American Entropy: Iraq goes from a Bush problem to a national problem

19 June 2005

Iraq goes from a Bush problem to a national problem

Why?

Because you have the big names in the Democratic Party warning of a draft, and others lobbying for a complete pull-out from Iraq. Both speculations are damaging because there is no realistic alternative or idea that accompanies these warnings or demands. The draft is coming and there is no Democratic fix for it. Some Dems demand we get out of Iraq but have no words on what will happen afterwards. You can't change the past with inaction in the present of future.

Late last week a senior Bush administration official said; "I think you'll see it continuing up, because the terrorists know what's coming." Compare this to Bush and Cheney's claims of an insurgency being in their "last throes" and you clearly have a White House that is not in reality. Republican Senators and Representatives have begun to join the choir.

Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel is angry. He's upset about the more than 1,700 U.S. soldiers killed and nearly 13,000 wounded in Iraq. He's also aggravated by the continued string of sunny assessments from the Bush administration, such as Vice President Dick Cheney's recent remark that the insurgency is in its "last throes." "Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality," Hagel tells U.S. News. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

That's strikingly blunt talk from a member of the president's party, even one cast as something of a pariah in the GOP because of his early skepticism about the war. "I got beat up pretty good by my own party and the White House that I was not a loyal Republican," he says. Today, he notes, things are changing: "More and more of my colleagues up here are concerned."

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