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Al Jazeera (English)
    Baghdad Burning Blog (by Riverbend, an Iraqi civilian girl)
            Dahr Jamail's Blog from Baghdad
                Imad Khadduri's blog "Free Iraq" (scroll down for English version)

Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

The Bush Junta is Coming Unraveled
(Richard Wolffe, Newsweek, May 25, 2004)
In years to come, historians will wonder why this Bush administration enjoyed such a strong reputation for its foreign policy for so long. . . . But no amount of rhetorical flourish can mask the disarray of the administration's policy in Iraq, and the president's continuing struggle to speak convincingly to the American and Iraqi people. . . . It's hard to remember how many times Bush has tried and failed to convince the world that the enemy in Iraq is part of the global terrorist plot. But it was clear within hours that he has failed to convince members of his own cabinet on this critical point. . . . As Powell well knows, there’s a wide spectrum of insurgents covered by his comments: Saddam’s loyalists, Iraqi nationalists and ultimately radical Islamists. Who is the Coalition fighting in Iraq? In spite of the president’s speech, U.S. commanders don’t know the full answer to that question. . . . Voters might not care to find out who the enemy is, as long as they’re shooting and bombing in the direction of Coalition troops. But they will care about the president's warning, buried towards the bottom of his speech, about what is to come: "There's likely to be more violence before the transfer of sovereignty, and after the transfer of sovereignty." That violence has already driven down support for the war and the president himself. According to the latest Washington Post poll, 58 per cent of Americans now disapprove of his handling of Iraq. Those figures are only likely to rise as the violence continues, not least because the bloodshed is directly linked to the political instability in Iraq. . . . If President Bush wanted to reassure voters he was on course to a free and happy Iraq, he may find himself facing more disappointment this fall. . . . Bush suggested at the Army War College that U.S. officials in Iraq would be no different from their counterparts anywhere else in the world. "Our embassy in Baghdad will have the same purpose as any other American embassy, to assure good relations with a sovereign nation," he explained. "America and other countries will continue to provide technical experts to help Iraq's ministries of government, but these ministries will report to Iraq's new prime minister." Normally such technical expertise doesn’t include thousands of troops in a combat zone and billions of dollars in reconstruction money. . . . That kind of gaping hole between the president’s words and the reality in Iraq poses huge political risks for Bush. . . . The Bush years weren’t supposed to be like this. This was billed as a team of heavy hitters and big thinkers, led by a president with an historic sense of mission. Compared to the supposedly feckless Clinton crowd, Bush’s foreign policy brains were re-shaping the world. There were new alliances with countries like Pakistan, new deals with the Great Powers of Russia and China. . . . Instead it looks like the Iraq era, shaped by what the president now acknowledges is an occupation. “Iraqis are proud people who resent foreign control of their affairs, just as we would,” he said on Monday. The challenge for Bush is to convince Iraqis and Americans that the U.S. is no longer resented in Iraq. It’s not clear his five-point plan can get anywhere close to that goal, any time soon.

posted by LoZo 4:39 PM