Print

Mail

wiki links

Bush's problems in Iraq are piling up

President George W. Bush's Iraq problems are piling up as violence spreads, US casualties rise and his poll numbers fall at home.

The president says he is determined to hand over political power to Iraqis by June 30, but no one knows who's going to take over in the growing chaos.

Each day brings more bad news and graphic pictures of fiery clashes that raise doubts about Bush's strategy, even among some Republican allies.

March was the second deadliest month for American forces in Iraq since Bush declared an end to major combat, and April is off to a bloody start with the heaviest fighting since the war that drove Saddam Hussein from power a year ago.

Americans accustomed to reading about attacks by Sunni insurgents in Iraq now see US soldiers facing a new wave of violence from a Shiite uprising encouraged by the militant Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The escalation of fighting across two fronts conflicts with Bush's oft-repeated claims of progress.

"We have problems, there's no hiding that," Paul Bremer, the top US civilian in Iraq, said on Tuesday. But he said Iraq, for all its trouble, still is on the path toward democracy.

"We've got tough work there because, you see, there are terrorists there who would rather kill innocent people than allow for the advance of freedom," Bush said in a speech in El Dorado, Arkansas. "That's what you're seeing going on. These people hate freedom. And we love freedom. And that's where the clash occurs."

Iraq is a central element in the president's war against terrorism, his signature issue in the presidential campaign and the grinding death count is taking its toll. Bush's overall job approval has dropped to 43 percent, a low point for his presidency, and more than half of Americans disapprove of the way he is handling Iraq, according to a poll released on Monday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

"They are worried by the chaos, by the violence, by the costs in American blood and dollars, and they are increasingly convinced the president has no plan for making it all succeed," said Thomas Mann, a specialist on the presidency at the Brookings Institution.

"On the other hand they're not at the point of cutting and running either," Mann said. "It seems to me what's there is doubt and caution but as of yet no full scale public revolt against our military presence there."

The pillar of Bush's strategy is the June 30 transfer of power to an interim government. With the November election approaching, Bush is eager to show progress in Iraq with movement toward democracy and a lessening of US responsibility.

In a broader sense, Bush reasons, if democracy takes hold in Iraq, it can spread across the Middle East.

Bush is to meet in Washington late next week with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, perhaps his staunchest ally on Iraq, to review strategy.

While Bush tries to project resolve and confidence, though, even his allies are second-guessing his decisions.

Republican Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has suggested extending the June 30 deadline to transfer power to an interim government. He questioned whether Iraq will be ready for self-rule in less than 90 days.

The administration is counting on the UN to come up with a plan but there is no agreement yet about what an Iraqi governing body will look like.

Senator John Kerry, Bush's Democratic rival, questioned the deadline on Tuesday. "I think the June 30 deadline is a fiction," he said, "and they never should have set an arbitrary deadline, which almost clearly has been affected by the election schedule in the United States of America."
This story has been viewed 2189 times.