[Vision2020] Bush Says He Won't Be Swayed To Withdraw

[Pat Kraut]

Thank God! Someone who takes a stand and will not be swayed by polls.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Hansen" <thansen at moscow.com>
To: "Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 4:00 PM
Subject: [Vision2020] Bush Says He Won't Be Swayed To Withdraw


>From the today's (November 28, 2006) Roundup edition of the Army times -

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Bush says he won't be swayed to withdraw
Iraq violence is not civil war, he adds

The Associated Press

RIGA, Latvia - President Bush, under pressure to change direction in Iraq,
said Tuesday he will not be persuaded by any calls to withdraw American
troops before the country is stabilized.

"There's one thing I'm not going to do, I'm not going to pull our troops off
the battlefield before the mission is complete," he said in a speech setting
the stage for high-stakes meetings with the Iraqi prime minister later this
week. "We can accept nothing less than victory for our children and our
grandchildren."

Bush added that the sectarian violence rocking Iraq is part of an al-Qaida
plot to goad Iraqi factions into repeated attacks and counterattacks.

"There's a lot of sectarian violence taking place, fomented in my opinion
because of the attacks by al-Qaida causing people to seek reprisal," he
said.

Bush, who travels to Jordan later in the week for a summit with Iraqi Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said the latest cycle of violence does not
represent a new era in Iraq. The country is reeling from the deadliest week
of sectarian fighting since the war began in March 2003.

"We've been in this phase for a while," Bush said.

The president dated the current spike in violence to the Feb. 22 bombing of
a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra, which triggered reprisal attacks between
Shiites and Sunnis and raised fears of civil war.

Reviews of how to alter the Iraq strategy are underway within the
administration, even as a bipartisan panel, led by former Secretary of State
James Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., is completing the
recommendations it is expected to present to Bush next month.

Bush said he will ask al-Maliki to explain his plan for quelling the
violence.

"The Maliki government is going to have to deal with that violence and we
want to help them do so," the president said. "It's in our interest that we
succeed."

Directly seeking help from Iran and Syria with Iraq, as part of new,
aggressive diplomacy throughout the region, is expected to be among the
recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton group.

But Bush continued to express his administration's reluctance to talk with
two nations it regards as pariah states working to destabilize the Middle
East.

Iran, the top U.S. rival in the region, has reached out to Iraq and Syria in
recent days - an attempt viewed as a bid to assert its role as a powerbroker
in Iraq.

Bush said Iraq is a sovereign nation, free to meet with its neighbors.

"If that's what they think they ought to do, that's fine," he said. "One
thing Iraq would like to see is for the Iranians to leave them alone."

The president added that the U.S. will only deal with Iran when they suspend
their program of enriching uranium, which could be used in a nuclear weapon
arsenal.

"The Iranians and the Syrians should help - not destabilize - this young
democracy," he said.

U.S. officials have previously accused Iran of military interference in
Iraq.

On Iraq, Jordan's King Abdullah, who is hosting al-Maliki's meeting with
Bush, has warned that unless bold steps are taken urgently, the new year
could dawn with three civil wars in the Middle East - with one in Iraq added
to those in Lebanon and between the Palestinians and Israelis.

But Bush, dodging a direct answer of whether civil war exists or not, tied
the three conflicts together in a different way. He said that recent strife
in Lebanon and the heated up Israeli-Palestinian dispute are, like Iraq, the
result of extremists trying to choke off democratic progress.

"When you see a young democracy beginning to emerge in the Middle East, the
extremists try to defeat its emergence," Bush said. "Extremists attack
because they can't stand the thought of a democracy. And the same thing is
happening in Iraq."

---------------------------------------------------------------

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

********************************************

"In America, anybody can become president.
That's one of the risks you take . . ."

- Adlai Stevenson

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