ANALYSIS-Bush digging in heels on Iraq course change
27 Dec 2006 15:11:37 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Matt Spetalnick
WASHINGTON, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Just weeks after pledging a new approach in the Iraq war in the wake of his party's defeat in congressional elections, U.S. President George W. Bush seems to be digging in his heels against any major change of course.
Bush is spending the holiday week in consultations at his Texas ranch preparing for one of the most fateful moments of his presidency, a policy speech early in the new year charting what he has called "a new way forward"( edit; "a new way forward"--what Madison Avenuesque propaganda unit created that slogan!--max) in Iraq.
Even as he gives the impression of seriously considering a range of ideas on how to handle an increasingly unpopular war that has killed nearly 3,000 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis, Bush has made clear some options are off-limits.
He has brushed aside a proposal from a bipartisan panel to ask U.S. foes Iran and Syria for help in stabilizing Iraq and, instead of talking about a U.S. troop reduction, he is said to be looking closely at a temporary increase.
That has critics predicting that Bush, who prides himself in sticking to decisions, will announce little real change.
"He is now caught between admitting the war was a mistake and his policy has failed, or trying to tough it out," said Joseph Cirincione, a foreign policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank.
"It looks like the president would rather let the whole operation go down in flames than admit he was wrong."
REASSERTING RELEVANCE
With Congress out of session, Bush's apparent reluctance to bend also looks like an attempt to reassert his relevance and salvage his final two years in office.
His domestic political troubles are sure to deepen starting on Jan. 4, when his Republican Party formally cedes control of Congress to the Democrats, who won Nov. 7 elections in what was widely seen as a rebuke of his Iraq policy.
Bush conceded then that voter discontent over the handling of the war helped fuel his party's losses and he quickly ousted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a move long sought by Democrats and some Republicans.
Key Democratic lawmakers are pushing for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces, which Bush rejects.
"This isn't a time for stubbornness, nor is it a time for halfway solutions," Democratic Sen. John Kerry, who lost to Bush in the 2004 presidential election, wrote in the Washington Post.
A report issued this month by the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker, has added to pressure for far-reaching changes in Iraq policy to deal with what it called a "grave and deteriorating situation."
Bush has shown little enthusiasm for its recommendations and some commentators say his resistance may stem in part from resentment over the implicit condemnation by old Washington insiders like Baker, a Bush family loyalist.
TROOP SURGE?
Instead of embracing the group's call for a pullback of most U.S. combat forces by early 2008, Bush is considering a surge of up to 30,000 troops, mostly to help secure Baghdad.
While the idea has the backing of Sen. John McCain, a likely 2008 Republican presidential contender, it is opposed by a key Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Joseph Biden, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"We've already broken Iraq. We're about to break the United States military," Biden told reporters. He is planning hearings starting on Jan. 9 to examine Bush's Iraq policy.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said the president was making sure all options were given the "due consideration they need". There is speculation Bush might go on television by the middle of next week to set the agenda before Congress returns.
Even if Bush continues to balk at major strategy changes, he is starting to alter his rhetoric.
Before the elections, he insisted the United States was "absolutely" winning in Iraq. In a Washington Post interview last week, he offered a murkier view.
"We're not winning," Bush said. "We're not losing." (Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria in Crawford, Texas, and Richard Cowan in Washington) >> |
