Bush Insists U.S. Has Clear Iraq Strategy

Alas as usual, the devil is in the details, aint it?---BumbleBeeBoogie

Posted on Sat, Sep. 13, 2003
Bush Insists U.S. Has Clear Iraq Strategy
DEB RIECHMANN - Associated Press

WASHINGTON - President Bush is stressing that the United States has a clear mission in Iraq to fight terrorists and foster democracy there, yet a new poll shows that fewer than half of Americans share his belief.

Also Saturday, the State Department said Secretary of State Colin Powell will go to Iraq after finishing discussions with fellow U.N. Security Council members over deep differences on U.S. plans for the country.

A CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll released Friday found that nearly six in 10 Americans, or 59 percent, said they did not think the administration has a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq. The poll of 1,025 adults - taken Monday through Thursday after Bush's nationally televised address on Iraq last Sunday - had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

"We are following a clear strategy with three objectives: destroy the terrorists, enlist international support for a free Iraq and quickly transfer authority to the Iraqi people," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress has enacted legislation to better secure airports and seaports, fortify U.S. borders and provide intelligence and law enforcement agencies new tools to track terrorists.

Still, more needs to be done, Rep. Jane Harman of California, senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in the Democrats' radio response.

"Two years after the most deadly single-day attack in our nation's history, the question is whether we are as secure as we need to be from future terrorist attacks," Harman said. "Unfortunately, the answer is 'no.'"

Bush's radio address, a progress report on the war in Iraq, mirrored speeches he made earlier in the week that also were designed to counter rising skepticism about U.S. involvement in Iraq.

Bush said U.S.-led coalition forces continue to take action against loyalists of Saddam Hussein and foreign terrorists, and the United States is moving forward on a specific plan to return sovereignty and authority to Iraqi citizens. A governing council comprising Iraqi citizens has selected a committee that will help draft a new constitution.

"When a constitution has been drafted and ratified by the Iraqi people, Iraq will enjoy free and fair elections," he said, "and the coalition will yield its remaining authority to a free and sovereign Iraqi government."

He said the United States is continuing to urge international cooperation in rebuilding Iraq.

Powell was meeting Saturday in Geneva with the secretary general of the United Nations and representatives of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to discuss ideas for a new U.N. resolution to encourage wider participation in the reconstruction effort.

Powell already rejected as "totally unrealistic" a French proposal for U.S.-led authorities in Iraq to surrender control within a month to a provisional Iraqi government.

The State Department announced in Geneva that after the meetings Powell would make his first visit to Iraq.

A brief statement said he will travel to Kuwait and Iraq but did not specify a date. He was to finish the Geneva sessions Saturday afternoon.

The visit to Iraq, the country that has been the major focus of his attention since he took office, will be Powell's first. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Iraq last week, his second visit in four months.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Powell will meet with Iraqis and with members of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in order "to see firsthand the progress being made by the international community and by the Iraqi people in rebuilding their nation and society."

The statement provided no additional details.

Powell's meetings with colleagues from the Security Council were to try to narrow differences over the degree to which the United States should dominate postwar political arrangements in Iraq.

"Today, with our help, the people of Iraq are working to create a free, functioning and prosperous society," Bush said. "The terrorists know that if these efforts are successful, their ideology of hate will suffer a grave defeat. So they are attacking our forces, international aid workers, and innocent civilians."

Despite steps taken to protect America from future attack, Harman noted in the Democratic response, the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations reported recently that the nation remains "dangerously unprepared" to prevent and respond to another terrorist attack.

She said the Department of Homeland Security is understaffed and underfunded.

The nation lacks a comprehensive "watch list" to help all relevant agencies keep terrorists out of the country and find those here before they can do harm, she said. A threat warning system won't work until it gives local law enforcement and the public specific and timely information about what to look for and what to do, she said.

In addition, Harman said the nation still lacks the radio spectrum and emergency equipment to make sure first responders can communicate with one another.

"Brave firefighters died needlessly in New York City (on Sept. 11) because they could not be warned that the Trade Towers were falling down as they were climbing up," she said. "Adjacent jurisdictions responding to the attack at the Pentagon could not talk to each other - and still can't communicate with their federal partners."