WASHINGTON - Three years after declaring major military operations over in Iraq, President Bush said Monday that a report from his two top foreign policy officials on their visit to Baghdad shows that Iraq's leadership is "more determined than ever to succeed."
"We believe we've got partners to help the Iraqi people realize their dreams," Bush said outside the Oval Office after meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "They need to know that we stand with them."
But Bush said that Rice and Rumsfeld didn't come back from their surprise joint visit to Iraq last week — intended to boost the standing and spirits of the newly formed permanent government in Baghdad — with all good news.
"There's going to be more tough days ahead," the president said, with Rice and Rumsfeld at his side. "It's a government that understands they've got serious challenges ahead of them."
Though Bush was emphasizing the positive, it was a decidedly less positive message than the one he offered from aboard an aircraft carrier, the USS Lincoln, on May 1, 2003. "The tyrant has fallen and Iraq is free," he said then, standing underneath a banner proclaiming: "Mission Accomplished."
What more can I say about this that hasn't been said already? The Iraq war is a complete disaster. American soldiers are slowly being stuffed into a meatgrinder of a low-tech insurgency--one American killed here in a roadside bomb, another American killed over there. The country is already in a state of civil war. And President Bush continues to claim that Iraq is a success, but that there are more tough days ahead, and that the enemy is more determined than ever. It is like I'm listening to a broken record, playing the same snippet of the tune "Happy Days Are Here Again" over and over, while the entire house is burning down. We've heard plenty of talk on how President Bush exists in a White House bubble--but it has gone beyond this "bubble boy" mentality. Bush no longer lives in a bubble--he is a child living in the womb of his own misguided world, playing with his little toy soldiers or his ABC blocks, completely oblivious to the environment around him. He cannot be reasoned with, argued with, or debated with--I'm not sure he can even hold a rational thought now, considering the rumors and stories circulating that President Bush has gone back to drinking again. So Bush the Child sits in his own little world, playing with his toy soldiers, happily singing along with that broken record, "Happy Days Are Here Again."
While all around him, the White House, and the country, burns down.
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