WTF Is It Now?!?

Speech panned as 'damage control'
Japanese and South Korean media gave 'scathing' reviews of Dumbya's speech on Iraq, labeling it a 'damage control ploy in the wake of the prisoner abuse scandal,' and 'an attempt to reverse flagging domestic and international support.' Arabian TV wasn't wild about it either.

Analysts on Al-Jazeera said they felt Bush was trying more to improve his ratings among the US electorate than do more for the Iraqi people.

James Cusick, the political editor of Scotland's Sunday Herald, said the Bush speech was "addressed to an American audience."

"Basically the core content of the speech was that the US needs the UN back," Cusick said. He added that there was "an absence of strategy in the speech."

But a hell of a lot of pancake make-up, I understand.

BS writes in an email:

What was in the speech that was? The pipe dream is still the same. This crap has been out there forever. The foreign participation is not going to come because the US will retain military control. We have been talking about handing over sovereignty from the beginning. But every Iraqi knows that the handover is in name only and the US will still be pulling all of the meaningful strings. We don't have enough troops on the ground to establish real security for the average Iraqi. The estimates of needed troops to achieve that goal are about 300000 men. There was nothing new in that speech except for building a new prison and blowing up the Abu G.

It's not vision, it is political expediency. First they were going to say "Mission Accomplished" a couple of thousand times. But that didn't work because Americans kept dying. When the crap started hitting the fan last autumn, Karl Rove leapt on the idea of a "hand over" of power. That would enable Bush to say that we had won the war at the convention. Remember that the original handover idea wouldn't work because the Iraqis wouldn't accept anyone chosen by the US. Today's speech is just the same desperate ploy. Nothing new.

LT writes:

"We will hand over authority to a sovreign Iraqi government"
--Made up of who?
--I understand sovreignty will be "limited." What powers will they have?
--Who will remain to control the security offered by the CPA forces?
--What role will the U.S. have in training police? Or the Iraqi Army? How, exactly, do we do that if our role will be curtailed?
--Will it be curtailed? How much?

"Help establish security"
--I need you to be more vague, Mr. president. Stop killing me with all these details. Just say, "Help." There. That's better.

"Continue rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure."
--What infrastructure is at the front of the line? Who's handling this? Will this be internationalized? How is what we will be doing different from what we are doing?

"Encourage more international support."
--Which countries are we encouraging? Don't we have a rather hefty and not-at-all symbolic coalition? Aren't they helping to their fullest extent encourageable? If not, why not? Have the ones who pledge assistance in money met that pledge? Why not? What steps are we taking to get those on board actually on board? What will you do to stop the desertion of such partners as Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic?
--Can you reconcile this plan point with the Administration's previously defensive statement that we already are working with a significant and not-at-all symbolic coalition?

"Move toward an international election..."
--Overseen by?
--Are there limits to who can run?
--What is our plan to avoid the election of an Al-Sadr type?
--Diebolt machines going to be used? 'Cause California doesn't need theirs.

And SS:

So when we start this 5-step plan and pull out, what are we going to do if there is an immediate overthrow of the puppet government we have set up, if the militant islamists organize and install a Taliban-style theocracy? Has anyone in the White House answered this question?

It all looks really good on PowerPoint slides, but do we turn around and go back in with 100,000 troops? Or do we let them do whatever they want?

All agree: Shouldn't Bush have had a plan last year?

More as it develops...