WASHINGTON, May 24 — President Bush's speech on Monday night kicked off a critical five-week period in which the White House must not only make good on its pledge to return self-governance to the Iraqi people but also convince the American electorate that the benefits of deposing Saddam Hussein have outweighed the costs in blood, money and battered prestige.
It is a tall order. Mr. Bush spoke against the backdrop of unabated violence in Iraq, the prison abuse scandal, confusion about the plan for transferring authority to an as-yet unnamed interim government on June 30 and the difficult negotiations concerning the role of the United Nations.
Making his task that much more complicated was the hard-fought presidential campaign, in which Mr. Bush's role as commander in chief is no longer the unalloyed strength the White House once assumed it would be.
In the hours before his address, delivered at the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., Mr. Bush got a fresh reminder of just how fully his political fate is now tied to events in Iraq.
A new crop of opinion polls showed that his job approval ratings continue to fall, that Americans increasingly think the nation is on the wrong track and that most people do not think Mr. Bush has a clear plan for bringing the involvement of the United States in Iraq to a successful conclusion.
With so much of what is happening in Iraq beyond Mr. Bush's control, the five-part plan for stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq that the president outlined may not unfold in the orderly manner he described.
"Did this prepare the American people for the fact that Iraqis might make different choices, that Iraq could devolve into a civil war, that what we're doing there is much less popular in Iraq than the president implies, and did he look at the downside rather than the upside?" asked Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The answer is no."
Mr. Bush has a plan, Mr. Cordesman said, but "it's very easy to see the plan unravel because it's not so much dependent on the quality of our plan but on the dynamics of Iraq's internal politics."
Mr. Bush made only one concrete concession to the grim reality of the past few weeks, setting out a plan to build a new high-security prison and tear down Abu Ghraib, the jail where some Iraqi prisoners were abused by their American captors and where Mr. Hussein's government had earlier tortured and killed untold numbers of its own citizens. Mr. Bush again tied Iraq to the broader war on terror, and he warned that the attacks in Iraq would not end with the planned transfer of sovereignty in five weeks.
If the five-point approach he set out covered all the bases on paper, it still risked appearing detached from the violence and chaos that has threatened to engulf Iraq. Coming into the address, Mr. Bush was clearly under pressure from within his own party as well as from Democrats to go beyond his usual counseling of patience and fortitude.
"There's a growing unease in this country and in Congress about whether we have a plan for success in Iraq," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. "Even those who have been stalwart supporters of the president's decision to invade Iraq now have many questions about how we make the transition to a peaceful and democratic country."
Senator Collins said it was clear that the administration had misjudged what the United States would face once Mr. Hussein was deposed, and that this speech was critical to his efforts to maintain both domestic and international support.
"America needs to hear from the president not only his resolve, which very few people doubt, but also his plan for accomplishing what right now seem to be very difficult and daunting goals," she said before the speech.
As he presses ahead on the diplomatic and military fronts, Mr. Bush is also confronting the continued fallout from the prison abuse cases, which have expanded to encompass incidents beyond those first disclosed at Abu Ghraib and fueled intense reactions in the United States and abroad. There are sure to be continued questions about the administration's trust in Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile leader, who is under investigation for passing highly classified American intelligence to Iran.
It is uncertain whether the Iraqi people will accept as legitimate the interim government that is to be named this week by the United Nations envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, and whether that government will be subject to the same types of attacks that cost the life of, among others, Izzedin Salim, the president of the Iraqi Governing Council, who was killed by a car bomb last week. With Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis all vying for power, there is no assurance that the interim government will hold together or be able to function.
To Mr. Bush's allies, the main job now is not so much to adjust policy as to do a better job of reminding the American people why the United States went into Iraq in the first place and the benefits to the United States of succeeding in nurturing a stable democracy in the heart of the Middle East.
"Over the last several weeks there's been an overemphasis on the prison situation and the continued bloodshed and attacks in Iraq," said Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia. "Now is the time for the president to step up and tell the public why we're doing what we're doing and remind them of the importance of the mission."
Asked about Mr. Bush's declining poll numbers and the political effect on his party in the heat of an election campaign, Mr. Cantor replied, "Anytime this president gets on television and draws a picture for the American public as to why we're in Iraq and how we're committed to helping democracy grow, he wins public opinion."
Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, said that Mr. Bush would always benefit by drawing as sharp a contrast as possible between the American goals of democracy and peace in the Middle East and the brutality of Mr. Hussein and Islamic terrorists.
"We've forgotten how all this started, how they love death more than life and we love life more than death," Mr. Simpson said. "The guy on the bar stool in Buffalo, Wyo., has figured this out. The people who hate Bush find this a wallowing ground of pleasure."
The political implications for Mr. Bush would be limited, Mr. Simpson said, because voters did not trust Mr. Bush's expected Democratic opponent, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, to provide any better answers.
"If it's a threat to his re-election, then the question is, What is the other guy saying?" Mr. Simpson said. "Out in the land — and I travel all over — people are saying, `What's Kerry going to do about it? Got any new ideas, chum?' "
Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick, who was ambassador to the United Nations in the Reagan administration, said the most important thing was that Mr. Bush "reassure the American people that he knows what he's doing."
The proposed United Nations resolution appears acceptable to all or most of the Security Council, she said, and would help Mr. Bush coax other nations and the United Nations bureaucracy back to Iraq in supporting roles.
"That's a very important first step in beginning to transform our relationship with Iraq," she said. "That's what's going on right now that's critical."
NY Times OpEd.
It is a tall order. Mr. Bush spoke against the backdrop of unabated violence in Iraq, the prison abuse scandal, confusion about the plan for transferring authority to an as-yet unnamed interim government on June 30 and the difficult negotiations concerning the role of the United Nations.
Making his task that much more complicated was the hard-fought presidential campaign, in which Mr. Bush's role as commander in chief is no longer the unalloyed strength the White House once assumed it would be.
In the hours before his address, delivered at the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., Mr. Bush got a fresh reminder of just how fully his political fate is now tied to events in Iraq.
A new crop of opinion polls showed that his job approval ratings continue to fall, that Americans increasingly think the nation is on the wrong track and that most people do not think Mr. Bush has a clear plan for bringing the involvement of the United States in Iraq to a successful conclusion.
With so much of what is happening in Iraq beyond Mr. Bush's control, the five-part plan for stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq that the president outlined may not unfold in the orderly manner he described.
"Did this prepare the American people for the fact that Iraqis might make different choices, that Iraq could devolve into a civil war, that what we're doing there is much less popular in Iraq than the president implies, and did he look at the downside rather than the upside?" asked Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The answer is no."
Mr. Bush has a plan, Mr. Cordesman said, but "it's very easy to see the plan unravel because it's not so much dependent on the quality of our plan but on the dynamics of Iraq's internal politics."
Mr. Bush made only one concrete concession to the grim reality of the past few weeks, setting out a plan to build a new high-security prison and tear down Abu Ghraib, the jail where some Iraqi prisoners were abused by their American captors and where Mr. Hussein's government had earlier tortured and killed untold numbers of its own citizens. Mr. Bush again tied Iraq to the broader war on terror, and he warned that the attacks in Iraq would not end with the planned transfer of sovereignty in five weeks.
If the five-point approach he set out covered all the bases on paper, it still risked appearing detached from the violence and chaos that has threatened to engulf Iraq. Coming into the address, Mr. Bush was clearly under pressure from within his own party as well as from Democrats to go beyond his usual counseling of patience and fortitude.
"There's a growing unease in this country and in Congress about whether we have a plan for success in Iraq," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. "Even those who have been stalwart supporters of the president's decision to invade Iraq now have many questions about how we make the transition to a peaceful and democratic country."
Senator Collins said it was clear that the administration had misjudged what the United States would face once Mr. Hussein was deposed, and that this speech was critical to his efforts to maintain both domestic and international support.
"America needs to hear from the president not only his resolve, which very few people doubt, but also his plan for accomplishing what right now seem to be very difficult and daunting goals," she said before the speech.
As he presses ahead on the diplomatic and military fronts, Mr. Bush is also confronting the continued fallout from the prison abuse cases, which have expanded to encompass incidents beyond those first disclosed at Abu Ghraib and fueled intense reactions in the United States and abroad. There are sure to be continued questions about the administration's trust in Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile leader, who is under investigation for passing highly classified American intelligence to Iran.
It is uncertain whether the Iraqi people will accept as legitimate the interim government that is to be named this week by the United Nations envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, and whether that government will be subject to the same types of attacks that cost the life of, among others, Izzedin Salim, the president of the Iraqi Governing Council, who was killed by a car bomb last week. With Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis all vying for power, there is no assurance that the interim government will hold together or be able to function.
To Mr. Bush's allies, the main job now is not so much to adjust policy as to do a better job of reminding the American people why the United States went into Iraq in the first place and the benefits to the United States of succeeding in nurturing a stable democracy in the heart of the Middle East.
"Over the last several weeks there's been an overemphasis on the prison situation and the continued bloodshed and attacks in Iraq," said Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia. "Now is the time for the president to step up and tell the public why we're doing what we're doing and remind them of the importance of the mission."
Asked about Mr. Bush's declining poll numbers and the political effect on his party in the heat of an election campaign, Mr. Cantor replied, "Anytime this president gets on television and draws a picture for the American public as to why we're in Iraq and how we're committed to helping democracy grow, he wins public opinion."
Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, said that Mr. Bush would always benefit by drawing as sharp a contrast as possible between the American goals of democracy and peace in the Middle East and the brutality of Mr. Hussein and Islamic terrorists.
"We've forgotten how all this started, how they love death more than life and we love life more than death," Mr. Simpson said. "The guy on the bar stool in Buffalo, Wyo., has figured this out. The people who hate Bush find this a wallowing ground of pleasure."
The political implications for Mr. Bush would be limited, Mr. Simpson said, because voters did not trust Mr. Bush's expected Democratic opponent, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, to provide any better answers.
"If it's a threat to his re-election, then the question is, What is the other guy saying?" Mr. Simpson said. "Out in the land — and I travel all over — people are saying, `What's Kerry going to do about it? Got any new ideas, chum?' "
Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick, who was ambassador to the United Nations in the Reagan administration, said the most important thing was that Mr. Bush "reassure the American people that he knows what he's doing."
The proposed United Nations resolution appears acceptable to all or most of the Security Council, she said, and would help Mr. Bush coax other nations and the United Nations bureaucracy back to Iraq in supporting roles.
"That's a very important first step in beginning to transform our relationship with Iraq," she said. "That's what's going on right now that's critical."
NY Times OpEd.
