Bush Stays The Course

By David Paul Kuhn,
CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer

With 78 days until the June 30 deadline for transfer of power in Iraq, and the situation in that country increasingly unstable, President Bush said Tuesday he is determined to stick to the scheduled handover of sovereignty to Iraqis.

"The deadline has been there and if he deviated from the June 30 deadline that wouldn't have gone over so well," said Robert Shapiro, a professor of political science at Columbia University.

Although Mr. Bush was as resolved as ever when talking about the mission in Iraq, he failed to capitalize on the opportunity to clarify what actions would be taken to stabilize the country.

"The speech was a wash. The only thing he could have done to help his case is combine his rhetoric with some new information about action he might take, with regard to the U.N. and NATO and things going on, on the ground," Shapiro continued. "I think at this point Americans are looking more for action than for words."

In the month of April alone, at least 83 U.S. soldiers were killed and more than 560 were wounded. The president said he will supply as many troops as are requested by the generals on the ground in Iraq.

However, regarding the wider war on terror, Mr. Bush successfully translated his message that if he had had accurate intelligence, he would have done all in his power to prevent the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Not willing to offer an apology for any oversights that possibly could have anticipated the attacks, Mr. Bush said: "I'm sick when I think about the death that took place on that day," adding in a self-reflective tone, "I often think about what I could have done differently."

"I think that he acquitted himself fairly well related to the 9/11 commissions," said Ken Mayer, a political scientist at University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Having Bush up there, I think he exceeded expectations. Press conferences are not his natural habitat, he tends to not be as articulate as (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair, but he used forceful language."

Responding to criticism that the current war was a quagmire akin to the Vietnam War, the president said the "analogy is false" and "sends the wrong message" to troops and the enemy.

On the subject of FBI and CIA failures to communicate intelligence related to al Qaeda prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Bush said, "We were kind of stovepiped." Using his hands to illustrate his point, the president motioned that the intelligence community was disjointed.

The image of the chimney-like stovepipe, in which smoke has just one way to go, is often used to describe rigid, chain-of-command type organizations.

It's also been used to describe the flow of information in the intelligence community, most notably by journalist Seymour Hersh, in a New Yorker article last October arguing that conflicts between the Bush administration and the intelligence community damaged efforts to accurately report on weapons in Iraq.

"There are some things I wish we would have done when I look back," said Mr. Bush, but he cited solely the creation of the Department of Homeland Security as a specific thing he wished had been done before Sept. 11.

"He was kind of dancing around the accusation of mistakes," said Shapiro. "The moments when he speaks in his own words and sounds comfortable with what he's saying, he sounds better than when he is trying to follow the script."

When describing what he would have done had he known the terrorist attacks were pending, Mr. Bush echoed his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, in saying he would have moved "heaven and earth."

The president continued to characterize the war in Iraq as synonymous with the wider war on terror, referring to Saddam Hussein at one point as an "ally" of terror and insisting weapons of mass destruction could still be located in Iraq.

"He keeps evoking that image of terrorism and the war going together, even though at this point it is the war producing more terrorism," Shapiro said. "At the end he was talking about the campaign, which gave the impression that the entire night was motivated by the fact that, even though he says he isn't paying attention to the polls, it's pretty clear (that he is)."

A CBS News poll released last week found that 57 percent of Americans now say the war in Iraq is not worth the cost, the largest number yet. As for those who said the United States made the right decision to use military force against Iraq – that number has dipped - to 50 percent from 55 percent one week earlier.

Looking beyond politics, Mayer said Mr. Bush's press conference did have a positive effect.

"Often during the presidential election we think of what is good for the country and bad for the country solely from what is good and bad for candidates," Mayer said. "Irrespective of how this affected Bush or Kerry political fortunes, I think it was good for the country."