Bush's propaganda war ignores reality of failed Iraq policy

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Bush's propaganda war ignores reality of failed Iraq policy

September 3, 2006 05:21 AM | Enemies of the State | 4 Comments

Although military professionals tell him Iraq has descended into irreversible civil war, President George W. Bush Saturday kept up his pre-election offensive fantasy on Iraq, claiming things are going far better than the facts demonstrate in the war-ravaged nation.

Bush claims results from a new U.S.-Iraqi campaign to improve the security situation in Baghdad are encouraging and that insurgents have failed to drive Iraq into full-blown civil war.

"Our commanders and diplomats on the ground believe that Iraq has not descended into a civil war," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "They report that only a small number of Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, while the overwhelming majority want peace and a normal life in a unified country."

Commanders on the ground, however, tell a completely different story. They see a country torn by internal violence and one that, in some estimates, has already erupted into an uncontrollable civil war.

On Friday, however, the Pentagon reported that death squads increasingly targeting mainly Iraqi civilians heighten the risk of civil war. The report, the latest in a series required by Congress, said the Sunni-led insurgency "remains potent and viable."

"Conditions that could lead to civil war exist in Iraq, specifically in and around Baghdad, and concern about civil war within the Iraqi civilian population has increased in recent months," the report said.

The report offers a far more pessimistic and realistic view of the situation in Iraq than the rosy picture painted by Bush.

"Rising sectarian strife defines the emerging nature of violence in mid-2006," the report found, concluding, "Death squads and terrorists are locked in a mutually reinforcing cycle of sectarian strife."

Another internal report given to the Joint Chiefs goes even further, saying Iraq "for all practical purposes, is already in a state of civil war" and says the President's plan for eventually turning control of the nation over to the new Iraqi government can not work because "the Iraqi government cannot contain the sectarian violence without a permanent U.S. military presence."

"Apparently, the state of denial at the White House is worse than I thought," writes Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "####### Cheney still inhabits a lonely planet on which the Iraqis love us. And Donald Rumsfeld, speaking to the Legionnaires earlier, likens anyone who questions an open-ended U.S. commitment in Iraq -- a group that now includes several Republicans in Congress -- to the Nazi appeasers of the 1930s."

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, agrees Bush and his cronies are in deep denial.

"The Pentagon's new report indicates that President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld's speeches are increasingly disconnected from the facts on the ground in Iraq," Reid says. "Even the Pentagon acknowledges Iraq is tipping into civil war, Failed Republican policies have left America bogged down in Iraq, with our military stretched thin and less able to fight and win the war on terror."

A growing number of members of Congress - including some in the president's own party - are calling for either a shift in the Bush administration's Iraq strategy or a timetable for beginning a substantial withdrawal of American forces.

With midterm elections for control of Congress looming, Bush has embarked on a nonstop propaganda campaign to try and build support for the war in Iraq, casting Democratic opponents of the war as weak on national defense and battling terrorism.

"Here at home, some politicians say that our best option is to pull out of Iraq, regardless of the situation on the ground," Bush said. "They could not be more wrong."

Bush, repeating nearly word for word the message of a recent speech in Salt Lake City, added, "The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq, so America will not leave until victory is achieved."

Democrats are not backing down in their criticism of the war, and they vow not to allow Republicans to win a political edge, as they did in making gains in 2002 and with Bush's re-election victory two years ago.

"The war in Iraq is the wrong war, a reality that no amount of White House rhetoric can distort," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Friday. "It has strained our military, has crippled our ability to prosecute the war on terrorism, and has dangerously limited our ability to respond to real challenges to our national security around the world."

The White House launched its latest offensive Thursday with Bush's address before an American Legion convention and is to culminate the push Sept. 19 with remarks by the president before the U.N. General Assembly.

Edited September 3, 2006 by yogib37