BREAKING NEWS–President Bush informs us they’ve now got a plan for victory in Iraq:
General Casey briefed us about a comprehensive strategy to achieve victory in Iraq. We’re going to deny the terrorists a safe haven to plot their attacks. We’ll continue to train more Iraqi forces to assume increasing responsibility for basic security operations. Our forces will focus on hunting down high-value targets like the terrorist, Zarqawi. We’ll continue working with Iraqis to bring all communities into the political process. Together we’ll help Iraq become a strong democracy that protects the rights of its people and is a key ally in the war on terror.
One wonders why they didn’t come up with this, say, two and a half years ago, but now’s not the time for the “blame game.”
Indeed, they better hurry up with the plan:
Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, said Thursday that he had been warning the Bush administration in recent days that Iraq was hurtling toward disintegration, a development that he said could drag the region into war.
“There is no dynamic now pulling the nation together,” he said in a meeting with reporters at the Saudi Embassy here. “All the dynamics are pulling the country apart.” He said he was so concerned that he was carrying this message “to everyone who will listen” in the Bush administration.
Prince Saud’s statements, some of the most pessimistic public comments on Iraq by a Middle Eastern leader in recent months, were in stark contrast to the generally upbeat assessments that the White House and the Pentagon have been offering.
I’m not an expert on Saudi Arabia, but from what I’ve observed the past few years, their government officials aren’t inclined to make public statements critical of U.S. policy just for the heck of it. There’s big money in the U.S./Saudi relationship. I don’t think the prince would be making these kind of statements lightly.
