NYT: It's time for Bush...to chart a course...or admit that there is none.

[ProSense]

The reality of Iraq starts to dawn on Bush

The New York Times

SUNDAY, MAY 28, 2006

When President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain talked about progress in Iraq at a joint news conference last week, one thing was evident. The two world leaders who plotted the original invasion have, at least, come a long way in realizing how many things have gone wrong. Bush and Blair, who have always been the cheerleaders for the Iraq initiative, seemed downbeat, even as they insisted that democratization would make everything right in the end.

Iraq now does have a constitutional government, elected by the Iraqis themselves. But that will make no difference at all unless that government can provide all its citizens with basic order and security.

Right now armed gangs of thugs, many of them wearing government uniforms, are spreading terror throughout Iraq. Some were trained by U.S. forces to work for the Interior Ministry, but actually do the bidding of Shiite political and religious leaders. They harass, kidnap and murder people who follow different religious practices or support competing politicians, often with the help of weapons and equipment provided by a U.S. government that had very different objectives in mind. The New York Times reported last week that Sunni forces working for the Ministry of Defense who were supposed to be guarding Iraq's oil pipeline were instead freelancing as death squads, assassinating people who cooperated with the same government that paid the gunmen's salaries.

Snip...

It was somewhat reassuring that Bush and Blair have stopped trying to pretend that everything has gone just fine in Iraq, since most of the rest of the world already knows otherwise. But it was very disturbing to hear them follow their expressions of regret with the same old "stay the course" fantasy. It's time for Bush either to chart a course that can actually be followed, or admit that there is none.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/28/opinion/ediraq.php

Sunni Sheik Assassinated in Baghdad

Sunni Sheik Who Worked With American Forces in Western Iraq Assassinated in Baghdad

The Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A prominent Sunni Arab tribal leader who provided fighters to help battle al-Qaida in western Iraq was assassinated Sunday in Baghdad, police said.

Sheik Osama al-Jadaan died in a hail of bullets as he was driving in the city's Mansour district, police Lt. Maitham Abdul Razzaq said. Al-Jadaan's driver and a bodyguard also were killed.

Al-Jadaan, a leader of the Karabila tribe, announced an agreement with the U.S.-backed Iraqi government to help track down al-Qaida members and foreign fighters along the border with Syria.

U.S. troops used al-Jadaan's followers to track down insurgents living under the protection of a rival tribe in Qaim and in a cluster of nearby towns that U.S. officials said was a staging area for smuggling weapons, ammunition and fighters into Iraq.

more...

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2013906&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

[Amonester]

1. The definition of the quagmire the two Bs created.

"Right now armed gangs of thugs, many of them wearing government uniforms, are spreading terror throughout Iraq. Some were trained by U.S. forces to work for the Interior Ministry, but actually do the bidding of Shiite political and religious leaders. They harass, kidnap and murder people who follow different religious practices or support competing politicians, often with the help of weapons and equipment provided by a U.S. government that had very different objectives in mind."

that had very different objectives in mind.

Really?? (I don't beleive that's not what these war criminals WANTED from the get go.) If so, WHO R these IDIOT$?

[Time for change]

2. I don't believe that any reality has dawned on Bush

I think that his handlers merely recognized that, for political purposes, to prevent his poll numbers from sliding so low that he risks impeachment, his handlers had him act somewhat contrite. Maybe it's even a prelude to an Iran invasion.

[happydreams]

3. Yep. This is why an piece like this does a disservice to

truth. It doesn't even question the true motive of Bush's actions.

[True Bleu]

6. This is AAAAAALLL about the elections in '06.

So he regrets the statement, "Bring it on??"
Its absolutely stunning to me that this country's president doesn't have the intellectual capacity to predict
the fallout from such a statement. And yet Al Gore gets skewered by the press. F(*& the corporate MSM.

And I'm not buying Bush's statement one bit. He's psychopathic--he feels no emotion, including regret.

[many a good man]

4. Two very very naughty little boys

[Cha]

5. This article sounds

like bush and bliar deserve a medal for facing reality when their non-reality got us into it in the first place. They are being coddled like pre-kindergarten kids instead of being held accountable like elected(?) leaders(?).

[VP505]

8. That might be

the case for Bu$h, but don't worry, Blair is getting plenty of heat at home. He is very close to being run out of office, wish we could say the same for Bu$h.

[lfairban]

9. Remember when . . .

. . . Nixon got the Nobel Peace Prize?

[Up2Late]

7. Reality?!? REALLY!?!

They've just traded on fantasy for another. :puke:

[Buns_of_Fire]

10. "Stay the course..." -- and the damned fools say to push on

Well, I'm not going to point any moral;
I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.

--Pete Seeger, 1963 http://history.acusd.edu/gen/snd/waistdeep.html

[DallasNE]

11. I Am A Whole Lot Less Sure

That the reality of Iraq has started to dawn on Bush.

Just as "mission accomplished" was a publicity stunt I fear that this latest "reality check" is any more than another publicity stunt. After all, the main theme was still the the policy was right and stay the course is still the policy.

Words don't mean much with this administration. All that matters is results. And the results still don't reflect any "dawning of reality" in Iraq. While the article was a fine article, I have to part company with the notion that anything meaningful has happened with this "admission".