let's look at each one:
(1) june 30th transfer of sovereignty.
obviously, this is nothing new. as alluded to in some earlier posts, the real question is what exactly he means by "sovereignty." at least twice bush refers to iraq post-june 30th as having "full sovereignty" but later he seems to undercut that point when he says that he will keep the current level of military forces in iraq "as long as necessary." if iraq really had "full sovereignty" that simply would not be bush's call beginning july 1st.
bush did fill in a few details about the make-up of the new government: a president, 2 vice presidents and 26 ministers, but he still punted on the question of how who exactly they are or how they will be chosen. the number of posts does not matter as much as who will hold them. bush promised that lakhdar brahimi will announce those details later this week, but wouldn't it have made more sense to give this speech to announce what brahimi decides?
on a more political angle, i am really curious how this let-brahimi-decide-all-the-details strategy plays out. (see the sixth cartoon down here)
(2) security in iraq.
nothing new here either. actually, this whole bit pissed me off. gratuitous use of the word "terrorist" (i wonder if the word has any meaning anymore). a promise to send more troops if needed (again, iraqi sovereignty be damned!)
his account of what happened in fallujah has almost no connection with reality:
In the city of Fallujah, there has been considerable violence by Saddam loyalists and foreign fighters, including the murder of four American contractors. American soldiers and marines could have used overwhelming force. Our commanders, however, consulted with Iraq's governing council and local officials and determined that massive strikes against the enemy would alienate the local population and increase support for the insurgency.
So we have pursued a different approach. We're making security a shared responsibility in Fallujah. Coalition commanders have worked with local leaders to create an all-Iraqi security force, which is now patrolling the city. Our soldiers and Marines will continue to disrupt enemy attacks on our supply routes, conduct joint patrols with Iraqis to destroy bomb factories and safe houses and kill or capture any enemy.
We want Iraqi forces to gain experience and confidence in dealing with their country's enemies. We want the Iraqi people to know that we trust their growing capabilities, even as we help build them. At the same time, Fallujah must cease to be a sanctuary for the enemy. And those responsible for terrorism will be held to account.
what he forgets to mention is that the u.s. military lost the battle of fallujah. it's okay. no one else seems to want to say it, but i honestly see no other rational interpretation for what happened there. see billmon's post for a good timeline, but the short version is this:
(a) u.s. started the fallujah offensive with a set of stated goals (not negotiating with "terrorists", ending the baathist control of the city, and bringing the people who killed and mutilated the bodies of those u.s. contractors/mercenaries to justice), and
(b) failed to achieve each and every one of them (the u.s. ended up negotiating with the people bush had referred to as "terrorists," placed a former baathists general officially in control of the city, and never got any of the people who killed the contractor).
the u.s. news media never expressly told us fallujah was a loss, so most people did not see it. but it reported each fact as it occurred and i can't see any other conclusion given those facts.
somehow, this tragic story of perhaps the only battle the u.s. has lost in the iraq war is transformed by bush into a shrewd judgment call to minimize civilian casualties (never mind that the ultimately fruitless offensive killed at least 600 fallujis). i can't see anything in that story but a colossal blunder resulting in the needless loss of life and credibility of the u.s. in iraq. once again i must ask: is bush lying or just clueless?
(3) rebuilding iraq's infrastructure.
yet another example of taking something bush has talked about all along and trying to present it as some kind of comprehensive plan. the problem with the conservatives' endless bragging about "rebuild schools" whenever iraq comes up is the simple fact that iraq is not afghanistan and hussein is not mullah omar. under baathist iraq both boys and girls went to secular schools--a situation quite unlike the one in taliban-ruled afghanistan where most children were prevented from going to school and all were prevented from getting any kind of secular education. the "rebuilt schools" claim is yet another example that the american public is being taught to blend these two very different countries together into one indistinguishable generic islamic country. to the extent there were damaged schools in iraq after saddam hussein fell, it was probably because the u.s. bombed them.
so if you think about it, bragging about how u.s. forces are rebuilding schools is more an indication that the american "precision weapontry" is not all that accurate after all. but i don't think the bush administration wants you to think about it.
(4) enlisting international support for the u.s.' effort in iraq
this is the only point that i can endorse whole-heartedly. i just hope the bush administration is serious. winning over the international community means more than giving them an american designed program and telling them to sign on or get lost. it means giving other's a voice in the iraq project. perhaps two and a half years ago, the international community would have given bush the benefit of the doubt. but these days, he has to give them something in return if he expects any real cooperation.
(5) national elections by january 2005.
note, this goal is after the u.s. elections, so bush himself will probably not be held accountable if the elections are delayed at the last minute or declared to be unfeasible.
and there is a real question about the feasibility of holding elections in january. 4 months ago, some of bush's critics (and notable, shiite cleric sistani) demanded that elections be held before or shortly after the june 30th handover of sovereignty. the theory was that only a democratically elected iraq would have any legitimacy in the eyes of the world and the iraqi people. but the bush administration rejected the idea, saying that because of security fears, a free and fair election that early is simply not possible. but why do they think the security situation will be better in january 2005? indeed, a few paragraphs after talking about the january 2005 elections bush warned "There is likely to be more violence before the transfer of sovereignty and after the transfer of sovereignty." couldn't that jeapardize a january 2005 election? and how did he come up with january 2005 date anyway?
bush's speech was a far cry from what it was promised to be. i did not see him lay out any comprehensive plan for iraq. we still don't know who will rule iraq after june 30th, or how they will be chosen, or what limits (if any) there will be on american actions in iraq after june 30th when the iraqis allegedly have "full sovereignty," or what bush will give the international community to win over their support or how any of the bush administration's own objections to early elections would not equally apply to bush's call for elections next january. in short, last night's speech was not a comprehensive plan, but a teaser. like a preview for a film, it gave broad outlines of what bush wants us to expect, without giving away much of the plot. i guess we'll have to tune in to find out.
ironically, the only really specific detail in the speech was bush's proposal to "fund the construction of a modern maximum security prison" and to demolish abu ghraib prison "with the approval of the Iraqi government." aside from the fact that this is the only nod to post-june 30th iraqi sovereignty in the entire speech, what does it say about our country and this administration that building a modern prison is the only part of bush's plan in iraq that he really seems to be on top of?
UPDATE: when i posted the above, i failed to mention that i did not listen to bush's speech, i read the transcript this morning. my neighbor just emailed to castigate me for failing to note that the president mangled the words "abu ghraib" all three times it occurred in the speech. because they changed bush's utterences of "abugah-rayp" "abu-garon" and "abu-garah" to "abu ghraib" in the transcript, i didn't know of the mangling until i got my neighbor's email.
