What a joke. Next he'll be bringing 'unity' to atheists & Christian
Evangelicals & the 'pro-choice' & 'pro-childbirth' crowds. Right, like
that's going to happen any day now as well ;-)

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March 22, 2006
Bush Says 'It's Time' for Unity Government in Iraq
By JOHN O'NEIL

President Bush continued his speaking tour today in support of his
policies in Iraq, saying that he told American officials in Iraq that
"it's time" for the political parties there to put aside their
differences and form a government of national unity.

"The people have spoken and now it's time for a government to get
stood up," he said in a televised appearance at the Capitol Music Hall
in Wheeling, W. Va.

Mr. Bush called for Iraqi leaders to "come together and form a unity
government."

"That's what the people want; otherwise, they wouldn't have gone to
the polls, would've they?" Mr. Bush asked.

He said he had spoken this morning to the American ambassador in Iraq,
Zalmay Khalilzad, and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American
commander in Iraq, and had told them "it's time" for that to happen.

Mr. Bush also said that he would make decisions on troop levels in
Iraq based on recommendations from generals in the field. "I'm going
to make up my mind based on achieving a victory, not upon polls, focus
groups or election-year politics," he said.

That statement was the closest he came to commenting on news coverage
that had focused on an answer he gave during a news conference on
Tuesday, in which he said it would be up to his successor to decide on
when the last American forces would leave Iraq.

On the plane ride from Washington to Wheeling, Scott McClellan, the
White House spokesman, said Mr. Bush had not been saying that large
numbers of forces would remain in Iraq through the end of his term.
"The question was, will there be zero," he told reporters, according
to a pool report. "So he was referring to that specific question."

Mr. Bush appeared in high spirits during the televised event, joking
with the crowd and at one point playacting being given the hook by his
wife, Laura, for talking too long. Mr. McClellan said that about 2,000
tickets had been distributed by the local Chamber of Commerce and
about 100 by the local newspaper.

The forum came closer in tone to the upbeat events during Mr. Bush's
2004 campaign than to the more somber speeches Mr. Bush has been
giving to mark the war's third anniversary.

The questions were overwhelmingly friendly, and the crowd gave two
questioners standing ovations. One was for a man with two sons in the
military who declared, "I thank God you are their commander in chief."
The other was for a woman married to an Army officer who had returned
from a tour of duty in Iraq with a DVD showing reconstruction work
that she wished she could have broadcast by the major networks. "If
the American people could see it, there would never be another
negative word about this conflict," she said, to cheers.

Mr. Bush passed up the chance to directly criticize the news media,
although he has argued repeatedly in recent speeches that what he sees
as a focus on violence has obscured broader progress in Iraq. But he
encouraged the woman and others in the audience to turn to the
Internet to get their point of view across without the filtering of
the media, using blogs or contacting the Web sites of groups that
support the troops.

Over all, Mr. Bush took a philosophical tone about the debate over
Iraq, and the doubts that have sapped his poll numbers.

"I can understand people saying it's all going to - it's not working
out," he said.

The president called the debate over the war healthy, so long as it
did not send a defeatist message to "our enemies," and said it was up
to him to do more to explain his positions.

"I'm the commander in chief, but I'm also the educator in chief, and I
have a responsibility to explain how and why I make decisions," he
said.

Mr. Bush gave a spirited defense of the decision to invade Iraq in
2003. His opening speech began by recounting the attacks of Sept. 11,
2001, and went on to cite Saddam Hussein as someone who had sponsored
terrorism and had used weapons of mass destruction.

In his recent speeches on the war, Mr. Bush has discussed shortcomings
of the operations more frankly than before, to show that difficulties
there were being acknowledged and dealt with. Today he cited three
changes of strategy: on reconstruction, the training of Iraqi forces
and the tactics used to clear areas of insurgents.

"We went in and built big plants, and they became targets," he said,
so the reconstruction effort was shifted to focus on smaller projects
in the provinces.

"First, we trained the army for threats from outside the country, and
then we realized that the true threats were from inside the country,"
he said.

And he recounted a story he had made the focus of a speech in
Cleveland on Monday, of the city of Tal Afar in western Iraq, which
was rid of insurgents last year in a lengthy military and political
effort after a too-brief assault in 2004 had allowed them to return
and regain control.

Mr. Bush, who has been accused of being insensitive to the war's toll
on American soldiers, also said repeated a statement he made on
Tuesday that he would pull the troops out tomorrow if he thought that
failure in Iraq was inevitable.

"Committing our troops into harm's way is the most difficult decision
a president can make," he said. "I'm going to meet with some - two
families of those who lost a loved one. It's my duty to do so - I'm
looking forward to being able to hug them, weep with them."

http://tinyurl.com/j5pjx
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The other problem I see in this is their change in strategy of
focusing 'reconstruction' away from larger projects (because they were
the focus of terrorist attacks) & towards smaller projects (as if that
will make the terrorist attacks diminish if not 'go away'). Why that
is a problem is because of exactly what we have seen come from that
strategic shift: smaller, more frequent terrorist attacks against
many, many more targets. Morons. Just get out of the country & watch
it sort itself out & when Iran finally takes over, problem solved. At
that point we can all just say "Thanks George, the world is better off
now, way to go" & be on our way ;-)