Burnt Orange Report

The Bush Speech

By Byron LaMasters

I did something I haven't done in a long time. I listened to a major presidential speech on the radio. I left Austin at about 7 PM to head to Dallas when I remembered that NPR had said earlier in the day they would carry the Bush speech live at 7 PM, so as I drove northbound on I-35 I decided to tune in. I can't remember the last time I listened to a major speech as opposed to watching it on television. I forgot how much I enjoyed it. Television gives you the greater picture - it allows you to see the context of the speech, the audience reaction, what visual prompts the advance folks set up and all, but when you watch a speech on TV it's easy to get caught up in the surroundings and miss the actual message of the speech. Sometimes that's not a problem. Being the C-SPAN junkie that I am, I probably watched at least a dozen speeches of most of the Democratic candidates during the primaries - and by the end of the primary season watching a John Edwards "two Americas" speech was like listening to a broken record. A good broken record, but a broken record nonetheless. So my attention would quickly turn to the crowd reaction, the crowd placement, the introducers, etc. Anyway, radio doesn't allow you to focus on any of that. Which was good for this speech, because I was genuinely interested in what Bush had to say. I also found that Bush is more tolerable when I don't have to watch him on TV - the smirk and the always carefully placed minorities behind him makes me snarl (although you still have to deal with his uncomfortableness using multisyllabic words) - but on to the substance of the speech...

I may surprise some of you, but I don't have any huge objections with Bush's current plan in Iraq. I didn't support going there in the first place, because Iraq was not a serious threat to US security, but if we leave now Iraq could easily become a serious threat to US security and a terrorist haven. Bush laid out a five point plan that looks alright on paper. Basically he wants to 1) "transfer full sovereignty to... Iraqi citizens... on June 30th", 2) continue to keep US troops in Iraq to ensure stability and security, 3) continue to help rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, 4) "enlist additional international support for Iraq's transition", and 5) have national elections in Iraq by next January. My only major critiicism would be that there's still no exit strategy, and hopefully that's something that John Kerry can propose in the next few weeks since I doubt the Bush administration will come up with one.

The LA Times has the text here. My problem isn't as much with the plan, but on the ability and the creditability that the Bush administration has to execute it. We were told that there would be WMD's in Iraq, but it took over a year to find any trace of anything. Americans were led to believe that Iraq was connected to the Al-Qaeda network and that Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11 when they weren't. We were told that all peaceful options would be exhausted before war and that didn't happen either. Now, tonight, George Bush said that "American soldiers and civilians on the ground have come to know and respect the citizens of Iraq", but Iraqis want the US out the country. Why? The prisoner abuse scandal.

We were actually gaining creditability among the Iraqi people before the prisoner abuse scandal. Forty percent of Iraqis saw Americans as liberators before the scandal (now it's seven percent). How can we regain creditability? Well, electing John Kerry in November would be the single best way, but in the short term the administration needs to take some real responsibility over the prisoner abuse. And did Bush do that in his speech? Not at all. Bush skirted the issue. He said that we would help Iraq build a high-security prison, and as a symbolic gesture, Abu Ghraib (which Bush managed to stumble over as he spoke it - you'd think he'd would have been prepped for it), and the soldiers will be punished. Bush basically devoted 30 seconds to the entire issue:

A new Iraq will also need a humane, well-supervised prison system. Under the dictator, prisons like Abu Ghraib were symbols of death and torture. That same prison became a symbol of disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values. America will fund the construction of a modern, maximum security prison. When that prison is completed, detainees at Abu Ghraib will be relocated. Then, with the approval of the Iraqi government, we will demolish the Abu Ghraib prison, as a fitting symbol of Iraq's new beginning.

"Disgraceful conduct by a few American troops"? First, it's more than a few. Second, the conduct doesn't occur in a vacuum. These troops have commanders. These troops weren't trained correctly. The troops ought to be punished severely, but so should the chain of command that failed them, all the way to the top with Rumsfeld and Bush. The only way we regain the trust of the Iraqi people is if they see real accountability. And they don't.