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Journalists Weigh InBush Approval Plunging
A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Nov. 3-5 shows public approval for President Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq plunging to 41 percent. It was 54 percent in August and 76 percent in April. This drop may be partly due to improved press access to and coverage of Iraq. Here are excerpts from a Nov. 3 CNN interview of Joshua Hammer, Newsweek's Baghdad bureau chief, and from a Nov. 2 commentary by Andy Rooney of "60 Minutes." In response to CNN's query about how the situation in Iraq has changed over the last few months, Hammer responded: "Dramatically, I think. At the very beginning the American administration wasn't even really calling this a guerrilla war.... Then, of course, [came] the proliferation of these attacks throughout the region, not just the Sunni Triangle. And now of course you're seeing the next level of these attacks, which is the use of shoulder-fired missiles, the bringing down of an aircraft and a large number of dead.... "The guerrillas have wanted to...deliver some psychological blow to the American administration, to the U.S. occupation forces here, and they've definitely succeeded." Asked how successful the U.S. is at attempting to stem these attacks, Hammer observed: "The problem is...that the tactics that they're employing to ascertain who is trying to kill them are only serving to alienate the people further. It's a classic vicious cycle that you've seen in Vietnam; ...a beleaguered occupation force turns against the population in an attempt to gain information, alienates it further and therefore feeds the insurgency." CNN then asked about the Bush plan to get more Iraqis involved in security, eliciting this answer from Hammer: "It's a very, very slow, cumbersome process, and as this process drags on you're going to see many more Americans killed. So the American government is really in a race against time here, and I think they're losing." Meanwhile, on Nov. 2 Andy Rooney of "60 Minutes," tongue firmly in cheek, proposed that President Bush deliver a speech saying, in part: On May 1, I declared major combat was over and gave you the impression the war was over. I shouldn't have declared that. Since then, 215 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq. I promised to leave no child behind when it comes to education. Then I asked for an additional $87 billion for Iraq.... I hope the kids aren't going to have to pay for it--now in school or later when they're your age. When I landed on the deck of the carrier, I wish they hadn't put up the sign saying MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. It isn't accomplished. Maybe it should have been MISSION IMPOSSIBLE. My father wrote five years ago in his book, A World Transformed: "I firmly believed we should not march into Baghdad.... To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and making a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero.... [I opposed] assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerrilla war." We should all take our father's advice. Bob Wing is managing editor of War Times. |
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