Thank You America~~Allawi: Iraq Will Hold Elections in Jan.
[KLP Note: Kerry's remarks from Ohio (FROM THE UK press viewpoint!! are below the article about Allawi...I couldn't stand to give him his own space...Kerry doesn't deserve it. Negative Negative Negative man.]
apnews.myway.com
Sep 23, 11:02 AM (ET)
By JENNIFER LOVEN
WASHINGTON (AP) - Offering a simple, "Thank you America," Iraqi interim prime minister Ayad Allawi declared Thursday that his country is moving successfully past the war that ousted Saddam Hussein and vowed that elections will take place next year as scheduled.
"Elections will occur in Iraq on time in January because Iraqis want elections on time," Allawi told a joint meeting of Congress, an appearance that President Bush's advisers hoped would ease American voters' doubts about the troubled campaign in Iraq.
Despite struggles and setbacks, "the values of liberty and democracy" are taking hold in his country, Allawi proudly exclaimed. "We could hold elections tomorrow" in 15 of 18 provinces, he said, even though terror operatives hope to disrupt them.
"The insurgency in Iraq is destructive but small, and it has not and will never resonate with the Iraqi people," Allawi said.
He cautioned, however, that the election may not come off perfectly. But he assured it will be free and fair, "a giant step" in Iraq's political evolution.
"Today, we are better off, you are better off, the world is better off without Saddam Hussein," Allawi said. He added: "Your decision to go into Iraq was not an easy one, but it was the right one."
After his address, Allawi was heading to the White House for a meeting with President Bush, where the two leaders were to assert from the Rose Garden that progress is being made and the future is bright in Iraq.
Allawi's speech before Congress - one of his first to a wider audience than those in Iraq - was punctuated by warm applause and standing ovations. Allawi joined in the applause and smiled broadly as he mingled among the lawmakers afterward.
He echoed several of Bush's statements on Iraq, and sought to tie his country's struggle to the larger fight against global terrorism. Declaring himself "a realist," Allawi said he was trying to broaden the political process, drawing in as many Iraqi entities as possible, in an effort to weaken the insurgency.
Allawi's two-day visit comes as troop casualties and civilian kidnappings in Iraq have increased, large parts of the country have come under the control of insurgents and doubts have surfaced at the United Nations that democratic elections can be held in January as planned.
"We Iraqis know that Americans have made and continue to make enormous sacrifices to liberate Iraq, to assure Iraq's freedom," Allawi said. "I have come here to thank you and to promise you that your sacrifices are not in vain."
An assessment of Iraq's future put together recently by U.S. intelligence officials spoke of possibilities ranging from tenuous stability to civil war, and even some senators in Bush's Republican Party have said there is a need for more candid talk from the White House.
Gen. John Abizaid said Wednesday it was possible that more U.S. troops would be needed to secure Iraq's elections, but that Iraqi and perhaps international troops may be able to do the job instead.
"I think we will need more troops than we currently have," Abizaid, commander of U.S. troops in the region, said after briefing the House.
Bush has made clear that the importance of Allawi's visit lies largely in the opportunity for the Iraqi leader to reinforce for Americans the president's own confident assessment of Iraq.
Allawi's visit marked his debut in Washington as prime minister, a post to which the skilled politician, who returned to Iraq last year after 30 years in exile, was appointed by a U.N. envoy with strong U.S. backing. It was also the highlight of a weeklong Bush administration effort to showcase what is going right in Iraq.
Polls show that most voters think Bush made the right decision in using military force in Iraq and agree that the United States should stay as long as it takes to rebuild the nation.
But they also show a growing number alarmed by the casualties and nearly 60 percent are doubtful that Bush has a clear plan for resolving the crisis. That has Bush's Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, lobbing increasingly sharp attacks the president's way - and is sowing some worry in Bush campaign headquarters.
Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, suggested that the administration should spend less time staging an attractive photo opportunity and more time adopting a realistic view of the challenges ahead.
"As Prime Minister Allawi comes here, we need real accomplishments and real progress and honest measures of capability, not sound bites of rhetoric which are not substantiated by the figures being issued in detail by the United States government," he said.
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guardian.co.uk
Kerry: Allawi's Take on Iraq Unrealistic
Thursday September 23, 2004 4:46 PM
By NEDRA PICKLER
Associated Press Writer
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Thursday that Iraq's Ayad Allawi was sent before Congress to put the ``best face'' on Bush administration policy.
Shortly after Allawi, the interim government's prime minister, gave a rosy portrayal of progress toward peace in Iraq, Kerry said the assessment contradicted reality on the ground.
``The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story,'' Kerry said.
Allawi told a joint meeting of Congress that democratic elections will take place in Iraq in January as scheduled, but Kerry said that was unrealistic.
``The United States and the Iraqis have retreated from whole areas of Iraq,'' Kerry told reporters outside a Columbus firehouse. ``There are no-go zones in Iraq today. You can't hold an election in a no-go zone.''
Kerry's remarks come one day after he told The Associated Press that President Bush's statement that a ``handful'' of people are willing to kill to stop progress in Iraq was a blunder that showed he was avoiding reality.
``George Bush let Osama bin Laden escape at Tora Bora,'' Kerry said in a brief interview Wednesday. ``George Bush retreated from Fallujah and other communities in Iraq which are now overrun with terrorists and threaten our troops. And George Bush said on the record we can't win the war on terror.
``And even today, he blundered again saying there are only a handful of terrorists in Iraq,'' Kerry said. ``I think he's living in a make believe world.''
Bush, campaigning in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, said: ``It's hard to help a country go from tyranny to elections to peace when there are a handful of people who are willing to kill in order to stop the process. And that's what you're seeing on the TV screens. You know, these people cannot beat us militarily.''
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Thursday, ``It only took 19 people to take down the World Trade Center towers and kill 3,000 people.'' He said that in Iraq, ``you've seen how a small number of suicide bombers can have a dramatic effect.''
Bush said Wednesday the insurgents ``use the only tool at their disposal, which is beheadings and death, to try to shake our will. They understand the nature of America. ... We weep when we think about the families affected by those who have been brutalized by these terrorists.''
Kerry's voice was scratchy and breaking from a cold on Wednesday. He canceled most public events for Thursday in Columbus and in Iowa to rest his voice, though his words were clear at the firehouse. The campaign said running mate John Edwards would take Kerry's place in Iowa.
Kerry spoke to the AP in West Palm Beach, Fla., shortly before boarding a flight to Columbus and after Vice President Dick Cheney delivered a scathing attack on the Democrat. Speaking to reporters after meeting with Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, Cheney argued that Kerry has a penchant for wavering that makes him a weak alternative to a ``steadfast leader, which is exactly what we have in President George W. Bush.''
``John Kerry gives every indication that his repeated efforts to cast and recast and redefine the war on terror and our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, of someone who lacks the resolve, the determination and the conviction to prevail in this conflict,'' Cheney said. ``He has demonstrated throughout the course of this campaign that he lacks the clarity of vision and purpose necessary to lead our country during extraordinary times.''
Kerry said he has laid out ``steps to win the war, not to change, not to retreat, steps to win. George Bush is trying to fight a phantom here because he won't tell the American people the truth, so he sets up something that's not a real issue and attacks it.''
Bush ``missed a huge opportunity'' at the United Nations this week to try to persuade leaders of other nations to join the United States in Iraq and the broader anti-terror war, Kerry said.
``I don't think he's providing the leadership we need,'' Kerry said. ``I will do a better job of dealing with Iraq and winning the war and fighting the war on terror, period.''
In a day filled with rhetorical charges and countercharges - at campaign stops and in advertising - all four candidates found fault. Responding to Cheney, Edwards said in a statement that Bush and Cheney ``are the last two people we need a lecture from about how to keep the American people safe.''
``It is the height of absurdity for Dick Cheney, a chief architect of the Iraq quagmire, to talk about the leadership needed to fix the mess in Iraq that he created,'' said Edwards, reviving a word - quagmire - often used to describe the Vietnam War.
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