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Politics : America Under Siege: The End of Innocence -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (22924)	4/22/2003 11:30:38 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 27666

April 22, 2003 Garner assumes postwar duties By Charles J. Hanley THE WASHINGTON TIMES BAGHDAD — Retired U.S. Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, taking up his duties as Iraq's postwar civil administrator, toured a Baghdad hospital yesterday and said his priority was to restore such basic services as water and electricity supplies. As Gen. Garner became acquainted with the Iraqi capital, thousands of Shi'ite Muslims marched in the heart of the city to protest the reported arrest of a leading cleric by the U.S. military. The demonstrators massed outside the Palestine Hotel, which has housed some U.S. military offices, to demand the release of Sheik Mohammed al-Fartusi and other Shi'ite clerics. Sheik al-Fartusi was said to have been seized by U.S. troops in Baghdad. The U.S. Central Command had no comment on the reported arrest. Gen. Garner landed at Baghdad's international airport after a short flight from Kuwait, 12 days after U.S. tanks and troops captured the capital and brought down Saddam Hussein's government. "What better day in your life can you have than to be able to help somebody else, to help other people, and that is what we intend to do," Gen. Garner said. The 65-year-old former general, after weeks of preparatory work in Kuwait, came to his new post under tight security and gave little information about planned meetings or travel. From the airport, he visited Baghdad's 1,000-bed Yarmouk hospital, which was overwhelmed with Iraqi casualties in the final days of heavy fighting. Its wards, including the coronary and respiratory care units, were stripped of almost everything by looters. "We will help you, but it is going to take time," Gen. Garner told doctors. Hours later, in Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced at a briefing that U.S. troops had discovered three warehouses in Baghdad containing enough medical supplies to stock all of the city's hospitals "for the next six to 12 months." "Coalition forces will provide security for Iraqi Ministry of Health officials to distribute the supplies to city hospitals," Mr. Rumsfeld said. He also brushed aside a New York Times story on the possibility of four bases now in Iraq being looked at for the long term. "There are four bases that the U.S. is using in that country to help bring in humanitarian assistance, to help provide for stability operations. ... But does that have anything to do with the long-term footprint? Not a whit." Gen. Garner arrived in Baghdad with about 20 top aides, including his British deputy, Maj. Gen. Tim Cross. His staff is to grow to about 450 during the next week as others arrive by overland convoy from Kuwait to set up the full Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid. The office is to coordinate the delivery of aid to the more than 20 million Iraqis, supervise rebuilding of the nation's infrastructure and oversee the establishment of an interim government. For ordinary Iraqis, however, the primary needs are water and electricity — knocked out during the war — and security, with the capital wracked by almost two weeks of looting. As U.S. Marines withdrew, Army troops moved in to take control of Baghdad and joined in patrols with a revived Iraqi police force to try to suppress the pillaging and vandalism. Gen. Garner said his priority was to restore basic services as soon as possible. Asked how long his mission would take, he said, "We will be here as long as it takes. We will leave fairly rapidly." At the city's major electrical plant, Maj. Andy Backus of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told Gen. Garner that workers had restored power to 1 percent of the city but that "hopefully, this evening we will have the lights on in 10 percent of Baghdad." The biggest challenge for the Americans undoubtedly will lie in trying to forge a peaceful, cooperative structure among Iraq's political, religious and ethnic factions. A recently returned exile, Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi, declared Sunday that he was Baghdad's new mayor and that he had formed a municipal government. But Barbara Bodine, the U.S. coordinator for central Iraq who was traveling with Gen. Garner yesterday, said, "We don't really know much about him except that he's declared himself mayor. We don't recognize him." Hundreds of thousands of Iraq's majority Shi'ite Muslims, meanwhile, are gathering in the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf for an annual feast curtailed under the rule of Saddam's Ba'ath Party. Shi'ite leaders — who, though pleased to see Saddam go, are strongly opposed to the U.S. military presence — have called for political demonstrations during the holy days, which run from today to Thursday. No Iraqi figures have spoken out in support of a strong U.S. role. Even Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the U.S.-financed Iraqi National Congress exile group, has described Gen. Garner's job as one of getting Iraq's infrastructure and services in shape "in a few weeks," after which Iraqis would take over. URL:http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20030422-9334049.htm

To: calgal who wrote (22924)	4/22/2003 11:32:15 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27666

April 22, 2003 Is Bush unbeatable? URL:http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030422-19664035.htm Terence P. Jeffrey The president's name was George Bush. He had just won a stunning victory in the Middle East, and his approval rating was soaring — although some worried about his handling of the economy. It is irresistible to compare the political prospects President George H.W. Bush faced 12 years ago with those his son faces today. But don't dwell on similarities. The differences are the real story. The first difference: George Bush I polled better than his son does today. A March 1991 USA Today poll fixed President Bush I's approval rating at 91 percent. Seventy-two percent said they would re-elect him. By contrast, an April 13 Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll fixed President Bush II's approval rating at 71 percent. Fifty-two percent said they would re-elect him. Not bad — but still 20 points behind his dad. Yet, as George Bush I learned, history's pages are crammed with wartime leaders, including Winston Churchill, whose popularity collapsed when the shooting stopped. The good news for George Bush II: Other differences between his father's situation and his own underscore his superior positioning. George Bush II has a solid Republican Party behind him. George Bush I did not. Seven months before the Gulf war, he had dropped a bunker-buster on his own political base. In 1988, candidate George H.W. Bush won the devotion of conservatives by declaring, "Read my lips: No new taxes." In June 1990, he betrayed that pledge by offering to negotiate "tax revenue increases" with Democratic leaders. A month later, he nominated the liberal David Souter to the Supreme Court. In swift, successive hammer blows, George Bush I smashed up the Holy Grails of both economic and social conservatives. They never trusted him again. George Bush II's relationship with the Republican base reverses his father's. He has grown in their affection — even though he has never been perfect on conservative issues, or (more to the point) pretended to be. George Bush II was elected promising to boost federal involvement in education, which conservatives consider ineffective and unconstitutional. He signed the First Amendment-busting McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Act. He has flirted with granting an amnesty to illegal aliens. But all the while he has shown fidelity to conservatives on the biggest domestic issues: He enacted a supply-side tax cut, he has called for another, and he has made excellent nominations to the appellate courts. He heads toward an election year fighting the Democrats for tax cuts and conservative judges. Unless he pulls an unlikely about-face — i.e., suddenly cutting a deal to raise taxes, or nominating another David Souter — the entire Republican base will march jubilantly behind him all the way to the polls. Because of that, George Bush II can focus on winning swing voters and swing states. And here, too, he is far better positioned than his father. In recent decades, the Republicans' three great issues have been taxes, social conservatism and national security. The latter two have the greatest appeal to swing voters. They gave Richard Nixon a landslide over George McGovern and Ronald Reagan a landslide over Walter Mondale. They may not give President Bush a landslide of equal magnitude in 2004 because massive coastal states such as California and New York have moved significantly leftward in the past 20 years, and are now perhaps beyond Republican reach. But they could give him a lock on northern Midwest states he lost (sometimes narrowly) in 2000. These include Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan. Coupled with a solid South, these states are key to what I call the Emerging Heartland Majority. Here Bill Clinton had four advantages over George Bush I that no Democrat is likely to have over George Bush II. First, with the Cold War and Gulf war won, national security faded as an issue. It won't fade now. Second, Mr. Clinton rose from obscurity claiming to be a more socially conservative Democrat: he used the death penalty, wanted to "end welfare as we know it" and said abortion should be "rare" if legal. All current Democratic candidates are known social liberals. Third, Mr. Clinton blamed George Bush I for a bad economy — even though the economy grew throughout 1992, and was growing at a 5.4 percent pace on Election Day. Democrats then had virtually the entire national broadcast media — except Rush Limbaugh — backing up their economic mythology. Now, Mr. Limbaugh is flanked by conservative voices all over national radio and TV. Finally, Ross Perot mounted a potent third party campaign in 1992, siphoning off voters who saw through Mr. Clinton but preferred not to vote for Mr. Bush. If there is a serious third-party candidate this time, he will be an antiwar leftist siphoning support from a soft pro-war Democrat. Is Mr. Bush unbeatable? Put it this way: The smartest Democrat aspirant today is the one not running — Hillary Clinton. Terence P. Jeffrey is the editor of Human Events and a nationally syndicated columnist.