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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (29441)	10/2/2003 9:44:13 PM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 89467

Another bad day in what has been a bad week for Bush & Co. The Bush administration suffered a string of setbacks over Iraq on Thursday ranging from a rebuff for its proposals on a U.N. role from U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to an opinion poll showing Americans thought the war had not been worth it. Compounding Washington's problems, the CIA official directing the weapons search in Iraq reported to U.S. lawmakers that no chemical or biological arms -- the main reason cited for the U.S.-led invasion in March -- had yet been found. In Baghdad, the top U.S. general in the country, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said guerrilla attacks had become more lethal and casualties would continue rising. He was speaking after three U.S. soldiers died in one day, taking the toll of U.S. soldiers killed in action since May 1 -- when President Bush declared major combat over -- to 84. Bush is trying to garner foreign help in running Iraq by obtaining a new U.N. resolution, but U.N. officials and diplomats reported that Annan made clear on Thursday the world body could not play a proper political role in Iraq under terms Washington wanted. While not refusing outright to participate in the political process, Annan told ambassadors at a Security Council lunch that the new U.S.-drafted resolution envisaged an impossible U.N. role. It was one of the few times during his five years as secretary-general Annan had opposed the United States so bluntly on a crucial issue. The United States had tacit support for the resolution from a majority of Security Council members, although many were skeptical. But Annan's comments, diplomats said, might make it impossible for the 15-member body to support the measure. "What we need is a coherent and workable mandate," a senior U.N. official told Reuters. "What we do not want is an unimplementable mandate reached on the basis of a false consensus in the council." In his remarks to reporters, Annan said the U.S. draft had not followed his recommendation of setting up an interim Iraqi government before a constitution was written and new elections were held. POLL SHOWS BUSH SUPPORT FADING A CBS News/New York Times poll released on Thursday found that most Americans -- 53 percent -- believed the Iraq war was not worth it and that Bush's approval ratings were near a record low for his presidency. Bush's overall job approval rating was just above 50 percent, almost back to the level before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and down sharply from his 89 percent approval rating after the attacks, the poll said. The size and timing of the poll and the margin of error were not immediately available. More details were expected later on Thursday. Some senior lawmakers who attended Kay's briefing expressed concern that no banned weapons had been found so far. "I'm not pleased by what I heard today, but we should be willing to adopt a 'wait and see' attitude," Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, said. He added that everyone "would have hoped by now there would have been a breakthrough." Kay was sent to Iraq this summer to coordinate efforts to find the weapons that U.S. intelligence reported before the war that Saddam Hussein had. "We have not found at this point actual weapons," he said. "It does not mean we've concluded there are no actual weapons. It means at this point in time, and it's a huge country with a lot to do, that we have not yet found weapons." Lt. Gen. Sanchez told a news conference the U.S.-led forces in Iraq should expect more casualties. "The enemy has evolved. It is a little bit more lethal, little bit more complex, little bit more sophisticated and in some cases a little bit more tenacious," he said. "As long as we are here, the coalition needs to be prepared to take casualties. We should not be surprised if one of these days we wake up to find there's been a major firefight or a major terrorist attack." On Wednesday, a 4th Infantry Division soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack near the town of Samarra; a female soldier from the same division died in a remote-control bomb attack near Tikrit, and in Baghdad a soldier was shot and killed while patrolling the Mansur neighborhood. The violence continued on Thursday in the town of Falluja, a center of resistance to U.S. forces. Police said U.S. gunfire killed an Iraqi man and wounded a woman and a 6-year-old girl after an American patrol was targeted by gunfire. Two police officers were also wounded. asia.reuters.com JMO lurqer