[NYTr] Bush "Pleads for Patience" with His Lost War

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[The Decider in Chief is now the Whiner in Chief, sniveling for
"patience" in his desperation to outlast his second term before the
roof falls in. The Dems' response, for what it's worth, follows the
first item. The Dems were smart: they deployed the multiply-wounded
Vietnam vet Max Cleland (who has also been a victim of much slander by
the GOP) to deliver their reply.-NYTr]

Reuters - Aug 25, 2007
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKN2437053420070825

Bush pleads for more patience for Iraq war efforts

By Jeremy Pelofsky

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush, faced with
growing calls to start withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, pleaded with
Americans on Saturday for patience and cited progress in the past two
months.

"The success of the past couple of months have shown that conditions on
the ground can change -- and they are changing," he said in his weekly
radio address. "We cannot expect the new strategy we are carrying out
to bring success overnight."

Bush is facing mounting pressure from Democrats and a senior Republican
lawmaker to begin pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq to show the
government there that the American commitment is not open-ended.

Earlier this week, Bush drew parallels to the Vietnam War, raising the
example of the emergence of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and violence in
Vietnam after U.S. troops pulled out to warn of the consequences of
leaving Iraq.

But, he acknowledged that despite increasing the number of troops in
Iraq to tamp down the unrelenting violence, there was growing
frustration that the government had not made much progress on political
goals.

Still, Bush argued that young men were signing up for the Iraqi
military, police were patrolling the streets and more operations with
both U.S.-led troops and Iraqi forces were being conducted.

On Thursday, he suffered a setback when Senator John Warner of
Virginia, an influential congressional voice on military affairs in
Bush's Republican Party, urged for an initial pullout of 5,000 troops
who would be home by December.

Warner declined to back setting a withdrawal timetable but Democrats
are expected next month to ratchet up pressure to do just that.

In about three weeks, Congress will receive a pivotal report on the
state of war in Iraq by the U.S. commander on the ground in Iraq, Gen.
David Petraeus, and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, which
could trigger a change in Iraq policy.

Democrats argued the failures of the Vietnam War should not be ignored
as the United States tries to chart its future course in Iraq but that
U.S. soldiers could no longer bear the brunt of the failures by the
Iraqi government.

"We can't expect our soldiers to continue to risk their lives
especially when the Iraqi leaders themselves show no interest in
achieving a peaceful political solution," Max Cleland, a former
Democratic senator from Georgia and a Vietnam veteran, said in his
party's weekly radio address.

Bush on Tuesday will try to build his case further for remaining in
Iraq when he speaks to the American Legion annual convention in Reno,
Nevada, the second of two such speeches.

"I will focus on the Middle East and why the rise of a free and
democratic Iraq is critical to the future of this vital region and to
our Nation's security," Bush said.

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved.

                           ***

The Dems' Response via Faux News:

Fox News - Aug 25, 2007
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294605,00.html

Transcript: Democratic Response to Bush's Radio Address

Saturday , August 25, 2007

Former Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga.: 

My fellow Americans, this is Max Cleland, former U.S. senator from
Georgia.

This week, President Bush gave a speech comparing the ongoing war in
Iraq to the Vietnam War. He used this analogy in his latest plea to the
American people for yet more time to continue his war.

I know something about the Vietnam War. I know something about the
price that was paid for continuing that war long after it was clear we
could not succeed. I know something about years of war failing to
produce a stable, secure and democratic country.

I know something about enemy attacks increasing and taking an ever
higher toll on our troops. Fifty-eight thousand young Americans were
killed in Vietnam; 350,000 were wounded. I was one of them.

There are similarities between the war in Iraq and the war in Vietnam.
One of the lessons to be learned from Vietnam is that the commitment of
American military strength alone cannot solve another country's
political weakness. This should be a somber warning to us all to
responsibly end the war in Iraq and the additional loss of precious
American lives.

Congress has required the president to issue a report soon on the state
of the war. This assessment gives him yet another opportunity to do the
right thing and change course in Iraq.

Unfortunately, it appears he will continue to argue that, if the
American people and the U.S. Congress will just be patient, things will
work out. He is likely to say that, given more time, victory is just
around the corner. He is likely to argue that there is light at the end
of the tunnel.

But like political leaders during the Vietnam era, this president has a
"credibility gap." The majority of Americans see a profound difference
between President Bush's optimistic rhetoric and the grim reality which
lies beneath. Our history in Vietnam and the facts on the ground in
Iraq today prove the American people are right.

How do I know? Because I've seen this movie before. I know how it ends.
I know that all the P.R. in the world didn't change the truth on the
ground in Vietnam and won't change the truth on the ground today in
Iraq.

What is this truth? The truth is that more than 3,700 Americans have
already lost their lives, more than 20,000 have been wounded, and
nearly $500 billion in American taxpayer funds have been expended.

The truth is that, despite this enormous sacrifice, we find ourselves
mired in a civil war with no end in sight and Iraqis unable or
unwilling to make the political decisions necessary to end this
conflict.

And the truth is President Bush's decision to go to war and stay at war
has actually encouraged thousands of new recruits for Al Qaida in Iraq
and around the world, has made the Middle East and other parts of the
globe less safe, has alienated the Muslim world and allowed Al Qaida —
the enemy that attacked this nation six years ago — a chance to rebuild
and restore its terror network.

These are the facts. But the facts will not stop the president and his
fellow Republicans from trying once again to sell the American people a
bill of goods on the Iraq war.

The failures in Iraq are not the fault of our troops or their courage
in battle. They have done everything asked of them and more. The
conflict in Iraq is an Iraqi political problem, not a U.S. military
problem.

We can't continue to sacrifice American lives, deplete our treasury and
weaken our national security. We can't expect our soldiers to continue
to risk their lives, especially when the Iraqi leaders themselves show
no interest in achieving a peaceful political solution.

President Bush's report to Congress will attempt to show that his
escalation has produced improved security in certain parts of Iraq. But
it will ignore the stark truth in Iraq: that his overall strategy to
buy time for Iraqis to make the needed political decisions has failed
and, just like Vietnam, we are enmeshed now in an open-ended war for
which our troops and our country will pay the price for decades to come.

That's why we must act now. This fall, Democrats in Congress will
continue to stand with our troops and with the American people to
remember the lessons of history and end the Iraq war.