Following Mr. Bush's 'way forward' in Iraq will get us nowhere

PHILADELPHIA - In his address last week on "the way forward in Iraq," President Bush omitted the most important things you need to know.

Most Americans want a strategy that will stabilize Iraq and let us draw down troops without greater chaos. The Petraeus-Crocker testimony to Congress offered tactics that may keep Iraq from crumbling further. But it was up to the president to present a strategy to hold Iraq together and prevent greater radicalization of the entire region.

Instead, Mr. Bush punted. Far from offering a "way forward," his Iraq program will at best keep the status quo until the mess is dumped on the next president in 2009.

What Mr. Bush failed to tell you is where things really stand in Iraq and what must be done to avoid future disasters. The president didn't mention that the force reductions he announced are not "a return on success," as he claims. They are happening because the military has run out of troops.

Ever since the surge began, top military commanders made clear that the 30,000 extra soldiers were dangerously overstretching the Army and Marines. When I was in Baghdad in June, every senior officer I spoke to said those troops would have to start leaving by March or April. Otherwise, the military could not maintain its onerous rotation schedule.

Mr. Bush also failed to admit that the basic premise of the surge is failing. The thesis went like this: If the extra troops could tamp down the most egregious sectarian attacks, Iraq's Sunni and Shiite factions would be able to reconcile.

The extra U.S. troops have made progress - within Sunni and Shiite areas. Extra Marines and U.S. funds have encouraged the movement of Sunni sheiks against al-Qaida in Iraq (although this movement started before the new troops arrived).

But the touted progress in Anbar province doesn't help resolve the major problem the Americans face. These Sunni sheiks and other Sunni dissident groups now working with U.S. troops against al-Qaida in Iraq are still hostile to the Shiite-led government. That hostility is mutual.

Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker are trying to persuade the central government to reach out to Sunnis; they are also trying to persuade both sides to fight for resources and power through the political system rather than with guns.

But this presumes Iraqis can be persuaded to see their struggle as a rational political competition rather than an existential, zero-sum battle. So far there are few signs that Shiite or Sunni leaders are shifting to this kind of thinking. Unless they do, the surge strategy leaves U.S. troops standing between two Iraqi sects that are preparing for a bigger civil war when we exit. And we are now arming both sides.

I don't believe, as do many Democrats, that setting a timeline for U.S. withdrawal would force Iraqis toward political compromise. Just the opposite: A timeline would act like a starting gun that signals all sides to prepare for the bigger battles to come.

But the current surge strategy contains no levers, either, to make reconciliation happen. Iraqis are clearly unable to compromise by themselves, and the administration has had no success in applying pressure. Nor does training Iraqi forces to replace ours offer a good solution; without political reconciliation, those forces will split by sect as soon as U.S. troops leave.

So the most glaring omission in Mr. Bush's speech is his failure to address the central question: What is the U.S. strategy to foster political progress inside Iraq, the kind of progress that will enable U.S. troops to go home?

There is only one strategy that holds any hope of pressing Iraqi leaders to reach consensus: an international diplomatic offensive, with full U.S. backing, that draws in the permanent U.N. Security Council members, the European Union and all of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria.

The Iraqi Study Group recommended this, and it has bipartisan support in Congress.

So why has Mr. Bush failed to formulate such a strategy? When he introduced the surge in January, the president declared that "we will use America's full diplomatic resources to rally support for Iraq." Yet the administration has made only faint gestures at international diplomacy.

Perhaps the president believes that promoting diplomacy involves a tacit admission that his policies have failed. Perhaps he's still reluctant to engage more deeply with Damascus or Tehran. Perhaps he believes his own spin.

President Bush taps terror veteran Michael Mukasey for AG

WASHINGTON - President Bush yesterday picked retired New York Federal Judge Michael Mukasey to be his new attorney general, moving to avoid a fight with Democrats and restore the Justice Department's depleted morale.

Mukasey, 66, retired last year as chief judge on the federal bench blocks from Ground Zero.

Bush said Mukasey is "clear-eyed about the threat our nation faces" from Islamic extremism.

The tough-on-terror judge presided over the trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "Blind Sheik" who was convicted of plotting to destroy New York landmarks.

"He knows what it takes to fight this war effectively, and he knows how to do it in a manner that is consistent with our laws and our Constitution," Bush said, with Mukasey at his side.

Mukasey said the threat has changed since he was a prosecutor under Rudy Giuliani decades ago, when "foreign adversaries saw widespread devastation as a deterrent."

"Today, our fanatical enemies see it as a divine fulfillment," he said.

Confirmation could get rocky. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said Bush must cough up files on warrantless spying and the purging of prosecutors by ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before he'll "schedule fair and thorough hearings."

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) - who led the effort to oust Gonzales - urged negotiation.

He said "confrontation should not be in the front of anybody's mind right now." Asked about his softer tone, Schumer told the Daily News, "It's a kinder, gentler White House."

Since retiring, Mukasey has been a partner at the law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler and is a legal adviser to the presidential campaign of Giuliani, whom he swore in as mayor. His son Marc works in Giuliani's law firm.

White House officials said Bush had approached Mukasey the day Gonzales quit in August and met him Sept. 1.

But before Bush nominated him, the judge first had to calm six jittery "conservative constituents" who had concerns about his temperament, a senior administration official said. The official wouldn't name the leaders.

A knowledgeable source told The News that the conservatives were unsure if Bush's pick had enough management experience and political savvy - or shared their ideological and philosophical views.

They were particularly alarmed that a liberal like Schumer had once recommended Mukasey to Bush for the Supreme Court, the source said. Yet the same cabal that killed ex-Bush counsel Harriet Miers' high court bid was soothed enough to hold its fire yesterday.

Schumer also put on hold demands for a special prosecutor to probe wrongdoing by Gonzales and his departed aides, which another source close to the White House said proves Mukasey is bulletproof. "He's confirmable," the source said.

"President Bush has perfected The Big Lie."

Six years later, one set of footprints leads us to failure

Editor, The Times:

Another video from Osama bin Laden ["Bin Laden's new video makes no attack threat," Times page one, Sept. 8, and see "Al-Qaida promises 9/11 hijacker video," News, Sept. 10].

If somebody had told me shortly after 9/11 that bin Laden would still be walking around a free man in 2007, I would have laughed. Now it's beginning to look like he will still be on the loose when President Bush leaves office. I find this incredible.

You would think, if there were one thing Bush could have accomplished during his two terms as president, given all the money, troops and resources at his disposal, he would have caught or killed this one person who has caused so much pain and grief to the American people.

I have read Bush is very concerned about his legacy. Sadly, it looks like a free Osama bin Laden will be a part of it.

Bush, Pentagon observe moment of silence for 9/11 victims

BEIJING, Sept. 12 -- The sixth anniversary of the September 11th attacks has been marked by moments of silence across Washington, DC.

At the White House, US President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney joined by their wives, walked to the centre of the White House South Lawn for a moment of silence.

Surrounded by White House staff, guests and current and former cabinet members, the president paused for a moment of silence and a hymn, and then returned to the White House.

At the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Peter Pace led the official ceremonies.

Following a moment of silence, Gates spoke about the commitment of the military to defend the US.

US secretary of defense, Robert Gates said, "As we contemplate the challenges ahead, together we share a profound sense of duty brought once again into sharp relief today. It is a duty to our nation, it is a duty to our fellow countrymen, it is a duty to those who perished here six years ago."

On Capitol Hill, where General David Petraeus is testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the surge policy in Iraq, Chairman Joseph Biden called for a moment of silence for the victims of September 11.

Bush to endorse withdrawal of 30,000 Iraq troops

PRESIDENT George W. Bush is expected to endorse in a televised speech tomorrow a plan to withdraw some 30,000 US troops from Iraq by July 2008, US media reported today.

Several US newspapers including The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported that Bush is expected to back the plans of General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, to gradually withdraw US troops from their current level of 168,000 to 130,000 by next summer.

The Washington Post, citing unnamed White House aides, said Bush plans to emphasise that he can order a troop reduction only because of the success achieved on the ground in Iraq, and that he is not being swayed by political opposition.

The aides said Bush will also caution that the cuts would be conditional on continued military gains and that he plans to outline what he sees as the dire consequences of failure in Iraq, according to the Post, which did not quote the officials.

Bush's spokesman announced that the president will address Americans on his plans for future US troops levels in a 15 to 20 minute speech from the White House at 9pm tomorrow (1100 AEST Friday).

The speech follows key Congressional testimony this week by Petraeus and the US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, on Bush's troop "surge" strategy in which some 30,000 additional soldiers were deployed to Iraq to quell violence.

Bush will "address the nation on his proposed way forward in Iraq, obviously responding to the testimony this week," said White House spokesman Tony Snow, who refused to reveal details of the speech.

Petraeus said during two days of marathon congressional testimony this week that the surge was working, and that US troop numbers could recede back to pre-surge levels of around 130,000 by next summer.

Democrats, who took control of Congress in January, charged that Petraeus's latest Iraq strategy was a blueprint for 10 more years of war, as they rejected "rosy" claims of battlefield progress and demanded a speedy US withdrawal.