President Discusses War on Terror and Upcoming Iraqi Elections

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051212-4.html

Park Hyatt Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

11:16 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. (Applause.) Thank you. Thanks for the warm welcome. Thank you for the chance to come and speak to the Philadelphia World Affairs Council. This is an important organization that has, since 1949, has provided a forum for debate and discussion on important issues. I've come to discuss an issue that's really important, and that is victory in the war on terror.

And that war started on September the 11th, 2001, when our nation awoke to a sudden attack. Like generations before us, we have accepted new responsibilities, we're confronting dangers with new resolve. We're taking the fight to those who attacked us and to those who share their murderous vision for future attacks. We will fight this war without wavering, and we'll prevail.

The war on terror will take many turns, and the enemy must be defeated on many -- on every battlefield, from the streets of Western cities to the mountains of Afghanistan, to the tribal regions of Pakistan, to the islands of Southeast Asia and to the Horn of Africa. Yet the terrorists have made it clear that Iraq is the central front in their war against humanity, so we must recognize Iraq is the central front in the war on terror.

Last month, my administration released a document called the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" -- and in recent weeks I've been discussing our strategy with the American people. At the U.S. Naval Academy, I spoke about our efforts to defeat the terrorists and train Iraqi security forces so they can provide safety for their own citizens. Last week before the Council on Foreign Relations, I explained how we are working with Iraqi forces and Iraqi leaders to help Iraqis improve security and restore order, to rebuild cities taken from the enemy, and to help the national government revitalize Iraq's infrastructure and economy. Today I'm going to speak in depth about another vital element of our strategy: our efforts to help the Iraqi people build a lasting democracy in the heart of the Middle East. I can think of no better place to discuss the rise of a free Iraq than in the heart of Philadelphia, the city where America's democracy was born.

I want to thank the -- Buntzie Churchill and Bill Sasso for letting me come. Thank you all for welcoming me. I got something to say, I'm looking forward to saying it here. I'm traveling with United States Senators -- they're always quick to hop a ride on Air Force One. (Laughter.) Particularly when they don't have to reimburse the government. (Laughter.) But I'm proud to be a friend of Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum. They're fine, honorable members of the United States Senate. (Applause.) I'm also pleased that Jim Gerlach and Mike Fitzpatrick and Joe Pitts of the United States Congress are with us. Thanks for serving. Thanks for being here. (Applause.)

A few blocks from here stands Independence Hall, where our Declaration of Independence was signed and our Constitution was debated. From the perspective of more than two centuries, the success of America's democratic experiment seems almost inevitable. At the time, however, that success didn't seem so obvious or assured.

The eight years from the end of the Revolutionary War to the election of a constitutional government were a time of disorder and upheaval. There were uprisings, with mobs attacking courthouses and government buildings. There was a planned military coup that was defused only by the personal intervention of General Washington. In 1783, Congress was chased from this city by angry veterans demanding back-pay, and they stayed on the run for six months. There were tensions between the mercantile North and the agricultural South that threatened to break apart our young republic. And there were British loyalists who were opposed to independence and had to be reconciled with America's new democracy.

Our founders faced many difficult challenges -- they made mistakes, they learned from their experiences, and they adjusted their approach. Our nation's first effort at governing -- a governing charter, the Articles of Confederation, failed. It took years of debate and compromise before we ratified our Constitution and inaugurated our first president. It took a four-year civil war, and a century of struggle after that, before the promise of our Declaration was extended to all Americans.

It is important to keep this history in mind as we look at the progress of freedom and democracy in Iraq. No nation in history has made the transition to a free society without facing challenges, setbacks, and false starts. The past two-and-a-half years have been a period of difficult struggle in Iraq, yet they've also been a time of great hope and achievement for the Iraqi people.

Just over two-and-a-half years ago, Iraq was in the grip of a cruel dictator who had invaded his neighbors, sponsored terrorists, pursued and used weapons of mass destruction, murdered his own people, and for more than a decade, defied the demands of the United Nations and the civilized world. Since then, the Iraqi people have assumed sovereignty over their country, held free elections, drafted a democratic constitution, and approved that constitution in a nationwide referendum. Three days from now, they go to polls for the third time this year, and choose a new government under the new constitution.

It's a remarkable transformation for a country that has virtually no experience with democracy, and which is struggling to overcome the legacy of one of the worst tyrannies the world has known. And Iraqis achieved all this while determined enemies use violence and destruction to stop the progress. There's still a lot of difficult work to be done in Iraq, but thanks to the courage of the Iraqi people, the year 2005 will be recorded as a turning point in the history of Iraq, the history of the Middle East, and the history of freedom.

As the Iraqi people struggle to build their democracy, adversaries continue their war on a free Iraq. The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists and Saddamists and terrorists. The rejectionists are ordinary Iraqis, mostly Sunni Arabs, who miss the privileged status they had under the regime of Saddam Hussein. They reject an Iraq in which they're no longer the dominant group. We believe that over time most of this group will be persuaded to support a democratic Iraq led by a federal government that is strong enough to protect minority rights, and we're encouraged that many Sunnis plan to actively participate in this week's election.

The Saddamists are former regime loyalists who harbor dreams of returning to power, and they're trying to foment anti-democratic sentiment amongst the larger Sunni community. Yet they lack popular support, and over time, they can be marginalized and defeated by the people and security forces of a free Iraq.

The terrorists affiliated with or inspired by al Qaeda are the smallest, but most lethal group. Many are foreigners coming to fight freedom's progress in Iraq. They are led by a brutal terrorist named Zarqawi -- al Qaeda's chief of operations in Iraq -- who has stated his allegiance to Osama bin Laden. The terrorists' stated objective is to drive U.S. and coalition forces out of Iraq and gain control of that country, and then use Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks against America, overthrow moderate governments in the Middle East, and establish a totalitarian Islamic empire that reaches from Spain to Indonesia.

The terrorists in Iraq share the ideology of the terrorists who struck the United States on September the 11th. They share the ideology with those who blew up commuters in London and Madrid, murdered tourists in Bali, and killed workers in Riyadh, and slaughtered guests at a wedding in Amman, Jordan. This is an enemy without conscience, and they cannot be appeased. If we were not fighting and destroying this enemy in Iraq, they would not be leading quiet lives as good citizens. They would be plotting and killing our citizens, across the world and here at home. By fighting the terrorists in Iraq, we are confronting a direct threat to the American people, and we will accept nothing less than complete victory. (Applause.)

We are pursuing a comprehensive strategy in Iraq. Our goal is victory, and victory will be achieved when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot new attacks against our nation.

Our strategy in Iraq has three elements: On the economic side, we're helping the Iraqis restore their infrastructure, reform their economy, and build the prosperity that will give all Iraqis a stake in a free and peaceful Iraq. On the security side, coalition and Iraqi forces are on the offense against the enemy. We're working together to clear out areas controlled by the terrorists and Saddam loyalists, and leaving Iraqi forces to hold territory taken from the enemy. And as we help Iraqis fight these enemies, we are working to build capable and effective Iraqi security forces, so they can take the lead in the fight, and eventually take responsibility for the safety and security of their citizens without major foreign assistance.

We're making steady progress. The Iraqi forces are becoming more and more capable. They're taking more responsibility for more and more territory. We're transferring bases to their control so they can take the fight to the enemy. And that means American and coalition forces can concentrate on training Iraqis, and hunting down the high-value targets like the terrorist Zarqawi and his associates.

Today, I want to discuss the political element of our strategy: our efforts to help the Iraqis build inclusive democratic institutions that will protect the interests of all the Iraqi people. By helping Iraqis to build a democracy, we will win over those who doubted they had a place in a new Iraq, and undermine the terrorists and Saddamists. By helping Iraqis to build a democracy, we will gain an ally in the war on terror. By helping Iraqis build a democracy, we will inspire reformers across the Middle East. And by helping Iraqis build a democracy, we will bring hope to a troubled region, and this will make the American people more secure.

From the outset, the political element of our strategy in Iraq has been guided by a clear principle: Democracy takes different forms in different cultures. Yet in all cultures, successful free societies are built on certain common foundations -- rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, a free economy, and freedom to worship. Respect for the belief of others is the only way to build a society where compassion and tolerance prevail. Societies that lay these foundations not only survive, but thrive. Societies that do not lay these foundations risk backsliding into tyranny.

When our coalition arrived in Iraq, we found a nation where almost none of these basic foundations existed. Decades of brutal rule by Saddam Hussein had destroyed the fabric of Iraqi civil society. Under Saddam, Iraq was a country where dissent was crushed. A centralized economy enriched a dictator instead of the people; secret courts meted out repression instead of justice; and Shia Muslims, and Kurds and other groups were brutally oppressed. And when Saddam Hussein's regime fled Baghdad, they left behind a country with few civic institutions in place to hold Iraq society together.

To fill the vacuum after liberation, we established the Coalition Provisional Authority. The CPA was ably led by Ambassador Jerry Bremer, and many fine officials from our government volunteered to serve in the EPA -- CPA. While things did not always go as planned, these men and women did a good job under extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances -- helping to restore basic services, making sure food was distributed, and reestablishing government ministries.

One of the CPA's most important tasks was bringing the Iraqi people into the decision-making process of their government after decades of tyrannical rule. Three months after liberation, our coalition worked with the United Nations and Iraqi leaders to establish an Iraqi Governing Council. The Governing Council gave Iraqis a voice in their own affairs, but it was unelected. It was subordinate to the CPA and, therefore, it did not satisfy the hunger of Iraqis for self-government. Like free people everywhere, Iraqis wanted to be governed by leaders they had elected, not foreign officials.

So in the summer of 2003, we proposed a plan to transfer sovereignty to the Iraqi people. Under this plan, the CPA would continue to govern Iraq while appointed Iraqi leaders drafted a constitution, put that constitution before the people, and then held elections to choose a new government. Only when that elected government took office would the Iraqis regain their sovereignty.

This plan met with the disapproval of the Iraqis. They made it clear that they wanted a constitution that was written by elected leaders of a free Iraq, and they wanted sovereignty placed in Iraqi hands sooner. We listened, and we adjusted our approach. In November of 2003, we negotiated a new plan with the Governing Council, with steps for an accelerated transition to Iraqi self-government. Under this new plan, a Transitional Administrative Law was written by the Governing Council and adopted in March of 2004. This law guaranteed personal freedoms unprecedented in the Arab world, and set forth four major milestones to guide Iraq's transition to a constitutional democracy.

The first milestone was the transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government by the end of June 2004. The second was for Iraqis to hold free elections to choose a transitional government by January of 2005. The third was for Iraqis to adopt a democratic constitution, which would be drafted no later than August 2005, and put before the Iraqi people in a nationwide referendum no later than October. And the fourth was for Iraqis to choose a government under that democratic constitution, with elections held December 2005.

The first milestone was met when our coalition handed over sovereignty to the Iraqi leaders on June 28th, 2004 -- two days ahead of schedule. In January 2005, Iraqis met the second milestone when they went to the polls and chose their leaders in free elections. Almost eight-and-a-half million Iraqis defied the car bombers and assassins to cast their ballots, and the world watched in awe as jubilant Iraqis danced in the street and held ink-stained fingers and celebrated their freedom.

The January elections were a watershed event for Iraq and the Middle East, yet they were not without flaws. One problem was the failure of the vast majority of Sunni Arabs to vote. When Sunnis saw a new 275-member parliament taking power in which they had only 16 seats, many realized that their failure to participate in the democrat process had hurt their chances and hurt their groups -- it hurt their constituencies. And Shia and Kurdish leaders who had won power at the polls saw that for a free and unified Iraq to succeed, they needed Sunni Arabs to be part of the government. We encouraged Iraq's leaders to reach out to Sunni leaders, and bring them into the governing process. When the transitional government was seated in the spring of this year, Sunni Arabs filled important posts, including a vice president, a minister of defense, and the speaker of the National Assembly.

The new government's main political challenge -- next political challenge was to meet the third milestone, which was adopting a democratic constitution. Again, Iraq's leaders reached out to Sunni Arabs who had boycotted the elections and included them in the drafting process. Fifteen Sunni Arab negotiators and several Sunni Arab advisors joined the work of the constitutional drafting committee. After much tough debate, representatives of Iraq's diverse communities drafted a bold constitution that guarantees the rule of law, freedom of assembly, property rights, freedom of speech and the press, women's rights, and the right to vote. As one Arab scholar put it, the Iraqi constitution marks "the dawn of a new age in Arab life."

The document that initially emerged from the committee did not unify Iraqis, and many Sunnis on the constitutional committee did not support the draft. Yet Iraq's leaders continued working to gain Sunni support. And thanks to last-minute changes -- including a new procedure for considering amendments to the constitution next year -- a deal was struck four days before the Iraqis went to the polls. The revised constitution was endorsed by Iraq''s largest Sunni party. It was approved in referendum that attracted over a million more voters than in the January elections. Many Sunnis voted against the constitution, but Sunnis voted in large numbers for the first time. They joined the political process. And by doing so, they reject the violence of the Saddamists and rejectionists. Through hard work and compromise, Iraqis adopted the most progressive, democratic constitution in the Arab world.

On Thursday, Iraqis will meet their fourth milestone. And when they do go to the polls and choose a new government under the new constitution, it will be a remarkable event in the Arab world. Despite terrorist violence, the country is buzzing with signs and sounds of democracy in action. The streets of Baghdad, and Najaf and Mosul, and other cities are full of signs and posters. The television and radio air waves are thick with political ads and commentary. Hundreds of parties and coalitions have registered for this week's elections, and they're campaigning vigorously. Candidates are holding rallies and laying out their agendas and asking for the vote.

Our troops see this young democracy up close. First Lieutenant Frank Shriley of Rock Hall, Maryland, says, "It's a cool thing riding around Baghdad and seeing the posters -- it reminds me of being home during election time. After so many years of being told what to do, having a real vote is different."

Unlike the January elections, many Sunnis are campaigning vigorously for office this time around. Many Sunni parties that opposed the constitution have registered to compete in this week's vote. Two major Sunni coalitions have formed, and other Sunni leaders have joined national coalitions that cross religious, ethnic, and sectarian boundaries. As one Sunni politician put it, this election "is a vote for Iraq; we want a national Iraq, not a sectarian one."

To encourage broader participation by all Iraqi communities, the National Assembly made important changes in Iraq's electoral laws that will increase Sunni representation in the new assembly. In the January elections, Iraq was one giant electoral district, so seats in the transitional assembly simply reflected turnout. Because few Sunnis voted, their communities were left with little representation. Now, Iraq has a new electoral system, where seats in the new Council of Representatives will be allocated by province and population -- much like our own House of Representatives. This new system is encouraging more Sunnis to join in the democratic process because it ensures that Sunnis will be well-represented, even if the terrorists and Saddamists try to intimidate voters in the provinces where most Sunnis live.

More Sunnis are involved because they see Iraqi democracy succeeding. They have learned a lesson of democracy: They must participate to have a voice in their nation's affairs. A leading Sunni who had boycotted the January vote put it this way: "The Sunnis are now ready to participate." A Sunni sheik explains why Sunnis must join the process: "In order not to be marginalized, we need power in the National Assembly." As more Sunnis join the political process, the Saddamists and remaining rejectionists will be marginalized. As more Sunnis join the political process, they will protect the interests of their community.

Like the Shia and Kurds, who face daily attacks from the terrorists and Saddamists, many Sunnis who join the political process are being targeted by the enemies of a free Iraq. The Iraqi Islamic Party -- a Sunni party that boycotted the January vote and now supports elections -- has seen its offices bombed. And a party leader reports that at least 10 members have been killed since the party announced it would field candidates in Thursday's elections. Recently a top Sunni electoral official visited the Sunni stronghold of Baquba. He went to encourage local leaders to participate in the elections. During his visit, a roadside bomb went off. It rattled his convoy, but it didn't stop it. He says this about the attempt on his life: "The bomb is nothing [compared to] what we're doing. What we're doing is bigger than the bomb."

By pressing forward and meeting their milestones, the Iraqi people have built momentum for freedom and democracy. They've encouraged those outside the process to come in. At every stage, there was enormous pressure to let the deadlines slide, with skeptics and pessimists declaring that Iraqis were not ready for self-government. At every stage, Iraqis proved the skeptics and pessimists wrong. At every stage, Iraqis have exposed the errors of those in our country and across the world who question the universal appeal of liberty. By meeting their milestones, Iraqis are defeating a brutal enemy, rejecting a murderous ideology, and choosing freedom over terror.

This week elections won't be perfect, and a successful vote is not the end of the process. Iraqis still have more difficult work ahead, and our coalition and the new Iraqi government will face many challenges, including in four critical errors -- areas: ensuring Iraqi security, forming an inclusive Iraqi government, encouraging Iraqi reconciliation, and maintaining Iraqi democracy in a tough neighborhood.

The first key challenge is security. As democracy takes hold in Iraq, the terrorists and Saddamists will continue to use violence. They will try to break our will and intimidate the Iraqi people and their leaders. These enemies aren't going to give up because of a successful election. They understand what is at stake in Iraq. They know that as democracy takes root in that country, their hateful ideology will suffer a devastating blow, and the Middle East will have a clear example of freedom and prosperity and hope.

So our coalition will continue to hunt down the terrorists and Saddamists. We'll continue training Iraqi security forces to take the lead in the fight, and defend their new democracy. As the Iraqi security forces stand up, coalition forces can stand down. And when victory is achieved, our troops will then return home with the honor they have earned.

The second key challenge is forming an inclusive government that protects the interests of all Iraqis, and encourages more in the rejectionist camp to abandon violence and embrace politics. Early next year, Iraq's new parliament will come to Baghdad and select a prime minister, and a presidency council, and a cabinet of ministers. Two-thirds of the new parliament must agree on the top leadership posts, and this will demand negotiation and compromise. It will require patience by America and our coalition allies. This new government will face many tough decisions on issues such as security and reconstruction and economic reform. Iraqi leaders will also have to review and possibly amend the constitution and ensure that this historic document earns the broad support of all Iraqi communities. By taking these steps, Iraqi leaders will build a strong and lasting democracy. This is an important step in helping to defeat the terrorists and the Saddamists.

The third key challenge is establishing rule of law and the culture of reconciliation. Iraqis still have to overcome longstanding ethnic and religious tensions, and the legacy of three decades of dictatorship. During the regime of Saddam Hussein, Shia, Kurds and other groups were brutally oppressed, and for some there is now a temptation to take justice into their own hands. Recently, U.S. and Iraqi troops have discovered prisons in Iraq where mostly Sunni men were held, some of whom have appeared to have been beaten and tortured. This conduct is unacceptable, and the Prime Minister and other Iraqi officials have condemned these abuses, an investigation has been launched, and we support these efforts. Those who committed these crimes must be held to account.

We will continue helping Iraqis build an impartial system of justice that protects all of Iraq's citizens. Millions of Iraqis are seeing their independent judiciary in action, as their former dictator, Saddam Hussein, is put on trial in Baghdad. The man who once struck fear in the hearts of Iraqis has heard his victims recount the acts of torture and murder that he ordered. One Iraqi watching the proceedings said: "We all feel happiness about this fair trial." Slowly but surely, with the help of our coalition, Iraqis are replacing the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law, and ensuring equal justice for all their citizens.

Oh, I know some fear the possibility that Iraq could break apart and fall into a civil war. I don't believe these fears are justified. They're not justified so long as we do not abandon the Iraqi people in their hour of need. Encouraging reconciliation and human rights in a society scarred by decades of arbitrary violence and sectarian division is not going to be easy and it's going to happen overnight. Yet the Iraqi government has a process in place to resolve even the most difficult issues through negotiate, debate and compromise. And the United States, along with the United Nations and the Arab League and other international partners, will support these efforts to help resolve these issues. And as Iraqis continue to develop the habits of liberty, they will gain confidence in the future, and ensure that Iraqi nationalism trumps Iraqi sectarianism.

A fourth key challenge is for Iraqis to maintain their newfound freedoms in a tough neighborhood. Iraq's neighbor to the east, Iran, is actively working to undermine a free Iraq. Iran doesn't want democracy in Iraq to succeed because a free Iraq threatens the legitimacy of Iran's oppressive theocracy. Iraq's neighbor to the west, Syria, is permitting terrorists to use that territory to cross into Iraq. The vast majority of Iraqis do not want to live under an Iranian-style theocracy, and they don't want Syria to allow the transit of bombers and killers into Iraq -- and the United States of America will stand with the Iraqi people against the threats from these neighbors. (Applause.)

We'll continue to encourage greater support from the Arab world and the broader international community. Many Arab states have kept the new Iraq at arms' distance. Yet as more Arab states are beginning to recognize that a free Iraq is here to stay, they're starting to give Iraq's new government more support. Recently, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan have welcomed the Iraqi Prime Minister on official visits. Last month, the Arab League hosted a meeting in Cairo to promote national reconciliation among Iraqis, and another such meeting is planned for next year in Baghdad.

These are important steps, and Iraq's neighbors need to do more. Arab leaders are beginning to recognize that the choice in Iraq is between democracy and terrorism, and there is no middle ground. The success of Iraqi democracy is in their vital interests because if the terrorists prevail in Iraq, they will then target other Arab nations.

International support for Iraq's democracy is growing, as well. Other nations have pledged more than $13 billion in assistance to Iraq, and we call on them, those who have pledged assistance, to make good on their commitments. The World Bank recently approved its first loan to Iraq in over 30 years, lending the Iraqi government $100 million to improve the Iraqi school system. The United Nations is playing a vital role in Iraq -- they assisted in last January's elections, and the negotiations for the constitution, and in the recent constitutional referendum. And at the request of the Iraqi government, the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution extending the mandate of the multinational force in Iraq through 2006. Earlier this year, the European Union co-hosted a conference for more than 80 countries and international organizations, so they can better coordinate their efforts to help Iraqis rebuild their nation. Whatever differences there were over the decision to liberate Iraq, all free nations now share a common interest -- building an Iraq that will fight terror, and be a source of stability and freedom in a troubled region of the world.

The challenges ahead are complex and difficult, yet Iraqis are determined to overcome them and build a free nation. And they require our support. Millions of Iraqis will put their lives on the line this Thursday in the name of liberty and democracy. And 160,000 of America's finest are putting their lives on the line so Iraqis can succeed. The American and Iraqi people share the same interests and the same enemies -- and by helping democracy succeed in Iraq, we bring greater security to our citizens here at home.

The terrorists know that democracy is their enemy, and they will continue fighting freedom's progress with all the hateful determination they can muster. Yet the Iraqi people are stepping forward to claim their liberty, and they will have it. When the new Iraqi government takes office next year, Iraqis will have the only constitutional democracy in the Arab world, and Americans will have a partner for peace and moderation in the Middle East.

People across the broader Middle East are drawing, and will continue to draw inspiration from Iraq's progress, and the terrorists' powerful myth is being destroyed. In a 1998 fatwa, Osama bin Laden argued that the suffering of the Iraqi people was justification for his declaration of war on America. Now bin Laden and al Qaeda are the direct cause of the Iraqi people's suffering. As more Muslims across the world see this, they're turning against the terrorists. As the hope of liberty spreads in the Middle East, the terrorists will lose their sponsors, lose their recruits, and lose the sanctuaries they need to plan new attacks.

A free Iraq is not going to be a quiet Iraq -- it will be a nation full of passionate debate and vigorous political activity. It will be a nation that continues to face some level of violence. Yet Iraqis are showing they have the patience and the courage to make democracy work -- and Americans have the patience and courage to help them succeed.

We've done this kind of work before; we must have confidence in our cause. In World War II, the free nations defeated fascism and helped our former adversaries, Germany and Japan, build strong democracies -- and today, these nations are allies in securing the peace. In the Cold War, free nations defeated communism, and helped our former Warsaw Pact adversaries become strong democracies -- and today, nations of Central and Eastern Europe are allies in the war on terror.

Today in the Middle East, freedom is once again contending with a totalitarian ideology that seeks to sow anger and hatred and despair. And like fascism and communism before, the hateful ideologies that use terror will be defeated by the unstoppable power of freedom. (Applause.)

And the advance of freedom in the Middle East requires freedom in Iraq. By helping Iraqis build a lasting democracy, we will spread the hope of liberty across a troubled region, and we'll gain new allies in the cause of freedom. By helping Iraqis build a strong democracy, we're adding to our own security, and, like a generation before us, we're laying the foundation of peace for generations to come.

Not far from here where we gather today is a symbol of freedom familiar to all Americans -- the Liberty Bell. When the Declaration of Independence was first read in public, the Liberty Bell was sounded in celebration, and a witness said: "It rang as if it meant something." Today, the call of liberty is being heard in Baghdad and Basra, and other Iraqi cities, and its sound is echoing across the broader Middle East. From Damascus to Tehran, people hear it, and they know it means something. It means that the days of tyranny and terror are ending, and a new day of hope and freedom is dawning.

Thank you for letting me come. (Applause.)

I thought I might answer some questions. (Laughter.) Yes, ma'am.

Q Since the inception of the Iraqi war, I'd like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed. And by Iraqis I include civilians, military, police, insurgents, translators.

THE PRESIDENT: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We've lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq.

Yes.

Q Mr. President, thank you --

THE PRESIDENT: I'll repeat the question. If I don't like it, I'll make it up. (Laughter and applause.)

Q -- Thank you for coming to the city where liberty was born. Central to your policy in Iraq is the role of the Iraqis. We hear widely different tales about how the Iraqis are doing in their own area of defense. Could you give us your perspective on how they're doing, how well the military is doing, what you feel the capability is to do the task that you want them to do, to include some of the widely different impressions that we hear about.

THE PRESIDENT: No, I appreciate that. When we first began training -- our strategy all along has been to train Iraqis so they can take the fight and succeed in what we're trying to do, which is a democracy -- a democracy which will serve as an example for others; a democracy which will join us in the fight on terror; a democracy which will help us prevent other countries from becoming safe haven for terrorists who still want to kill us. That's -- that was our objective. And all along we wanted the Iraqis to be able to do -- take the fight.

When we first got going we said we'll train an army that will be able to deal with external threats, and a civil defense corps that will be able to deal with internal threats. And the problem with that strategy was that the internal threats were a heck of a lot more severe than the external threats, and the army -- the civilian corps we trained was not properly trained and equipped.

So we adjusted. We trained everybody for the army and -- recognizing that the army is going to have to not only take the fight to the enemy -- or the new army take the fight to the enemy, but when we clear enemies out of places like Mosul, that there has to be an Iraqi army presence to earn the confidence of the people.

When the war first got going, we'd move into Mosul, clear out an enemy, leave, and the enemy would return. And so the Iraqi people had no confidence in the future. They were -- they didn't dare, for example, tell coalition forces or Iraqi forces the names of those who were killing their citizens because they didn't have the confidence there would be a force to protect them. And so we began the process of clearing out and holding with more and more trained Iraqi forces. And now the Iraqi forces are helping to rebuild these cities. Democracy is only going to succeed if people say, my life is going to be better. I mean, no different a campaign here -- you know, vote for me, I want to help improve your life.

And that's what -- and so the strategy has been to -- let me say, we adjusted our strategy, and there's about 200,000-plus capable units. Now, not all of them are ready to take the fight to the enemy. In order to have a division or a battalion ready to fight, you've got to be able to communicate, you've got to be able to move, you've got to be able to have logistical supplies. But more and more of the Iraqis are in the lead in the fight, and more and more Iraqis are being trained so they can hold the positions once we clear.

We are not completed -- we haven't completed the job of training the Iraqis. But what is beginning to happen is, is that you're beginning to see our troops step back from the fight. I don't know if you realize, we had some 90 bases in Iraq, and I think we've closed about 40 -- or turned over -- closed or turned over 40 of those bases to the Iraqis. In other words, our profile is beginning to move back as the Iraqis get trained up -- so that we can continue working on training, and also help them chase down Zarqawi and his buddies. They're -- these guys are very tough and they're cold-blooded killers.

The enemy has got one weapon. See, they can't defeat us militarily. What they can do is they can -- and will -- kill innocent people in the hopes of trying to get the United States of America to leave the battlefield early. The only way we can lose is if we lose our nerve. And they know that. And they've stated that publicly.

And -- but the training is going much better than it was in the first year. The -- and we've just got more to do, and we need to do it, because a free Iraq, again, will be an important ally in this war. This is a global struggle we're in. It's -- this isn't an enemy that is isolated, kind of angry group of people. These are people that have got a totalitarian vision. They've got designs and ambitions. They've laid out their strategy and they explained their tactics. And we've got to listen to them and take them seriously. And part of their tactics is to create vacuums so that their hateful ideology flows in.

They -- listen, the attack of September the 11th was a part of a broad strategy to get us to retreat from the world. And that -- people say, well, he's making it up that they want to establish a totalitarian empire that stretches from Spain to Indonesia. I'm telling you what they said; not me. This is what Zawahiri has said -- the number-two man in al Qaeda. It seems like to me we need to take it seriously when the enemy says something.

Kind of getting off subject, here, but -- yes, sir.

Q Mr. President, I'm a proud U.S. citizen, naturalized, and card-carrying Republican. I voted for you both times. I grew in India, a Sunni. In fact, the President of the Republic of India is a Sunni. And I think it's a great testimony to this nation that was -- the vision of which was laid out within a few -- half a mile of here, that somebody like me can be in a position of leadership and be successfully engaged in contributing to the current and future economic well-being of this nation. Mr. President, I support your efforts in Iraq. But I'd like to know what are we going to do in the broader battle in creating a favorable image and reaching out to people across the world, so that people like me all over the world can be passionate supporters of the United States.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I appreciate that. First of all, success will help the image of the United States. Look, I recognize we got an image issue, particularly when you got television stations, Arabic television stations that are constantly just pounding America, creating -- saying America is fighting Islam, Americans can't stand Muslims, this is a war against a religion. And we've got to, obviously, do a better job of reminding people that ours is not a nation that rejects religion; ours is a nation that accepts people of all faith, and that the great strength of America is the capacity for people to worship freely.

It's difficult. I mean, their propaganda machine is pretty darn intense. And so we're constantly sending out messages, we're constantly trying to reassure people, but we're also -- we're also acting. And that's what's important for our citizens to realize. Our position in the world is such that I don't think we can retreat. I think we have a duty and an obligation to use our vast influence to help.

I cite two examples of where I think it will make a big -- of where American image in the Muslim world will be improved. One is the tsunami. The tsunamis hit; it was the United States military, through the USS Abraham Lincoln, that provided the logistical organization necessary to get the -- to get the -- to save a lot of lives. We moved. A lot of people kind of sat around and discussed; not us. We saw a problem and we moved.

Same in Pakistan. The earthquake in Pakistan is devastating. The United States of America was first on the scene. We got a lot of kids flying choppers all around that country providing help and aid.

And so I guess what I'm saying to you is, is that a proper use of influence that helps improve people's lives is the best way to affect -- to change the image of country, and to defeat the propaganda. Having said all that, a lot of people want to come to America. The image may be bad, but give them a chance, all you who want to come to America, raise your hand -- there's a lot wanting to come. That's another issue, which is immigration reform.

But thank you for that. One thing America must never do is lose our capacity to take people from all walks of life and help them become an American, first and foremost. That's what distinguishes us from other cultures and other nations. You can come from wherever you are, and I can come from Texas, and we both share the same deal -- we're Americans first and foremost. I happen to be a Methodist. You're a Sunni. (Laughter.)

Yes, ma'am.

Q Mr. President, I would like to know why it is that you and others in your administration keep linking 9/11 to the invasion of Iraq when no respected journalist or Middle Eastern expert confirmed that such a link existed.

THE PRESIDENT: What did she -- I missed the question. Sorry. I didn't -- I beg your pardon, I didn't hear you. Seriously.

Q I would like to know why you and others in your administration invoke 9/11 as justification for the invasion of Iraq --

THE PRESIDENT: Yes --

Q -- when no respected journalists or other Middle Eastern experts confirm that such a link existed.

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. 9/11 changed my look on foreign policy. I mean, it said that oceans no longer protect us, that we can't take threats for granted; that if we see a threat, we've got to deal with it. It doesn't have to be militarily, necessarily, but we got to deal with it. We can't -- can't just hope for the best anymore.

And so the first decision I made, as you know, was to -- was to deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan because they were harboring terrorists. This is where the terrorists planned and plotted. And the second decision, -- which was a very difficult decision for me, by the way, and it's one that I -- I didn't take lightly -- was that Saddam Hussein was a threat. He is a declared enemy of the United States; he had used weapons of mass destruction; the entire world thought he had weapons of mass destruction. The United Nations had declared in more than 10 -- I can't remember the exact number of resolutions -- that disclose, or disarm, or face serious consequences. I mean, there was a serious international effort to say to Saddam Hussein, you're a threat. And the 9/11 attacks extenuated that threat, as far as I -- concerned.

And so we gave Saddam Hussein the chance to disclose or disarm, and he refused. And I made a tough decision. And knowing what I know today, I'd make the decision again. Removing Saddam Hussein makes this world a better place and America a safer country. (Applause.)

Last question. I've actually got something to do. (Laughter.) You're paying me all this money, I'd better get back to work. (Laughter.)

Hold on a second. Got a guy here.

Q Mr. President, I'm from the Phelps School; I'm a supporter of yours.

THE PRESIDENT: Oops, that kind of prejudices your question. (Laughter.)

Q Well I have a question for you. Do you feel that since invading Iraq, the threat of terrorism on U.S. soil has been reduced significantly?

THE PRESIDENT: I think it's been reduced; I don't think we're safe. What will really give me confidence to say that we're safe is when I can tell the American people we've got the capacity to know exactly where the enemy is moving. This is a different kind of war. These people hide. They -- they're patient and they're sophisticated. And that's why our intelligence-gathering is really important.

You know, occasionally they come out and want to fight like they're doing in Iraq. This guy, Zarqawi, has sworn his allegiance to bin Laden. He has -- he's declared his intentions. But there's a lot of them who lurk and hide. And what we've really got to do is continue to hone our intelligence-gathering to make sure that we can, as best as possible, understand their intents and watch their movements. And this requires international cooperation.

I will tell you the international cooperation, when it comes to sharing intelligence, is good. It requires us being able to cut off their money and move money around. They can't -- it turns out, they can't launch attacks without money. And so we're doing the best we can to work with others to find out where their money is moving. And that way, it will be a -- give us a chance to find out where they are.

The long run in this war is going to require a change of governments in parts of the world. It's -- and this is why it's very important for me to continue to remind the American people about what's taking place in history. One of my favorite stories is to tell people about -- or go-bys -- is to tell people about my relationship with Koizumi, Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan. He's an interesting guy. He likes Elvis, for example, which is -- (laughter) -- interesting -- (laughter). He's a friend. He's also a friend when it comes to peace. He's a reliable, steady ally when it comes to dealing with North Korea. North Korea is a country that has declared boldly they've got nuclear weapons, they counterfeit our money, and they've starving their people to death. And it's good to have an ally that understands human rights and the condition of the human being are vital for this world and world peace.

And yet, 60 years ago, my dad fought against the Japanese -- many of your relatives did, as well. They were the sworn enemy of the United States. I find it amazing -- I don't know if you find it amazing -- I find it amazing that I sit down with this guy, strategizing about how to make the world a more peaceful place when my dad and others fought him.

And so what happened? Now, 60 years seems like a long time, particularly if you're 59, like me. (Laughter.) But it's not all that long in history, when you think about it. And what happened was a Japanese-style democracy emerged. Democracies yield the peace. That's what history has shown us. That's what I tried to say in my peroration in this speech. That's a long word. I'm doing it for Senator Specter here. (Laughter and applause.) Just showing off, Senator. Just trying to look good in front of the folks here at home. (Laughter.) But it's an accurate portrayal of what has happened. Democracies yield the peace.

So the fundamental question is, do we have the confidence and universal values to help change a troubled part of the world. If you're a supporter of Israel, I would strongly urge you to help other countries become democracies. Israel's long-term survival depends upon the spread of democracy in the Middle East. I recognize people have -- (applause) -- I fully recognize that some say it's impossible, that maybe only a certain kind of people can be -- can accept democracy. I just -- I reject that. I don't agree with that. I believe democracy -- the desire to be free is universal. That's what I believe. And if you believe that, then you've got to act on it. That doesn't mean militarily. But that means using the influence of the United States to work with others to help -- to help freedom spread.

And that's what you're seeing in Iraq. And it's hard. It's hard for a country that has come from dictatorship two-and-a-half years ago to become a democracy. It is hard work. There's a lot of resentment and anger and bitterness. But I believe it's going to happen. And the only way it won't happen is if we leave, if we lose our nerve, if we allow the terrorists to achieve their objective. The only way we can lose this is for us to say to the terrorists, maybe you aren't dangerous, after all -- you know, by leaving, maybe that you'll become hospitable, decent citizens of the world. That's not reality. And my job as the President is to see the world the way it is, not the way we hope it is. (Applause.)

I, again, want to thank you for giving me the chance to come and deliver this speech. I'm grateful for your interest. May God bless you all, and may God continue to bless America. (Applause.)

END 12:14 P.M. EST

Ciao, CIA: The spy agency is damaged beyond repair: Abolish it and start over By Jack Kelly

Source: http://jewishworldreview.com/1205/jkelly121205.php3

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | On Aug. 2, Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post reported that "a major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years."


On Dec. 5, the Jerusalem Post reported that Mohammed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, "confirmed Israel's assessment that Iran is only a few months away from creating an atomic bomb."


My, how time flies. It hasn't seemed as if 10 years have elapsed since last summer.


The CIA could be right, and the Israeli intelligence service Mossad and the IAEA could be wrong. But given the CIA's forecasting record — it missed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Islamic revolution in Iran, the warning signs of 9/11 and Saddam's WMD — that's not the way to bet.


Intelligence analysis isn't the only thing the CIA does sloppily. The Bush administration suffered major embarrassment when it was disclosed that the United States was holding top al-Qaida suspects in "secret prisons" in eastern Europe and North Africa.


A Swedish journalist who prepared one of the first stories on the CIA flights that transported al-Qaida captives told Josh Gerstein of The New York Sun the CIA did a poor job of covering its tracks.


"I would say they didn't give a damn," Fredrik Laurin told Mr. Gerstein. "If I was an American taxpayer, I'd be upset."


For a show broadcast in May of last year, Mr. Laurin traced the tail number of a Gulfstream jet used to transport captives to a clearly phony company in Massachusetts.


"You weren't able to trace the name to any living individual," Mr. Laurin said. "They were all living in post office boxes in Virginia.


"If that's all the imagination they can drum up at Langley, I'd fire the bunch," Mr. Laurin added.


But if the CIA hasn't been very good at ferreting out the secrets of our enemies, or keeping our own, it has shown a talent for playing politics.


"The CIA's war against the Bush administration is one of the great untold stories of the past three years," wrote lawyer and Web logger John Hinderaker in The Weekly Standard.


The CIA has used its budget to fund criticism of the Bush administration by former Democratic officeholders, and permitted a serving analyst, Michael Scheuer, to publish and promote a book bashing the president.


The principal CIA weapon has been the leak. Reporters for ABC, The New York Times and The Washington Post didn't have to do even the minimal legwork Mr. Laurin did to out the CIA's clandestine "rendition" program. It was handed to them by "current and former intelligence officials."


"So the CIA established policies that it knew would be controversial and would damage American interests if revealed, and then leaked the existence of those policies to The Washington Post for the purpose of damaging the Bush administration," Mr. Hinderaker wrote.


A rogue CIA that subverts American democracy has long been a staple of moonbat mythology. How ironic that the rogues in the CIA should turn out to be leftists who harm America to benefit Democrats.


Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA operative in the Middle East, sees little hope the agency can be reformed:


The CIA's "muscle-bound bureaucratization, combined with the failure of the press to accurately represent to the public the Agency's actual problems ... holds out little hope that we will see the innovation needed to combat bin-Ladenism," he wrote last year.


"For almost a decade now the CIA put a low priority on recruiting human sources abroad," agreed Robert Baer, another former CIA Middle East operative and author of "See No Evil." "The CIA was more concerned about being politically correct."


"The problem with the CIA is that the senior executives responsible for production of intelligence just aren't good enough," said Herbert Meyer, assistant to legendary CIA Director William Casey.


In the 1990s, the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan proposed abolishing the CIA. That seemed far out then. It doesn't seem so far out now. It might be easier to start from scratch than to clean up the mess the CIA has become.


"The CIA is in deep crisis," Mr. Hinderaker said. "It is not at all clear that its survival is in the national interest."




JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration.

Fighting to Win: With the proper strategy, victory in Iraq is far more likely than people think by Frederick W. Kagan

Source: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/462tbigf.asp

Weekly Standard
12/19/2005, Volume 011, Issue 14


IS RETREAT FROM--or withdrawal from--or defeat in--Iraq inevitable? Almost all opponents of the Bush administration say it is. As Rep. Jack Murtha put it in mid-November, when demanding the "immediate redeployment of U.S. troops" consistent with their safety, "The United States cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring the troops home." This was echoed more recently by Democratic chief Howard Dean: "The idea that we're going to win this war is an idea that, unfortunately, is just plain wrong." Advocates of withdrawal point to continuing attacks on coalition and Iraqi targets and to the steady, somber flow of U.S. casualties, as well as the increasing fear that our Army will break under the strain of prolonged occupation.

Administration supporters of course share these concerns, and some seem (privately) to share the view that the war may be unwinnable. Even a few inside the administration may have their doubts. In any case, the administration clearly believes that it has to promise a significant reduction of U.S. forces in Iraq--"conditions permitting"--in 2006. Reports are circulating that preparations for troop reductions have already begun.

The irony is that demands for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces do not spring from any particular recent bad news from Iraq (there has been little) or justified alarm about the Army's ability to sustain itself (high levels of retention continue to make up for problems with recruitment). On the contrary, the most recent news from Iraq is promising. American strategy has improved, and prospects for success are better than they have ever been.

Since early September, coalition efforts along the Syrian border to clear towns of insurgents have not generated anger, violence, and outbursts--on the contrary. The clearing of Tal Afar in mid-September by a combined American and Iraqi force followed a request by the citizens of that town for an American intervention. Operations in villages in the upper Euphrates since then have generated limited and sporadic resistance, mainly from cornered insurgents. The lessons of the October referendum are very clear, moreover: Dramatic and aggressive joint action by U.S. and Iraqi forces to preempt and defeat the insurgents' attempt to derail the election worked spectacularly well.

There is at this point at least as much evidence that the aggressive use of coalition forces is effective as that the presence of those forces is--as U.S. critics insist--harmful. Desirable though the withdrawal of U.S. forces is from both the American and the Iraqi perspectives, therefore, it must not be the first goal of U.S. operations in Iraq. The truth is that calls for a precipitous retreat from Iraq, or for setting arbitrary deadlines or milestones for withdrawal, now threaten to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

A Baseless Urgency


THE URGENCY of an American withdrawal from Iraq is no greater now than it has been for some time, and those most loudly demanding immediate withdrawal have no convincing evidence to support their demands. In his passionate speech, Murtha quoted selectively from the statements of CENTCOM officials to present a picture of Iraq in which resentment of U.S. forces appeared to be growing and to be deepening the insurgency. "I have concluded," said Murtha, "the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is impeding this progress. Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency. They are united against U.S. forces, and we have become a catalyst for violence. U.S. troops are the common enemy of the Sunnis, the Saddamists, and the foreign jihadists." In response to questions, he repeated: "It's time to bring [U.S. troops] home. . . . They're the targets. They have become the enemy! . . . We're uniting the enemy against us!"

But these assertions are simply wrong.

Coalition forces have always been the primary targets of the insurgents, but over the past year Iraqi security forces and Iraqi civilians have borne a larger share of insurgent attacks than they did before the first battle of Falluja and the revelation of the Abu Ghraib scandal. Recent spectacular attacks on Iraqi police and security forces and assassinations of Sunni political leaders participating in the election underscore this point. Nor are the insurgents any more "united" than they have ever been. On the contrary, growing numbers of Sunni Arab leaders are joining the political process in defiance of the terrorists within their communities. It is even possible, according to recent news reports, that some Sunni Arab insurgent groups have put out feelers to the Iraqi government about the possibility of themselves joining the political process.

The reaction of Sunni Arabs to terrorist leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi's repeated calls in September for civil war against the Shiites was also significant. Although a handful of Sunni Arab clerics denounced Zarqawi for raising issues that distracted attention from the fight against the Americans, most kept silent, tacitly accepting the priority of the struggle against the Shiites. This silence does not necessarily bode well for civil order in Iraq, but it certainly suggests that the radical Sunni Arab clerics do not identify the American presence as the major problem they face. On the contrary, it is another argument for the importance of continued American involvement in this struggle in order to avert civil war.

MURTHA AND HIS ALLIES, then, ignore the fact that, while the Americans are a common enemy of the insurgents, the Iraqi government is also a common enemy--and a much more threatening one for most of the rebel groups. The presence of U.S. forces in Iraq is simply not the primary problem in that country, and the removal of those forces would therefore not end the insurgency.

Data about insurgent attacks in Iraq do not support any sense of urgency about withdrawing either. The October constitutional referendum saw significantly fewer attacks than the January 2005 elections: 299 attacks on January 30 generating 213 casualties, versus 89 attacks and 49 casualties on October 15. Insurgents attacked only 19 election sites in October; in January they struck 88. Although the significance of such data is not clear, and other trend lines are less promising than this, there is certainly no case to be made that the situation is worsening enough to support urgent demands for immediate withdrawal. On the contrary, it appears that significant progress is being made.

Another of the central arguments Murtha and others, including some CENTCOM leaders and Bush administration officials, have used to support a shrinking U.S. footprint in Iraq is that a reduction in American forces will "incentivize" the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own security. This argument would make sense if there were Iraqi military and security organs ready and able to take control of the fight against the insurgents, but there are not. James Fallows has recently described (in excessively dark terms, to be sure) the plight of the Iraqi army, and it is clear that the Iraqis cannot now control the insurgency by themselves. The preparation of Iraqi police forces has been lagging far behind that of the army; what is more, and it will be still longer until they are ready. More responsible advocates of withdrawal allow for the possibility of maintaining American support troops and contractors in Iraq, to make up for the near-total inability of the Iraqi army to support itself. Murtha would remove even those (he declared: "Setting an exit-strategy with some kind of event-driven plan doesn't work because they always find an excuse not to get them out"), allowing the Iraqi military to crumble instantly, as it surely would. We cannot "incentivize" the Iraqis to take responsibility before they are ready to do so.

Nor do the Iraqis need much in the way of incentives. Evidence both statistical and anecdotal underlines the determination of the new Iraqi army to participate in the counterinsurgency on its own. Iraqi units have planned and conducted their own operations on numerous occasions, and in 2005 there have been no instances of Iraqi army units running from combat. U.S. officers repeatedly express pride in the Iraqi troops they are training and fighting with--and offer numerous stories to back up that pride. The Iraqis are fighting and will continue to fight without the "incentive" of being required to take on tasks for which they are unprepared.

Perhaps the most serious argument made by those who advocate reductions in the American presence in Iraq is that the U.S. Army is in danger of breaking. General Barry McCaffrey recently warned that the "wheels are coming off" the Army. Andrew Krepinevich accepted this assumption as one of the key bases for his argument that the United States should simultaneously reduce its forces in Iraq and adopt an "oil-spot" strategy of focusing on the security of a small number of key locations and spreading that control gradually over the country. We will return to the wisdom of the "oil-spot" approach momentarily, but we must first consider the assertion that the Army is in imminent danger of collapse.

It is difficult to measure, in truth, how close the Army is to "breaking." The bare numbers are not very revealing--the Army missed its annual recruiting goal last year by 7,000 soldiers (out of a recruiting target of 80,000 to support a force of over 500,000). The pipeline of "deferred accessions," those who have volunteered and been accepted but whose reporting to basic training units is delayed, on the other hand, has dried up, so that subsequent recruiting shortfalls may be effectively much higher. The Army appears to be having more difficulty in filling certain essential specialties than it has before, although units deploying to Iraq do so with full complements of soldiers on the whole.

The most worrisome aspect of the problem is that the Army is now relying on an extremely high retention and reenlistment rate to make up for recruiting shortfalls--the more soldiers who "re-up," the fewer new recruits the Army has to find. McCaffrey, Krepinevich, and others worry that as the war goes on, retention will fall--and then the wheels really will come off. Students of the British war in Northern Ireland second these fears. Most U.S. soldiers have experienced only one or two deployments to Iraq, but retention in the British Army did not begin to suffer until soldiers went back for their third and fourth deployments.

The strain on the Army is no secret. The administration's consistent refusal--since taking office, since 9/11, since Afghanistan, and since Operation Iraqi Freedom--to increase the size of the active force continues to be both inexplicable and inexcusable. But no one knows when or even if the Army will break. No one, indeed, has any very clear idea of what "breaking" would mean today--the term refers to the Army of the post-Vietnam period which was suffering not only from prolonged combat, but from the effects of defeat in war, rejection by American society, and the sudden conversion of a draftee force to an all-volunteer force. It does not seem that the Army of today will face many of those challenges, so the validity of the analogy is suspect.

Neither is it clear that there is nothing to be done about this problem other than withdrawing from Iraq. The "broken" Army of the 1970s suffered from serious recruiting problems, which the Reagan administration fixed in short order by increasing recruiting bonuses, improving recruiting strategies, and adding a presidential call-to-arms. The Army has been feeling its way toward such solutions today, but cautiously and without the benefit of public presidential or significant financial assistance. It would be wise to try fixing the Army without giving up on Iraq before accepting defeat there as the price we must pay for the institutional health of the Army.

It is not clear, moreover, that the United States should prioritize the institutional health of the Army over success in Iraq. Withdrawing from Iraq prematurely would almost certainly lead to the collapse of civil order there, the failure of Iraqi democracy, the dramatic rise of al Qaeda and other forms of violent Islamic radicalism, and possibly the expansion of intra-Iraqi conflict to involve other countries of the region. It is likely that many of these scenarios would see American force reengaged in the region in large numbers and in short order. The terms of the conflict would then be worse, the stakes higher, and the dangers of "breaking" the Army even greater. So it is almost certainly the case that withdrawing from Iraq now to save the Army is as short-sighted as it initially seems to some to be wise and far-seeing. Those concerned about the health of the Army--to say nothing of the well-being of the nation--should give first priority to success in this mission.

In Search of a Strategy

SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN recently declared, "If the administration shows it has a blueprint for protecting our fundamental security interests in Iraq, Americans will support it." He is quite right. One of the reasons for the decline in domestic support for the Bush administration's policy in Iraq has been the absence of any such clearly articulated strategy for victory there. CENTCOM has long argued that the key to success is a small American footprint and training Iraqi soldiers to take over as rapidly as possible. CENTCOM commander General John Abizaid has frequently stated that he believes the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq is one of the major catalysts of the insurgency. President Bush has repeatedly declared that "as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." And so Murtha and others have faithfully repeated these proclamations in support of demands to withdraw.

But the hope of turning the problem over to the Iraqis is an exit strategy, not a strategy for success. We could, as Murtha points out, accomplish this goal tomorrow (or at least in six months), if we didn't care about what happened in Iraq the next day. The goal of winning in Iraq requires a much more complicated plan that does more than prepare the Iraqis to continue the fight, and until recently the administration had failed to present such a plan in any detail.

The recent release of a National Security Council strategy document, and recent speeches by the president, have only begun to fill this void. The document lays out the administration's general approach to the problem and rightly stresses the need to coordinate military, political, and economic activities. It does not explain how that coordination will occur considering the fractured nature of command arrangements in Iraq. Even worse, it still does not explain clearly what role American forces must play in Iraq apart from training the Iraqi army--namely, continuing to fight the terrorists, both foreign and Iraqi, but fighting the Sunni Arab insurgents as well; working to encourage the Sunnis to opt for politics over violence; and providing a continuing model of military professionalism to the young Iraqi forces. This lacuna damages both attempts to combat the withdrawal-mania that is gripping Washington and the conduct of the war itself.

Until the administration explains why U.S. forces are needed in Iraq, beyond training the Iraqi Security Forces, it will be very difficult for the administration to defend any particular troop levels there. Even accelerated training could take place with far fewer than the 160,000 soldiers in Iraq now if that were all they were doing. As long as CENTCOM continues to state that the presence of American forces is a major catalyst for the insurgency and that the Iraqis should be doing the fighting, it is hard to see how those arguments will suffice to defend troop strengths at the relatively high levels CENTCOM clearly believes are still necessary.

And those higher troop levels are, in fact, vitally necessary, because U.S. forces have a critical role to play beyond training the Iraqi Security Forces. For if American forces did begin to leave Iraq prematurely, the insurgency would grow. First, many insurgents would believe that they had a greater chance of military success against the Iraqis than they have had against the Americans, and so would be newly encouraged to engage in a struggle that many of them now find daunting. Second, they would be right. The Iraqi Security Forces would inevitably operate at lower levels of skill and efficiency than the coalition troops. Presenting the insurgents with less-capable government forces would give them opportunities they do not now have. They would work to seize and exploit those opportunities aggressively, if their past behavior is any guide, and the inexperienced Iraqi troops would be hard pressed to respond efficiently.

It is also likely, moreover, that the Iraqi Security Forces themselves would become more brutal as Americans withdrew. Because they have been rushed through training that is cursory compared with the training American forces receive, the Iraqis are inevitably less professional, and professionalism is one of the key shields standing between military forces and the abuse of prisoners and civilians. In addition, the Iraqi troops respect and seek to emulate their American mentors. They know that U.S. forces strongly disapprove of atrocities, and so are less likely to commit them when American forces are around. As U.S. forces left, the strength of that restraint would diminish, and more Iraqi troops would be likely to slip their leashes.

The fact that the Iraqis would find fighting the insurgents by themselves much harder than fighting them with American assistance, finally, would generate the sort of fear and frustration that also breed atrocities. It goes without saying that increasing atrocities committed by predominantly Shiite Iraqi Security Forces would help stir the insurgency and even heighten the specter of civil war. The mere presence of American forces helps to keep this problem to a minimum, and is an important reason to insist that any coalition withdrawal be gradual and paced not only to the pure military capabilities of Iraqi forces, but also to their nascent professionalism.

Above all, it is essential for the coalition to drive the Sunni insurgency down to such a low level that when the rebellion grows as U.S. forces leave, it will not grow beyond the point at which the less-capable Iraqi forces can handle it. The simple number of trained Iraqi troops or units has never been an adequate measure for determining the pace of withdrawal. Any timetable must consider not only that number, but also the probable post-handover strength of the insurgency relative to Iraqi capabilities. And it is vital in the meantime for the United States to be directly involved in the struggle against the insurgents in order to reduce their strength to a level the Iraqis are capable of handling. There are indications that CENTCOM is gingerly adopting this approach, but the military and the administration must publicly embrace and explain it. So far, they have been so concerned with minimizing our footprint and promising our withdrawal that they have not done so.

A New Approach: Clear, Hold, Build

THE ABSENCE of any clear articulation of an actual counterinsurgency strategy (as opposed to a strategy of training Iraqis to conduct counterinsurgency operations) has lent prominence to a few strategies proposed by outside experts, particularly the "oil-spot" strategy advocated by Andrew Krepinevich recently in Foreign Affairs. According to this strategy, the United States should abandon its efforts to fight terrorists throughout Iraq and instead focus on establishing a limited number of secured areas in which Iraqis can reestablish normal life. These areas could be expanded (like oil-spots) over time, gradually bringing all of the country under control. Krepinevich and others rightly point out that the coalition's failure to provide security to many Iraqis in the Sunni Triangle is one of the most serious problems in this war, and he advocates this approach as the best way to tackle this problem with a limited number of U.S. soldiers (Krepinevich argues, in fact, that the United States should reduce its commitment significantly in 2006 while adopting his strategy).

There are serious problems with this proposal, however. Recent American strategy, which some have derisively dubbed "whack-a-mole," has not prioritized controlling territory at all, but instead has focused on lightning raids to capture or kill terrorists and insurgents. This approach has the disadvantage of failing to create secure zones for Iraqi citizens. It has the important advantage, however, of preventing the insurgents from establishing their own safe havens for more than a few months at a time. This is an incredibly important advantage.

As we saw during the battles of Falluja and Tal Afar, allowing the insurgents a long period of time in which to control a population center and prepare to defend it dramatically increases the difficulty of clearing them out. It also allows them to establish training bases; to recruit; to stockpile weapons and supplies; and to export terrorists and equipment to other areas. (And al Qaeda in Iraq does offer training courses to its adherents, complete with blackboard illustrations and demonstrations, in how to make and use Improvised Explosive Devices, how to attack coalition forces, and so on.) By periodically wiping out such enclaves, the coalition dramatically reduces the range and sophistication of the insurgency--and U.S. commanders in recent weeks have repeatedly testified that the complexity of insurgent attacks is dropping dramatically, and that their effectiveness and lethality are also falling off. It would be unfortunate, while focusing on creating safe havens for Iraqi citizens, if the coalition also created safe havens for the insurgents, which the rebels do not now have.

The other problem with the "oil-spot" approach is that it would be less effective than the approach CENTCOM is using on the ground right now, and would, in fact, mark a step backwards in de facto strategy. For CENTCOM has finally figured out that it really does have to control ground in Iraq even while playing "whack-a-mole" with the insurgents, and it has found a way to do so with the existing size of coalition forces in Iraq. The failure to articulate the new approach clearly and dramatically leaves underappreciated the success it is now generating. As a result, there is a real danger that this new approach will be abandoned just when it should be expanded.

The policy often enunciated by President Bush--as Iraqi forces stand up, U.S. forces will stand down--is exactly wrong. As more Iraqi Security Forces become available, the United States should make use of them to pursue critical objectives that the paucity of American forces previously made impossible. As more Iraqi forces stand up, they should join American forces in fighting the insurgents. This is the approach that CENTCOM has been quietly adopting in recent months to good effect. Premature drawdowns--or even promises of drawdowns--of U.S. troops would make it impossible.

Since mid-September, the coalition has conducted a series of major and minor operations in Anbar and Nineveh provinces. They share a common pattern: Joint U.S.-Iraqi combat teams surround and then clear cities and towns with concentrations of terrorists; U.S. forces then withdraw except for small detachments, leaving behind significant Iraqi teams to maintain security; preplanned reconstruction and humanitarian assistance operations then begin, both to make good damage resulting from the combat (which is usually fairly minimal) and to improve the quality of life of the local population beyond its preoperation levels.

The increasing availability of Iraqi troops has allowed the coalition to pursue these operations, which end up securing cleared territory in a way that previous operations did not, without abandoning large areas of Anbar and Nineveh to the rebels as the oil-spot approach would. The result is an overall increase in the number of cleared areas that are being held by Iraqi forces and rebuilt, without the creation of rebel safe havens that store up crises for the future. As of mid-November, coalition and Iraqi forces had cleared and secured the towns of Husaybah, Karabilah, Hit, Haditha, Barwana, Haqlaniya, Saddah, Rawah, Amiriya, and Faris all along the Iraq-Syria border. Coalition forces in other operations cleared out Tal Afar, al Qaim, Ramadi, and other trouble spots. Much remains to be done, and a spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister recently noted that he needs more forces in Diyala province and elsewhere, but this is a very promising start for a new approach.

Unfortunately, CENTCOM may have adopted this correct approach for the wrong reasons. The focus of all of these operations, according to CENTCOM spokesmen, is to disrupt the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq by establishing coalition control of the towns of the Euphrates River valley through which they travel. Moreover, the need to provide security in the Sunni Triangle before the December elections has given this task greater urgency in CENTCOM's eyes. Although both considerations are important, they are short-term problems, especially the focus on the election. The danger is that CENTCOM, under pressure from those concerned with the Army's well-being and those who simply wish to give up on Iraq, will abandon these solid efforts just when they should be redoubled and expanded.

There is no question that the presence of foreign fighters in Iraq is an important element of the insurgency. Although al Qaeda's attacks make up a relatively small proportion of attacks overall, they tend to be the most spectacular and, therefore, the most damaging on the American home front. There is no question, moreover, that Zarqawi is a dangerous foe who must be hunted down and captured or killed, and the United States dare not take the pressure off him and allow him to reconstitute his increasingly ragged forces.

But, as the commander of Multinational Force West, Major General Stephen T. Johnson, recently noted, "The insurgents in Al Anbar province, north Babil province, are largely locally based insurgents; that is, the insurgent we fight here is from here, he's from those communities in which we are engaging them." He added that local Sunnis formed the "vast majority" of the rebels he was combating. It is by no means clear that the elimination of foreign fighters, mostly tied to al Qaeda, will suppress this local Sunni Arab insurgency, and efforts to focus on it run the risk of distracting attention from the problem that will ultimately determine the outcome of the Iraqi democratic experiment--bringing the Sunni Arabs peacefully into the political process.

The focus on preparing the Sunni Triangle for the elections is also necessary but problematic. It is impossible to overstate the importance of ensuring that Sunni Arabs can vote safely, of course, since that is a critical part of persuading them to abjure violence and embrace political solutions to their problems. But this week's elections will not solve the problem. The Sunni Arabs have so far pursued three different paths to regaining control over Iraq, which many of them feel is their birthright. They boycotted the January vote in an effort to delegitimize it. When that failed, they turned out in droves in October, hoping to vote down a constitution that they did not like. That effort also failed, and now many Sunni Arab leaders are calling for widespread participation in the December elections in the hopes of forming a powerful voting bloc that can reorder Iraq's affairs to their liking through the political process. The critical question is how the vote actually goes and how the Sunni Arab community reacts to the result.

It is possible, as some analysts argue, that the Sunni Arab bloc may end up being the second largest in the new parliament, giving the Sunni Arabs ample scope and considerable power in the new political system. Such a result could reduce the force of the rejectionist insurgency considerably. If the elections go otherwise, however, or if even a powerful Sunni Arab bloc is unable to make the desired changes in the constitution or get its way in other policy matters, or if hotheaded rebel leaders manage to gain the support of the population for any of a host of other possible reasons, then the insurgency could flare up dramatically despite a large Sunni Arab turnout at the polls.

It is therefore a mistake to see the elections as necessarily a turning point. American strategy should prepare for the worse cases, if not the worst, and be ready to handle an uptick in the insurgency over the next several months. If all goes well and it becomes clear that the insurgency really is dying down, then the few months' delay in beginning to draw down our forces will not be very significant to the Army or anything else. If all does not go well, then the United States will be poised to respond quickly and before things can get too far out of hand.

The presence or absence of sizable American forces will also play a vital role in determining whether the Sunni Arabs opt for violence or politics in the wake of the elections, and we must not underestimate this role. The more areas of the Sunni Triangle coalition forces have been able to clear and hold, the fewer the potential bases and safe havens for terrorists and insurgents. The more Iraqi troops are well established in those towns, the more likely they are to get early warning of potential problems and to be able to nip them in the bud, with or without American help. Now is not the time to set timetables or make promises about withdrawing forces to please domestic constituencies. Now is the time to make it clear that the progress of clearing and holding the Sunni Triangle will continue inexorably, and will even accelerate, as more and more Iraqi troops come on line. This is the best way to dash the insurgents' hope that we will withhold the coup de grace and let up on them just when we might have the chance to finish them off. It is the best route to persuading the Sunni Arabs that their only hope is in the peaceful political process.

CENTCOM thus far has been successful--almost unintentionally--in these recent operations. As it happens, the process of clearing towns of al Qaeda and holding them against foreign fighters also disables Sunni rejectionists (anyone with weapons or bomb-making materials is caught up in the sweeps), and the establishment of garrisons of Iraqi forces in the wake of these operations makes possible early warning against both kinds of attacks. But the focus on the borders is, in the long run, unfortunate, since there continue to be problems in the interior of the country. CENTCOM should maintain its new approach, but adopt a new target. The goal should be clearing and holding Baghdad and the entire Sunni Triangle at whatever pace the growth of the Iraqi Security Forces will allow, all the while continuing to attack al Qaeda and Sunni holdouts as necessary, even when "leave-behind" Iraqi troops are not available. It should be a top priority to clear both Baghdad and Ramadi as quickly as possible. If that means accepting greater risk of cross-border infiltration, so be it. It will almost certainly mean maintaining an undiminished American presence in Iraq for months to come, and it is worth accepting the risks involved in that decision as well.

THE SITUATION in Iraq presents a firmer basis for optimism today than it ever has before. The challenges remain great, and failure will continue to be a real possibility for months if not years to come. The greatest danger to success in Iraq now lies on the American home front, in the danger that misrepresentations of Iraqi reality, politically motivated policy demands, and simple fear, exhaustion, and confusion will undermine the commitment necessary to succeed. The other danger is that those who do want to succeed--the Bush administration, CENTCOM--will inadvertently undermine our commitment by continuing mistakenly to emphasize the damage the American presence does to the prospects for success.

The goal of a counterinsurgency is to defeat the insurgents militarily and politically. In the long run, of course, the Iraqis themselves will have to maintain order in their own land. That does not mean that they can defeat this rebellion alone. The U.S. military has capabilities to locate targets, move forces rapidly to their locations, strike them with precision while minimizing collateral damage, and begin reconstruction far beyond anything the Iraqi military will have for a long time. In addition, American soldiers and marines have a much higher level of professionalism and detachment from this struggle. They have been playing a vital role in suppressing the rebellion, and they will have to continue to play that role for the foreseeable future. Continued U.S. military engagement is needed for success in Iraq--success that seems now to be closer than it has ever been--if we hold fast to the sound strategy for victory that has recently emerged, and do not lose our nerve.



Frederick W. Kagan, a military historian and coauthor of While America Sleeps, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His Blueprint for Victory appeared in the Weekly Standard of October 31, 2005.

Frist Says He's Ready to Block Filibuster

[DOCID: f:sr249is.txt]


108th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. RES. 249

To strike paragraph 2 of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
relating to cloture.


_______________________________________________________________________


IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

October 22, 2003

Mr. Miller submitted the following resolution; which was referred to
the Committee on Rules and Administration

_______________________________________________________________________

RESOLUTION



To strike paragraph 2 of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
relating to cloture.

Resolved, That rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate is
amended by striking paragraph 2.
< all >


For more information check out CRS Report for Congress RL32684 at http://www.opencrs.com/document/RL32684/

1968 Presidential Upstart McCarthy Dies

1968 Presidential Upstart McCarthy Dies

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press Writer
56 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Former Minnesota Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, whose insurgent campaign toppled a sitting president in 1968 and forced the Democratic Party to take seriously his message against the Vietnam War, died Saturday. He was 89.

McCarthy died in his sleep at assisted living home in the Georgetown neighborhood where he had lived for the past few years, said his son, Michael.

Eugene McCarthy challenged President Lyndon B. Johnson for the 1968 Democratic nomination during growing debate over the Vietnam War. The challenge led to Johnson's withdrawal from the race.

The former college professor, who ran for president five times in all, was in some ways an atypical politician, a man with a witty, erudite speaking style who wrote poetry in his spare time and was the author of several books.

"He was thoughtful and he was principled and he was compassionate and he had a good sense of humor," his son said.

When Eugene McCarthy ran for president in 1992, he explained his decision to leave the seclusion of his home in rural Woodville, Va., for the campaign trail by quoting Plutarch, the ancient Greek historian: "They are wrong who think that politics is like an ocean voyage or military campaign, something to be done with some particular end in view."

McCarthy got less than 1 percent of the vote in 1992 in New Hampshire, the state where he helped change history 24 years earlier.

Helped by his legion of idealistic young volunteers known as "clean-for-Gene kids," McCarthy got 42 percent of the vote in the state's 1968 Democratic primary. That showing embarrassed Johnson into withdrawing from the race and throwing his support to his vice president, Hubert H. Humphrey.

Sen. Robert Kennedy of New York also decided to seek the nomination, but was assassinated in June 1968. McCarthy and his followers went to the party convention in Chicago, where fellow Minnesotan Humphrey won the nomination amid bitter strife both on the convention floor and in the streets.

Humphrey went on to narrowly lose the general election to Richard Nixon. The racial, social and political tensions within the Democratic Party in 1968 have continued to affect presidential politics ever since.

"It was a tragic year for the Democratic Party and for responsible politics, in a way," McCarthy said in a 1988 interview.

"There were already forces at work that might have torn the party apart anyway — the growing women's movement, the growing demands for greater racial equality, an inability to incorporate all the demands of a new generation.

"But in 1968, the party became a kind of unrelated bloc of factions ... each refusing accommodation with another, each wanting control at the expense of all the others."

Although he supported the Korean War, McCarthy said he opposed the Vietnam War because "as it went on, you could tell the people running it didn't know what was going on."

"I admired Gene enormously for his courage in challenging a war America never should have fought," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., said Saturday.

Drawing a parallel to the current debate over the Iraq war, Kennedy said, "His life speaks volumes to us today, as we face a similar critical time for our country."

Former Sen. George McGovern, D-S.D., said McCarthy's presidential run in 1968 dramatically changed the antiwar movement.

"It was no longer a movement of concerned citizens, but became a national political movement," McGovern said Saturday. "He was an inspiration to me in all of my life in politics." McGovern won the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination, when McCarthy ran a second time.

Former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who ran for vice president in 2004, said McCarthy "was a remarkable American, a man who spoke his conscience, and he was a great leader for my party."

In recent years, McCarthy was critical of campaign finance reform, winning him an unlikely award from the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2000.

In an interview when he got the award, McCarthy said money helped him in the 1968 race. "We had a few big contributors," he said. "And that's true of any liberal movement. In the American Revolution, they didn't get matching funds from George III."

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, McCarthy said the United States was partly to blame for ignoring the plight of Palestinians.

"You let a thing like that fester for 45 years, you have to expect something like this to happen," he said in an interview at the time. "No one at the White House has shown any concern for the Palestinians."

In a 2004 biography, "Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism," British historian Dominic Sandbrook painted an unflattering portrait of McCarthy, calling him lazy and jealous, among other things. McCarthy, Sandbrook wrote, "willfully courted the reputation of frivolous maverick."

In McCarthy's 1998 book, "No-Fault Politics," editor Keith C. Burris described McCarthy in the introduction as "a Catholic committed to social justice but a skeptic about reform, about do-gooders, about the power of the state and the competence of government, and about the liberal reliance upon material cures for social problems."

McCarthy was born March 29, 1916, in Watkins, a central Minnesota town of about 750. He earned degrees from St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn., and the University of Minnesota.

He was a teacher, a civilian War Department employee and college economics and sociology instructor before turning to politics. He once spent a year in a monastery.

He was elected to the House in 1948. Ten years later he was elected to the Senate and re-elected in 1964. McCarthy left the Senate in 1970 and devoted much of his time to writing poetry, essays and books.

With a sardonic sense of humor, McCarthy needled whatever establishment was in power. In 1980 he endorsed Republican Ronald Reagan with the argument that anyone was better than incumbent Jimmy Carter, a Democrat.

On his 85th birthday in 2001, McCarthy told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis that President Bush was an amateur and said he could not even bear to watch his inauguration.

In an interview a month before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, McCarthy compared the Bush administration with the characters in the William Golding novel "Lord of the Flies," in which a group of boys stranded on an island turn to savagery.

"The bullies are running it," McCarthy said. "Bush is bullying everything."

McCarthy was an advocate for a third-party movement, arguing there was no real difference between Republicans and Democrats.

In 2000, he wrote a political satire called "An American Bestiary," illustrated by Chris Millis, in which high-level advisers are portrayed as park pigeons — "they strut and waddle" — and reporters are compared with black birds who flock together.

He blamed the media for deciding who is and is not a serious candidate and suggested he should have kept his 1992 candidacy a secret, since announcing it publicly did no good.

McCarthy also ran for president in 1972, 1976 and 1988.

For McCarthy, the 1950s and 1960s were the Democratic Party's high points because it pushed the Civil Rights Act through Congress and championed national health insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

"I think he probably would consider his work in civil rights legislation in the 1960s to be his greatest contribution," his son said Saturday.

The bad times, Eugene McCarthy said, began with America's increased involvement in the Vietnam War and the simultaneous failure of some of Johnson's Great Society social programs.

Instead of giving people a chance to earn a living, McCarthy said, the Great Society "became affirmative action and more welfare. It was an admission the New Deal had failed or fallen."

In recent years McCarthy had lived at Georgetown Retirement Residence, an assisted living center in Washington. He and his wife, Abigail, separated after the 1968 election. She died in 2001.

Survivors include daughters Ellen and Margaret and six grandchildren, Michael McCarthy said.

A private burial is planned for next week and a memorial service in Washington will be scheduled, Michael McCarthy said.

Comedian Richard Pryor Dies

Comedian Richard Pryor Dies

By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ, Associated Press Writer
1 hour ago

LOS ANGELES - Richard Pryor, the groundbreaking comedian whose profanely personal insights into race relations and modern life made him one of Hollywood's biggest stars, died of a heart attack Saturday. He was 65.

Pryor died shortly before 8 a.m. after being taken to a hospital from his home in the San Fernando Valley, said his business manager, Karen Finch. He had been ill for years with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the nervous system.

Music producer Quincy Jones described Pryor as a true pioneer of his art.

"He was the Charlie Parker of comedy, a master of telling the truth that influenced every comedian that came after him," Jones said in a statement. "The legacy that he leaves will forever be with us."

Pryor lived dangerously close to the edge, both on stage and off.

He was regarded early in his career as one of the most foul-mouthed comics in the business, but he gained a wide following for his universal and frequently personal routines. After nearly losing his life in 1980 when he caught on fire while freebasing cocaine, he incorporated the ordeal into his later routines.

His audacious style influenced generations of stand-up artists, from Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock to Robin Williams and David Letterman, among others.

A series of hit comedies and concert films in the '70s and '80s helped make Pryor one of the highest paid stars in Hollywood, and he was one of the first black performers to have enough leverage to cut his own deals. In 1983, he signed a $40 million, five-year contract with Columbia Pictures.

His films included "Stir Crazy," "Silver Streak," "Which Way Is Up?" and "Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip."

Throughout his career, Pryor focused on racial inequality, once joking as the host of the Academy Awards in 1977 that Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier were the only black members of the Academy.

Pryor once marveled "that I live in racist America and I'm uneducated, yet a lot of people love me and like what I do, and I can make a living from it. You can't do much better than that."

But he battled drug and alcohol addictions for years, most notably when he suffered severe burns over 50 percent of his body while freebasing at his home. An admitted "junkie" at the time, Pryor spent six weeks recovering from the burns and much longer from his addictions.

He battled multiple sclerosis throughout the '90s.

In one of his last movies, the 1991 bomb "Another You," Pryor's poor health was clearly evident. Pryor made a comeback attempt the following year, returning to standup comedy in clubs and on television while looking thin and frail, and with noticeable speech and movement difficulties.

In 1995, he played an embittered multiple sclerosis patient in an episode of the television series "Chicago Hope." The role earned him an Emmy nomination as best guest actor in a drama series.

"To be diagnosed was the hardest thing because I didn't know what they were talking about," he said. "And the doctor said `Don't worry, in three months you'll know.'

"So I went about my business and then, one day, it jumped me. I couldn't get up. ... Your muscles trick you; they did me."

Despite his health troubles, he was happy and in good humor in his final days, said his wife Jennifer Lee Pryor.

"He will be missed, but will forever live in thousands and thousands of hearts and continue to impact and inspire people with his truth and his pain, which he turned into comedy brilliantly," she said.

While Pryor's material sounds modest when compared with some of today's raunchier comedians, it was startling material when first introduced. He never apologized for it.

Pryor was fired by one Las Vegas hotel for "obscenities" directed at the audience. In 1970, tired of compromising his act, he quit in the middle of another Vegas stage show with the words, "What the (blank) am I doing here?" The audience was left staring at an empty stage.

He didn't tone things down after he became famous. In his 1977 NBC television series "The Richard Pryor Show," he threatened to cancel his contract with the network. NBC's censors objected to a skit in which Pryor appeared naked save for a flesh-colored loincloth to suggest he was emasculated.

"I wish that every new and young comedian would understand what Richard was about and not confuse his genius with his language usage," comedian Bill Cosby said through a spokesman Saturday.

In his later years, Pryor mellowed considerably, and his film roles looked more like easy paychecks than artistic endeavors. His robust work gave way to torpid efforts like "Harlem Nights," "Brewster's Millions" and "Hear No Evil, See No Evil."

"I didn't think `Brewster's Millions' was good to begin with," Pryor once said. "I'm sorry, but they offered us the money. I was a pig, I got greedy."

"I had some great things and I had some bad things. The best and the worst," he said in 1995. "In other words, I had a life."

Recognition came in 1998 from an unlikely source: The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington gave Pryor the first Mark Twain Prize for humor. He said in a statement that he was proud that, "like Mark Twain, I have been able to use humor to lessen people's hatred."

Born in 1940 in Peoria, Ill., Pryor grew up in his grandmother's brothel. His first professional performance came at age 7, when he played drums at a night club.

Following high school and two years of Army service, he launched his performing career, honing his comedy in bars throughout the United States. By the mid-'60s, he was appearing in Las Vegas clubs and on the television shows of Ed Sullivan, Merv Griffin and Johnny Carson.

His first film role came with a small part in 1967's "The Busy Body." He made his starring debut as Diana Ross' piano man in 1972's "Lady Sings the Blues."

Pryor also wrote scripts for the television series "Sanford and Son," "The Flip Wilson Show" and two specials for Lily Tomlin. He collaborated with Mel Brooks on the script for the movie "Blazing Saddles."

Later in his career, Pryor used his films as therapy. "Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling," was an autobiographical account of a popular comedian re-examining his life while lying delirious in a hospital burn ward. Pryor directed, co-wrote, co-produced and starred in the film.

"I'm glad I did `Jo Jo,'" Pryor once said. "It helped me get rid of a lot of stuff."

Pryor also had legal problems over the years. In 1974, he was sentenced to three years' probation for failing to file federal income tax returns. In 1978, he allegedly fired shots and rammed his car into a vehicle occupied by two of his wife's friends.

Even in poor health, his comedy was vital. At a 1992 performance, he asked the room, "Is there a doctor in the audience?" All he got was nervous laughter. "No, I'm serious. I want to know if there's a doctor here."

A hand finally went up.

"Doctor," Pryor said, "I need to know one thing. What the (blank) is MS?"

Pryor was married six times. His children include sons Richard and Steven, and daughters Elizabeth, Rain and Renee.

Daughter Rain became an actress. In an interview in 2005, she told the Philadelphia Inquirer that her father always "put his life right out there for you to look at. I took that approach because I saw how well audiences respond to it. I try to make you laugh at life."

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Bill's comment: We have lost a true legend, and a master of his art. "The King of Comedy" of my lifetime will be greatly missed. I am sure that everyone up there will love to hear all of the Mudbone routines, my personal favorite of his.

Thank you for making four generations laugh our asses off, as you put your demons out there to joke and reflect about. We will catch up to you later.

The day George Carlin leaves God's green earth, then the world of comedy will be in a total ball of confusion.

Investors disappointed with NASCAR TV deal

Posted on Thu, Dec. 08, 2005

Investors disappointed with NASCAR TV deal

Shares of track owners ISC, SMI take a hit

By JOE BEL BRUNO

The Associated Press


NEW YORK - International Speedway Corp., the corporate name behind 12 NASCAR tracks, felt Wall Street's disappointment Thursday over a new $4.48 billion television contract that some felt should have been significantly higher.
NASCAR announced late Wednesday an eight-year agreement with News Corp.'s Fox, Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN and ABC, and Time Warner Inc.'s Turner Sports. The deal - which trumps its previous $2.8 billion, six-year contract - runs through the 2014 season.

However, analysts expected an even higher price to televise NASCAR's major racing events - including Nextel Cup, Busch and Craftsman Truck series.

"While the overall TV contract is an increase over the previous one, we believe the announced contract is at the low end of expectations, and the Street will view this as a disappointment," Raymond James analyst Joseph Hovorka said in a report.

The average annual rights fee of the deal is $560 million, which is about 40 percent higher than the current contract. However, NASCAR said the first year of the contract will be worth between $470 million to $500 million - and increase between 3 percent and 5 percent annually.

Analysts said this is well below their projected $573 million in rights fees for NASCAR next year, and they had estimated 2007 would hit about $575 million. This caused at least two Wall Street securities firms to recommend selling shares of ISC.

Investors were quick to sell off shares of International Speedway, sending it to a new 52-week low. Shares dropped $5.70, or 10.8 percent, to $47.10 at the close of trading on the Nasdaq, after earlier trading as low as $45.90. The previous year low was $48.97.

The stock is down 11 percent this year, however, it is now trading 22 percent behind its $60.59 high reached on April 5. Shares had traded at an all-time high of about $70 at the end of 1999.

It wasn't only International Speedway's stock that got slammed. Speedway Motorsports Inc., which owns six race tracks that host NASCAR events, also took a steep tumble in trading.

Shares of Speedway Motorsports closed down $4.17 at $34.80 - 10.7 percent - on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock is down about 8 percent so far this year, and has fallen 13.6 percent from its year high of $40.29 set in April.

"International Speedway and Speedway Motorsports will be negatively impacted in 2007 and beyond as the significant TV rights revenue stream will decline substantially," AG Edwards analyst Timothy Conder said in a report.

International Speedway - which was founded is controlled by the France family - owns or co-ownes a dozen race tracks throughout the county. The most well-known property is the Daytona International Speedway.

--------------------------------------------
Bill's Comment: Apparently, these so-called expert analysts do not watch NASCAR closely. Television ratings have been up every year since 2001, when they went to the current format of FOX/NBC/TNT/SPEED. None of the other major sports can make this claim. Also, you are less likely to change the channel because of the excitement, especially when the "Chase For The Cup", a ten race quest for the Nextel Cup with either the top ten drivers or drivers within 400 points of first place sprint (pardon the pun) to the finish line.

As in many events in our lifetime, there is always hindsight, thinking that you could have held out for more. However, I believe that the France family (and other NASCAR executives) decided to let the dominoes fall in place during the offseason, and proceed to make the product both more accessible and more marketable for all. Despite the fact that some are moaning and groaning about the value of the package, I feel that it is a win-win for all of the involved networks. As NASCAR is increasing its fanbase annually, the clock is ticking until " the good ol' boys" becomes more of a higher spectated event than both the NFL and the NBA. Only time will tell.