BartBlog

This article is from a German newspaper. I only translated it. It was written by Harald Neuber.

When president George W Bush appeared before the cameras to dutifully inform the nation about the situation of his occupying regime in Iraq, you hadn’t have to listen closely to hear his admittance of failure. The partly withdrawal, which was mentioned in pre-published parts of his speech, is so minuscule that it hardly counts. Only 5700 troops shall return from the front line until Christmas – a rather symbolic decision in the family-oriented USA. 5700 troops – that are barely 3.5% of the 168,000 occupation force.

In the year 2003, at the beginning of the invasion, Bush had sounded differently. According to the 2003-plans of the president, Iraq should “become a dramatic and inspiring example of Freedom” for other states in the region. In the fourth year of war, disillusionment has come to Washington. Iraq is a country that’s “fighting for its survival”, Bush admitted in yesterday’s speech, which was aired from the Oval Office.

Such an estimation couldn’t be without consequences. The majority of the occupying forces will probably stay much longer than their turn of duty in the gulf state. Indeed, the number of troops could be reduced to 130,000 until July, but this would depend on the development of the occupational regime, said Bush: “The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home.”

Success is scarce in hard-fought Iraq. In the script for the speech, the development of the Sunni-dominated province Anbar in West-Iraq had been described as success. But between the scripting and the speech, Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Rischa, one of the closest allies of the US in that province, was killed in an assault of political rivals. Bush commented the death of the Sunni Tribe-leader with the comment: “In Anbar, the enemy remains active and deadly.” He didn’t dwell on the situation in the rest of the country.

Bush blamed only the neighboring states, Iran and Syria, which were “undermining the efforts to strengthen the government in Baghdad”, for the constantly rising violence. If the US-occupation would be ended, “Iran would benefit from the chaos and would be encouraged in its efforts to gain nuclear weapons and dominate the region.” The spiritual head of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Chamenei, who reacted demonstratively calm, said that “some day, Bush will stand before an international court to take responsibility for the cruelties in Iraq.” In the public opinion of the Muslim states, the US are “condemned and hated”.

In the USA, the Democrats criticized Bush’s speech. About 15 months before the presidential electins, the Democrats couldn’t fail to notice that – assuming a change of government – they will iherit the Iraq tragedy. Barack Obama called it an “error to stay the course”. His rival Hillary Clinton announced to “change the course”. Neither of them considered a full withdrawal.

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In the end, I didn’t look up all quotes, so they were translated from English to German and back again to English. I hope it’s OK.