Official: Bush to Admit Iraq Mistakes

WASHINGTON —  President George W. Bush will tell the nation Wednesday night that he should have sent more troops to Iraq to fight the war during the earlier stages of the nearly four-year conflict, a senior administration official revealed.

Speaking from the Library — a White House room never before used by the president for a public address — Bush will also acknowledge that the rules of engagement were flawed and seek support for a new strategy to win the unpopular war, presidential counselor Dan Bartlett said.

The new approach includes sending 20,000 additional U.S. troops to join the 132,000 already there. Their purpose will be to help "break the cycle" of violence to "allow for the type of breathing space that the Iraqis need to get the type of political and economic reconciliation we all know that's necessary for that country to move forward," Bartlett told FOX News. ...

***

The Last Best Chance
Ed Morrissey

President Bush will take to the airwaves tonight to unveil his new strategy in Iraq, attempting to build enough support to shift more troops for at least a limited engagement against sectarian militias that threaten to undermine the Iraqi government. In preparation, Bush spent hours polishing his speech and meeting with lawmakers of both parties to ensure he strikes the right tone:

President Bush spent hours Tuesday practicing in front of cameras, preparing to make his case for increasing the U.S. military commitment in Iraq in a prime-time address to the nation tonight, even as congressional Democrats readied legislation to block any increase in the number of troops.

Members of Congress who met with Bush said he appeared to understand that, after years of upbeat rhetoric and positive assessments that belied a lack of progress inside the country, his credibility was on the line.

"He told us what he planned to say tomorrow," said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), one of about a dozen House members who met with the president and his top advisors for more than an hour Tuesday afternoon. "In terms of tough moments in his presidency, this is it." ...

***

Bush to admit he should have sent more troops at start of war 
Allahpundit

Quid pro quo. In return for funding the surge, the left gets a taste of what it really wants — Bush publicly abasing himself with the promise of much more to come if, as expected, this last push fails to bring peace.

Barnett:

A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, I wrote about a dinner party Mrs. Soxblog and I held at stately Soxblog manor. One of the guests was a dignified man, about 60 years old, who despite possessing a gentle and gentlemanly manner practically frothed at the mouth with Bush hatred whenever the president’s name was mentioned.

Soon the conversation turned to the increasingly difficult struggle in Iraq. His delight over American setbacks was so palpable that I asked him if he wanted us to win in Iraq. He demurred. I repeated the question. After a long pause, he hissed, “I want this country to learn a lesson.”…

[I]t comes as quite an irony that the same people who have spent the past three years belittling “staying the course” now reflexively reject anything that resembles a course correction. They only want surrender, which will serve as an acknowledgement that America has “learned a lesson.”

And what about Democrats who aren’t ready to surrender? The fightin’ nutroots will deal with them. ...

***

Democrats Plan Symbolic Votes Against Iraq Plan

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 — Democratic leaders said Tuesday that they intended to hold symbolic votes in the House and Senate on President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Baghdad, forcing Republicans to take a stand on the proposal and seeking to isolate the president politically over his handling of the war.

Senate Democrats decided to schedule a vote on the resolution after a closed-door meeting on a day when Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts introduced legislation to require Mr. Bush to gain Congressional approval before sending more troops to Iraq.

The Senate vote is expected as early as next week, after an initial round of committee hearings on the plan Mr. Bush will lay out for the nation Wednesday night in a televised address delivered from the White House library, a setting chosen because it will provide a fresh backdrop for a presidential message.

The office of Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, followed with an announcement that the House would also take up a resolution in opposition to a troop increase.  ...

***

Audio: Mark Levin goes nuclear on Ted “Iraq is Vietnam” Kennedy
Allahpundit

It’s long, but Kennedy-haters will find that the time simply flies by.

Levin’s point? The same one Kaus made last week when he took aim at another high-profile dove:

Andrew Sullivan says a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would

“doubtless lead to genocide and ethnic cleansing on a hideously cruel scale”

but he’s for it!

Thanks to Johnny Dollar for sending it along.

***

How Democrats Lost Vietnam... And, How They Plan On Losing Iraq
Gateway Pundit

Tonight, President Bush is going to deliver a speech to the nation on how he intends to win the war in Iraq.

The Multi-Force Iraq spokesman and Bush believe that Iraq will take responsibility for security operations by the end of 2007.

A plan is already in place.

Already, three of 18 Iraqi Provinces have complete control over government and security. By the end of this year the remaining 15 will be turned over to the Iraqis according to the MNF-I spokesman.

But, tonight President Bush will announce his plan to shift more troops into Iraq to squelch the violence in the young democracy that has reached New Orleans levels this past year.

Democrats are not happy about this. ...

***

About Tonight's Speech
Lorie Byrd

Stop the ACLU has compiled a list of links to read prior to tonight's Presidential address. I spent almost two hours writing a post of my own about what I would like to hear tonight, but the computer ate it and I was too frustrated to try to recreate the entire thing. One point I will make briefly here, though, is what I want to hear about what our troops have accomplished in Iraq.

We frequently hear even major opponents of the war say they "support the troops." What we rarely ever hear, though, is much about what the troops have actually done in Iraq. We hear sympathy for how they have been persecuted -- kids sent to fight an unjust war to stroke the ego of a dunce President who thought he would invade Iraq to line the pockets of his rich oil friends when all they wanted to do was escape the John Edwards' poverty pit that is America and get a free education. I hope to hear some specifics about not only how many schools we have rebuilt in Iraq, but how many bad guys we have killed and how many terrorist plots have been disrupted, and how much has been done to set the stage for a functioning democracy to emerge in the heart of the Middle East. ...

***

Fat Teddy, King David's Corcoran, Mookie and some shoe polish
Blackfive

Hot Air has video of Teddy Kennedy talking, again, about "George Bush's Vietnam."  Hot Air also inserts commentary from Christopher Hitchens from 2004 that is entirely appropriate today.

[...]

The big problem with those on the left claiming that a troop surge will not work is that they are correct.  Which is why there has been resistance to the "we need more troops, Mr. President" claim for the last few years.

If all we do is surge troops, then, no, sorry, that won't work.

I believe that Teddy knows that's not the plan (and, come on, folks, he's got lots of sources, resources, and access to know what the plan will be).  The addition of 20K troops is part of an over-arching strategy that will employ different tactics throughout Iraq (changes in ROEs, methods, embedding in Iraqi units, etc.). 

But Teddy won't say that because it's much more politically convenient to claim that adding more troops now won't help...as if the addition of troops will just be staying the course, rather than adapting to the challenges we face in Iraq in Baghdad and Anbar.

Instead, the left wing, who've called for a change for two years, should have a plan to win.  Teddy demands a political solution, but offers none. ...

***

Ted Kennedy needs help
Don Surber

Ted Kennedy continues to embarrass his big brother. On Tuesday he called for waving the White Flag Over Baghdad.The Boston Herald’s Jules Crittenden took Ted to the woodshed. Crittenden applied his history lesson:

[...]

I am not as kind to Ted Kennedy. I aim for the throat:

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge — and more. ...

Jack Kennedy’s America had to bear the burden of protecting Western Europe AND North America AND South America AND Japan AND South Korea AND the rest of Southeast Asia. Alone.

46 years later, the kid brother is whining about having to protect one little Iraq? 21st century Americans do not realize how lucky they have it. We used to have to make real sacrifices. ...

***

It's Senator Kennedy's Vietnam That Matters Most
Dan Riehl

Update: I should preface this post, as you read below, imagine if we followed the Kennedy line on Iraq and pulled out leaving sectarian and terrorist groups behind to slaughter large numbers of people. THAT would be our fault, as we invaded Iraq.

It would convince our enemies we are weak, it would tell any moderate friends in the middle-East we weren't to be trusted ... and, most importantly, it would give the so-called Arab street a justifiable reason to become even more hostile to America. In short, Kennedy's fecklessness would do precisely the opposite of what we need to do as regards the Middle East and the global war on terror.

It is a recipe for disaster cooked up by an unaccomplished fool who has never done any great service for America. The sum total of his accomplishment in life is to have ensconced himself in a political office for which he isn't worthy by trading on his family name, to which he has contributed little besides shame. Kennedy is as wrong on Iraq and wrong for America as one can be.

In essence, it would alienate the very people Kennedy suggests we appease. The cut and run Democrat plan for Iraq would be an unmitigated disaster for our Homeland Security and International relations issues. Read below and project the consequences of Kennedy's Vietnam misjudgment onto the Middle East and you'll see he has nothing positive to contribute to a solution for Iraq at all.

***

James Joyer: Kennedy, Congress, and the Surge

***

A preview of tonight's presidential address on Iraq
Paul Mirengoff

Tony Snow conferred by telephone with conservative bloggers this afternoon to preview what President Bush will say tonight. Essentially, the president plans to send an additional 20,000 troops or so troops to Baghdad and about 4,000 additional troops to Anbar province. Baghdad will be divided into nine districts. We will station one batallion (about 600 troops) in each district. The Iraqis will station one brigade (a larger unit) in each. We will have a presence in the neighborhoods on a 24/7 basis. This is a switch from the approach we've been using, under which we roll our folks into the neighborhoods in the morning and return them to their barracks at night.

The rules of engagement will allow us to go after everyone we need to go after. The Mahdi army, for example, will not be off limits. Snow pointed to statements from Iraq's president confirming that the Iraqi government is on board with this.

In Anbar, our additional forces will try to consolidate recent gains. According to Snow, tribal leaders there have turned strongly against al Qaeda, and want us to send in more forces with which to rout them. President Bush will oblige.

The president will also address Iran and Syria in his speech. However, it does not appear that he'll get very specific tonight. Similarly, he will mention but not focus on securing the border with Syria.

Brett McQuirk, the president's national security point man on Iraq, said that the administration considered the approach I have advocated -- focusing on killing bad guys in the western areas and leaving Baghdad largely to the Iraqis to police (or not). It rejected that approach for two main reasons. First, the administration fears a humanitarian disaster. Second, the administration fears that sectarian violence against Sunnis in Baghdad will cause Sunnis in the western provinces to tllt towards al Qaeda, making it far more difficult for us to take that outfit on there.

There was much more.  ...

***

Iraq is Ted Kennedy's Vietnam
Posted by Wordsmith

"By golly, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all,"-President George H. Bush, 1991

"Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam." -Senator Ted Kennedy 2004, 2005, 2006.

It's not the first time Ted Kennedy has said it. He said it back in 2004 before the Elections, at the Brooking Institution. He said it again in January of 2005. And now he is saying it again in January of 2006:

"In Vietnam, the White House grew increasingly obsessed with victory, and increasingly divorced from the will of the people and any rational policy. The Department of Defense kept assuring us that each new escalation in Vietnam would be the last. Instead, each one led only to the next. There was no military solution to that war," Kennedy said. "Echoes of that disaster are all around us today. Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam."

I don't really recall the White House growing increasingly "obsessed with victory" during Vietnam. They seemed to be looking for the way out. And what an assinine statement! "Obsessed with victory"?! When you engage in warfare, is their a reason not to be "obsessed with victory"?!

What Ted Kennedy is, is obsessed with defeatism. He is a quagmirist of the first order. In December of 1974, the Democratic majority in Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974 to cut off all military funding of the South Vietnamese government. Ford vetoed the Act, only to have his veto overridden by Congress. This effectively neutered the pledge Nixon made to our South Vietnam allies.

[During the Paris Peace Accords, two written agreements were made and signed by Richard Nixon. One, was to offer reparations in the billions to North Vietnam, so long as they did not invade the South. North Vietnam never collected on that pledge, because, as we all know, they invaded the South. The other agreement was to offer assistance to South Vietnam, that should the North break their end of the agreement, America would give them whatever aid the South needed, even sending in air support and troops. Unfortunately, Watergate happened; and an unelected President Ford pleaded to Congress to honor our agreement. Congress did nothing to alleviate the vast suffering that occurred when the North streamed across the borders, into the South.]

***

Mary Katharine Ham: Bush speech: See it before you can hear it