Bush will be speaking on Iraq tonight to pump up his sagging approval ratings. Think Progress notes that, when Clinton had troops in Kosovo in 1999, Bush stressed the importance of an exit strategy and a timetable for withdrawl:
"Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is."and
"I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn."
The changes in Bush's principles as soon as he became Commander-in-Chief are so pronounced that his vaunted "steady leadership in times of change" looks rather like a flip-flop. Bush said on Friday that, with regards to our troops in Iraq:
There's not going to be any timetables. [...] It doesn't make any sense to have a timetable. You know, if you give a timetable, you're -- you're conceding too much to the enemy.
After Bush refuses to lay out either an exit strategy or a timetable during his speech, what will he talk about to fill the rest of his free airtime? Will he discuss the Downing Street Memo? Will he take a few suggestions from John Kerry? Maybe he'll contrast Rumsfeld's rose-colored pre-invasion rhetoric:
"It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." (7 Feb 2003)
with Rumsfeld's recent assessment on Fox News Sunday:
"That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years. Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency." (26 June 2005)
It should be an interesting speech.
.*BAGHDAD Two U.S. soldiers were kleild in two separate roadside bomb attacks in southern Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement.*MOSUL Police said they found 11 bodies, all with gunshot wounds, in the northern city of Mosul.BAGHDAD Gunmen kleild university professor Muntathar Mohammed Mehdi in his car, along with his brother and cousin, relatives and hospital sources said. Relatives said Mehdi was a member of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's political movement.BAGHDAD A car bomb in the parking lot of an Interior Ministry office charged with issuing identity cards kleild four people and wounded eight in Adhamiya district in northern Baghdad, police said.BAIJI A roadside bomb kleild two motorists and wounded three north of Baghdad, police said.BAGHDAD A suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into a police checkpoint near Baghdad University in the southwestern Jadriya district, killing 11 people and wounding 31, including some students, an Interior Ministry source said.MOSUL U.S. forces said they captured a senior al Qaeda leader and five insurgents in a raid in the northern city of Mosul. It said the main suspect, whom it did not name, was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians.MAHMUDIYA Two bodies with gunshot wounds and signs of torture were found in the town of Mahmudiya, about 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.BAGHDAD A car bomb wounded two people in Bayaa district in southern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.BAGHDAD A car bomb wounded two people in Camp Sara district in eastern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.