Conservative pundit Robert Novak’s Monday column reported that “well-placed sources in the [Bush] administration” are saying “there is strong feeling that U.S. troops must leave Iraq next year. This determination is not predicated on success in implanting Iraqi democracy and internal stability. Rather, the officials are saying: Ready or not, here we go.” Whatever Novak’s political bias, he is well connected inside the current administration-remember who leaked Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA agent?-and it is likely that what he says is true. Novak goes on to note that “Bush cannot be expected to admit even the possibility of a quick withdrawal” so close to the election.
What Novak forgets is that every day Bush dithers over his policy, people are dying.
Both presidential candidates addressed the issue of Iraq this week, each in their own way. While John Kerry accurately points out that the security situation in the battered nation is reaching new lows, the administration’s talking points ignore these realities and conjure a rosy future for the nation-as did Secretary of State Colin Powell at Georgetown here last week. Between Novak’s scoop and the President’s actions, it is clear that Bush is now playing politics with the lives of American servicemen overseas-refusing to admit the truth for no other reason than to win an election.
A National Intelligence Estimate prepared by the CIA earlier in the month predicted that the best case scenario without American security forces would be tenuous stability, and more likely, civil war. At a press conference with President Allawi of Iraq on Monday, President Bush referred to the document as, “Just guessing as to what the conditions might be like.” Apparently, the CIA is only believable when they say what the President wants to hear. Otherwise, they’re just guessing,
Kerry is confronting the truth about an unpopular war, a task that escapes our current leader, who would rather delay and deceive until he can abandon the mess he made. If the United States wants to maintain its integrity, it’s time to face the truth.
