Can Congressional Republicans Save Bush?

Paul Craig Roberts
July 18, 2005, 9:00 am

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If President Bush has competent
advisors, he must know that his Iraqi war has become a
liability for him and for the

Republican Party and might easily become a
catastrophe.

The latest NBC News/Wall Street
Journal poll finds that 45% of Americans doubt President
Bush`s veracity compared to 41% who regard him as
honest.

The poll also finds that a majority
of Americans regard Iraq as a more important issue than
the lack of jobs and that more Americans now disapprove
of Bush`s performance than approve.

This is not good news for a
president whose war is going badly. On June 27, General
George Casey, US commander of the multinational
coalition in Iraq, told morning TV audiences that the
Iraq conflict "will not be settled on the
battlefield." The Iraq conflict, Gen. Casey said,

"will ultimately be settled by negotiation."

Instead of firing Gen. Casey, as he
would have done in the past, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld
backed him up. Rumsfeld also told TV audiences that
"coalition forces are not going to repress the
insurgency," which might "go on five, six, eight,
10, 12 years."

That was not what Americans
promised a 3-week war wanted to hear. Even inattentive
Americans could discern that if the Bush administration
could be so far wrong on the duration of the war, it
could also be very wrong on the reasons for the war.

The poll showing the sharp drop in
belief in Bush`s credibility was conducted during July
8-11 and released on July 13. The poll reflects the
public`s new awareness of the interminable conflict.
With about 15,000 American casualties (dead and
wounded), the cost of the war is starting to come home.

The outcome of the invasion is far
removed from the Bush administration`s promise of a
cakewalk strewn with flowers. The war has also proven to
be extremely expensive at a time when Americans are
hearing that Social Security and Medicare are running
out of money. Americans want to know why Bush is
investing $300 billion in a training ground for al Qaeda
when America`s elderly cannot pay their prescription
bills.

On top of this comes the Karl Rove
problem. Famous as Bush`s principal advisor, Rove has
apparently been fingered as the administration official
who committed the felony of leaking the identity of an
undercover CIA agent in retaliation for her husband
exposing the neoconservative lie that Iraq had purchased
nuclear material from Niger.

For Bush, the Rove problem brings
back the issue of how we got ourselves at war in the
first place.

The US military and the Republican
establishment have done a good job of sticking by Bush
even though they now understand that he misled them and
put them at risk in a gratuitous war.

A retired general, Barry R.
McCaffrey,

recently told the House Armed Services Committee
that "the Army and Marine Corps are at risk of
experiencing a disaster during the coming three years.
There is little reserve or surge capability to respond
to new challenges."

McCaffrey, in effect, told the
Armed Services Committee that the civilians in the
Pentagon were out to lunch. The civilians` war-fighting
strategy downplays the need for troops and relies on
firepower and high-tech weapons.

General McCaffrey, currently a
professor at

West Point, told the Armed Services Committee that
America simply lacks the troops to deal with Iraq. The
general also said that even if the Pentagon could be
weaned away from its high-tech fantasies,

most recruitment goals are not being met. The US
military is shrinking during war time.

The reason, of course, is that most
Americans don`t any longer see the point of the war. We
were all for war when we heard our vice president Cheney
and national security advisor Condi Rice, now secretary
of state, tell us that Iraq had a mushroom cloud in
store for American cities. But when we found out that
this was all drivel, we started wondering why John
Jones`s son, an all-state quarterback, got his arms and
legs blown off in Iraq.

The American people noticed when
the CIA said that the US invasion of Iraq has turned
that country into a training ground for terrorists and
al Qaeda supporters. The last thing the US needs to be
doing is subsidizing Osama bin Laden, and that is
exactly what the Bush administration is doing in Iraq.

Hope for Bush and for America is at
hand. US Representative Walter B. Jones, (R, NC) has
introduced a resolution—the

Homeward Bound Resolution—that requires President
Bush "to announce, not later than December 31, 2005,
a plan for the withdrawal of all United States Armed
Forces from Iraq. "

The

Congressional Research Service has taken a close
look at the Resolution and has advised that the
Resolution is "advisory in nature rather than
mandatory. It appears to leave a great deal of
discretion with the President for setting a timetable
for the withdrawal of troops."

Walter B. Jones is a six-term
member of the House Armed Services Committee. He is the
member of Congress who required congressional dining
rooms to rename French fries

"freedom fries."
When patriots such as Jones realize that we
have made a mistake, it is time for us all to realize
it.

Many Americans are so incensed at
Bush for fabricating the reasons for invading Iraq that
they think they prefer for his ill-fated war adventure
to continue until it produces enough rope to hang him
and his administration.

I understand their anger at being
deceived over life and death matters. However, the
longer this war continues, the more Americans there will
be without arms, legs, eyes, and lives; the more
terrorists will spring from Iraqi deaths; the more
threatened Israel will become; and the stronger bin
Laden and his successors will be in the Middle East.

In my opinion Bush deserves to be

impeached. However, the goal is to stop the carnage
that is turning the US into a pariah and placing our
economic future into the

hands of our Asian bankers.

Who wants another American soldier
killed or maimed for nothing other than a
neoconservative agenda based on lies, ignorance and
hubris?

Walter B. Jones is an American
hero. He has provided cover for President Bush to comply
with the will of Congress and withdraw from Iraq. Every
American of good will should support the Homeward Bound
Resolution. Let history deal with George W. Bush and his
war.

The Homeward Bound Resolution and
its supporters will be America`s redemption.

Dr.
Roberts, [email
him] a former Associate Editor of the
Wall Street Journal and a
former Contributing Editor of National Review,
was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the
Reagan administration. He is
the author of

The Supply-Side Revolution
and, with Lawrence M. Stratton, of