Bad news all around…

It’s been a rough several weeks for President Bush and the war party. Observe some recent headlines:

“Training Iraqi troops no longer driving force in U.S. policy” — The McClatchy Newspaper story pointed out, “Military planners have abandoned the idea that training Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.”

“U.S. Command Shortens Life of ‘Long War’ as a Reference” — The New York Times article stated, “When the Bush administration has sought to explain its strategy for fighting terrorism, it has often said the United States is involved in a ‘long war’ against Islamic extremists…. After taking over last month as the head of Central Command, Adm. William J. Fallon quietly retired the phrase. Military officials said that cultural advisers at the command had become concerned that the concept of a long war alienated Middle East audiences by suggesting that the United States would keep a large number of forces in the region indefinitely.”

“Petraeus: Iraq needs enormous commitment” — The Associated Press story said, “The U.S. military commander in Iraq says the war effort may well get harder before it gets easier and American casualties are likely to continue to climb…. While he would not predict troop levels into the fall or comment directly on the legislation Congress passed Thursday [later vetoed], his comments made clear that his war plan did not include a significant reduction of U.S. forces any time soon.”

“Inspectors Find Rebuilt Projects Crumbling in Iraq” — This New York Times article stated, “In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.”

To recap:

• The Bush administration is no longer planning to train the Iraqi military to do the main fighting; the burden will be almost entirely on the United States.
• For propaganda reasons, the phrase “long war” has been dropped from the military’s vocabulary even though …
• The top military commander in Iraq says the fighting will get fiercer, there will be more deaths, and no troops will be coming home in the near future.
• Meanwhile, even the “successful” projects carried out in Iraq by the U.S. government are falling apart.

Tags: iraq iraq war bush failure

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 8th, 2007 at 10:36 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.