from Truthdig:
Joe Conason: A Time to Say No to Bush
Posted on Jan 11, 2007
By Joe Conason
Following George W. Bush’s latest attempt to rally the dispirited and angry nation in support of the prolonged conflict in Iraq, the question before Congress is starkly simple: What are the people’s representatives obliged to do about the bad judgment and bad faith of this president?
Bush’s bad judgment is manifest to most Americans in his call for dispatching at least another 20,000 combat troops to Baghdad. Evidently he shares the illusion, fostered by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that a tardy and nominal increase in troops will somehow improve the chances for “victory.”
Bad judgment is the original sin of this war, dating back to the abuse of intelligence data by the president and his advisers. Early in 2001, they decided to invade Iraq and then made sure that “the facts” about weapons of mass destruction and connections to al Qaeda were “fixed around the policy,” in the words of the famous Downing Street Memo. They brushed aside the reluctance of our traditional allies. They rejected the advice of experienced military commanders and civilian experts.
Now they reject the advice of generals both active and retired who say that the proposed “surge” of 20,000 troops will prove useless or worse.
Even the president’s most dedicated supporters have been forced to admit that he and his government made disastrous mistakes in battling the insurgency and running the occupation. But from the beginning, bad faith has exacerbated the effects of bad judgment—and not only in the fabricated case for war.
Before the invasion, Bush promised that he would take military action only as a “last resort” to disarm Iraq. Since the invasion, he has repeatedly pledged that he would increase our forces in Iraq only if his military commanders told him they needed additional troops. For months, however, the generals have told both the president and Congress that sending more soldiers will only result in more American dead and wounded, without quelling the sectarian violence.
Two months ago, appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, CentCom Commander Gen. John Abizaid saw no reason to send more troops. “I’ve met with every divisional commander—General Casey, the corps commander, General Dempsey—we all talked together,” he testified. “And I said, ‘In your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq?’ And they all said no.” .....(more)
The rest of the article is at:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070111_joe_conason_a_time_to_say_no_to_bush/ 
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