Bush: Nobody's Gonna Rush Me On Iraq

[Update: See The New York Times' OpEd take on beating around the Bush on Iraq.]

Today, the MSM has been filled with Bush's statements that he refused to be rushed on making decisions about what to do in Iraq.

However, only in the president's mind (and I use the term loosely) is there now some "sudden rush". For three and a half years, he has refused to abandon a plan that failed. To insist only now there is a "rush" for him to "decider" a new plan is as absurd as having this miserable little privileged frat boy called a world leader.

Iraq has been going very badly for a very long time. Before we sent the first troops in back in March 2003, Rumsfeld rarely spoke without making statements like "We'll be in and out" and "I would be very surprised if we were still there six weeks from now."

By July 2003, we were already overstaying that six week prediction. We were also getting our first signals that what Bush promised and Rumsfeld predicted was hardly correct.

For more than two years, the situation in Iraq has been grave and getting worse by the day, much of which could have been avoided except that the Bushies would not listen to anyone who didn't say, "You're absolutely right, Mr. Bush!"

For the past year, Iraq has been in a state of constant implosion. Everything that could go wrong has not only done so, it's done so in a way that was drastically worse than it needed to be.

Yet, right through the day before the mid-term elections in the U.S., Mr. Bush insisted Donald Rumsfeld has his "complete trust" and that Rumsfeld would stay on as Secretary of Defense - and Dick Cheney as Vice President - right through the end of Bush's term in January 2009. Then, of course, less than 12 full hours after the polls closed on November 7th, Rumsfeld was dismissed (the press only used the word "resigned" later in the day, hoping the public would forget dismissed was the phrase used again and again for hours, one that hardly suggests Mr. Rumsfeld decided he needed more time with his family to prepare his Christmas cards.

So, Mr. Bush, what is the rush? The between 100,000 and over one million Iraqi civilians who have died since you sent in troops certainly won't be any less dead, nor will the more than 1 million Iraqis who have fled the country as being too violent return any sooner. Also, the nearly 3,000 American troops killed there so far also will not be any less dead.

And what's the rush when we've already spent at least $350 Billion (this is just the reported figure; the real cost is probably well over a trillion) on a "war that will pay for itself"?

What's the rush when companies like Bechtel, already having made many fortunes many times over for contracts there they have not fulfilled, just billed for, have fled Iraq as too dangerous?

What's the rush? I mean, the Bush twins are still celebrating their "graduation" from college more than 2 1/2 years after the event, getting drunk and drugged and partying naked around the world while you can't wait to send poorer American kids off to this war you're in no rush to declare a miserable failure.