The fourth time in nine days, the president delivered yet another speech on Congress’ spending bill for the war in Iraq. That Bush feels this is necessary is open to some interpretation, though I’m inclined to believe the White House thinks it’s losing this fight, so it’s trying to take the offensive, being aggressive on shaping the debate.
Fortunately for those of us who actually read these speeches, Bush’s comments this morning were slightly different than the other three (reading the palaver is tiresome, reading the same palaver repeatedly is mind-numbing). Let’s do a little fact-checking.
“The families gathered here understand that our troops want to finish the job.”
Really? There’s evidence to the contrary. As Greg Sargent noted, a recent Army Times poll found that only about half of U.S. troops think that success in this war is even possible. What’s more, only 38% of the troops expressed support for the president’s escalation strategy.
I’d add that last week, once soldiers started hearing about Bush extending their tours, there were “outbursts of anger and frustration laced with dark humor.” Specialist Rodney Lawson, to no one in particular, said, “If I get malaria, I get to leave, right?”
“Families gathered here understand that America is not going to be safe until the terrorist threat has been defeated.”
I think that’s largely true, which is one of the reasons I support a withdrawal — we’re making the terrorist threat worse, not better, by staying in Iraq.
“We must give our men and women in uniform the tools and resources they need to prevail. Providing these resources is the responsibility of the United States Congress…. Congress’ failure to fund our troops will mean that the readiness of our forces will suffer. This is unacceptable to me; it’s unacceptable to you, and it’s unacceptable to the vast majority of the American people.”
Both the House and Senate spending bills give our men and women in uniform the tools and resources they need. Bush neglected to mention this; it must have slipped his mind.
“[Lawmakers] spend billions of dollars on domestic projects that have nothing to do with the war.”
Really? Then why did Bush’s own budget proposal include lots of funding for projects “that have nothing to do with the war”? As Scott Lilly recently explained, the White House request contained “funds for federal prisons, Kosovo debt relief, flood control on the Mississippi, nutrition programs in Africa, educational and cultural exchange activities around the world, disease control in South Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe, and salaries for U.S. marshals.” Sounds like Congress followed Bush’s lead; so what’s he whining about?
“We should not be substituting political judgment for the judgment of those in our military.”
That sounds perfectly reasonable. Too bad the president identified those commanders in our military who disagreed with him — and fired them.
Ultimately, though, it wasn’t specific comments that were the most troubling, it was a theme that ran through the 13-minute speech. Nico put it all together.
“They know that the enemies who attacked us on September the 11th, 2001 want to bring further destruction to our country.
“One of the lessons of September the 11th is what happens overseas matters to the security of the United States of America.
“…to fight the extremists and radicals where they live, so we don’t have to face them where we live.
“…they won’t leave us alone — they will follow us to the United States of America.
“The consequences of failure in Iraq would be death and destruction in the Middle East and here in America.
“We’ll continue to do the hard work necessary to help change the conditions that caused 19 young men to get on airplanes to come and kill thousands of our citizens on September the 11th.
“Enemies that could just as easily come here to kill us.”
Bush didn’t quite say, “Give me a blank check or we’ll all be killed,” but he certainly seemed to be going down that road. It wasn’t pretty.
Bush is usually at his most effective when he appears confident and self-assured. This president appeared panicky and desperate. If the speech was intended to intimidate Congress, it might have backfired.