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 News from Around the Americas | December 2005 
White House: Democrats' War Criticism 'Irresponsible'
 Reuters
| | Ten U.S. Marines conducting a foot patrol outside Falluja were killed by an insurgent bomb on Thursday, the U.S. military announced on Friday. (Reuters/Shamil Zhumatov) |
Washington - The White House called irresponsible on those Democrats who said that President George W. Bush lacked a strategy on Iraq, as Sen. John Kerry said a policy shift was needed to reflect realities on the ground.
Some partisan squabbling was heard the day after Bush laid out his "plan for victory," although Democrats were not as uniformly dismissive of Bush as they had been.
The president, seeking to bolster Americans' support for war in the face of rising casualties and to restore confidence in his leadership, said in his speech on Wednesday that time and patience were needed for training Iraqi forces.
He held out the possibility of a reduction in U.S. troop levels eventually, once Iraqis are able to fight the insurgency on their own and if progress is made on the political front looking ahead to Iraq's December 15 elections.
"Those Democratic congressional leaders who try to suggest that we don't have a plan are deeply irresponsible," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who reiterated it was possible to bring some troops home next year.
A snap poll by CNN/Gallup/USA Today this week said 55 percent of respondents believed Bush did not have a plan to "achieve victory for the United States in Iraq." (Full Story)
Polls in recent months have shown waning public support for the 2 1/2-year war. Concern over the war has also been a factor pushing Bush's popularity ratings to the lowest of his presidency.
Kerry, who lost the presidential race to Bush a year ago, said Democrats, "are all in agreement that there has to be a profound shift of admitting the reality on the ground and beginning to establish a schedule that we can understand on behalf of the American people about transfer of authority."
The Massachusetts senator described a scaled-down role for U.S. troops, to help guard oil pipelines and guard people working on construction projects.
"You don't need 160,000 people to be doing what we're doing in Iraq today, this is not World War II, this is not Korea, this is not Vietnam. The principal enemy are IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and suicide bombers," Kerry said.
Kerry was at the White House for a ceremony honoring the
late civil rights activist Rosa Parks, but quickly dove into the Iraq topic in talking to reporters on the White House driveway.
Biden: Details Still Lacking
A sharp Bush critic, Delaware Democratic Sen. Joe Biden, told CNN he did not hear a solid plan from Bush but that he appreciated that the president "leveled with the American people" by admitting mistakes had been made in Iraq and that much remained to be done.
"He laid out the goals, said it's going to be hard, said give him time, but he didn't tell us how he was going to change the game plan to accomplish that," Biden said.
Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a speech military leaders had not adequately explained progress in that country to Americans worried about the rising cost in casualties and money. (Full Story)
"Guys like me have not articulated well enough what is happening in Iraq and in Afghanistan," Pace said. "Every place I look in the (Iraqi) political and economic realm I see progress. And clearly inside the security realm I see enormous progress."
The State Department's Iraq coordinator, James Jeffreys, declined to be drawn out on when U.S. forces would be able to hand over to Iraqi troops and return home.
Asked whether Iraq was in the throes of a civil war, he said Bosnia had been a civil war and Iraq was not at this stage, adding that an early U.S. withdrawal raised this possibility. |
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