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White House ignores critics, voices Iraq optimism
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-05-26 08:57

The U.S. administration sought on Tuesday to project a unified, optimistic view of its plan to hand over power to an interim government in Iraq, even as President Bush faced criticism over a strategy many find lacking in crucial details.

In a televised speech on Monday, Bush tried to convince Americans he had a workable plan for transforming Iraq from a war-torn occupied nation into a beacon of democratic reform for the whole Middle East region.

An Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim cleric walks past the damage to a doorway after a blast at the shrine of Imam Ali in the holy city of Najaf May 25, 2004. The Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, the holiest Shi'ite site in Iraq, was damaged by rockets or mortars, witnesses said -- a development likely to spark outrage among Iraq's Shi'ite majority. [Reuters]

His remarks, and a U.N. draft resolution backed by the United States and Britain, quickly came under fire from Democrats, European leaders and the American press barely a month before the June 30 deadline for transferring power to a caretaker Iraqi government.

French President Jacques Chirac, whose country led opposition to the Iraq war, told Bush by telephone the resolution would need to make clear an interim Iraqi government will have a say in the actions of U.S.-led forces to win France's support in the U.N. Security Council.

Bush, who wants U.S. troops to remain under American command as part of a U.N.-authorized multinational force, told reporters during an Oval Office meeting he and the French leader were in broad agreement.

"I had a great conversation with President Chirac. We share the same goal, a free and stable and peaceful Iraq," the Republican president said.

"What President Chirac and others have said is they want to make sure that the transfer of sovereignty to the interim government is a real transfer. And that's what we want."

Iraq has proved a liability for Bush's re-election prospects this November. His job approval ratings are at the lowest point of his presidency and opinion polls show a clear majority of Americans disapprove of his handling of the situation there.

MIXED REACTION TO SPEECH

Analysts saw his speech as an effort to counteract daily news of violence and scandal in Iraq by speaking directly to the American people about the nobler aspects of the mission.

"I think he succeeded in explaining that there's going to be a long protracted mess but that in the end we're doing the right thing," said Tripp Baird, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

US President Bush addresses the audience at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., May, 24, 2004. Bush sought to reassure Americans Monday night that he has a plan to pull Iraq out of the violence and chaos that have marked the year since he declared an end to major combat. [AP]

But Bush's half-hour speech won few admirers in Iraq, where weary residents are bitter after a year of chaos, and drew a mixed reaction at best in the United States.

White House aides mounted a message-control effort on Tuesday with a series of interviews and administration background briefings on Iraq and likely U.S. relations with the emerging interim government.

"I'm comfortable that arrangements have been worked out between all of the departments of government and we will have a unified approach," Secretary of State Colin Powell told NBC's "Today Show."

Another senior administration official took issue with British Prime Minister Tony Blair's remark that U.S.-led forces in Iraq would need the consent of Iraqi leaders before entering a city like Falluja, where American forces have fought prolonged battles against insurgents.

"Obviously, consent is important. But look, we know how to do this and I really don't think that hypotheticals are very helpful," said the official,

Sen. Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, welcomed the one new element in Bush's address -- a U.S. proposal to demolish the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. He dismissed the rest of the speech as a repackaging of old material that included misplaced confidence in the viability of Iraqi security forces.

Susan Rice, an assistant secretary of state under former President Bill Clinton, said Bush's speech suggested his administration did not fully comprehend the security issue.

"The fundamental problem we see at present is security. We don't have sufficient security for elections. We don't have sufficient security for training up even those Iraqi police and military who are willing to work with us," she said.

"If Washington at the political level can't see we have a security problem, I don't know that they're paying close attention."

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