Granny Rant
Sunday, September 07, 2003
::: Bush Seeking to Turn Tail in Iraq :::
Just to try and save his bid for re-election
... another snake has just hissed in the grass!
Not for the Iraqi people's welfare, Not for the safety of American
troops, Not to stabilize the Iraq, Not to ensure formation of a new
democracy, Not to protect the oil riches for rebuilding Iraq, Not to
provide the most basic human services.
... NO ... Only when his approval ratings plunge, will George
Bush seek an exit stragedy.
Self-serving, you think?
Concern among the American public has reached such a pitch that, with his approval ratings plummeting, he will deliver a televised address to the nation tonight to reassure them that they do not face another Vietnam. With their sons and daughters dying daily in guerrilla attacks, Americans may now be becoming more frightened of being bogged down in a hostile country than of the terrorist threat against which Bush has pledged to defend them.
[..]
But Bush has now accepted the warnings of his Secretary of State Colin Powell and the more hawkish Under Secretary John Bolton that there will be a worse price if he doesn't back down. Bush's approval ratings have sunk to around 55 per cent - around 20 points lower than those of his father after the 1991 Gulf War.
[..]
A classified report drawn up by the US US Joint Chiefs of Staff and leaked last week blamed hurried and inadequate planning for the crisis, with too great a focus on an invasion and not enough on organising the peace. As the leading dove, Powell's stock is now rising in the White House, while that of the President's hawkish National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is judged to be falling.
[..]
'Condi Rice is in trouble,' said one Whitehall source.
'She has been consistently wrong since this thing started, wrong about what would happen, and Colin Powell has been consistently right.' The Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's insistence during a trip to Iraq last week that the situation was 'getting better every day' is also ringing increasingly hollow.
