In speech, Bush to get specific on Iraq strategy
Difficulties will be acknowledged, White House says
(Correction: Because of a reporting error, an article on Tuesday's Nation pages about President Bush's scheduled speech on Iraq gave the wrong affiliation for foreign affairs specialist Danielle Pletka. She is with the American Enterprise Institute.)
WASHINGTON -- President Bush, facing increasing public unhappiness over the war in Iraq, will lay out a ''very specific" strategy for success in a prime-time speech tonight, acknowledging the difficulties the United States faces in Iraq while reassuring Americans that the mission is progressing, a White House official said yesterday.
While Bush has previously talked about the need to stabilize the country politically and fully turn over responsibility for day-to-day security to the Iraqis, ''this is going to be the president talking about it in a very specific way," including how the strategy is being implemented and how close it is to succeeding, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Bush will deliver the speech -- scheduled on the first anniversary of the official turnover of power to the Iraqis from a US-led authority -- as he is under growing pressure from Capitol Hill and the public to deliver a plan to take American soldiers out of Iraq.
While lawmakers disagree about whether the Pentagon should set a timetable for withdrawal of US troops, many say their constituents are becoming increasingly disgruntled over the war's cost -- both human and financial.
Bush is not expected tonight to change course on Iraq, and he continues to emphasize the progress made there.
''The key to success in Iraq is for the Iraqis to be able and capable of defending their democracy against terrorists," Bush said yesterday during a visit with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany. ''Parallel with the security track is a political track. And the political track made progress this year when 8 million people went to the polls and voted."
But with public support for the mission dropping sharply, defenders as well as critics of the war say that Bush, in his speech tonight at Fort Bragg, N.C., has to explain the situation clearly to the American people and give a sense of how and when it will end.
''I think if he wants to stay the course, he's going to have to level with the American people about the real situation. This happy talk isn't working anymore," said Lawrence Korb, a Pentagon official during the Reagan administration who is now with the left-leaning Center for American Progress.
Danielle Pletka, a foreign affairs specialist with the Heritage Foundation, said Bush ''has allowed this to be dealt with in a scattershot way, very much on the surface, and the American people need more than that."
''The American people fundamentally want to do something good, but they want to be led. They want to hear every week what's happening, why it is happening, and why it is the right thing for us," she said.
McClellan said Bush would discuss a ''two-track strategy" of military and political efforts to achieve a secure and independent Iraq. Bush also will talk about his plans to train more Iraqi troops and security forces so that they can operate without US help, McClellan said.
Senate minority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who backed the use of force in Iraq, said of Bush yesterday: ''It's very important that he let the American people know what his plans for victory are. I hope it's substance, not fluff."
While the administration has repeatedly insisted that the situation in Iraq is not as bleak as it appears on the news, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his generals have recently struck a decidedly more realistic tone than in the past about the security situation.
Pentagon brass have refrained from predicting when large numbers of US troops can return home and have ceased talk of complete victory over insurgents.
Rumsfeld said Sunday that the insurgency could go on for a dozen years longer. He has said the US goal is to prepare the Iraqi forces to keep the insurgents in check so that they would not prevent Iraq from advancing economically and politically.
''Success for the coalition should not be defined as domestic tranquility in Iraq," Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday. ''Other democracies have had to contend with terrorism and insurgencies for a number of years, but they've been able to function and eventually succeed."
General George Casey, one of Rumsfeld's top field commanders, acknowledged that ''there are long-term developmental challenges and much to be done. . . . Iraq's steady progress will be contested."
But overall, the Pentagon has sent a strong message that the United States should not weaken in its resolve. Reviving a standard administration argument for staying the course in Iraq, Rumsfeld and McClellan yesterday invoked the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
''What's taking place in Iraq is a part of this global struggle between moderate Muslims and between extremists -- violent extremists," Rumsfeld said. ''It is hard, I understand, for people to connect all of the pieces, but the reality is we're an awful lot better off fighting against the extremists and the terrorists in other parts of the world than having to do it here at home." 