Also see below:     
Bush at the Helm    [

    Repudiation
    By G rard Dupuy
    Lib ration

    Thursday 09 November 2006

    It's a fable from the Gospels: he who sinned by the sword will perish by the sword. Rumsfeld, who, more than any other, imagined and conducted the war in Iraq, has paid with his position for the impasse into which this war has placed the United States. Drawing the conclusions from the repudiation of his Iraqi policy, Bush has parted from his accomplice. The successor he's found for him is certainly no dove. But he is participating in a much-touted bipartisan committee under the leadership of former secretary of state James Baker and charged with imagining "another policy" for Iraq. In nominating him, Bush has not punted, on the contrary: he is clearly aiming for the center of the political field where his successor's election will play out. Even if the neo-conservative right, beginning with Vice President Cheney, maintains its hold on the levers in Washington, it is the big loser in the election. The Iraq quagmire remains unchanged. It will not be simple to dig out of. A poll shows that the majority of voters favor at least a partial withdrawal of American troops. That will be the task for Rumsfeld's successor: to find a way to execute this withdrawal, now inevitable, that does not result in additional disaster for the Iraqi populations ... and, above all, in a cruel humiliation for his own country. Bush's descent into Hell has only just begun.

    Go to Original

    Bush at the Helm
    Le Monde | Editorial

    Thursday 09 November 2006

    It didn't take even twenty-four hours for the Republican mid-term election defeat on Tuesday November 7 to claim a collateral victim. President Bush immediately announced the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. A week earlier, he had asserted that such an eventuality was out of the question. In the interim, the elections took place. As is the custom in such circumstances, the White House chief covered the one who had conducted "the first war of the twenty-first century against terror" with praise, but he didn't hide his expectation that the nomination of former CIA chief Robert Gates will provide "a new perspective and a new look" at the policy followed in Iraq.

    By splitting from Rumsfeld, George W. Bush removes an obstacle on the path of cooperation with the Democrats who won victory in the House of Representatives. He didn't wait to know the definitive composition of the Senate - with its very extensive powers in foreign policy and where Republicans are also poised to lose their majority.

    A declared hawk like his friend, Vice President Dick Cheney, the Pentagon chief had been the target of all critics, whether from the first-hour opponents of the war in Iraq, the Army leadership - who reproach him with not having supplied them with the means necessary to accomplish their mission - or the neo-conservatives, who hold him responsible for the lack of preparation for the intervention and post-war period.

    The president is not yet at the point of acknowledging that his strategy was wrong. He purports to stay firm on his principles and to exclude the idea of a defeat in Iraq. But he wants to change tactics. Drawing the lessons from his Democratic opponents' victory, he's looking for an exit, a way to bring the "boys" back without leaving Iraq to founder into chaos. The task is shaping up to be difficult; therefore, he intends to share responsibility for it with the Democrats in Congress. The recommendations of the bipartisan commission co-presided by James Baker and Lee Hamilton could offer a few leads.

    Mr. Bush rejects any comparison with the defeat in Vietnam during the 1960-1970 years. Nonetheless, it's the nightmare of a shameful departure, leaving Washington's allies at the mercy of yesterday's enemies, that haunts American politicians. With a difference: the country that the United States abandoned would not be prey to a hostile power, but to civil war. It would constitute a hotbed for training terrorists and a threat to its neighbors, if not to the security of America itself. Exactly the dangers that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was supposed to conjure away.

    Robert Gates will, no more than Donald Rumsfeld, be able to win the war in Iraq. To protect the president's popularity, his mission is to avoid losing it under humiliating circumstances.