In a sobering assessment of the Iraq war, US President George W. Bush acknowledged on Monday that Americans' resolve had been shaken by grisly scenes of death and des-truction and he pointedly criticized the performance of US-trained Iraqi troops.
"No question about it," he said. "The bombers are having an effect."
Bush also offered a warm testimonial for US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the face of a growing number of expressions of no-confidence by Republican senators.
Rumsfeld appears "rough and gruff," Bush said, but "he's a good, decent man. He's a caring fellow."
For 53 minutes, Bush fielded questions on international and domestic affairs. It was his 17th formal news conference, held one day before he flies to the presidential retreat at Camp David for a vacation that will stretch into early next year and include a stay at his Texas ranch.
Bush spoke a day after the deadliest attacks in Iraq since July -- killing at least 54 people in Najaf and at least 13 in Karbala -- and six weeks before Iraqis vote for a transitional assembly that will choose a president and a government and draft a permanent constitution. US newspapers showed chilling pictures of rebels in the heart of Baghdad executing election workers in cold blood.
"And so the American people are taking a look at Iraq and wondering whether the Iraqis are eventually going to be able to fight off these bombers and killers," Bush said in perhaps his clearest expression of frustration with Iraqi forces.
Bush's strategy calls for US troops to protect Iraq while local police and soldiers are trained to do the job themselves, eventually allowing the US to withdraw.
"Now I would call the results mixed in terms of standing up Iraqi units who are willing to fight," Bush said in a candid assessment. "There have been some cases where, when the heat got on, they left the battlefield. That's unacceptable. Iraq will never secure itself if they have troops that, when the heat gets on, they leave the battlefield."
What is needed, he said, is a better military command structure.
Polls show an erosion in Americans' confidence that a stable, democratic government will be established in Iraq.
"Polls change. Polls go up, polls go down," Bush said.
He said he understood why Americans have doubts about Iraq's ability to deal with the situation.
"They're looking on your TV screen and seeing indiscriminate bombings, where thousands of innocent -- or hundreds of innocent Iraqis are getting killed," he said.
But Bush said those pictures do not reflect the fact that 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces are relatively stable and that small businesses are starting up.
"Life is better now than it was under [former Iraqi president] Saddam Hussein," he said. "But no question about it. The bombers are having an effect ... They're trying to shake the will of the Iraqi people and, frankly, trying to shake the will of the American people."
Bush warned that insurgents would try to delay Iraq's elections, scheduled for Jan. 30, and intimidate the people.
"I certainly don't expect the process to be trouble-free," Bush said.
"Yet I am confident of the result. I'm confident that terrorists will fail, the elections will go forward and Iraq will be a democracy," he said.
Bush said he could not predict when US forces could come home.
He also renewed his warning to Syria and Iran against "meddling" in Iraq's political process.
"I meant it. And hopefully those governments heard what I said," he said, without specifying consequences.
Meanwhile, more Americans than ever, some 56 percent, say the war in Iraq is not worth fighting, according to a poll on Monday.
Some 57 percent of those surveyed disapproved of Bush's handling of the situation, just one point lower than his rating at the height of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, the ABC News/Washington Post poll found.
Rumsfeld's approval rating was only 35 percent -- half of where it stood when Baghdad fell -- and 52 percent said Bush should sack him.
Americans also doubted Iraq's elections planned for Jan. 30 could proceed adequately, with 58 percent saying the country was not ready and 54 percent saying the polls would not be honest and fair. But 60 percent said the elections should be held as planned anyway.
Also see story:
The paramount chief of a volcanic island in Vanuatu yesterday said that he was “very impressed” by a UN court’s declaration that countries must tackle climate change. Vanuatu spearheaded the legal case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, which on Wednesday ruled that countries have a duty to protect against the threat of a warming planet. “I’m very impressed,” George Bumseng, the top chief of the Pacific archipelago’s island of Ambrym, told reporters in the capital, Port Vila. “We have been waiting for this decision for a long time because we have been victims of this climate change for
MASSIVE LOSS: If the next recall votes also fail, it would signal that the administration of President William Lai would continue to face strong resistance within the legislature The results of recall votes yesterday dealt a blow to the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) efforts to overturn the opposition-controlled legislature, as all 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers survived the recall bids. Backed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) DPP, civic groups led the recall drive, seeking to remove 31 out of 39 KMT lawmakers from the 113-seat legislature, in which the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) together hold a majority with 62 seats, while the DPP holds 51 seats. The scale of the recall elections was unprecedented, with another seven KMT lawmakers facing similar votes on Aug. 23. For a
Taiwan must invest in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to keep abreast of the next technological leap toward automation, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said at the luanch ceremony of Taiwan AI and Robots Alliance yesterday. The world is on the cusp of a new industrial revolution centered on AI and robotics, which would likely lead to a thorough transformation of human society, she told an event marking the establishment of a national AI and robotics alliance in Taipei. The arrival of the next industrial revolution could be a matter of years, she said. The pace of automation in the global economy can
All 24 lawmakers of the main opposition Chinese Nationalists Party (KMT) on Saturday survived historical nationwide recall elections, ensuring that the KMT along with Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers will maintain opposition control of the legislature. Recall votes against all 24 KMT lawmakers as well as Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) and KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) failed to pass, according to Central Election Commission (CEC) figures. In only six of the 24 recall votes did the ballots cast in favor of the recall even meet the threshold of 25 percent of eligible voters needed for the recall to pass,