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March 20th,
2008 - Bush Defends Iraq War in Speech News article by the New York Times |
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Bush Defends Iraq War in
Speech By Steven Leee Myers New York Times March 20, 2008 Washington - President Bush
used the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq on Wednesday to
make the case for persevering in a conflict that could have many more
anniversaries. Democrats accused him of lacking a strategy to win and
withdraw. Mr. Bush, speaking before
members of the armed forces and defense officials at the Pentagon, said in
his frankest acknowledgment yet that the costs of the war, in lives and
money, had been higher and longer lasting than he had anticipated. But he remained unwavering
in his insistence that the invasion of Iraq, which began in March 2003, had
made the world better and the United States safer. “Five years into this
battle, there is an understandable debate over whether the war was worth
fighting, whether the fight is worth winning, and whether we can win it,” he
said. “The answers are clear to me. Removing Saddam Hussein from power was
the right decision, and this is a fight that America can and must win.” The anniversary starkly
illustrated the divide between Mr. Bush and Democrats, who control Congress -
and between the Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain of
Arizona, and the two senators seeking the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama
and Hillary Rodham Clinton. At a community college in
Fayetteville, a military town in North Carolina, Mr. Obama noted that the war
in Iraq had now lasted longer than the Civil War, World War I and World War
II, though it has been fought on a scale far below those conflicts. “Where are we for all of
this sacrifice?” he said. “We are less safe and less able to shape events
abroad. We are divided at home, and our alliances around the world have been
strained.” Mrs. Clinton, appearing at
an American Legion post in Huntington, W.Va., argued for a cautious
withdrawal of troops that would begin within 60 days of her taking office.
“Every one of you who has served knows with drawing troops can be as
dangerous as inserting them,” she said. By contrast, Mr. McCain, who
visited Iraq this week, issued a statement saying that the United States and
its allies in Iraq stood “on the precipice of winning a major victory against
radical Islamic extremism.” The anniversary, as it has
in the past, galvanized the war’s critics and, to a lesser degree, its
supporters. Mr. Bush gave his speech as sporadic, relatively small but
raucous protests erupted in Washington and in other cities, leading to dozens
of arrests. “How much longer?” read a banner
along the president’s route to the Pentagon across the Potomac. Iraq has receded somewhat as
an issue in the campaign. And the scale and fury of antiwar protests appeared
to have diminished from just a year ago, before Mr. Bush ordered “a surge” of
still more American troops to Iraq that has resulted in a decline in overall
violence there. Still, the war stirs intense
emotions on both sides. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said the war had
damaged the country’s reputation, strained its military and now threatened
its economy. “With the war in Iraq
entering its sixth year,” she said in a statement, “Americans are rightly
concerned about how much longer our nation must continue to sacrifice our
security for the sake of an Iraqi government that is unwilling or unable to
secure its own future.” Mr. Obama criticized his
rivals for their initial votes for the war. “Here is the stark reality,” he
said. “There is a security gap in this country - a gap between the rhetoric
of those who claim to be tough on national security, and the reality of
growing insecurity caused by their decisions.” He also seized on a gaffe
Mr. McCain made Tuesday in Amman, Jordan, when he confused the main sects of
Islam and the support for each from Al Qaeda, a Sunni dominated group, and
Iran, a majority Shiite nation. Mr. McCain corrected his statement after
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, who is traveling with him in the region,
whispered in his ear. “Maybe that is why he
completely fails to understand that the war in Iraq has done more to embolden
America’s enemies than any strategic choice that we have made in decades,”
Mr. Obama said. He said that as commander in
chief he would begin withdrawing a brigade or two each month starting
immediately. His plan, he said, would reduce the American force to only the
number required to secure the American Embassy and maintain a
counterterrorist force. Even that, he acknowledged,
would take until 2010. The number of troops in Iraq
is at the center of the administration’s attention. The top American
commander there, Gen. David H. Petraeus, is scheduled to appear before
Congress in April to present his recommendations on what to do after a
withdrawal of the 30,000 troops ordered to Iraq by Mr. Bush last year. Those troops brought the
total to a peak of more than 160,000; by summer, roughly 140,000 are expected
to remain. Military and administration officials have indicated that there
should be a pause in any further reductions to see if security in Baghdad and
other cities deteriorates. One administration official
said Wednesday that the outstanding question was how long a pause would last. Mr. Bush said he had made no
decision but indicated that he would be reluctant to hasten withdrawals. “Any
further drawdown will be based on conditions on the ground and the
recommendations of our commanders,” he said, “and they must not jeopardize
the hard-fought gains our troops and civilians have made over the past year.” Mr. Bush announced the war’s
start from the Oval Office on the night of March 19, 2003, declaring that the
United States would “not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens
the peace with weapons of mass murder.” (It later became clear that those
weapons did not exist.) His remarks each March 19 since
have paralleled the ups and downs of the war. In 2004, he appeared in the
East Room of the White House with dozens of foreign diplomats and cast the
war as “the inescapable calling of our generation.” By 2006, with the
insurgency worsening along with ethnic and sectarian violence, he spoke for
two minutes on the South Lawn and spent most of that time talking of
soldiers’ sacrifices. “It’s a time to reflect,” he said. Mr. Bush’s speech will be
his last address as president on the anniversary, and he reflected at length
on the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the rise of the insurgency, the lurch
toward civil war, and the decision to send more troops. The latter he
declared a success, saying that it led the way to the decision by many Sunni
Arabs to switch allegiances and join American forces against extremists that
American officials say are foreign led. He called that the “the first
large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden.” “The challenge in the period
ahead is to consolidate the gains we have made and seal the extremists’
defeat,” he added. Vice President Dick Cheney,
who declared in June 2005 that the insurgency was in “its last throes,” also
acknowledged that the war had “lasted longer than I would have anticipated,”
but he, too, defended the effort and brushed aside antiwar sentiment. When told in an interview
with ABC News that two-thirds of Americans said the war was not worth
fighting, Mr. Cheney replied, “So?” When pressed, he added, "I think you
cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion
polls." Jeff Zeleny contributed
reporting from Fayetteville, N.C., and Patrick D. Healy from Huntington,
W.Va. External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/world/middleeast/20prexy.html |