Monday, November 03, 2003

Public's Doubt vs. Bush Vows: "The political challenge posed to President Bush by the deadly helicopter attack in Iraq on Sunday is this: how to keep public opinion from swinging against him over Iraq while not abandoning his quest to bring a stable democracy to that country.

Americans have been dying for months in Iraq, attacked by an enemy whose nature remains murky. But the downing of the Chinook helicopter, which killed 16 soldiers, brought the insurgency to a new level and suggested its growing effectiveness.

Up to now the American people, in their majority, have backed the Iraq campaign, and the Bush administration has vowed repeatedly to stay the course, even through an election year.

But administration officials and military commanders have also been dismissive of the insurgency in a way that may now be questioned. On Saturday, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top American commander in Iraq, said the attacks were "strategically and operationally insignificant."

Whatever the merits of that claim — and the downing of a helicopter would not seem insignificant — it might be beside the point. The well-armed and apparently coordinated guerrilla attacks on American forces, on Iraqis who are cooperating with them, on international institutions and on ordinary civilians seem to have a common purpose: undermining American resolve and sowing doubt in Iraq and elsewhere.

Mr. Bush was informed of the attack on the helicopters while at his ranch here. A White House spokesman, Trent Duffy, later told reporters, "The terrorists seek to kill coalition forces and innocent Iraqis because they want us to run, but our will and our resolve are unshakable."

However, Kenneth Allard, a former Army colonel who teaches international security at Georgetown University, suggested that the Iraqi attacks would test American determination.

"Every single one of these attacks challenges American will, and American will is the center of gravity in this campaign," he said.…

Democrats have been particularly critical of Mr. Bush's inability to win substantial commitments from allies other than Britain for troop deployments to Iraq, a failure they trace to the administration's unwillingness to forge a true coalition before the war.

Mr. Bush is clearly sensitive to the pressure on him to bring home more American troops as soon as possible; when he was asked at his news conference last week if he could promise to have reduced the number of troops in Iraq a year from now, he dismissed it as a "trick question" and declined to answer.

One Democrat, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, said after the helicopter was downed, "The administration has no answers to the increasingly violent situation in Iraq." He added, "We need a plan."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/03/international/middleeast/03ASSE.html

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