RIGA, Latvia, Nov. 28, 2006
Bush: 'Not Going To Pull Our Troops'
Under Increased Pressure, Bush Says Only Victory Will Get U.S. Out Of Iraq
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Play CBS Video Video Annan: Iran, Syria Have Role CBS News RAW: United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said Iran and Syria "have a role to play" in improving Iraq and should be included in discussions on Iraq's progress.
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Video Bush To Meet With Iraq PM President Bush is set to travel to Jordan for a summit with Iraq's Prime Minister. As Jim Axelrod reports, it may be Iraq that pushes for U.S. troop withdrawals.
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Video A Timetable For Iraq? David Martin reports that the Iraq Study Group may have found a way around President Bush's repeated refusal to set a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
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President Bush addresses guests at a university in Riga, Latvia, on Nov. 28, 2006. He is attending a summit of the leaders of the 26 NATO countries. (AP)
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President Bush speaks during a meeting with Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Nov. 28, 2006, at Riga Castle in Riga. Mr. Bush is in Latvia to attend the NATO Summit. (AFP/Getty Images)
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Interactive Globetrotting Follow President Bush as he travels around the globe.
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Interactive Battle For Iraq The government, the insurgency, key players, background and photos.
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Interactive The NATO Alliance Learn about the history of the defense group, check out the 26 NATO members.
At the opening of a NATO summit, Mr. Bush also urged allies to increase their forces in Afghanistan to confront a strengthening Taliban insurgency.
On the eve of his visit to Jordan for meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Mr. Bush portrayed the battles in both Afghanistan and Iraq as central fronts in a war "against the extremists who desire safe havens and are willing to kill innocents anywhere to achieve their objectives."
The stakes in Iraq are huge for President Bush. His war policies were repudiated in U.S. midterm elections that handed control of Congress to Democrats. A bipartisan blue-ribbon panel is about to issue a report proposing changes in the administration's approach in Iraq. And al-Maliki's government itself sometimes seems to be at cross purposes with Washington.
Mr. Bush set the stage for the Jordan talks with a speech at the NATO summit here and at an earlier news conference in neighboring Estonia. The president said he was flexible and eager to hear al-Maliki's ideas on how to ease the violence.
"There's one thing I'm not going to do, I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete," President Bush declared in his speech. There are about 140,000 U.S. forces in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to extend the mandate of the 160,000-strong multinational force in Iraq for one year, acting quickly ahead of a key meeting between U.S. and Iraqi leaders aimed at halting escalating violence in the country and paving the way for a reduction of American troops.
The council responded to a request from al-Maliki, who said a top government priority is to assume full responsibility for security and stability throughout the country but that it needs more time.
Earlier, speaking with reporters in Tallinn during a joint news conference with Estonia's president, Mr. Bush would not debate whether Iraq had fallen into civil war and blamed the increasing bloodshed on a pattern of sectarian violence that he said was set in motion last winter by al Qaeda followers.
"I'm going to bring this subject up, of course, with Prime Minister Maliki," Mr. Bush said. "My questions to him will be: What do you need to do to succeed? What is your strategy in dealing with the sectarian violence?"
But senior administration officials say that when Mr. Bush sits down with al-Maliki tomorrow, it is al-Maliki who might push for troop withdrawals so Iraqis can take greater control of their own security, CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports.
The president said he realized that "no question it's dangerous there, and violent. And the Maliki government is going to have to deal with that violence, and we want to help them do so."
Mr. Bush has been coming under increasing pressure, both overseas and at home, to reach out more to other countries.
Such a recommendation may be among those issued by the Iraq Study Group headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton. The group is expected to finish its work next month, and some are hoping for it by early next week. The Bush administration rejected what is expected to be a key recommendation — engaging Iran and Syria for help calming Iraq, Axelrod reports.
CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that sources close to the Iraq Study Group predicted that its final report will not call for a timetable for a withdrawal of troops — something that would certainly be rejected by the administration.
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 280 CommentsOnce again, King Dubya decides to "stay the course." Maybe he needs a new Viagra prescription.
Pull out? Doesn't sound manly to me!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6190662.stm
Our national debt is approaching $9 trillion
http://www.uwsa.com/uwsa-usdebt.html
Long term cost estimates of the U.S. debacle in Iraq have exceeded an additional $2 trillion, alone!
Not to mention all of the pointlessly spilled American blood and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
God help America...
Hear, hear!!!
Did you hear the latest about how Mexico is coping with their fraudulant Corporate-puppet?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6194100.stm
I think that we could learn a lot from our southern neighbors.
Salute!
"WHEN CLINTON LIED, NO ONE DIED"
If only Bush had committed adultery instead of his "high crimes and misdemeanors." Do war crimes count?
This presidential "whirlwind" tour was crafted frantically to limit collateral damage from an awakening American public, angry that we are screwed to the wall with a hugely expensive foreign war, utter dependence on MidEast oil, and head over heels in debt to policies serving Bush's bosom buddies. And last, but not least-- gasp!-- the stunned realization all these Eye-Rackis may have been right, after all, about American oil lust driving the invasion, in the first place. To keep his domestic public relations show on the road, Bush is compelled to sound convincingly like a statesman at each stop.
His whirlwind tour pointedly starts with Estonia, and less pointedly stops in Baghdad. Hat in hand, Bush must approach the man he regarded with mild contempt just months ago to offer his hand of support. In harsh political fact, however, Bush is now the weaker of the two,. and both know Bush will need a steadying hand for himself back in Washington. As he meets al-Maliki, PM of Iraq, Bush understands al-Maliki has many more options than he, and can play them all with a bemused smile.
Al-Maliki has put enormous effort into Diplomacy of High Level Reconciliation with Iran, promoting an understanding that the two nations-- with millions of war dead between them just a generation ago-- need never fight again. And
Ahmadinejad, of course, could not wait to respond in kind (prompting nervous warnings from Washington about "interference" in Iraq). This fence-mending scenario leaves Bush and the American interest completely adrift in a MidEast
dominated by a Russian-Iranian oil-power axis.
Yet, if only for counter-balance alone, al-Maliki must simultaneously appeal to Syria and the Saudis. Though Shia, al-Maliki does not relish becoming a slave to Iran and its ambitions. Nor can he believe his regime would last very long if
he ever loses Iraq's delicate balance of MidEast power. At heart, al-Maliki is hopeful of an Iraqi future, unsullied by foreign (American) or other (insert label here) adventurism, at peace with all its neighbors-- yet he knows his own days
could be cut short with the burst of gunfire which killed Lebanon's Gemayel or the kind of bomb which took out Hariri. Without sympathy for Saddam, what he was or what he did to millions, it is now clearer to most why any Iraqi head of state might believe he must be a power unto himself.
Speaking of power and legitimacy back in Washington, Bush desperately hopes a new campaign of "diplomacy", will help save his pretige and GOP regulars in 2008. But this kind of diplomacy is like asking for napkins while plundering a
dumpster for food-- there are not a lot of options left for Bush, except resolutely to lapse into a state of denial, again. We recall this administration was driven into a frenzy of neocon ambition by knotheads like Perle, Wolfowitz and
Adelman, who believed Bush need not worry about what others call "reality", since his bold, decisive action instantly creates its own.
For Bush to hit upon diplomacy as the measure of his final two years is simply desperation mistaken for genius under pressure. A model for that kind of thinking is Hitler's moment of inspiration about how to wage his naval war against Britain.
In 1939, the entire German fleet was blockaded by the Royal Navy just as tightly as 25 years before. In a flash, Hitler understood he might build U-boat fleets to bypass British warships and directly assault convoys feeding Britain. For Hitler, this finesse of fate helped convince him he was an unstoppable force of nature. For Bush, lying about diplomacy while arming tactical aircraft to assault Iran is an eerie repetition
of his windup for Iraq in 2003.
What America must do is hold Bush to his diplomatic posture. No more veiled threats or saber-rattling, semi-public discussions of the best attack method against 40 underground Iranian WMD-building bunker-plants. The urgency in 2006
with which Bush whipped out diplomacy leads many to believe it is merely another "Look, there is Mars!" distraction from the painful fact of presidential impotence. At the first opportunity, this adolescent bus driver will make every
mistake all over again, if allowed to believe he rules by fiat as commander of the armed forces.
With no undue respect, only when people understand what a model of personal limitations and imperial greed they helped elect in 2004 (they did not elect him in 2000) do the native drums start beating in the distant background, and people like
Karl Rove start sweating about a real exit strategy. In the GOP playbook, angry,
aroused and stupid natives are infinitely worse than placid, stupid natives.
Get us out of Iraq.
Keep us out of Iran.
Restore TRUE news... no more NBCCBSABCFOXCNN PROPOGANDA.
Restore DEMOCRACY.
If our puppet-Fuhrer had any sense of history, he would know that Afghanistan was the graveyard of the Soviet Union, as well as the rise of (former?) CIA operative, Osama bin Laden, to whom we owed a debt of gratitude for helping us defeat the Soviets.
Iraq and Afghanistan represent the dual graveyards for the Uber-fascistic and dead-brained, Project for a New American Century. I only hope that we can bring those involved in this despicable "project" to justice, for so deeply disgracing and damaging our country with their shameful and ill conceived misadventures, before it's too late, &/or before they escape.
Clinton stuff was peanuts compared to what is happening to the lives of American soldiers over in Iraq and Afganistan and the lives of American people travelling overseas.
Now they have to look behind their backs if they're going to be kidnap or ransom cause of this president!
He has made ... the world unsafe for anyone in that manner!
America is a FASCIST NATION RULED BY THE RICH.
REVOLT.
He is either dumb as dirt or he has a pair made of cast iron to say some of the things he manages to say without either laughing or crying.
The idea of sending him to wikipedia for a definition of civil war is a good idea, but he steadfastly refuses to go to wikipedia until that nation changes its policies regarding terorism.
Bring your troops home. You would need them for another cause next time, maybe for a better cause next time.
Americans and all the other nations need to have their families back. So much much has happened .... in the last 6 years.
It is time to heal each nation on their own and think of other ways to live in peace.
ANd for the families who have sacrifice to heal.
Send the troops home please!
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