News n Notes from the Web

Bush aims high, faces more foes
Iraq war weighs on his ambitious plans at home.
By Linda Feldmann | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON 26 Dec 2004 - Lest there was any doubt, events of the past week have reinforced the image of a president heading into a new term with all the markings of a high-wire act.
President Bush has carved out a second-term domestic agenda as ambitious as any - beginning with fundamental change to the $500 billion-a-year Social Security program - while acknowledging that the deep challenges in Iraq will continue long after the Jan. 30 elections there. Even before an insurgent attack on US forces in Mosul Dec. 21 killed at least 24 people, Bush had adopted a more sober tone in assessing mixed progress toward a stable, democratic Iraq.

A majority of the American public - 56 percent - now says the Iraq war was not worth fighting, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, and Bush's overall job-approval rating hangs just below 50 percent in several polls, right where it was on the eve of his reelection. The president is now playing for the history books, not a third term, while the Congress he needs to carry through his reforms has, as always, reelection in mind. In growing numbers, congressional Republicans are raising questions, if not outright dissent, about Bush's plans at home and abroad.

Ultimately, analysts ask, when Bush II begins on Jan. 20, how much political capital will the president really have to muscle his agenda through - especially as Iraq threatens to monopolize his and the nation's attention? "He has defied gravity a lot, and he's put everyone on notice that he intends to do so again," says Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist at the University of Texas in Austin. "Even if there wasn't a war, you would have to say there's no better than a 50-50 chance he can succeed in any of his big domestic proposals: partial privatization of Social Security, tax reform, cutting the deficit in half in five years, immigration reform.... When you add the war, you have to say, this does not look possible."

Still, Bush is famous for being underestimated, and no one counts him out. He also does not appear prone to becoming emotionally consumed by seemingly intractable foreign situations, as President Johnson did with the Vietnam War and President Carter did with the Iranian hostage crisis. Instead, he presents to the public a persona of can-do self-confidence - one not caught up in all the details of governing and thus more able to stay above the fray.

Early in 2005, Bush will also return to a comfortable venue: campaigning. The White House, along with allies such as the Club for Growth, is planning a PR blitz to promote Social Security reform, including the introduction of private accounts. The campaign will include presidential speeches, broadcast and print media, and rallies. Bush's goal is not to set the specifics for reform, but to create the political space necessary for Congress to present him with a plan that meets his broad outlines and that he can sign.

This will be more difficult to achieve than his first-term success in getting Congress to introduce a prescription-drug plan to Medicare. To start, the senior citizens lobby, headed by AARP, opposes the addition of private accounts to the retirement program. Most Democrats oppose Bush's brand of reform; and some congressional Republicans, such as Rep. Ray Lahood (R) of Illinois, are skeptical. He worries about the political risks of being seen as having "gutted" the popular program. Some Republicans, from the more traditional "deficit hawk" wing of the party, also balk at projections for a price tag of up to $2 trillion in transition costs for private accounts.

Pollster John Zogby, who does surveys on Social Security reform for the libertarian Cato Institute, says he is finding support for limited privatization, especially among younger voters. But, he adds, intensity is higher among opponents. "So you've got a greater chance of the Gray Panthers and the unions taking to the streets than you do with 20-somethings who want private accounts, because they don't think traditional Social Security will be there for them," says Mr. Zogby.

Zogby says Bush benefits from the Democrats' struggle to find a message - and a messenger - in the face of Bush's ambitious agenda, beyond being naysayers. His real challenge may be to keep enough of public opinion on his side to keep from undoing the gains his party made in the last election, including a rare second straight election in which the president's party gained seats in the House and Senate.

"He has defied all the rules of the game, the way Reagan did, but even further," says Zogby. The road to domestic US reform may go through Iraq. For now, Bush and other administration officials have acknowledged that the security situation there will probably not improve after the Jan. 30 elections, and thus a US withdrawal does not appear probable anytime soon. "Certainly, we're going to be there through '05 in significant numbers," Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Monitor luncheon last week.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's surprise Christmas-eve visit to Iraq underscored the growing PR problem the Bush administration - and particularly Mr. Rumsfeld - faces over Iraq. Rumsfeld caught flak for appearing insensitive to the challenges US forces face there, epitomized by the revelation that he was not personally signing condolence letters to the families of the fallen. For now, though, Rumsfeld has served as a useful lightning rod for the Bush administration, absorbing criticism over Iraq that might otherwise have gone to Bush. But, as Rumsfeld becomes increasingly unpopular with the public, it remains unclear how long that role can last.
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Presidential Medals of Failure
By Richard Cohen - Washington Post
Thursday, December 16, 2004; Page A37
Where's Kerik?

This is the question I asked myself as, one by one, the pictures of the latest Presidential Medal of Freedom awardees flashed by on my computer screen. First came George Tenet, the former CIA director and the man who had assured President Bush that it was a "slam-dunk" that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Then came L. Paul Bremer, the former viceroy of Iraq, who disbanded the Iraqi army and ousted Baathists from government jobs, therefore contributing mightily to the current chaos in that country. Finally came retired Gen. Tommy Franks, the architect of the plan whereby the United States sent too few troops to Iraq.

One by one these images flicked by me, each man wearing the royal-blue velvet ribbon with the ornate medal -- one failure after another, each now on the lecture circuit, telling insurance agents and other good people what really happened when they were in office, but withholding such wisdom from the American people until, for even more money, their book deals are negotiated. (Franks has already completed this stage of his life. His book, "American Soldier," was a bestseller.)

I braced myself. Could Bernard Kerik be next? Would we skip the entire process of maladministration, misjudgments in office and sycophantic admiration of the current president and go straight to the celebrated failure? After all, what seems to matter most to this president is not performance -- certainly not excellence -- but a matey kind of loyalty and obsequiousness, of which Kerik had plenty.
"Bernie," Bush called out at a White House ceremony last year. Kerik, who was walking away, stopped. "Yes, sir," he said. "You're a good man," the president said.

It is this manly affection that explains how Kerik came to be nominated to head the Department of Homeland Security. The president liked him. He was the president's kind of guy: a wayward, messy kind of youth and then -- wow! -- this explosive career, coming out of the starting gate like Seabiscuit, another runt with something less than an elite East Coast pedigree. What's more, he had been recommended by Rudy Giuliani, another very tough guy who, everyone somehow forgot, is a man hobbled by awful judgment, in people as well as in himself.

Had the president given the awards a moment's thought, he might have asked himself what he was doing. A pretty good argument can be made that Tenet was incompetent. He not only failed to prevent the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 but he failed to protect the president from what has to be a historic embarrassment: the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

As for Franks and Bremer, they cannot -- on the face of it -- both deserve medals. Since coming home from Iraq, Bremer has said the United States did not use enough troops there. "We never had enough troops on the ground," he confided to the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers in October. This allowed the looting that broke out shortly after Baghdad was captured and the subsequent insurgency. For the record, Franks -- prodded by Donald Rumsfeld -- is the guy who never had enough troops on the ground. Which one deserved the medal? Easy. Neither.

The White House medal ceremony was really about George W. Bush. It had a slight touch of the absurd to it, as if facts do not matter and failure does not count. The War to Rid Iraq of WMD has now become The War to Bring Democracy to the Middle East. No one is ever held accountable, because the president will not do as much for himself. He admits no mistakes because he is convinced that he has made none. The terrorist attacks themselves, for which Tenet should have been sacked, are no one's fault because they cannot be the president's fault. He was warned. Condi Rice was put on notice. But, still, who could have known?

To make these awards in the face of failure -- the mounting American death toll, the awful suffering of the Iraqis, the looming possibility of civil war, the nose-thumbing of the still-at-large Osama bin Laden and the madness of making war for a nonexistent reason -- has the creepy feel of the old communist states, where incompetents wore medals and harsh facts were denied. For this reason Bernie Kerik -- three months in Iraq building a police force as good as rhetoric can make it -- seemed as likely and appropriate a recipient of a presidential medal as any of the others. Maybe next year.
*** cohenr@washpost.com

The Defense Secretary We Have
By William Kristol , Weekly Standard – Washington Post - Wednesday, December 15, 2004; Page A33
"As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in a town hall meeting with soldiers at Camp Buehring in Kuwait, Dec. 8.
Actually, we have a pretty terrific Army. It's performed a lot better in this war than the secretary of defense has. President Bush has nonetheless decided to stick for now with the defense secretary we have, perhaps because he doesn't want to make a change until after the Jan. 30 Iraqi elections. But surely Don Rumsfeld is not the defense secretary Bush should want to have for the remainder of his second term.
Contrast the magnificent performance of our soldiers with the arrogant buck-passing of Rumsfeld. Begin with the rest of his answer to Spec. Thomas Wilson of the Tennessee Army National Guard:
"Since the Iraq conflict began, the Army has been pressing ahead to produce the armor necessary at a rate that they believe -- it's a greatly expanded rate from what existed previously, but a rate that they believe is the rate that is all that can be accomplished at this moment. I can assure you that General Schoomaker and the leadership in the Army and certainly General Whitcomb are sensitive to the fact that not every vehicle has the degree of armor that would be desirable for it to have, but that they're working at it at a good clip."
So the Army is in charge. "They" are working at it. Rumsfeld? He happens to hang out in the same building: "I've talked a great deal about this with a team of people who've been working on it hard at the Pentagon. . . . And that is what the Army has been working on." Not "that is what we have been working on." Rather, "that is what the Army has been working on." The buck stops with the Army.
At least the topic of those conversations in the Pentagon isn't boring. Indeed, Rumsfeld assured the troops who have been cobbling together their own armor, "It's interesting." In fact, "if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored humvee and it can be blown up." Good point. Why have armor at all? Incidentally, can you imagine if John Kerry had made such a statement a couple of months ago? It would have been (rightly) a topic of scorn and derision among my fellow conservatives, and not just among conservatives.
Perhaps Rumsfeld simply had a bad day. But then, what about his statement earlier last week, when asked about troop levels? "The big debate about the number of troops is one of those things that's really out of my control." Really? Well, "the number of troops we had for the invasion was the number of troops that General Franks and General Abizaid wanted."
Leave aside the fact that the issue is not "the number of troops we had for the invasion" but rather the number of troops we have had for postwar stabilization. Leave aside the fact that Gen. Tommy Franks had projected that he would need a quarter-million troops on the ground for that task -- and that his civilian superiors had mistakenly promised him that tens of thousands of international troops would be available. Leave aside the fact that Rumsfeld has only grudgingly and belatedly been willing to adjust even a little bit to realities on the ground since April 2003. And leave aside the fact that if our generals have been under pressure not to request more troops in Iraq for fear of stretching the military too thin, this is a consequence of Rumsfeld's refusal to increase the size of the military after Sept. 11.
In any case, decisions on troop levels in the American system of government are not made by any general or set of generals but by the civilian leadership of the war effort. Rumsfeld acknowledged this last week, after a fashion: "I mean, everyone likes to assign responsibility to the top person and I guess that's fine." Except he fails to take responsibility.
All defense secretaries in wartime have, needless to say, made misjudgments. Some have stubbornly persisted in their misjudgments. But have any so breezily dodged responsibility and so glibly passed the buck?
In Sunday's New York Times, John F. Burns quoted from the weekly letter to the families of his troops by Lt. Col. Mark A. Smith, an Indiana state trooper who now commands the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, stationed just south of Baghdad:
"Ask yourself, how in a land of extremes, during times of insanity, constantly barraged by violence, and living in conditions comparable to the stone ages, your marines can maintain their positive attitude, their high spirit, and their abundance of compassion?" Col. Smith's answer: "They defend a nation unique in all of history: One of principle, not personality; one of the rule of law, not landed gentry; one where rights matter, not privilege or religion or color or creed. . . . They are United States Marines, representing all that is best in soldierly virtues."
These soldiers deserve a better defense secretary than the one we have.
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President Outlines Foreign Policy
Cooperation Called Top Priority; Onus for Mideast Peace Placed on Palestinians

By Dana Milbank - Washington Post Staff Writer - Thursday, December 2, 2004; Page A32

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, Dec. 1 -- President Bush on Wednesday outlined a second-term foreign policy that would make international cooperation his administration's top priority but put responsibility for Middle East peace efforts on the Palestinians, a tough stance at odds with some U.S. allies.
Addressing Canadian officials at the end of a two-day trip to the country, Bush vowed that his first order of business would be to build "multilateral institutions," signaling that, after a contentious first term, he was eager for more fruitful diplomacy.

"A new term in office is an important opportunity to reach out to our friends," the president said, making his most extensive remarks on foreign affairs since his reelection last month. Pledging to "foster a wide international consensus" for "three great goals," he said the first would be "building effective multinational and multilateral institutions and supporting effective multilateral action." The other priorities, he said, are fighting terrorism and promoting democracy.

Yet, in a speech at this city's storied seaport, Bush made clear that such cooperation must occur on his terms, and he did not retreat from the first-term policies that angered some allies. Indeed, he appeared to harden his position on the Middle East by omitting the obligations he had previously placed on Israel and saying peace in the region could be achieved only through democratic reforms by the Palestinians.

With Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin sharing the stage, Bush again urged Canada to cooperate in a continental missile defense system -- an unpopular notion here -- and he implicitly rebuked Canada and the United Nations for not supporting the invasion of Iraq. "The objective of the U.N. and other institutions must be collective security, not endless debate," he said. "For the sake of peace, when those bodies promise serious consequences, serious consequences must follow."
Bush also suggested that Canada had strayed from the philosophy of William Lyon Mackenzie King, the World War II-era prime minister who said Canada must "meet the enemy before he reaches our shores." Bush said, "Mackenzie King was correct then, and we must always remember the wisdom of his words today."

The Canadian audience, though effusively welcoming Bush, sat mostly silent as he outlined his agenda. Martin, at a news conference after Bush departed, quarreled with Bush's historical reference and said Canada would not participate in the weaponization of space. Canadian officials, advised by U.S. officials that Bush would not raise the sensitive issue of missile defense, were surprised that he did so twice in as many days.

Still, Martin had only praise for Bush when introducing him here. He seconded Bush's "belief in the transformational power of liberty" and the need for border security. "We must defend this continent, secure its borders, guard its ports, and Canada is absolutely committed to doing whatever needs to be done," he said.


In his most significant comments on the Middle East since the death last month of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Bush signaled that he would intensify pressure on the Palestinians to democratize. Europeans had been seeking a U.S. policy that put more pressure on Israel, but Bush indicated he was heading in the other direction.


"Achieving peace in the Holy Land is not just a matter of pressuring one side or the other on the shape of a border or the site of a settlement," Bush said. "This approach has been tried before without success. As we negotiate the details of peace, we must look to the heart of the matter, which is the need for a Palestinian democracy."


That formulation removed expectations Bush had for Israel in the past. In his June 2002 speech on Middle East policy, Bush declared that "Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories must stop." In Wednesday's speech, Bush said this was "a time of change and a time of hope," but he said peace could be reached by only "one path: the path of democracy and reform and the rule of law."


Aides said Bush's message on his two-hour stop in Halifax was a preview of the sentiment he would voice on a trip to Europe this winter: extolling the importance of international cooperation while holding his ground on policy. A White House official said after the speech that the looming foreign challenges of Bush's second term -- Iran, North Korea and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- are likelier to be solved through diplomacy than with the sort of force used in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Diplomacy," the official said, "is essential to consolidate the gains of the first term."

Though reaching no breakthroughs on Iraq or trade disputes, Bush and Martin displayed a warmer personal relationship than the president had with Martin's predecessor, Jean Chretien. "Paul Martin is a leader who is asserting Canada's good influence in the world," Bush said. He drew appreciative laughter from the Canadians when he voiced hope for a return of professional hockey, whose players were locked out by owners in a labor dispute.

The president listed several areas where Canada and the United States cooperate, including weapons nonproliferation, AIDS, and policy toward Iran and North Korea. He said multilateral organizations "can do great good in the world."
Bush had warm words for Americans' northern neighbors, saying both nations are "better off" because of the daily commercial contacts that unite them. He thanked Canadians for housing American travelers stranded after the September 2001 terrorist attacks and said his administration would "do all that is necessary" to keep U.S.-Canada trade relations strong.

After anti-Bush protests in Ottawa on Tuesday, demonstrators were not visible near the converted waterfront pier where Bush spoke. On his motorcade route, one protest sign read, "Be Nice Mr. President." Bush said he sympathized with Canadians' resentment of American influence, joking, "It's not always easy to sleep next to the elephant."
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