WP: A Speech Meant to Rally Public Support Doesn't Answer Key Questions

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53141-2004May24.html

Analysis
A Speech Meant to Rally Public Support Doesn't Answer Key Questions

By Robin Wright and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 25, 2004; Page A12


With only five weeks before the transition in Iraq and five months before the U.S. elections, President Bush last night called for more patience, more time, more resources and more support to transform troubled Iraq.


But Bush did not provide the midcourse correction that even some Republicans had called for in the face of increasingly macabre violence in recent weeks -- from the assassination of the president of Iraq's Governing Council and controversy over dozens killed by U.S. warplanes at a purported wedding party to the grisly beheading of an American civilian.


Nor did Bush try to answer some of the looming questions that have triggered growing skepticism and anxiety at home and abroad about the final U.S. costs, the final length of stay for U.S. troops, or what the terms will be for a final U.S. exit from Iraq. After promising "concrete steps," the White House basically repackaged stalled U.S. policy as a five-step plan.



Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John F. Kerry said Bush had only repeated general principles already laid out by the administration. Kerry said the president needed instead to "genuinely reach out" to allies so the United States no longer has to "go it alone" and to create stability.

"That's what our troops deserve, and that's what our country and the world need at this moment," he said in a statement.