A Radical Turn -- Or Not?

This is what the Post reports the President is now shifting to:

President Bush vowed for the first time yesterday to turn over most of Iraq to newly trained Iraqi troops by the end of this year, setting a specific benchmark as he kicked off a fresh drive to reassure Americans alarmed by the recent burst of sectarian violence. (My emph.)

A vow, of course, is a promise. This opening paragraph seems to make it clear that no matter the conditions on the ground the administration will be withdrawing American troops.

That would be a complete capitulation. Those who think the war is a failure will think this is first, too little too late, and second, nothing more than confirmation of what they've been saying. Those with any doubts about the progress of the war would't read this as evidence that the war is going well, so well that American forces can soon come home. They'd read this as proof that the critics are right, that there's nothing we can do other than get out as quickly as possible. And those like me who support the war but believe it's vital we continue to see through to the end what we've begun will see this as letting politics drive military strategy, and an abandonment of the project before it's complete.

If we bring American forces home too soon than every bit of hard fought progress will be lost. Every thing accomplished to this point will have been for nothing. Politics -- and foolish politics, panic driven politics at that -- will have driven out strategy driven by military needs, and the one thing everyone could agree on about this President, that he put this mission first, will no longer be true.

It all will have been for nothing, the foothold for the overall strategy of democratization of the region will be mortally wounded, and we will be leaving thousands upon thousands of brave Iraqis we asked to put their trust in us to their fate.

If it was difficult to win the trust of the Shia back after what they saw as the abandonment of 1991, how will we ever be able to ask any potential ally to risk their lives to work with us again?

But only paragraphs later the reporter makes it seem as if the President is not promising that no matter what American troops will be withdrawn.

How meaningful or achievable the president's new goal is seems uncertain. In the speech, Bush said Iraqi units today have "primary responsibility" over 30,000 square miles of Iraqi territory, an increase of 20,000 square miles since the beginning of the year. As a country of nearly 169,000 square miles, Iraqi forces would need to control about 85,000 square miles to fulfill Bush's target.

What constitutes control, however, depends on the definition, since no Iraqi unit is currently rated capable of operating without U.S. assistance. And vast swaths of Iraq have never been contested by insurgents, meaning they could ultimately be turned over to local forces without directly affecting the conflict. (My emph.)

The Democrats certainly don't seem to think the President is suddenly offering an ironclad guarantee (although if he's offering "benchmarks" he's offering now something they were screaming for a while back and now are finding insufficient if I'm reading this correctly):

Democratic leaders hammered away at the president's latest effort to win public support for the war. "Instead of launching yet another public relations campaign, President Bush should use his speeches this week to provide a strategy to bring our brave men and women home safely and soon," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said in a statement. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (N.J.) said: "It is time for President Bush to stop the spin and start telling the truth about the harsh realities we are confronting in Iraq."

Others praised Bush for committing to a specific target, if not a comprehensive timeline. "This was a step in the right direction," Rep. Dan Boren (Okla.), a centrist Democrat invited to the speech, said in an interview afterward. "Benchmarks set clear, defined goals, and if we see more and more Iraqis being trained and put on the ground, then that means we can bring more Americans home."

In his speech at George Washington University, Bush focused on the threat of improvised explosive devices, called IEDs by troops, and said his administration has increased funding to fight them from $150 million in 2004 to $3.3 billion this year. In stark language, he also accused Iran of helping the bomb makers. Just last week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld also accused Iran of dispatching elements of its Revolutionary Guard to conduct unspecified operations.

Contrast the last paragraph with the first:

Bush vowed not to retreat in the face of violence, reading a letter from the mother of Sgt. William S. Kinzer Jr., who was killed last year. "Don't let my son have given his all for an unfinished job," she wrote, according to Bush. "I make this promise to Debbie and all the families of the fallen heroes," he said. "We will not let your loved ones' dying be in vain. We will finish what we started in Iraq. We will complete the mission." (My emph.)

Update: Look at the first paragraph of the Times' coverage, and you'd never know the reporters had been listening to the same speech:

President Bush on Monday pushed back at critics on the left and right who had urged that American troops be withdrawn from Iraq before they were caught in a civil war, contending in the first of a new series of speeches that his strategy is working and declaring, "We will not lose our nerve."

That doesn't sound like a man vowing to turn over most of the country to the Iraqis, whether or not here we come, and defining his new strategy by means of new benchmarks. It doesn't particularly sound like a man with a new strategy -- as opposed to a new effort to defend his old strategy -- much at all.

The Times is chomping at the bit though. Get this:

Twice he used the words "civil war" in his speech, but only to describe the objectives of Sunnis, Saddamists and members of Al Qaeda seeking to keep a new government from forming, rather than to characterize the current state of events.

Well, there you go! He admits the enemy actually wants to accomplish something they haven't accomplished! (If I had an hour I don't have I'd love to back through prior speeches, say, the that last set of four defined as "major" speeches, and count the number of times the phrase "civil war" was used and in what context.)

"I wish I could tell you that the violence is waning and that the road ahead will be smooth," Mr. Bush said in a speech before the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an institute created after the Sept. 11 attacks that has been supportive of Mr. Bush's agenda. "It will not. There will be more tough fighting and more days of struggle, and we will see more images of chaos and carnage in the days and months to come."

Yuh, whatever. He always includes a paragraph comparable to this one, it's almost always picked up, any contextualizing or framing paragraphs rarely are.

Mr. Bush's muted tone came less than 10 months after his vice president, Dick Cheney, said, "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

The press just won't let go of that one -- but, then again, the administration has that coming. Talk about your basic self-inflicted wound.

I love this:

Mr. Bush has expressed concern that televised images of the continuing violence in Iraq, especially between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, is further undercutting support for the war. In advance of the speech, one of Mr. Bush's aides said last week that "at various moments, we have had to get the president out there to reassure people, re-explain the strategy, and make it clear that we have a long-term approach."

You have to at least respect the cynicism. We report and show the truth, people respond by (finally) withdrawing their support for the war, and in response the administration frantically schedules presidential speeches. Because the media never considers the possibility that they are anything other than a mechanism for providing a neutral window on the world, they cannot even perceive the possibility that they are a factor in driving public opinion in ways other than, "well, we showed them the truth and they responded."

The same savvy reporters who take it for granted that political candidates will constantly attempt to manipulate the press during campaigns -- and assume that if the press is not on guard every minute those candidates will be able to do so -- seem unable to take under consideration the possibility that they are being manipulated by terrorists and insurgent groups.

It is assumed, in that vein, that the administration is using these speeches to manipulate public opinion, after all:

Monday's speech was in the same vein, but Mr. Bush was clearly seeking to manage expectations and answer a new group of critics — neoconservatives who have said that because Iraq is now liberated, it is up to the Iraqis themselves to defend the country and piece together a government acceptable to all factions. Among them have been William F. Buckley Jr. and Francis Fukuyama, who have expressed doubt about the speed with which the Iraqis will embrace democratic change.

(Note the categorization of William Buckley, Jr. as a neconservative, which must be news both to Buckley and to the neoconservative movement. But I digress.) But because the violence in Iraq involves photojournalism, it appears to the press beyond the possibility of manipulation.

They quote the President on this point:

But if Mr. Bush is turning attention to Iran, he seemed aware on Monday that Iraq was what was on American television screens. "Terrorists are losing on the field of battle, so they are fighting this war through the pictures we see on television and in the newspapers every day," he said. "They're hoping to shake our resolve and force us to retreat. They are not going to succeed."

But there is little evidence they truly understand it.

Comments

[Glenmore]

The (not-so-)loyal opposition is in the enviable position of being able to claim victory regardless of outcomes. If the US stays in Iraq, then Bush lied and never intended to give Iraq back to Iraqis; if the US pulls out, then it was because the Democrats forced him to, or because Bush 'admits' he was wrong to start this war, and has given up. The only outcome not favorable to the Democrats is the unlikely case of rapid and obvious stabilization of an Iraqi government. That outcome is also regarded as most unfavorable by Iran and Syria, and possibly other neighboring states ('the enemy of my enemy is my friend? - scary thought).
I find it tragic that lack of unity (political infighting) among and within Western nations is what forced this war in the first place, and is now enabling the 'underperforming' current state of things.

[SeekerBlog.com]

Cori,

At a stretch it is barely possible to get from Bush's words:

"As more capable Iraqi police and soldiers come on line, they will assume responsibility for more territory -- with the goal of having the Iraqis control more territory than the coalition by the end of 2006. And as Iraqis take over more territory, this frees American and Coalition forces to concentrate on training and on hunting down high-value targets like the terrorist Zarqawi and his associates. As Iraqis stand up, America and our coalition will stand down. And my decisions on troop levels will be made based upon the conditions on the ground, and the recommendations of our military commanders -- not artificial timetables set by politicians here in Washington, D.C."

to the WaPo paragraph:

"President Bush vowed for the first time yesterday to turn over most of Iraq to newly trained Iraqi troops by the end of this year...".

But in context isn't it obvious that Bush is characterizing the coalition goals for ISF battlespace responsibility - followed by a very clear restatement of the stand down policy? Nothing in his words implies a vow to withdraw on any timetable.

I look forward to a future "Army of Davids" world where voters hear, or read, such speeches in the original - and are not mislead by elite spin.

Glenmore,

"I find it tragic that lack of unity..."

An elegant summary of the tragedy - I have nothing useful to append.

[dauber]

Of course, we have tht world, where everyone *can* listen to pretty much all speeches in the original now. The problem is -- and probably always will be -- who can? I mean, I do this for a living, sort of, but b/c my primary purpose isn't to focus on the speeches, or the hearings, or the briefings, I'm not paid to do that, and it simply isn't possible to manage to do that and still get everything else done, unless you're in the small number of professions focused exclusively and explicitly on listening to the primaries. The problem with that model is that we all become innundated far too quickly. For that reason the media will always play something of a gatekeeper role if only b/c we will always need them to sort and sift for us, to tell us which events mattered and what about those events mattered most.

[SeekerBlog.com]

Cori,

I certainly did NOT intend any criticism of your valuable work! And certainly auditing a NYT Bush speech report against the original isn't in your job-description at all.

As to the necessity of the gatekeeper function - I'm a bit more optimistic that we will evolve an alternative which functions as a consumer-tailored filter. Today's blogs can function as a very primitive - e.g., I have a set of "trusted blogs" that help me discover what is worth reading. RantingProfs is of course a member of that daily blog-set.

I'm not sure you would agree - but I find very little of value in the daily news cycle (contra: alien invasion?). I find the value via such as:

(1) "trusted sources" - e.g., Michael Gordon. Gordon's link page at NYT is part of my crude filter - that's how I caught his first four new-book-derived articles.

(2) "trusted referees" - e.g., Michael Barone, Cori Dauber, ...

(3) "trusted aggregators" - e.g., Atlantic Monthly, City Journal, Commentary, MIT Technology Review, ...

I agree completely with your point regarding "too much input, too little time". Today we are attempting to drink a cup of water from the waterfall that the internet offers [clean water!]. That waterfall will grow exponentially. Which I think creates a market demand for effective tailored filters. Google might be one of the early innovators - combining their Google News technology with their search knowhow.

Bottom line: even crude filters as I described free up time which can be used to, e.g., read important transcripts instead of the gatekeepers' distorted versions. Consider the time wasted handling the dead-tree publications [skipping through all the ads and trivia]. Similarly, consuming "news" via TV channels.

[dauber]

All fair and interesting pts (and, for the record, I didn't mean to suggest I felt criticized, sorry if I gave that impression.)