1 Boring Old Man

Presidential Radio Address
March 22, 2003

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. American and coalition forces have begun a concerted campaign against the regime of Saddam Hussein. In this war, our coalition is broad, more than 40 countries from across the globe. Our cause is just, the security of the nations we serve and the peace of the world. And our mission is clear, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.

Presidential Press Conference
August 21, 2006 [today]

"Either you say, ‘Yes it’s important we stay there and get it done,’ or we leave," Bush argued. "We’re not leaving so long as I’m the president. That would be a huge mistake."

The weapons of mass destruction part of the mission was pretty easy. Iraq didn’t have any in the first place. So was Saddam Hussein’s support of terrorism. He didn’t support the terrorists. Best I can tell, the Iraqi people are free as birds, except maybe from us. So it’s a little hard to ferret out what Mr. Bush means by ‘get it done.’ It appears that he means that the Iraqis stop fighting with each other about which form of Islam will rule the country – Shia or Shiite.

If that was our mission, he sure didn’t mention it when things started. Nor does he make it clear how he intends to stop this centuries-long battle between Moslem sects. I read the whole speech, and he didn’t mention anything about how this was to be accomplished. Last year, he was talking about beating the "insurgents" – like there was some single group that we were fighting. Well, it’s turned out that there are two groups fighting each other – neither holding us in particularly high regard.

The only thing I can think of that ‘get it done’ can mean is in this statement, "We’re not leaving so long as I’m the president. That would be a huge mistake." It means, ‘get me out of here so I don’t have to deal with the impossible situation I created – the huge mistake I made.’

What else could he mean? The mission he defined at the outset was accomplished long ago. Right now, we have no mission in the military sense of the term…