In Bushworld, you don't have to BE a hero you just have to be marketed like one on TV. Meanwhile, back in reality...
Mon Sep 27, 7:55 AM ET
Los Angeles Times
By Tyler Marshall Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — Despite continuing violence and instability, President Bush has stuck doggedly to his central message on Iraq: There is no need to change course because the administration's plan for planting democracy in the Middle East is working.
Yet behind the unwavering public posture, there is evidence that the Bush administration has altered its approach. It has lowered its hopes for the type of democracy that can be achieved, changed course on its plans to privatize Iraq's economy and reordered its priorities by devoting more money to improving security as fast as possible.
Gone — at least for now — is the lofty ideal of Iraq serving as a free-market democratic model that would ignite the forces of change throughout the Middle East and lay the seeds of a settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said administration officials have told him privately that they have lowered their expectations. "They've definitely recalibrated their goals," he said. "One of them told me: 'When we went in there, I thought we would build American-style democracy. Hell, I'd be happy with Romanian-style democracy now.' "
"It doesn't mean you abandon" the Iraqis, Kolbe added. "It reflects what is realistic, what is doable." Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld echoed that sentiment Friday, when asked what it would take for the United States to declare victory and begin to withdraw.
"Any implication that that place has to be peaceful and perfect before we can reduce coalition and U.S. forces I think would obviously be unwise because it's never been peaceful and perfect and it isn't likely to be," he said. National security advisor Condoleezza Rice this month defined success in more modest terms than the administration used in the war's early stages. "Success will be an Iraqi government that has gone through the legitimacy process of being elected and an Iraqi government that can defend itself," she said.
Many experts believe the administration will be hard-pressed even to pull that off...
By Adam Entous
CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - Many of President Bush (news - web sites)'s assertions about progress in Iraq (news - web sites) -- from police training and reconstruction to preparations for January elections -- are in dispute, according to internal Pentagon (news - web sites) documents, lawmakers and key congressional aides on Sunday...
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