More on the war

It would be so very nice some day in the not too distant future to longer have this as a topic of conversation. But it will be a topic until Bush is no longer president and even probably beyond that.

There's a great article by E.J. Dionne in the Post yesterday.

A couple of quotes from the article:

The president needs to convince Americans that a decent result in Iraq is still possible. Above all, he needs to answer the essential question: If we shouldn't have timetables now, how long does he think we'll need to keep combat forces in Iraq? Two years? Five years? More? And to what end?

This has been one of the many problems I've had with the way this war has been run. It is not an open ended commitment so we are told. Yet there no attempts at all by the administration to say when the commitment will end or what conditions need to happen for the commitment to end. So in other words the commitment IS open ended.

And this:

Instead, the burden of proof should be on those who have offered years of bravado and false optimism. Why are Americans supposed to believe Bush's current claims? Why shouldn't Congress continue to pressure the president to bring our combat troops home on a reasonable schedule? And why doesn't the president start talking seriously to Congress instead of just shouting at Democrats?

The main problem with the war is this administration was never straight with the public about it. When it was obvious things were not going as planned we got "oh the insurgents are one their last legs" "we're winning the war in Iraq." No, by George, we are a long long way off from even being close to saying that.