Analysis: Bush's Iraq Plan
Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 24, 2004; 9:00 p.m ET
In a Monday evening speech, President Bush plans to share a "clear strategy" for the future of Iraq and U.S. involvement in that country. As the scheduled June 30th handover of control to an Iraqi authority approaches, the Bush administration's plans have been challenged by continued violence and evidence of Iraqi detainee abuse at the hands of American soldiers. The President will address an audience at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., at 8 p.m. ET.
Washington Post foreign policy reporter Peter Slevin was online immediately following the President's speech to field questions and comments about Bush's plan for Iraq.
The transcript follows
Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control
over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Houston, Tex.:
I heard a lot of self serving rhetoric, but nothing suggested a concrete plan beyond the laudable but probably unattainable goals we have being hearing for months. Was there anything of significance new in this speech ?
Peter Slevin: To my ear, there was nothing new in the speech, except perhaps the announcement that the United States would build a new maximum security prison at Abu Ghraib. The speech was short on details and certainly offered no change in course.
The speech seemed to me an attempt to regain the moral high ground and project a sense of confidence about a mission that has gone badly awry.
President Bush repeatedly contrasted the behavior and ambitions of the United States and its foes, saying it was a contest of "liberty and life" against "tyranny and murder."
_______________________
Toronto, Canada:
I failed to notice any new plans in
the president's speech. He seemed to
be telling us to accept that his
plans, made three years ago, are
still the way to go. Given the
progress to date, why should this
encourage Canada to join in this
operation?
Peter Slevin: Point Four of the president's five-point plan was a promise to seek more international support, but it's unlikely that he will have any better luck now than before finding backing where he needs it most: On the ground, where bullets and mortars fly.
_______________________
Omaha, Neb.:
Do others feel as I do that President Bush's seeking free air time to speak to the nation six times in six weeks about Iraq is a rather clever ploy to insert campaign rhetoric and get face time with the American voter in an effort to improve his falling poll numbers?
Will equal time be provided for the Democrats and/or Senator Kerry?
Peter Slevin: It was interesting that the White House did not make a formal request to the major television networks to air the speech. In most cases, the networks comply.
I think what you saw in the networks' decision to leave the speech to cable was a suspicion about White House intentions and doubts about whether the speech would be dramatic.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.:
You say the mission has gone "badly awry". How was it supposed to be going about now? Were we supposed to have turned Iraq into Belgium in one year?
Peter Slevin: Belgium, no. But it's safe to say that no one in the upper ranks of the Bush administration imagined that U.S. troops would be fighting militant insurgents, killing hundreds of Iraqis, taking scores of casualties and fighting with force over Iraq's future one year after Saddam Hussein fell.
Well before now, Bush administration planners said, Iraq was expected to be peaceful, its economy was expected to function, oil revenues would be well on their way to paying the country's expenses and far fewer U.S. troops would be living in Iraq, much less dying there.
_______________________
Mountain View, Calif.:
My immediate impression is that the speech broke very little new ground and was not much different than what Bush seems to say everyday. I was hoping to learn more about the shape of the new government in Iraq, but as far as I can tell, we still don't know who the leaders will be and exactly what powers they'll have. Am I correct, or did I miss something?
Thanks very much.
Peter Slevin: President Bush said that the U.N. envoy, former Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, would announce the names of the new leadership this week. As for powers, you're right, that's also a bit murky, although the president emphasized the decisions the interim will be able to make on a variety of issues.
_______________________
Philadelphia, Pa.:
I think it's laudable that Pres. Bush wants to get more international support on the ground in Iraq, but why would nations that wouldn't send troops today, suddenly send troops tomorrow?
Peter Slevin: That's a question those nations will be asking themselves.
_______________________
Freemansburg, Pa.:
Mr. Slevin, Why did President Bush wait until six weeks before the hand-over of power in Iraq to make the speech he gave tonight?
Peter Slevin: This is the first in a series of speeches the president intends to give before the June 30 handover, but as many of you have noted, he said little that he has not said before.
As to why the White House sees fit to embark on this campaign, keep in mind the other big political date on this year's U.S. calendar: The November election.
My colleagues Dan Balz and Rich Morin posted a story earlier that shows President Bush's overall job approval rating at 47 percent, the lowest in the Post-ABC News poll in his presidency.
On Iraq, the numbers are worse: Only four in 10 respondents gave the president positive marks for his handling of Iraq, once considered by the White House political staff one of his strong suits.
Also, 40 percent favored a troop withdrawal, an increase of 7 percent points in just the last month.
The president wants to stem the slide.
_______________________
Fairfax, Va.:
Often I hear President Bush repeat the word
"history." It came up in this speech numerous
times. Is there a feeling from the White House that
judgemnets of this war should be left for a future
point, that critiques of it now are based on a
mission in progress?
Peter Slevin: Two thoughts on that. I've heard members of the president's foreign policy team say that history will be the best judge of President Bush's truly ambitious effort to bring democratic change and greater opportunity to the Middle East.
Officials including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz use the example of East Asia and the progress many governments there have made in the past half-century.
Yet, asked by Bob Woodward how history would judge the war in Iraq, Bush replied: "History. We don't know. We'll all be dead."
_______________________
Houston, Tex.:
I think the speech was more of an attempt to get Bush's message through the media noise, which has obviously been borderline obsessive about how Iraq is just a "mess". It's a long pass intended to present a positive spin, even a more objective spin, than what is seen in the news everyday with talk about what a dozen soldiers did on a night in October at Abu Ghraib. Is there anything he could have said to satisfy the media, or wasn't he destined to fall short of those unattainable expectations?
Peter Slevin: I think you're right about the White House goal. Officials there wanted to demonstrate that the Bush administration has a mission, a set of goals and the makings of a plan. And intends to prevail.
The media has focused much more on what is going wrong, although it has been helped along on that path by the extraordinary run of unhappy news out of Iraq -- news that goes well beyond the soldiers in Abu Ghraib.
I don't think it's the media's role to be satisfied. Rather, reporters should do their level best to study how words and deeds match up; in fact, how (present) words and (past) words match up. And to provide some context.
_______________________
Mesa, Ariz.:
If everything is going as well in Iraq as the President says, why don't we see that every day in the news, or at least on some days?
Peter Slevin: A related question. Just because news reports are dominated by the most dramatic -- almost always bad -- news, it doesn't mean that nothing positive is happening. Just as it is in, say, the Arizona papers, or the Post.
_______________________
Susono, Japan:
I expected to see a real change in how President Bush evaluated the situation in Iraq in this speech. I don't think that he showed that he and his administration have understood or registered the serious way in which America has lost the world's faith. Should there not have been a more honest appraisal of the state of affairs and then a presentation of how to move forward?
Peter Slevin: I suspect President Bush felt he was doing just that.
He set out to persuade his listeners that the United States has clear goals: A crippling victory against terrorists. A steady, secure and democratic Iraq. And ways to achieve them, which he listed.
Many critics at home and abroad have long argued, though, that this president and this administration hurts its own cause when it does not specify problems and mistakes.
_______________________
New York, N.Y.:
But, I do find it odd that the networks didn't carry the speech, whether it would be dramatic enough or not. I find it odd for them not to televise our country's leader speaking to us in a "formal" manner in a time of war.
Peter Slevin: It's notable, isn't it?
One news correspondent pointed out that this is one of the last Mondays in the May "sweeps" period. Viewership means ads; ads mean revenue. I doubt that calculation was entirely absent from the networks' thinking.
_______________________
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.:
You said: "the United States would build a new maximum security prison at Abu Ghraib."
What I heard POTUS to say was that they'd build a new prison, then destroy Abu Ghraib. Am I wrong?
Anyhow, I thought the emphasis on Negroponte as ambassador and how he will relate to the new government was interesting. Could we be seeing a shift to the State Department and away from the Pentagon?
Peter Slevin: You're right. I meant in place of Abu Ghraib, which will be destroyed.
(By the way, I thought it interesting the other day that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez testified on Capitol Hill that U.S. authorities have been building an annex to Abu Ghraib to relieve overcrowding. He said it's called Camp Redemption.)
As for the embassy, that's what it means. The State Department will be taking a stronger role, although there will be any number of entanglements inevitable in the continuing need for U.S. military forces.
_______________________
Brooklyn, N.Y.:
Was the intended audience for this speech
-The Republican faithful
-American public opinion
-UN diplomats
-Iranian citizens
-European Allies?
For whom was the talk primarily aimed?
Peter Slevin: If this were a take-out menu, you'd have to choose more than one. I think the first two on your list were the most important audiences; this was a speech to reassure Republicans that he hasn't lost his nerve; and the broader American public opinion that Iraq is not a quagmire.
_______________________
Arlington, Va.:
Actually I think there was some news: The President said that national elections in Iraq would take place "no later than" January 2005. Doesn't this sound like movement in the direction of holding earlier elections, perhaps even as early as this fall. Until now I had not heard the President suggest that elections might occur before January 2005. Possible?
Peter Slevin: December or January have been mentioned prominently as the most likely months for elections. Election experts have expressed doubts that they could happen sooner.
_______________________
Staunton, Va.:
President Bush tonight said power would be tranfered to a full sovereign Iraq. Is this an accurate statement as we would understand national sovereignty?
Peter Slevin: That's not easily answered. The dictionary definition of sovereignty includes "supreme and independent political authority."
I think it's more limited, given that U.S. troops -- while officially there in support of the Iraqi government -- will be making their own decisions. And not just about how to fight and who will be in command.
As we've seen in Fallujah and elsewhere, the U.S. military is not simply a patrol force, but a far more complex operation that blends elements of force and persuasion.
That's my sense. There are lawyers who would be better placed than I am to answer, I'm sure.
hile the interim government will have considerable authority, will it make all its own decisions? Not clea
_______________________
Birmingham, Ala.:
It has become apparent that in the coverage of
the war in Iraq, the naturally more sensational
images of bombings and terrorists attacks have
overshadowed the behind-the-scenes story of
reconstruction.
Do you feel that this has begun to affect
policy?
Is the perception that no progress is being
made towards a better Iraq forcing concessions
from the Bush administration which might not
match with the reality on the ground?
Peter Slevin: PhD dissertations will no doubt be written -- and have been in past conflicts -- about the connections between media reports and policymaking.
In the case of Iraq in recent months, it's not just that media reports have overshadowed stories of success. It's that the violence the media is reporting has swamped the reconstruction effort.
_______________________
Philadelphia, Pa.:
Peter, Thank you for taking the time for this chat. I have two questions:
I don't have cable TV and listened to the president on the radio. What should we make of the decision by the broadcast networks, including PBS, to bypass the speech?
I was surprised when, near the end of the speech, Mr. Bush gave a rosy prognosis for Afghanistan, which seems as much at odds with longstanding reporting from the region as the administration's Iraq outlook. Moreover, the prison inquiry seems likely to reveal inconvenient facts about our operation there. What did Mr. Bush have to gain by drawing attention to Afghanistan?
Peter Slevin: The references to Afghanistan may have had a couple of purposes.
One is that Afghanistan, for all of its many troubles, is quieter than Iraq. And its government is more functional, albeit primarily in Kabul.
Another is that the fight for Iraq, as President Bush presents it, is a battle against terrorism, in which Afghanistan is another important front. That sense of mission unites the U.S. efforts in the two places.
_______________________
Dallas, Tex.:
Do you think UN will be as much involved as claimed in speech?
Do you think any other nation will send troops-even after June 30?
With such speeches do you think voters will change their mind?
Peter Slevin: The Bush administration's view of the U.N.'s role has evolved as U.S. credibility has become such a huge issue inside and outside Iraq.
At first the administration pledged a "vital role" that omitted many of the most important political and economic issues. Suspicious of the U.N.'s inclinations, and cognizant of its limited appetite and ability to manage such a huge postwar project, the White House and Pentagon did not want to relinquish much authority.
But as things have soured, the administration has been counting on Lakhdar Brahimi to perform jujitsu. Many in the administration now realize that a solely American stamp on policies is not necessarily a road to success.
Many people warned them of this very thing before the war, of course.
_______________________
Sunnyvale, Calif.:
Just a comment -- the networks or their local affiliates did carry the president's speech live in the Bay Area of California. I saw it on all the San Francisco and San Jose Channels -- maybe because the timing coincided with local news programming and did not interrupt prime time.
Peter Slevin: Thanks for sending that along.
_______________________
Cape Elizabeth, Maine:
Has there been any discussion in the White House of a proposal, recently floated by former Ambassador Peter Galbraith and others, to allow for the division of Iraq into a Kurdish north, a Sunni center, and a Shiite south?
Peter Slevin: The proposal has been around since before the war, but for any number of reasons, the view remains that a federal Iraq with some form of shared power in Baghdad makes the most sense.
_______________________
Boston, Mass.:
During the 2000 U.S. election, much comment was made about the short transition period between the outcome of the election and the inaguration. With 36 days until the June 30 turnover, how exactly is some as-yet-to-be-named government going to assume full sovereignity in the middle of a war? Is this possible, even if Brahimi were to name the successors to the CPA this week?
Does the White House actually know who will be in charge, but is deferring announcement to the U.N., or is everyone -- including the Iraqi receipients of the turnover -- still uncertain about what will happen on June 30th?
Peter Slevin: The names are surfacing, but negotiations have continued.
Just last Friday, for example, Kurdish leaders balked at taking one of the slots for vice president, beneath a Sunni president and Shiite prime minister. A possible compromise would deliver more cabinet posts to Kurds in return for their cooperation.
And, yes, there are major questions about how effective the newly minted government can be, and how soon. Which takes us back to the sovereignty issue, as you rightly point out.
As President Bush himself said tonight, "The way forward may appear chaotic."
_______________________
Peter Slevin: Thanks for tuning in and sending so many thoughts and questions. I'll be back for my regular on-line discussion at noon Thursday. See you then.
_______________________
Automatically Update Page
Get New Responses
Submit Question
| 
