President Bush Fails to Put Iraq’s Leaders on Notice
President Bush Fails to Put Iraq’s Leaders on Notice
President Bush made a friendly phone call to Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki yesterday, “telling him to not believe ‘rumors’ (in spokesman Tony Snow’s words) that the U.S. had privately given him a two-month timetable to shape up.”
In fact, the “rumors” were comments on CNN by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad two weeks ago. Bush’s contradictory statement sent the wrong message — that the United States will continue giving a blank check to the Iraqi leadership no matter what it does or doesn’t do. In assuring that the United States does not seek to impose a timeline, President Bush also undercut the message that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried to send to Iraq’s leaders in her trip there earlier this month: speed up the political process.
The timing of Bush’s call made its impact even worse. On the same day, Iraq’s leaders postponed a national reconciliation conference aimed at addressing the problems that are at the heart of Iraq’s violence, and USA Today published comments from Prime Minister Maliki saying he would not take steps to disarm militias anytime soon, even though these militias are a key part of Iraq’s security problem.
Bush’s message to Maliki also ignores the advice from U.S. leaders from across the ideological spectrum — including Rep. John Murtha, Sens. Jack Reed, John Warner, Chuck Hagel to former Secretaries of State James Baker and Colin Powell — that staying the course is not an option and Iraq’s leaders need to take responsibility.
The Bush administration clings to its open-ended commitment to Iraq, which is fostering a culture of dependency among Iraq’s leaders.
Instead, the United States needs to set a policy of Strategic Redeployment — including a peace conference to stop Iraq’s civil war and a phased redeployment of U.S. forces.
- Brian Katulis and Peter Juul
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Endless war’s, non stop crimes brought to the world by a madman, dosguised as a christian….Today the U.S.of A has fallen to the corruption with in……Only mass marching and dissent by the people will reclaim her if the voting booth’s fail……Blessings
October 17th, 2006 at 10:57 amThe crazy thing is that this Iraqi government was elected by the Iraqis. This has been trumpeted by this administration and saying this is a sign that democracy is on the march. So what will this administration do if the Iraqi government doesn’t move fast enough or do the things they want it to do? Dismiss it and replace it? The freely elected government chosen by the purple-fingered people? That would be another sure sign that this bush administration cares nothing for democracy and freedom.
October 17th, 2006 at 11:11 amIraq is an utter fiasco, but Pres. Bush will never acknowledge that fact, because to do so would be for him to admit that his presidency is an utter failure as well! He must be impeached!
October 17th, 2006 at 11:15 amIt’s time for the American people to step forward.
October 17th, 2006 at 11:22 amBlank check to be cashed at the First Bank of Blood. Nothing like saying no hurry, we’ll stay forever. The mayor of the Green Zone, Maliki, can sleep well tonight.
October 17th, 2006 at 11:26 amMore proof that dry drunks and ex-cheeleaders make for incompetent Comander in Chiefs. This reality allergic dry drunk needs an intervention. We can all help and assist him by intervening NOV 7th.
Voting will not be enough, I beseech you volunteer at your precinct do what you can to stop Diebold hacking. There is a reason Rove and Bush are not worried about Nov 7th.
October 17th, 2006 at 11:31 amI guess no one told Bush that the “As the Iraqi’s stand up, we’ll stand down” strategy only works if the Iraqi’s actually stand up.
October 17th, 2006 at 11:36 amSharon the endless war was not brought to us by this boy king sock puppet. We have been at this since the end of WWII. Gore Vidal called it Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, but there is no peace. As his parting gesture before leaving office Ike tried to warn the country but we were to frightened and mezmerized to listen.
The Torture Bill signed this morning by the boy king was simply the latest step in the plan to strip away our rights. It started with the preventive detention bill inacted 23 years ago. It was sold as a tool against organized crime but was first used by that corrupt prick guilianni against 8 black and brown political activist in New York.
The vile frothing lunatics who prop up our new emperor hate democracy, our constitution and the rule of law. Hell they hate the enlightenment. They didn’t start with this junta and they won’t stop once the little prince is off the throne, they’ll simply replace him with another one. They will not stop until they have rolled back the 20th century.
October 17th, 2006 at 11:36 amSo now The Decider has become The Enabler. Too bad he gives the Iraqi government more freedom than he gives ordinary American citizens.
Why does King George the W hate Americans so much? Is it because of our liberty and democracy?
October 17th, 2006 at 11:36 amMaliki will be deposed in early November after Isreal and or the US strikes the Iranian nuclear sites. This is the October supprise.
October 17th, 2006 at 11:40 amWhy does King George the W hate Americans so much? Is it because of our liberty and democracy?
Comment by Zippy the Other Pinhead
Yes
October 17th, 2006 at 11:45 amWho among you would like to see photos of the new American Embassy in Iraq? I would love for someone to take a photo of it to show how large the complex is and for all of America to see it and hear how much that Embassy is actually costing American citizens before our November election.
We can build this huge Embassy compound but cannot restore the Iraqi electricty or water supply. Amazing.
October 17th, 2006 at 11:57 amAustin > that embassy construction is making huge profits for Halliburton and other Bush Regime cronies, so nobody can halt the project no matter how many billions it costs! Someday the Iraqi people will storm the embassy compound slaying all the occupants most likely!
October 17th, 2006 at 12:01 pmThank’s Klyde, I knew that…..But the big march of stripping our right’s has taken giant leap’s with this miserable bunch…..I am amazed the “public” is so brain dead and so little from the left….Why aren’t they screaming and making a better case for our constitution?…The Nov. vote may have been lost due to fraud, so then what.?. Will all of us be rounded up for the camp’s…Not gonna happen to me but what about all the rest of the country?…..Blessings
October 17th, 2006 at 12:02 pmThe title of this article should have stopped at “Bush Fails”. I wonder what it feels like to be the biggest loser in the world.
October 17th, 2006 at 12:44 pmIt’s not that Bush’s mind is set in cement…
It’s that Bush’s mind IS cement!
October 17th, 2006 at 3:46 pmChimpus must of had another talk with God who told him to stay the course. The president’s behavior and statements are getting more bizzare with every passing day. I think they have passed despirate and are on the way to mental breakdown.
October 17th, 2006 at 4:23 pmRead my lips, says Bush, stay the course. That is what his gut instincts tell him and no amount of logic can trump the gut. BULLSHIT!!!!!!
October 17th, 2006 at 5:17 pmBush signs torture bill; Americans lose essential freedom. October 17, 2006
George W. Bush got what he wanted, ostensibly as a tool in his unfocused “war on terror”: By signing into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Bush has made it legal for the C.I.A. to continue operating torture facilities in undisclosed, foreign countries, and for the writ of habeas corpus to be suspended for individuals who are designated “enemy combatants” against the U.S. (Designated by whom? That question remains unanswered.) The law also “establishes military tribunals that would allow some use of evidence obtained by coercion [that is, torture], but would give defendants access to classified evidence being used to convict them.” (Reuters)
The provisions of Bush’s new torture law mean that Americans have lost the key, constitutional right on which Anglo-American criminal law (and criminal-law procedures in true democracies in general) is founded; that’s the basic right of an individual to know why he or she is being apprehended and detained. Now, technically, as in Stalin’s Soviet Union, Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China or Pol Pot’s Cambodia, anyone labeled an “enemy combatant” – again, by whom; by Bush? – can be whisked away and never heard from again. That kind of authority, in the hands of corrupt or untruthful politicians, may or may not be an effective tool in some kind of “war on terror,” but it certainly can be a useful tool when it comes to silencing their opponents.
In an Orwellian pronouncement dutifully reported by Voice of America, the taxpayer-funded “news” service that acts as a mouthpiece for the administration, Bush said: “The United States does not torture….It is against our laws and it is against our values. By allowing the C.I.A. program to go forward, this bill is preserving a tool that has saved American lives.” Bush’s claim flies in the face of numerous reports of torture conducted by American officials at U.S. military prisons or secret locations overseas.
October 17th, 2006 at 8:43 pmJorge bush picks up the banana phone and strikes a pose. “Hey, the cord is on the wrong side”
October 17th, 2006 at 8:48 pmCan’t you see? They’re playing good cop, bad cop.
October 17th, 2006 at 10:03 pm[...] Original post by Guest [...]
October 18th, 2006 at 10:38 amNow the strategy is to keep this mess out of the press before the election.
October 19th, 2006 at 9:22 pmIf Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld at all call for the deadline won’t that hit the news?
The whole thing is like the tax cuts. They said cut taxes when its bear.
They said cut taxes when its bull. In the same sense they always say they are right about everything.
Like Chmn Mao said that’s how reality is greated.
The great creationists.
November 3rd, 2006 at 11:07 amTHE “BUSH CRIME FAMILY” NEEDS TO BE OUT IN JAIL!!!!!!!!!PERIOD AND THOW AWAY THE KEY