GregsOpinion.com

Both critical, both raise good points ...

Five Points of Reality That Bush Overlooked - Jim Hoagland/WaPo

Among the best points Hoagland raises is this one ...

Most important, move away from the obsession with secrecy that is a cancer at the center of your administration. Sept. 11, 2001, did change the world, and the Geneva Conventions do look outdated in places. Engage the nation and then the world in the debate about the changes -- and sacrifices -- that need to be made in fighting a war against terrorists. Don't confine that discussion to secret memos and directives.

At once, it encapsulates the problem and solution all in one. Were Bush a better communicator, many of us may not have our doubts about his handling of this (and last I checked "us" were in the majority). Peggy Noonan once wrote that Bush communicated better in speech form, rather than the Q&A format of press conferences or press gaggle give-and-takes. I think that's likely a fair comment for most modern Presidents, not just Bush, though. Still, it likely underscores the rationale for Bush to take his 6 pronged approach through the speech medium. Yet the reactions on this speech have tended to be supportive from those who were already inclined to support Bush and critical among those inclined to be critical. The takes on the speech from those within the 40-yard lines (with this being among them), however, have been a trickier read for any type of concensus. Could be due to whatever level of expectation there might have been that anything new and substantive might have come from it.

Power Brake - Spencer Ackerman/TNR

Ackerman does a fairly good job of looking at how the rhetoric and actions (as they are presently on course) measure up. The results don't look good for Bush ...

National defense is where Iraqis will perhaps enjoy the least sovereignty. Bush claimed that "we are ensuring that Iraqi forces serve under an Iraqi chain of command" so that Iraqis "know they are fighting for the future of their own country, not for any occupying power." But, according to both the Transitional Administrative Law passed by the Iraqi Governing Council and a March edict from Bremer, "operational control" of the Iraqi security forces lies with U.S. military commanders. In a very real sense, then, Iraqis are indeed fighting for an occupying power, since the Iraqi chain of command answers to American generals.

On security issues, Bush was at his most disingenuous. He defended the decision to reinstall Saddam-era generals in order to pacify the inflamed Sunni city of Falluja, calling his approach "shared responsibility." Rather than confronting or disarming the insurgents, however, the new Falluja security force essentially absorbed the insurgents, leaving the city quieter but still in the hands of extremists, who are well positioned to resort to further violence, most likely against other Iraqis. That wasn't the end of Bush's incoherence on security for Iraq. He promised that he has "lengthened and intensified training" of Iraqi security forces to prevent a recurrence of April's mass desertions in the face of the two-front insurgency, but moments later pledged that "we are accelerating our program to help train Iraqis to defend their country." Can an acceleration of training Iraqi troops really coincide with a lengthening and intensification of that training? Perhaps worst of all, Bush repeatedly referred to the problem of "illegal militias," rather than recognizing that unless all of Iraq's militias are demobilized, "there won't be free and fair elections," in the words of democracy expert and former CPA adviser Larry Diamond. Without these elections Bush's stated strategic goal can't be achieved.

Suffice it to say, the bar has been raised for version 2.0 of this series. An open question on this might be as follows: Is Bush really going on this 6-week jag to right the course on Iraq itself, merely change our perceptions of events, frame the issue more tightly as part of the war on terror, or try to keep the political debate on foriegn policy and away from economic news (at least while $2/gallon gas is still high on that list)? Some of us hold out hope for the first option on that list, but the lingering doubt is that as a "bold, decisive, and unwavering leader" Bush just may not get that a fix is needed anywhere.

I had my lingering doubts once upon a time ... that the faults of Bush's buildup to the war in Iraq wouldn't overcome the intrinsic merits of the cause itself. I can't claim that Bush has really instilled any faith in me on that front and I'm not about to make the same mistake twice.

SIDENOTE: Make it two and a half takes on this speech, perhaps ...

Congress Disputes Bush Pledge
Funding Cut Conflicts With Vow to Raze Abu Ghraib Prison

President Bush grabbed headlines with his pledge to tear down Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, but Monday night's promise left the White House scrambling on Tuesday to persuade Congress to endorse something it specifically rejected last year.

Last fall, Bush requested $400 million to build two maximum-security prisons in Iraq, but Congress reduced the request to $100 million, about the cost of one medium-security facility in the United States. In April, the U.S.-led occupation authority informed Congress it would build a single 4,400-bed prison near Nasiriyah, south of Baghdad.

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said U.S. taxpayers will finance a second prison to replace Abu Ghraib. She said there is sufficient flexibility within the $18.4 billion in Iraq reconstruction aid approved in October to build the prison.

But Tim Rieser, a Democratic aide on the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, which is monitoring the reconstruction, said Bush would have to consult Congress on such a large transfer of money. "For all intents and purposes, the money is not there," Rieser said.

It is clear that Bush's dramatic promise to raze Abu Ghraib will take quite some time to fulfill. The prison -- notorious for torture and killing during Saddam Hussein's reign and a still-growing prisoner abuse scandal under U.S. control -- will not be torn down until its replacement is ready, Bush said. And aides in Congress and the occupation authority said construction of a bare-bones facility would take 18 months to two years.

If the White House intends the new prison to be "a showcase for progressive Western penal thinking," it may take longer to build health, athletic and rehabilitation facilities along with the cellblocks, a House Republican aide said.

While this may fall somewhere inbetween the arcane and the meaningful, its yet another case in point for how utterly disjointed the administration has been on this matter.