Get Bush off the Hook
by Helen Thomas
WA****NGTON - Former Secretary of State James Baker is riding to the
rescue of President Bush. So what else is new?
Baker has been there many times before for the Bush family -- to
pull
their chestnuts out of the fire.
This time it appears he is being called to help President Bush
finesse
his way out of the Iraqi debacle and save face.
Baker is a master at resolving tricky situations, and he does it
with
a smile.
He is the Republican co-chairman of a bipartisan panel, called "The
Iraq Study Group," created last March with a ****ge from Congress.
The group is working on a re****t on Iraq which may offer an exit
plan
as an alternative to the president's widely touted "stay the course"
policy.
But it won't be released until after the November election. Naturally!
Ultimately, the re****t may get Bush off the hook in the no-win
situation in Iraq. At a news conference Wednesday, the president
reiterated
his pledge not to "get out (of Iraq) before the job is done."
But Bush said he was prepared "to change tactics" if Baker's team
recommends a switch. The word "tactics" may be a rhetorical device to help
ease an inglorious U.S. exit from the war, now nearing its fourth year.
In an interview on Sunday on ABC-TV, Baker said in his usual manner
of
lawyerly obfuscation: "I think it's fair to say our commission believes
that
there are alternatives between the stated alternatives -- the ones that
are
out there in the political debate -- of 'stay the course' and "cut an
run.'
"
The phrase "cut and run" has become the president's favored jibe at
Democrats who urge a pullout from Iraq.
Former Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, is co-chairman of the
group. One can only hope that its re****t will have a major impact on the
floundering administration, which has to contend with growing American
casualties in an unpopular war and rising discontent among its own loyal
Republicans in national polls.
Unfortunately Baker flatly rejected a quick withdrawal from Iraq on
grounds that "you would see the biggest civil war you've ever seen." Well,
what does Baker think is going on in Iraq right now?
Meantime, Bush has rejected as "just not credible" a re****t of
public
health researchers that there have been more than 600,000 Iraqi civilian
casualties since the U.S. invasion in 2003.
Bush is seeing some of his own party leaders turning off on the war.
Sen. John Warner, R-Va. chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
returned from a trip to Iraq last week and said there might have to be a
"change in course in three months."
Baker, a skilled Texas political operative, had served as chief of
staff in the Reagan administration and as secretary of the Treasury before
becoming the nation's chief diplomat in the administration of George
Herbert
Walker Bush, father of the president and Baker's close, lifelong friend.
Baker is well-schooled in Middle Eastern politics. In his 1995
memoir,
Baker recalled his 1991 warning not to take Baghdad and topple Saddam
Hussein after the successful Persian Gulf War, fearing it would provoke a
civil war that would take U.S. forces a long time to quell. For the same
reasons, the previous President Bush decided against a full-scale invasion
of Iraq after liberating Kuwait.
But the current President Bush preferred to take the word of the
neocon advisers who told him the invasion of Iraq would be a "cakewalk."
Both Baker and the senior Bush are vindicated in their view by the
ongoing chaos in Iraq. But they have not sold the present president, who
has
indicated the war will go on after he has left office.
On Wednesday, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, said
that the army is planning to keep its current level of troops in Iraq
through 2010.
Baker has come through for Bush in the past, helping to convince the
Supreme Court to halt the Florida vote recount in the presidential
election
in 2000. For his efforts, a second Bush won the presidency.
Meantime, U.S. officials in Baghdad and Wa****ngton seem bent on
tra****ng the Iraqi government, blaming it for not bringing the aggressive
militias under control and indicating Iraqi officials are not up to the
job
of running the country.
That's what I call chutzpah. We invade and tear up a country;
install
our style of government in Baghdad and then criticize them for weaknesses
and mistakes. Is that our pass****t out of Iraq?
What's more, those who play ball with us such as Iraqi Vice
President
Amir al-Ha****mi -- who lost three siblings by assassination this year --
pay
a heavy personal price.
If Baker's group does not find a way to extricate U.S. troops from
the
Iraqi quagmire, the American people surely will.
© 1998-2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
###
|
