Newsweek - By Evan ThomasApril 19 issue - While U.S. soldiers battled to regain control of Iraqi cities, President George W. Bush was on his ranch last week in Crawford, Texas, giving a tour of the local flora and fauna to a group of conservationists. He was uncharacteristically late for his tour guests because he wanted to watch his national-security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, testify before the 9/11 commission. (One of the reporters covering Bush joked that the president hasn't watched anything that long that wasn't a baseball game.) The president did not have much to say about the mess in Iraq, and aides said that he had no plans to give a major speech. A White House official explained that Bush wanted to hold off and let the military-operations spokesmen do the talking, though it has not gone unnoticed by Bush's aides that the president's recent nationwide addresses have been largely panned.
Earlier in the week Bush did surprise reporters by appearing before them after meeting with the family of Army infantryman Chris Hill, killed by a bomb in the Iraq town of Fallujah. "We've got to stay the course and we will stay the course," said Bush, who appeared teary-eyed. Hill's father-in-law, Douglas Cope, had not been eager for the meeting with the president because, he told NEWSWEEK, he was concerned that the encounter would be "political." But Cope reported that Bush was emotional and that the president told the dead soldier's family, "I promise this job will be finished over there." Cope added: "That really was what I wanted to hear. We cannot leave this like Vietnam."
It's the war that never seems to go away. Perhaps we should feel comforted that Bush had time for nature tours and wasn't hunched over a map in the White House basement like Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam, picking bombing targets at 2 a.m. But, having bet his presidency on Iraq, Bush knows that if the war spins out of control, he may end up like Johnson, a political casualty of war. Bush wants to be seen as a "war president" who is decisive and acts. But now comes the real test: can he persuade the American people to make the sort of sacrifices and long-term commitments that go with being the world's sole superpower in what increasingly looks like a clash of civilizations?
Hard questions—and public opinion—reflect the complexities and ambiguities facing the president and his team. According to the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, a majority (57 percent) of Americans still believe that going to war with Iraq was the right thing to do. But close to half (46 percent) say they are not confident that the United States will ever bring the country stability and democracy. And four in 10 Americans are very concerned that Iraq will become another Vietnam.
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