Bush: Iraq Study Group Agrees With Me

President Praises Report Recommendations That Support Administration, Ignores Criticisms

(CBS/AP)  President Bush spoke Saturday about parts of the Iraq Study Group report that mirror his policies — but he ignored the sections that criticize his administration's handling of the war.

In his weekly radio broadcast, Bush said the bipartisan group's report presented a straightforward picture of the "grave situation we face in Iraq." He said he was pleased the panel supported his goal of an Iraq that can govern, sustain and defend itself, even though that will take time. And he said he was glad the bipartisan panel did not suggest a hasty withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

"The group declared that such a withdrawal would `almost certainly produce greater sectarian violence' and lead to `a significant power vacuum, greater human suffering, regional destabilization and a threat to the global economy,"' Bush said, quoting the report, which was issued Thursday.

"The report went on to say, `If we leave and Iraq descends into chaos, the long-range consequences could eventually require the United States to return,"' Bush noted.

The report, however, also said the situation in Iraq was "grave and deteriorating."

Bush is expected to settle on a new course for Iraq and present it to the nation in a speech before Christmas. He said he will consider the panel's 79 recommendations.

The president goes to the State Department for talks Monday, then meets in the Oval Office with independent experts on Iraq. On Tuesday, the president confers in a video conference with senior military commanders and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq. On Wednesday, he meets with senior defense officials at the Pentagon.

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Listen to President Bush's radio address

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Democrats say the report vindicates their call for a change of course by the administration, but it's unclear how dramatic the changes the president is contemplating would be.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the Iraq Study Group's report necessitates an immediate new direction in Iraq.

"Their report confirms what most of us have known for some time — President Bush's policy of stay the course is not working," Reyes said. "We need a new approach."

He said the Iraq Study Group recommends something that House and Senate Democrats have been advocating for months: To begin redeploying U.S. troops, the mission of the U.S. military must switch from combat to training and support.

"We must also demand more results from the Iraqi government, holding them accountable for their actions," Reyes said. "And we must launch a new diplomatic offensive to engage Iraq's neighbors and the international community in the process of stabilizing Iraq and that region. President Bush has not done this, but he must because our nation's security and the well-being of our 150,000 troops there depend on it."

Incoming Senate Democratic Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois, who was among congressional leaders who met with Bush at the White House on Friday, said the president indicated he was open to changing tactics.

"I think we all understand tactics need to be changed, but the Iraq Study Group went further than tactics," Durbin said. "The Iraq Study Group talked about the new direction in Iraq in terms of starting to bring American troops home, redeploying them to safer places, holding Iraq to new standards of responsibility and opening up a new line of diplomacy."

Durbin said Bush didn't endorse the Iraq Study Group at the meeting and said the president's statements left him questioning whether Bush will support the panel's conclusions.

[jackntx]

Firststate,

And so 9/11 was a delusion??

[jackntx]

Clestes,

You obviously need to READ the report.

[jackntx]

RandallDS,

Gee, you must be President Bush himself, to be able to know so intimately his very thoughts and inner machinations of his mind and being.

Where did you get your psychoanalytic training? And did they teach you that making diagnoses without ever meeting someone is proper???

Or, perhaps you are just projecting . . .

[tejasdemo]

RandallDS,

You are 100% correct.

[clestes-2009]

Is this not just howlingly hysterical?? Somehow, Dubya has managed to twist and highlight the FEW WORDS that the ISG said and found a way to make the case that their plans AGREE with his. Unbelievable, totally unbelievable. Everytime I think I have seen him off the wall, he surprises me by going even further off the wall!!

The ISG says plainly that Bushie's plans are not working and will cause the Iraq conflict to descend into chaos so bad it could overflow to other countries around Iraq. Now how the hell does he manage to get "they agree with me" out of that??

Dubya, you are certifiable. Once your presidency if over, the guys in white jackets will come to take you away, where you can play war games on a computer and not in real life where people die for your mistakes.

[randalds]

I believe tru_america1 is correct, Bush is obviously mentally ill. he has a huge inferiority complex from a whole life of (rightly) being labeled as the family joke and screw up. he is also a sociopath as he honestly doesn't grasp that real human beings, on both sides of the war, are dying. He honestly doesn't understand that this is not a game and the people are not going to all stand back up when it's over. Their arms and legs and, in many cases, brain functions are gone forever. He is missing the compassion that makes people human. He does not care, because he is unable to. That fact makes him far too sick to be the president of anything, let alone this country.

[bushrocks1]

Would I send my son to this war? You might ask would I send him to World War II? Or Vietnam? Maybe you would distinguish those conflicts and whether you would send your son to fight in them. But that question is misdirected in a very important way: I can't command my son to go to war. He has to make that choice. So the better question would be: would I volunteer to fight in Iraq, WW II, Vietnam? Would I volunteer to fight in any war? Respond if drafted? I don%u2019t know. I'm not equivocating, only addressing that it is a hypothetical. To a hypothetical, I can answer, sure I'd fight. But I have nightmares of battle (from my past life as a Jacobite). So how do I feel toward those who do volunteer? Impressed and maturely knowing that many things go into their decision. But I do strongly believe that a country that can't find those men is doomed. The fact that we can find them is one reason why I say there is no failure in Iraq. Objectively, I also believe it for other reasons. An attempt to establish democracy in the Middle East is a bold, brilliant, noble effort, facing a high chance of failure. That's why I greatly respect and admire those who have made the attempt--the Bush administration. They have been resolute, something I have not seen in my lifetime. They may not succeed, for reasons outside their control or fault: traitors on the home front. Now those traitors have occupied the high ground. Yet... we're still in Iraq; the President hasn%u2019t been impeached. Why?...I'm waiting.

[firststate]

bush's frocks, a real dressing down, can we just call him Jake from his past life?

[firststate]

His delusional state would be almost funny, but real human beings, many of them our military who derserve better, are dying because of his delusions. Someone needs to explain that these are real people, really dying, not pretend. It's not like when his GI Joe doll beats his Ken doll up and everything's fine the next day.

His fantasy work on changes for the real war won't fly the way it did with his imaginative intelligence selection for the buildup to his debacle, Bill O'Really, the Washington Times and the daily reich notwithstanding.

[frankly6]

Below is a quote from a story on the AP site. It shows what some of our troops think of Duhbya's war...

Staff Sgt. Jeremy Gann, the wounded man's squad leader, stared blankly at a wall for a moment, then spoke.

"They won tonight," he said. "But we've got to protect the guys next to us. We're dying for nothing and that's all we've got."

The wounded man mentioned died a few minutes later.




Posted by gramto11 at 07:27 AM : Dec 10, 2006