Day: January 11, 2007

President George W. Bush’s lackluster speech Wednesday night failed to convince Americans who listened and overwhelmingly oppose sending more U.S. forces to Iraq, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll.

The strong public repudiation comes as Bush faces increasing opposition from both Democrats and Republicans to boosting troop levels in Iraq reflects growing skepticism over the United States to go to war in the first place or that a stable, democratic government can be established there.

President Bush’s announcement that he is sending more troops to Iraq sets up the first major test of wills between his Republican administration and the new Democratic-controlled Congress. Both sides are digging in.

The political stakes raised by Bush’s prime-time television address were high on both sides.

Democrats, who came to power in midterm elections two months ago in large part because of growing public opposition to the war, must walk a fine line between criticizing Bush’s plans and appearing to be obstructionists or undermining the military.

President Bush’s troop-boosting plan for Iraq was headed straight into a political gale in Congress, with Democrats, some Republicans and an increasingly organized anti-war movement arrayed against the buildup.

Lawmakers were ready to pounce on the plan Thursday during a day of congressional hearings featuring top Bush administration officials such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Leaders of the Democratic-controlled Congress also were considering options for a nonbinding resolution, to be introduced next week, denouncing the troop increase.

As part of its 100 hours of action — a public-relations gimmick that is mercifully time-limited — the House rushed through a homeland-security bill of unknown cost and questionable practicality.

President George W. Bush, for the first time, admitted a mistake in his conduct of his failed Iraq war, then returned to the same old rhetoric in a vain attempt to rationalize compounding his many errors.

“Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me,” Bush said, a rare admission from a President who does not acknowledge his mistakes.

However, the President’s plan to send 21,500 additional troops is viewed by military experts as too little too late and a strategy doomed to fail.

A war-weary nation, burned too many times by President George W. Bush’s undelivered promises and distortions in his failed Iraq war, reacted mostly with puzzlement and frustration to his speech on the latest plan to turn the conflict around.

Most don’t understand why more Americans must die in a war that should never have been launched or how this latest “adjustment” will be any different.

Reports The Associated Press:

President Bush’s new plan for Iraq sounds a lot like his old one. Send in more troops, set goals for the Iraqi government and assure Americans it’s better to wage war there than here. And now the U.S. military is back in Somalia, too, once again attacking suspected terrorist targets. Bush’s challenge in Iraq: show what’s different now.

The plan the president will outline to the nation Wednesday night is the latest repackaging of a program that’s been wrapped and rewrapped many times.

Ignoring public sentiment and growing opposition from both Democrats and Republicans, a defiant President Bush will send 21,500 more toops into harm’s way in what his own military planners say is a lost-cause effort to save the civil-war torn country from anarchy.

Bush will also say he should habe sent in more troops last year and was wrong to not do so.