Anyone else noticing the Bush Administration's subtle (and increasingly less subtle) ways of preparing the American public for the withdrawal.

First James Baker, then "let's get Syria and Iran involved!", now "we've lost Baghdad".

The end is nigh, folks.

OK fine, let me add some content to this thread.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/sto ... 39,00.html

Iraq mayhem triggers hunt for exit strategy in US and UK

Foreign Office urges talks with Syria and Iran, as militia seize city left by British
Ewen MacAskill, Julian Borger in Washington and Michael Howard in Sulaymaniya
Saturday October 21, 2006

Guardian
Frantic efforts are under way in Washington and London to find an exit strategy for Iraq as a renewed surge in violence led George Bush to admit yesterday that tactics there might need to change.

Diplomats and politicians in both capitals are desperately reviewing and debating options that were once regarded as unthinkable.

The review was given added urgency yesterday when 800 gunmen, thought to be part of the Mahdi army militia, ran amok in Amara, a town transferred by the British to Iraqi control two months ago.

A source in the Amara police department said 30 officers and 20 civilians had been killed when the gunmen overran police stations and set up roadblocks. About 500 British soldiers were last night on standby to go back in.

In Washington, Mr Bush said he would consult his top military commanders in Iraq today over whether a change of tactics was necessary. But the president, who is under intense pressure to rethink his Iraq strategy if not his whole approach to foreign policy, said talks with the generals would only concern tactics, not strategy. "We are constantly adjusting tactics so we can achieve our objectives and right now, it's tough," the president admitted to the Associated Press.

With 74 American soldiers already dead in Iraq in October, it is likely to be the worst month for US forces in two years. US officers admitted on Thursday that the effort to pacify the capital, the Baghdad Initiative, had failed.

Pressure for a change of strategy is partly the result of leaks from a review from a study group set up by the former US secretary of state, James Baker, at Mr Bush's request. The leaks from Mr Baker's Iraq Study Group (ISG), which is due to report after next month's Congressional elections, suggest it will recommend a fundamental change of course.

The Foreign Office is conducting a review in tandem with Mr Baker. UK officials said the Foreign Office was "beavering away" on about half a dozen options, roughly the same as those considered by the ISG. One official said discussions were proceeding at "a high tempo".

Among the changes the ISG is expected to recommend is the opening of talks on Iraq's future with Syria and Iran, countries the White House has sought to isolate.

"The failure of the Baghdad initiative is convincing evidence that a military solution is not going to work," said Larry Diamond, a former adviser to the US-led occupation authority in Baghdad who also advised the ISG. "We should be talking to neighbouring Arab states and we think we should be talking to Iran - to broker the compromises which might save the situation," Mr Diamond told the Guardian.

Other options being considered are a redeployment of forces to "super-bases" in Iraq or bases outside the country, pressuring the Baghdad government to find a fairer way of sharing Iraq's oil wealth to give Sunnis a better deal, and even the partitioning of the country into autonomous Kurdish, Sunni and Shia regions - an idea the White House has dismissed as a "non-starter".

British diplomats, including Dominic Asquith, the ambassador to Iraq, and Sir David Manning, ambassador to Washington, have contributed to the ISG.

The Foreign Office is backing the ISG proposal to engage with Iran and Syria. "We are encouraging them to go with that," a Foreign Office source said.

The Foreign Office has ruled out an immediate unilateral British pull-out and partition. It basically favours a continuation of the present policy, but is agonising over whether to press for a timetable, possibly even a secret one, for withdrawal. "Every policy option I could lay out for you would be worse than what we are doing now," a British official said.

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displ ... id=7970947

Terrorism and Iraq
Stating the obvious

Sep 28th 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
A new report makes a plain case that invading Iraq has been counterproductive


THE war in Iraq has “made the overall terrorism problem worse.” Many Islamist extremists consider it to be the first front of a total war against Islam. It has galvanised jihadists, becoming their “cause célèbre”, and it has contributed directly to increasing recruitment of violent Islamist terrorists. The terrorist threat is now more acute than it was before the September 11th attacks on the United States.

These blunt conclusions, leaked last week to the New York Times and the Washington Post, are part of a classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on global terrorism trends. Such estimates are the consensus opinion of 16 government agencies, including the CIA, FBI, State Department and all four branches of the armed forces. They are hard to dismiss by any but the wilfully dim-sighted. “Stating the obvious”, one leaker said. But it has never been obvious to the Bush administration.

The White House has repeatedly insisted that America is safer now than it was before the World Trade Centre was demolished. It still believes it. Faced with the leaks, spokesmen insisted that nothing in them about Iraq was new, and that the NIE was not much about Iraq anyway. Hopeful things could be found in it: al-Qaeda's operations had been disrupted by American efforts, and its leadership damaged. And the report said that jihadism was fuelled by corruption and injustice in Muslim countries, as well as by the war.

As for the timing of the leaks—the administration's defenders continued—liberal spies were doubtless in cahoots with the press. The NIE came out in April, but no one was jawing about it to reporters back then. “Here we are, coming down the stretch in an election campaign, and it's on the front page of your newspapers,” fumed George Bush at a press conference. “Isn't that interesting?” Sulkily, and only because both Republicans and Democrats were badgering him, he agreed on September 26th that the NIE should be declassified and parts of it made available.

The declassified excerpts corroborate the anonymous sources. The Iraq war is one of several “underlying factors...fuelling the spread of the jihadist movement”. But new cells and new websites are carrying the message that the Iraq war is a Western attempt to conquer Islam. If this movement keeps growing, says the report, “threats to US interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide.”

The military top brass have also been joining this chorus. On September 25th three of them, retired but still influential, accused the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, of mismanaging the war, and said he was “incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically”. They demanded his head and those of his team, though on past form they will not get them. General Peter Schoomaker, the army chief of staff, has refused to submit his budget plan for 2008 to Mr Rumsfeld, arguing that unless he has more money he cannot possibly carry out the army's operations in Iraq or elsewhere. The army's commander in the Middle East has already said there is little chance of drawing down the 140,000 troops already in Iraq before next spring.

The Republicans have long held the advantage on issues of terrorism. They used this advantage to win the mid-term elections in 2002 and the presidential election in 2004. Karl Rove plans to go to the well yet again this November. But the strategy gets a bit harder each time, as the administration shifts its justification for war and as the insurgency becomes more toxic. And the leaks strike at the heart of the Republican strategy, which is to roll the Iraq war into the general war on terror and claim that “fighting them over there means we do not have to fight them over here.” The polls show a relentless downward trend in the number of people who believe America did the right thing by going into Iraq.

America is now so partisan that some people will stick with the president come what may. Moreover, both George Bush and the Republicans have recently seen their fortunes rise: Mr Bush's popularity rating has been creeping up and the Democrats' lead in generic congressional polls has been shrinking slightly. But this carefully timed leak is a double blow to the president. It shifts attention away from the general war on terrorism to the Iraq war; and it puts a question-mark against the last remaining justification for that war of choice, that it is making America safer. No wonder the Republicans are fighting back with everything they have.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6071258.stm

Bush to consider new Iraq tactics

US President George W Bush has said he will consult senior US generals to see if a change of tactics is needed to quell spiralling violence in Iraq.

But he insisted he would not change his overall strategy.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Iraqis should take responsibility for security "sooner rather than later".

Their comments come amid fears that the administration's Iraq policy could cost Republicans control of Congress in mid-term elections next month.

Concerns about rising violence in Iraq have been further fuelled by clashes between Iraqi police and gunmen loyal to the radical cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, in the southern town of Amara.

Medical sources say 31 people were killed in street battles, and many more were injured.

Correspondents say the clashes are a major test of the Iraqi government's ability to tackle sectarian militias.

British troops had handed over control of Amara in August to Iraqi security forces, but say they will return if needed.

Constantly adjusting

Amid mounting domestic pressure for a change of strategy in Iraq, President Bush said he planned to hold consultations on tactics with Gen John Abizaid, the top US commander in the Middle East, and Gen George Casey, the leader of the US-led coalition in Iraq.

"Our goal hasn't changed, but the tactics are constantly adjusting to an enemy which is brutal and violent," he said.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said the meeting was one of a series of regular consultations and had been scheduled "for weeks".

Opinion polls suggest two-thirds of Americans think the president's strategy in Iraq has failed.

The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says the figure could translate into catastrophic election losses in mid-term elections next month, which might see the Democrats back in power in Congress and the Bush presidency becoming the lamest of lame ducks.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told the BBC there should be a rethink of tactics in Amara.

He said Iraqi and international forces would have to assess whether the city and the surrounding province were ready to be handed over to Iraqi control.

But, asked about the clashes, Mr Rumsfeld said that while US troops did from time to time have to step in, it was ultimately up to the Iraqis to control their own security.

"The biggest mistake would be to not pass things over to the Iraqis and to create dependency on their part," he said.

'Disheartening'

And in another development, the Iraqi president's security adviser said Iraqi forces trying to improve security in Baghdad were under-funded, badly trained and poorly equipped.

Wafiq al-Samarra'i said that sometimes the insurgents and death squads had better weapons than the security forces trying to combat them.

The comments come a day after the US military said there had been a "disheartening" 22% rise in attacks in Baghdad this month, despite a two-month-old security operation.

Launched in June, Operation Together Forward is a joint US and Iraqi security drive in which thousands of extra troops have been deployed in Baghdad.

On Wednesday, President Bush said the escalation of violence in Iraq "could be" comparable to the 1968 Tet Offensive against US troops, which helped turn public opinion against the Vietnam War.

With 73 US soldiers killed so far, October is on course to become the deadliest month for US forces in Iraq for two years.

I'm still not convinced that withdrawal will actually help allevaite the quagmire that is Iraq. Yes, this is civil war, but it could be a whole lot worse. I'd actually say there's an argument for more troops in Iraq - but obviously that is not on the table politically.

I hate taking any glee at all from the plight of people who are losing loved ones everyday, but Jesus Christ, no one can dare deny that we were right in late 2002 and we've been proved right. Time to own up and issue an apology. First of all to the people of Iraq. Then to the people of Afghanistan. Then to the people of Israel/Palestine (whose problems could have had much more attention if it wasn't for all of this), and then finally to all the commies like me who have endured far too many headaches because of your stupidity.

You should have seen this coming years ago.

What on Earth do we have to apologize to the people of Afghanistan for?

I shall dub this technique "The Little Johnny Demand".

Exactly. They should be thanking us.
We allow them to supply the world with 80% of it's opium.
Wow are they having a bumper crop this year

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/22/bus ... he-course/

Bush: ‘We’ve Never Been Stay The Course’
During an interview today on ABC’s This Week, President Bush tried to distance himself from what has been his core strategy in Iraq for the last three years. George Stephanopoulos asked about James Baker’s plan to develop a strategy for Iraq that is “between ’stay the course’ and ‘cut and run.’”

Bush responded, ‘We’ve never been stay the course, George!'

Bush is wrong:

BUSH: We will stay the course. [8/30/06]

BUSH: We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq. [8/4/05]

BUSH: We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve. And the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We’re just going to stay the course. [12/15/03]

BUSH: And my message today to those in Iraq is: We’ll stay the course. [4/13/04]

BUSH: And that’s why we’re going to stay the course in Iraq. And that’s why when we say something in Iraq, we’re going to do it. [4/16/04]

BUSH: And so we’ve got tough action in Iraq. But we will stay the course. [4/5/04]

Digg It!

Full transcript:

STEPHANOPOULOS: James Baker says that he’s looking for something between “cut and run” and “stay the course.”

BUSH: Well, hey, listen, we’ve never been “stay the course,” George. We have been — we will complete the mission, we will do our job, and help achieve the goal, but we’re constantly adjusting to tactics. Constantly.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They've totally lost it

Wonderful chop job on what President Bush said by this Liberal Smear Site.

Here's what this smear site claimed that the President said - "We’ve never been stay the course, George!"

Here's what the President said in totality -

"We've never been stay the course, George. We have been...we will complete the mission. We will do our job and help complete the goal but we're constantly adjusting to tactics...constantly."

What the President was saying is that his message of "stay the course" is not to be confused with "we will not change how we are approaching the problem." "Stay the course" refers to the broader goal of finishing the mission, not sticking to tactics that have proved to be ineffective.

Nice Liberal Hit Job by thinkprogress.

Give me a break.

The president has said the exact words "stay the course" more times than can be counted, and now he wants to distance himself from his own words. The only surprising thing is that he thinks that people don't have tapes of him saying those words.

If GWB had a "catchphrase" it would be "Stay the course".

Yeah, it's the media's fault. Damn them for taping everything the president says.

Why would you call this a chop job if the original post had more of the transcript than your post did? You actually seem to be the one chopping apart the President's quote. Perhaps you didn't like the post because it detailed a Republican talking point used repeatedly then denied, in plain text. Not really a "liberal hit job" IMO. No problem though.

On behalf of the rest of the world, I say thank you very much America for George W. Bush.

it seems to me that if you read the bolded parts, you both posted the quote in its totality. i don't understand where the chop job happened.

and for bush to say "we've never been stay the course" is ridiculous. not only does it sound like he is speaking english as a second language, it is also a flat out lie. the american public has heard bush say "stay the course" so many times that the actual phrase makes me nauseous.

I was referring to the website. They have a video link to the remarks but the text just states that President Bush said - "We've never been stay the course." It is here where the spin and smear begin.
Of course President Bush has said the phrase "stay the course" on many occasions. But he was always referring to completing the mission. He never meant it to mean that they refuse to change tactics in order to achieve the goal. This is where the "thinkprogress" spin comes in.

There is no smear job here. They are taking him at his exact words and providing the full transcript of the interview on the site.
The website uses the "stay the course" line on top with the full transcript not five inches down the page. In between is a quote of several instances of him saying the US will "stay the course". Maybe Bush should choose his words more carefully when giving an interview, especially when what he is saying seems to MOST people to be the opposite of what he has stated many, many, many times. It may also be a good idea for him to sit through a few English and grammar courses.

I don't think I ever heard of the term "stay the course" before Bush said it... and the only reason why that term suck with me is because he said it so many times that it was drilled into my head. LOL, "we were never stay the course".

Is it me or do the republicans want the dems to win in '08 just so that they look bad trying to fix the mess up... then the GOP will say "look at what an awful job you're doing by pulling out... you should've stayed the course!"

First of all the "full transcript" of what President Bush said was NOT on that website when I first posted about it here. I had to click on the video and transcribe it from that.
Second, President Bush has said over and over that they are constantly changing tactics and adapting to the enemy. He has never said that they aren't changing tactics. If you can provide a link where he has stated such, I'll gladly take a look and apologize. But I've never heard him say "stay the course" with that implication.

Yes, it was on that website from the time g_v posted the link until now. The content has not changed. Also, once you've pounded the line "Stay the Course" into people's head it's hard to then say "We've never been stay the course" and have people actually take you seriously. You obviously interpret his statement as a supporter would and I interpret it a different way. That's how politics work. My point was that as this country's leader, he should know enough to choose his words more carefully so as to leave no doubt what his statements mean. "We've never been stay the course" is not correct English much less an answer to his critics.

Relying on talking points can be a real bitch when the same words are thrown back in your face when your policy fails.

US in Iraq: We're out of here

America signals dramatic shift in strategy, saying Iraq will assume responsibility for security in '12 to 18 months'

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington and Colin Brown
Published: 25 October 2006

In the firmest indication yet of a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, America's most senior general there and its top civilian official have drawn the outlines of a political and military plan that could see a substantial pullout of US troops within 12 to 18 months.

Yesterday's announcement looked like a strategy change carrying implications for British troops in Iraq, although President Bush's aides deny any "dramatic shifts" in policy. It came after Mr Bush's spokesman acknowledged on Monday that the President had cut and run from his signature promise that America would "stay the course" in Iraq.

In a joint press conference in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador, laid out a series of political steps that he claimed had been agreed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, including a crackdown on militias, a peace offer to insurgents and a plan for sharing oil revenues. The measures, to be taken over the next year, would amount to a new "national compact" between the Iraqi factions, he said. At the same time, General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq, said the training of Iraqi security forces - essential for any orderly US departure - was 75 per cent complete. Within 12 to 18 months, he said, they would emerge as "the dominant force in Iraq", even though some residual US military presence would be needed (as President Bush himself has indicated).

The rare joint press conference took place amid deepening political turmoil in Washington, where leading members of Mr Bush's own Republican party are demanding a radical rethink of US strategy in Iraq. They argue that current policies have all but failed, as sectarian and anti-American violence threaten to overwhelm the country.

Coming after the White House formally abandoned Mr Bush's previous "stay the course" formulation for US policy, the appearance by Mr Khalilzad and General Casey seemed part of a carefully choreographed exercise to signal, without explicitly saying so, that a timetable for pull-out - long rejected by the President - was in fact taking shape.

The clear purpose was twofold: to reassure voters a fortnight before mid-term elections that the administration had a workable policy for Iraq and that, all appearances to the contrary, that policy was achieving some success. Though 90 US troops have been killed this month, and Iraqi civilian deaths are running at 100 a day or more, General Casey maintained that 90 per cent of the attacks were occurring within a 30-mile radius of Baghdad.

But even he acknowledged the timetable was at the mercy of events on the ground, which Washington was largely powerless to shape. American troop levels might actually have to be increased to cope with the continuing violence in Baghdad, where a return to order is vital if the country is to be stabilised.

Tony Blair, in step with US policy, reassured the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salih, on Monday that the UK would not "cut and run" from Iraq.

The Prime Minister will face a challenge today from backbench MPs who have scheduled a debate on the Iraq exit strategy. But it will not enable MPs to vote on the issue. "We had a debate and a vote to take us into Iraq. We should have one now to take us out," said one Labour MP.

Adam Ingram, the Armed Forces minister, is expected to repeat the Prime Minister's insistence that British troops will stay "until the job is done".

Mr Khalilzad offered no certainty of a political settlement, and mentioned no timetable for disarming the Shia militias. This is the issue which could tear asunder Mr Maliki's government, some of whose members have ties with the largest of the militias.

Instead, Mr Khalilzad outlined a series of steps to be taken within "the coming weeks", including a law on dividing oil revenues, action to achieve "reconciliation" with discontented Sunni Muslims and former Baathists, and a firm date for provincial elections.

But neither the ambassador nor General Casey made clear what might happen if the Iraqi government and the emerging security forces did not live up to US expectations. On both scores, there are strong doubts.

Washington has not disguised its frustration with Mr Maliki's government and its refusal to confront the militias. And it is only eight months since the Pentagon was forced to admit that the only Iraqi battalion deemed capable of fighting on its own had been reclassified as needing the back-up of US forces.

John Pike, the director of the Washington-based studies group Global Security.Org, said: "I think they are saying that Americans are going to be there for 18 more months, but we can start to draw that number down before the next presidential election."

But pressures for a significant pull-out much sooner are intensifying. Iraq threatens to drag Republicans to humiliating defeat at the 7 November elections, while Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has become the latest senior Republican to turn on the White House. He said yesterday: "We're on the verge of chaos."

A poll shows more than two-thirds of Americans think the war was a mistake. A mere 20 per cent believe the US is winning, compared to 40 per cent 12 months ago. In an editorial yesterday, The New York Times said Iraq could become "the worst foreign policy debacle in American history". Stressing what was at stake, Mr Khalilzad called Iraq "the defining challenge of our era" which would "profoundly shape... the future of the world."

A changing message

'The US and our allies have prevailed. Now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country'

President Bush, 1 May 2003

'We must stay the course, because the end result is in our interest'

President Bush, 13 April 2004

'This is not "stay the course" but constant motion '

Bush spokesman, 23 October 2004

'This violence is going to go on for a long time'

Stephen Hadley, US National Security Adviser, yesterday

In the firmest indication yet of a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, America's most senior general there and its top civilian official have drawn the outlines of a political and military plan that could see a substantial pullout of US troops within 12 to 18 months.

Yesterday's announcement looked like a strategy change carrying implications for British troops in Iraq, although President Bush's aides deny any "dramatic shifts" in policy. It came after Mr Bush's spokesman acknowledged on Monday that the President had cut and run from his signature promise that America would "stay the course" in Iraq.

In a joint press conference in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador, laid out a series of political steps that he claimed had been agreed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, including a crackdown on militias, a peace offer to insurgents and a plan for sharing oil revenues. The measures, to be taken over the next year, would amount to a new "national compact" between the Iraqi factions, he said. At the same time, General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq, said the training of Iraqi security forces - essential for any orderly US departure - was 75 per cent complete. Within 12 to 18 months, he said, they would emerge as "the dominant force in Iraq", even though some residual US military presence would be needed (as President Bush himself has indicated).

The rare joint press conference took place amid deepening political turmoil in Washington, where leading members of Mr Bush's own Republican party are demanding a radical rethink of US strategy in Iraq. They argue that current policies have all but failed, as sectarian and anti-American violence threaten to overwhelm the country.

Coming after the White House formally abandoned Mr Bush's previous "stay the course" formulation for US policy, the appearance by Mr Khalilzad and General Casey seemed part of a carefully choreographed exercise to signal, without explicitly saying so, that a timetable for pull-out - long rejected by the President - was in fact taking shape.

The clear purpose was twofold: to reassure voters a fortnight before mid-term elections that the administration had a workable policy for Iraq and that, all appearances to the contrary, that policy was achieving some success. Though 90 US troops have been killed this month, and Iraqi civilian deaths are running at 100 a day or more, General Casey maintained that 90 per cent of the attacks were occurring within a 30-mile radius of Baghdad.

But even he acknowledged the timetable was at the mercy of events on the ground, which Washington was largely powerless to shape. American troop levels might actually have to be increased to cope with the continuing violence in Baghdad, where a return to order is vital if the country is to be stabilised.

Tony Blair, in step with US policy, reassured the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salih, on Monday that the UK would not "cut and run" from Iraq.

The Prime Minister will face a challenge today from backbench MPs who have scheduled a debate on the Iraq exit strategy. But it will not enable MPs to vote on the issue. "We had a debate and a vote to take us into Iraq. We should have one now to take us out," said one Labour MP.

Adam Ingram, the Armed Forces minister, is expected to repeat the Prime Minister's insistence that British troops will stay "until the job is done".

Mr Khalilzad offered no certainty of a political settlement, and mentioned no timetable for disarming the Shia militias. This is the issue which could tear asunder Mr Maliki's government, some of whose members have ties with the largest of the militias.

Instead, Mr Khalilzad outlined a series of steps to be taken within "the coming weeks", including a law on dividing oil revenues, action to achieve "reconciliation" with discontented Sunni Muslims and former Baathists, and a firm date for provincial elections.

But neither the ambassador nor General Casey made clear what might happen if the Iraqi government and the emerging security forces did not live up to US expectations. On both scores, there are strong doubts.

Washington has not disguised its frustration with Mr Maliki's government and its refusal to confront the militias. And it is only eight months since the Pentagon was forced to admit that the only Iraqi battalion deemed capable of fighting on its own had been reclassified as needing the back-up of US forces.

John Pike, the director of the Washington-based studies group Global Security.Org, said: "I think they are saying that Americans are going to be there for 18 more months, but we can start to draw that number down before the next presidential election."

But pressures for a significant pull-out much sooner are intensifying. Iraq threatens to drag Republicans to humiliating defeat at the 7 November elections, while Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has become the latest senior Republican to turn on the White House. He said yesterday: "We're on the verge of chaos."

A poll shows more than two-thirds of Americans think the war was a mistake. A mere 20 per cent believe the US is winning, compared to 40 per cent 12 months ago. In an editorial yesterday, The New York Times said Iraq could become "the worst foreign policy debacle in American history". Stressing what was at stake, Mr Khalilzad called Iraq "the defining challenge of our era" which would "profoundly shape... the future of the world."

A changing message

'The US and our allies have prevailed. Now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country'

President Bush, 1 May 2003

'We must stay the course, because the end result is in our interest'

President Bush, 13 April 2004

'This is not "stay the course" but constant motion '

Bush spokesman, 23 October 2004

'This violence is going to go on for a long time'

Stephen Hadley, US National Security Adviser, yesterday

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/ame ... 927145.ece