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Gold9472
03-22-2006, 09:00 AM
Bush says war in Iraq could outlast his presidency

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/22/BUSH.TMP

Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Washington -- President Bush made the new and risky admission at a press conference Tuesday that the war in Iraq might not end on his watch, a distinct tactical shift away from a relentless White House optimism that seems ever more at odds with the endless violence and news of disintegration from Iraq.

Passionate and often aggressive despite his political wounds, Bush declared that if he did not believe the United States could prevail in Iraq, he would pull the troops out now. But he acknowledged that day probably will not come during his presidency.

"That, of course, is an objective," Bush said, "and that'll be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq."

Bush made his comments at the White House as the war entered its fourth year with no end in sight. Facing Nixonian poll numbers, growing credibility problems and splintering Republican support, Bush has begun taking critics head-on, accepting hostile questions and acknowledging setbacks while trying to muster public resolve to continue an unpopular war.

Bush took issue with the conclusion of Ayad Allawi, former interim prime minister of Iraq, that the country has entered a civil war.

"Listen, we all recognize that there is violence, that there is sectarian violence," Bush said. "But the way I look at the situation is that the Iraqis took a look and decided not to go to civil war."

The evidence he cited was the Iraqi army's unity in the face of attacks and retributions from Sunni and Shiite factions, denunciations of the sectarian violence from Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and the efforts by elected Iraqi officials to form a government.

"And I understand how tough it is," Bush said. "Don't get me wrong. I mean, you make it abundantly clear how tough it is. I hear it from our troops. I read the reports every night. But I believe -- I believe the Iraqis -- this is a moment where the Iraqis had a chance to fall apart, and they didn't."

Bush's calibrated realism was dismissed by Democrats, who have struggled to come up with an alternative Iraq policy and seem to have settled on troop reductions this year as a way to force Iraqis to assume control of their country.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada pounced on Bush's admission, demanding in a statement that Bush abandon his open-ended troop commitment, something Reid said "was never contemplated or approved by the American people."

"Last year, Congress overwhelmingly called on President Bush to make 2006 a year of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty," Reid said. "The domestic public relations campaign waged by the White House and the new round of presidential speeches does not advance that goal."

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat who voted to authorize Bush to attack Iraq and who continues to oppose an immediate pullout, laid out the Democratic position in a radio address Saturday, calling for a reduction in troop levels from 130,000 to 50,000 this year and demanding that Bush insist that Iraqis "get their political house in order."

The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Virginia's John Warner, delivered much the same message to Iraqi leaders during a visit to Iraq this week.

As part of his new willingness to respond to critics, Bush called during his news conference on Hearst columnist and veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas for the first time in three years.

Thomas challenged Bush on why he decided to invade Iraq and why he wanted "to go to war from the moment you stepped into the White House."

"I didn't want war," Bush replied. "To assume I wanted war is just -- is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect."

Entering a testy colloquy with one of his fiercest critics, Bush said, "No president wants war" but that his attitude changed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

"Our foreign policy changed on that day, Helen ... and I'm never going to forget it," Bush said. When Thomas said Iraq "didn't do anything to you," Bush responded that he "saw a threat in Iraq."

Bush said al Qaeda terrorists now operating in Iraq know they are affecting debate in the United States. "I believe they want to hurt us again," Bush said. "They've declared Iraq to be the central front, and therefore we've got to make sure we win that, and I believe we will.

"I'm going to say it again: If I didn't believe we could succeed, I wouldn't be there," Bush said. "I wouldn't put those kids there. It's -- I meet with too many families who've lost a loved one to not be able to look them in the eye and say we're doing the right thing."

Bush also obliquely acknowledged his steep slide in public approval ratings to the mid-30s, addressing whether he still had the political capital he claimed after his re-election, with this blunt response:

"I'd say I'm spending that capital on the war," Bush said.

Bush also took on his own Republican critics on immigration as the Senate heads into a bruising debate next week that promises to divide his party over how to deal with the problem of 12 million illegal immigrants and yet find a way to provide employers with the unskilled labor they demand.

In a veiled warning that his own efforts to woo Hispanic voters could be jeopardized by the hard line many Republicans are taking, Bush said that the emotion-laden immigration debate, "if not conducted properly, will send signals that -- that I don't think will befit -- befit the nation's kind of history and traditions."

"When you make something illegal that people want, there's a way around it, around the rules and regulations," Bush said. "And so you've got people, 'coyotes,' stuffing people in the back of 18-wheelers or smuggling them across 105-degree desert heat. You've got forgers and tunnel diggers. You got a whole industry aimed at using people as a commodity. And it's wrong ... we need to do something about it."

Standing by the broad framework he has already laid out on immigration -- toughening law enforcement while allowing immigrants to legally do jobs Americans will not do through a guest worker program -- Bush left it to the Senate to resolve the issue of the 12 million people already here illegally, although he said they should not be in line for permanent residence ahead of those who have not broken the law.

"But one of the issues is going to be to deal with somebody whose family has been here for a while, raised a family," Bush said. "And that will be an interesting -- interesting debate. My answer is, that person shouldn't get automatic citizenship."

Bush attempted to turn the tables on Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat and presidential contender who has called on the Senate to censure and possibly impeach Bush for conducting warrantless wiretapping in the search for terrorists.

"I did notice that nobody from the Democrat Party has actually stood up and called for getting rid of the terrorist surveillance program," Bush said. "You know, if that's what they believe, if people in the party believe that, then they ought to stand up and say it. They ought to stand up and say the tools we're using to protect the American people shouldn't be used. They ought to take their message to the people and say, vote for me, I promise we're not going to have a terrorist surveillance program."

Bush defended Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld against calls, most recently from Feinstein, for his resignation.

"Listen, every war plan looks good on paper until you meet the enemy -- not just the war plan we executed in Iraq, but the war plans that have been executed throughout the history of warfare," Bush said. But he left the door open to potential staff changes. "I'm not going to announce it right now," he said.

Bush acknowledged that Republicans running for re-election to Congress in November have distanced themselves from him. Senate Republicans already have ignored many of Bush's domestic initiatives -- cutting entitlement spending, health savings accounts and making his first-term tax cuts permanent -- in their recent budget.

"I can remember '02 when there was a certain nervousness," Bush said. "There was a lot of people in Congress who weren't sure I was going to make it in '04 and whether or not I'd drag the ticket down." He urged Republicans to stick together. "We've got an aggressive agenda that, by working together, we'll get passed," he said.