I Cogitate

(CBS) President Bush took a few minutes during his trip to Europe Thursday to voice his opposition to establishing a special commission to probe how the government dealt with terror warnings before Sept. 11. Mr. Bush said the matter should be dealt with by congressional intelligence committees. link

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, as you know, this is a commission that the Bush White House resisted even creating at first and has had some rough times with over the past 20 months on issues like whether or not his daily briefing would be given to them, whether or not his national security adviser would testify publicly before their hearings. But today, Lou, it was all praise. It certainly was not lost on this White House that the commission did not assign blame to them for what happened on 9/11. link

Q Ari, on that topic, why does the White House continue to resist the idea of making the Office of Homeland Security a Cabinet-level department with its own budgetary authority and its own responsibility to Congress? link

Tonight, I propose a permanent Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security to unite essential agencies that must work more closely together: Among them, the Coast Guard, the Border Patrol, the Customs Service, Immigration officials, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Employees of this new agency will come to work every morning knowing their most important job is to protect their fellow citizens. The Department of Homeland Security will be charged with... link

Q: Mr. President, though -- this is a direct follow up to that -- the FISA law was implemented in 1978 in part because of revelations that the National Security Agency was spying domestically. What is wrong with that law if you feel you have to circumvent it and, as you just admitted, expand presidential power?

THE PRESIDENT: May I -- if I might, you said that I have to circumvent it. There -- wait a minute. That's a -- there's something -- it's like saying, you know, you're breaking the law. I'm not. See, that's what you've got to understand. I am upholding my duty, and at the same time, doing so under the law and with the Constitution behind me. That's just very important for you to understand.

Secondly, the FISA law was written in 1978. We're having this discussion in 2006. It's a different world. And FISA is still an important tool. It's an important tool. And we still use that tool. But also -- and we -- look -- I said, look, is it possible to conduct this program under the old law? And people said, it doesn't work in order to be able to do the job we expect us to do.

And so that's why I made the decision I made. And you know, "circumventing" is a loaded word, and I refuse to accept it, because I believe what I'm doing is legally right. link

On Wednesday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrote a letter to senators announcing that "any electronic surveillance that was occurring" as part of the administration's controversial warrantless eavesdropping program " will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court." link

During a debate with then-Vice President Al Gore on Oct. 11, 2000, in Winston-Salem, N.C., Bush said: "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building. . . . I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have a kind of nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not." link

But administration officials from Bush on down concede that the United States is now actively involved in nation-building. They argue that the post-Sept. 11 world, where poverty and hopelessness spawn terror and terror threatens US and world security, requires the United States to act to promote freedom and democracy. link

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy." Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush. link

Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.  -- George Bush, on Kosovo, Houston Chronicle (April 9, 1999)

Published on Monday, August 22, 2005 by the Los Angeles Times
Republican Senator Says U.S. Needs Iraq Exit Strategy Now
The war has destabilized the Mideast and created a potential Vietnam, Nebraska's Chuck Hagel says. Other lawmakers express frustration.
by Josh Meyer
 
WASHINGTON - As President Bush prepared to hit the road this week to bolster public support for his policies in Iraq, a senior Republican senator said Sunday that the United States needed to craft an exit strategy because its continued presence had created a potential Vietnam...

BUSH: No, I don't view -- I'm a uniter, not a divider. I don't believe there's a deep divide. As a matter of fact, when you look at the results amongst Republicans who are voting in the primaries, I'm winning overwhelmingly, and -- which means it's going to be easy to unite our party and lead us to victory. It's been my record. It's what I've done as governor. I know how to unite people. I don't like the politics of pitting one group of people against another, the politics of pointing fingers. I like that politics advocated by somebody like Ronald Reagan, who was a uniter. He didn't stand up and pit groups of people against each other. He didn't have a spiteful agenda, he had an optimistic agenda, as do I. link

The candidate who advertised himself as "a uniter, not a divider" has failed to narrow any of his country's glaring social and racial divisions.

The gaps are wider now than when he came to office. His stewardship of the mighty U.S. economy has been disastrous. He has accomplished the stunning feat of transforming the record budget surplus bequeathed to him by President Clinton into a record deficit. The strong dollar has grown weak; the trade deficit has ballooned; unemployment is up. The only beneficiaries of what hardly deserves to be called an economic policy are his pals in the multimillionaire class, which includes many in his Cabinet.

Bush has failed to extend his "compassionate conservatism" much further than his immediate circle. He has attended no military funerals and has banned photographs of the coffins of dead soldiers returning home.

The divisions he has sown extend abroad. The United States is more reviled than it has been since the Vietnam War. He has burnt many of the country's longest-standing, most reliable bridges, including those with Europe. The alliances that remain, with Britain, for example, have only shallow foundations in public opinion. On top of all this, Bush has done nothing to reduce U.S. standing as the world's No. 1 polluter, arrogantly shunning international efforts against global warming. link

(CNN) -- The former U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq says the United States "paid a big price" for not having enough troops on the ground after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.

L. Paul Bremer, speaking Monday at an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, said "horrid" looting was occurring when he arrived to head the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad on May 6, 2003. link

Bush Adds Troops in Bid to Secure Iraq
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: January 10, 2007

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 — President Bush announced tonight that he was sending more than 21,000 American troops to Iraq to quell the sectarian violence there, as he conceded for the first time that he had provided neither enough troops nor enough resources to halt the country’s descent into chaos over the past year. link

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