clean up his mess. For the first time, he's up against people who are NOT his cronies or his dad's cronies, and don't feel the obligation to be his clean-up crew. And he doesn't know what to do this time. He's up a creek because, for the first time in his entire life, the tried-n-true formula is not going to work. Heck, it won't even apply here. And he's not used to it.

Me thinks the party's winding down now, folks, if not in fact OVER already. He's finally reached his Peter Principle point. And NOBODY's gonna break any land speed records racing to his rescue this time.

This is the first bed he's ever made that he's gonna be stuck having to lie in.

[unblock]

3. retreat in iraq? no, advance on iran!

here comes president killagain ....

[StClone]

5. Prediction

Bush with or without Allies in Iraq will be in a damned if he does and damned if he don't death spiral exposing his and his flunky backers as flip-flop'n big stick little strategy nitwits.

[MoonAndSun]

6. I thought that the parts about Condi Rice were very revealing...

snip> Similarly in Washington, a rapid revision of the pecking order in the White House is going on, with the hawks wrongfooted by the unravelling of their thesis on Iraq. 'They were true believers, and are stunned by the fact that its not worked out,' said the University of San Francisco political scientist Richard Stoll.

A classified report drawn up by the US US Joint Chiefs of Staff and leaked last week blamed hurried and inadequate planning for the crisis, with too great a focus on an invasion and not enough on organising the peace. As the leading dove, Powell's stock is now rising in the White House, while that of the President's hawkish National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is judged to be falling.

'Condi Rice is in trouble,' said one Whitehall source.



Is she in trouble enough to resign? And what about Rummy? I don't think he is in a very good spot either.

[madrchsod]

8. it`s the

"night of the long knifes" in the whitehouse.the purge is on.

[VolcanoJen]

17. That classified report was the one Wesley Clark talked about...

... on Bill Maher Friday night. He seemed very aghast that little attention had been called to the report thus far...

[suegeo]

34. Why wasn't Condi fired on 9.12.2001??

Just asking. One of the biggest security failures in our nation's history goes down, and she is national security advisor at that time.

Miserable failure, she is.

[madrchsod]

7. i think the rest of the world

is waiting for the people to vote him out so that sanity can come back to the usa. of course the war is the major problem but there`s other issues that georgie refuses to see the need in-like saving the planet and doing something about the world wide recession,and that`s just two.....

[Newsjock]

9. "Popular wartime president"?

It's staggering to see how the U.S. and British press take the exact same set of events and come up with such vastly different interpretations.

While The Observer says all this, CNN and friends are still prattling about our "popular wartime president" and his "bold new direction" for "liberating" Iraq.

If this doesn't drive home the need for a complete overhaul of the nation's media -- particularly broadcast news -- then I don't know what will. The media clearly are willing to sacrifice their obligations to society in the name of profit, despite their constitutionally protected role.

[JohnyCanuck]

10. When did Dubya ever worry about his career being threatened?

After all, a word from Poppy and a few well placed hints and suggestions and before you know it good friends such as the bin Ladens of Saudi Arabia and other cronies and hangers on will no doubt be pleased to finance a new business for Dubya to take over and run into the ground (but not before he takes advantage of his generous stock option package and sells all his shares at a hefty profit).

[lcordero]

11. an exit strategy entails giving up control of the oil fields <---that is

not going to happen.

[PartyPooper]

12. How could they possibly cancel all of those contract$ with Halliburton?

Cheney would have a shit fit over that!

[unblock]

14. oh, no way!

that SURELY is the crux of the negotiating with the u.n., etc.

we get to control the oil fields, you get to rebuild the nation. we got what we came for.

hmm, shrub, too, is a GASSHOLE.

[pansypoo53219]

13. BWAA HA HA HA HA

eat it assholes. Their shit has finally hit the fan.

[CatWoman]

15. FUCK YOU GEORGE BUSH

FUCK YOU ALL TO HELL!!!!!

We BEGGED you not to invade this country.

WE BEGGED YOU NOT TO DO IT!!!!

And you responded by calling us a "focus group".

Fuck you.

I'll never forgive you -- no matter how much groveling you do.

[are_we_united_yet]

18. We begged him and the bozo's

who helped market this tragedy. I resonate with your sentiment CatWoman

[Skittles]

27. an we can't even feel truly happy about it

because of the price that has been paid by so many -

[calimary]

42. You said it, girlfriend.

So what if I feel like a Jeane Dixon. It's a hollow victory to be proven correct on this.

We DID beg you not to do it, schmuck. We even told you why. We gave you, in fact, MULTIPLE REASONS not to do it! All of them good ones! But you smirked at us. Yeah, you sure knew better, George.

But if he's spent an entire useless lifetime not listening to anybody else, why should he have reformed now? So tragic that so many American and British soldiers, and innocent Iraqi civilians, have died and been wounded in this. And with the higher levels of radiation from depleted uranium said to be throughout the Baghdad area, it could be that the ones who died got off easy.

Makes me wonder also about the dead from the World Trade Center. The ones who died are the lucky ones, considering what those who lived on and are still breathing that toxic air have ahead of them...

God help us all!

[VolcanoJen]

16. I didn't hear any of this while they were busy renaming French Fries.

This, from the party of personal responsibility.

I wonder if the press will swoon tomorrow, in the predictable fashion. Should be fascinating...

[dArKeR]

19. Exit strategy out of America is best for our nation and the world!

[IkeWarnedUs]

20. It's probably what Bush will say

But not why he says it.

I can see two much more likely motivations. First, he needs to set the stage for the new spin and resulting casualties. Second, he has to stall until the next "catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor" is ready.

IF the Observer article is right - and that is a real big IF - and Bush himself is just sobering up and wants to save his own skin and really do the right thing in Iraq, he won't have much of a future.

With all the PNAC'ers have done to put this together and as far into their plan they have come, there's no way they would let a (very) little thing like Bush's ambitions get in their way.

[The_Casual_Observer]

21. Yet Another Speech

Shit ball is going to give another speech. I'll be sure to not watch it, however we will all be bombarded with discussions about it come Monday morning. At least I'll be spared watching him smile as he lies.

Perhaps he will "finally reveal the truth about WMD" or admit he WAS WRONG about the balloon truck, or at least admit that yes, he IS the product of George Herbert Walker Bush's sexual relations with a chimpanzee from the Kennebunk Zoo.

[AnnabelLee]

24. He'd be much better looking

if he was the product of Poppy's liasion with a chimp. As it is, Bab's ugliness shows through unmistakably, & not just in the physical sense.

[The_Casual_Observer]

25. Ok, then is was bab's relations at Kennebunk

N/T

[suegeo]

33. I thought Jr's real mother was a jackel?

EOM

[Nottingham]

22. Bush is gonna Make the World Safer by Bombing Iran's Reactor

:bounce: Thats Next!

[SharonAnn]

23. Why? Israel can take care of that. They took care of the

reactor in Baghdad years ago.

[Rollins]

29. Even though the Iranian reactor is not a threat Bush will talk it Sunday

Sure if it was a real problem Israel would of gotten rid of the reactor years ago. Bush is going to talk about it tomorrow because the Administration needs a diversion from the poor Iraq reconstruction and our continued sour economy. They need something to grab peoples attention and like their master Joseph Goebbels they will access our fear by using words like "terrorist" "security" and "nuclear". Bet 29% of our population will have forgotten about Iraq by the time he's finished and be scared to death of Iran.

We have not got enough troops to take on Iran or the support of any other countries so all he will do sunday evening is a lot, well 15 stammering minutes, of saber rattling.

[EFF BrandyWine]

43. And if they hadn't...

Saddam might have had a handful of nukes by 2000...and then if bush had still invaded...poof, we wouldn't be sitting in front of our pc's talking about it, would we? And if he hadn't invaded and Saddam had decided to sell his prizes to someone on the Dark Side, do you think they would have hesitated to use it? Remember, those folks don't much care if they take the world with them when they hit Paradise and all those virgins!

[RainDog]

40. read this

you have to go to the site to read the article he talks about, but, yep, sounds like Rummy and Wolfie are planning another march of folly.

Time to take to the streets of Washington for another "focus" group of a few million, maybe, this time?


http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

An update and (partly) a revision of the post below. Juan Cole throws serious cold water on the Iran element of the Post story, fingering a lot of that info as coming from the Iranian exile community eager to have the US turn our attention to them. Cole, as in recent posts, continues to see the current troubles as much more a matter of ex-Baathists than the still small stream of jihadists coming in from over the borders. See Cole's morning post here and particular the second graf ... Perhaps the name of Sue Schmidt on the byline of the Post piece should have gotten my reportorial defense mechanisms more in gear (alas, such are the dangers of penning political analysis late on a Saturday night.)

Two points seem clear to me. 1) The chaos in Iraq has opened the place up to serious infiltration by all manner of bad-actors from around the region -- a development which is not a justification for administration policy, but an example of its failure. 2) The administration is far from weaned of its propensity for using manipulated or just plain bogus intelligence to advance its policy or cover its tracks. One veteran journalist/sage whose take on things I never discount tells me this morning: "Yes, the more I think of it, the more the timing is suspicious, and reminiscent of the last Sept. 11 'celebration.' Ridge saying there is a new Al Q threat in the US (but not issuing an alert, because they know that alerts are now politically counterproductive). The Wolfowitz opeds on terrorism. I'd watch for Bush to make a reference to the Post article, or at least to its contents, in his speech tonight. The main difference this year is that they are using the Post rather than the Times to do their leaking."

[OldCurmudgeon]

26. Get real

Shrub never, NEVER, NEVER takes responsibility for the messes he's made.

I think it's more likely that he declares war on the UN, with the invasion to take place immediately.

[Skittles]

28. OLDCUR IS CORRECT

our dipshit "prez" is incapable of admitting mistakes or taking responsibility.

[liberalmuse]

30. 'Career'? <snerk>

What career? A lady who just moved to Utah County from Dallas told those of us at the Dean booth today in SLC that the shrub's 'career' at the time of his application for Governor was listed as 'neighborhood carpool dad'. BTW, scary thing about Texas, according to this lady--Utah County (Provo area) is more liberal than Dallas. Eek!

Someone suggested overhauling the media. I suggest we Americans fire all of their asses and replace them with paid interns from journalism schools across the country, and change them every 2 years to eliminate the whore factor.

[bobthedrummer]

31. I guess I'm a dinosaur, he was sElected

and I'll never forget that nor move on regardless.
All power to the people.

[ignatius]

32. "They underestimated the unexpected domestic popularity of

anti-war leaders.(France and Germany)

What the hell did they think the hundreds of thousands of protestors were there for? The elected officials in those countries LISTENED to what the voters said, you dumb fucks.

I am sure the CIA would have had a few more democratically elected leaders assassinated if the war cabal had thought it necessary. That is their idea of war planning.

The belief that the Iraqi's would meet us with open arms and flowers preached by Iraqis living in America and who had not set foot in Iraq for 20 years was the "intelligence" these morons wanted to believe.

[robbedvoter]

35. Them focus groups agin! Schroeder was reelected BECAUSE of his antiwar

stands - months before they went to war. What was there to underestimate? Wellstone was leading in the polls too after his opposition here. They actually believed their own PR!

[Kellanved]

41. either their own PR or those opposition politicans

keeping telling them the opposite. The German opposition met more often with Bush and Cheney than the Government - a breach of any diplomatic tradition .

[indypaul]

37. With all due respect to

SNL and Gilda Radner, can't he simply turn to Colin
Powell and say "never mind?" Then announce his
resignation.

[proud patriot]

39. Maybe next time TENS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE will not be

considered a focuss group to be ignored ....:grr:

Got to love the headline