The United States is developing a plan to "encourage more Iraqis to assume more responsibility" quickly in governing the country, President Bush said today. Mr. Bush, who spoke to reporters after introducing three judicial nominees caught up in a Senate debate, said that a rushed exit from Iraq would carry a perilously high cost. "The vast majority of people understand that if America were to leave and the terrorists were to prevail in their desire to drive us out, the country would fall into chaos," Mr. Bush said.
Amid the latest violence across Iraq, including the deadly bombing Wednesday of an Italian paramilitary police headquarters, Japan said today that it was delaying the dispatch of its own peacekeepers at least until next year. Japan had planned to send 1,000 troops by the end of the year to Nasiriyah, the area where the Italian security forces were attacked. South Korea said that it would send no more than 3,000 troops, though American officials had hoped for more. And France called for formation of a provisional Iraqi government by the end of the year, perhaps six months before even an accelerated United States timetable might permit. "How many deaths does it take to understand that it is essential to change the approach?" Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin of France asked in an interview with Europe-1 radio. A summer deadline was "far too late," he said. "Time, sadly, means more people dead."
| And when there's an Iraqi government in place nobody else will be killed? Who the hell told you that? |
Mr. de Villepin said said the United Nations should name a representative to work with the United States administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, to elaborate a plan for a hand-over of power to a representative Iraqi assembly by the end of this year.
Mr. de Villepin also said that France was ready to help in Iraqi reconstruction, once a government is in place. But Paris has made it clear it has no plan to send peacekeeping troops. In a brief morning meeting with reporters, some Bush administration officials said Mr. Bremer would consult with Iraqi leaders on the possibility of holding elections by June and forming a temporary government even before a constitution is written.
| That could be done. Only problem with that idea is that if the new government turns out to be a rerun of the old government it'll be more difficult to toss them and start over again — which we can do with the IGC. |
But Mr. Bremer and other American spokesmen made clear that they wanted to formulate any such plan in consultation with the Iraqi Governing Council. And Governing Council members said on Wednesday that they wanted to immediately assume the powers of a provisional government.
| Which means they'll be harder to toss. Decisions, decisions... |
Mr. Bush said that Mr. Bremer, who had been summoned early in the week to two days of hastily convened meetings with the president and his top security advisers, was "going back to talk to the Governing Council to develop a strategy."
| That's a conversation that'll probably start with 'Lookee here, you guys!'" |
"We want the Iraqis to be more involved in the governance of their country," Mr. Bush said. The administration’s efforts to accelerate a hand-over of authority to Iraqis and its new willingness to review its insistence that no Iraqi government can be formed before a constitution is drafted and national elections held follow the worst weeks of violence in Iraq since major combat ended, and signs of growing sophistication by an enemy still not well understood.
| I think the misunderstanding's more on the part of the press. Our problem has been that we've been trying not to act like conquerors... |
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