corrente

Dick Polman of our own (Knight-Ridder) Inky does a thorough demolition job:

[Bush] offered virtually nothing new, except for a promise to demolish the Abu Ghraib prison.

I love that we're (Halliburton?) going to build the Iraqis a new prison. It's so... Republican.

I count at least 8 big questions that Bush should have addressed, but didn't.

He mostly invoked familiar elements of the neoconservative vision of a democratic Middle East, a vision that is drawing fire these days even from disaffected Republicans.

He never mentioned [1] Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile leader and neoconservative favorite who supplied dubious intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, and whose dreams of running Iraq were dashed last week when he was bounced from the U.S.-led coalition, after having collected $27 million from American taxpayers.

Nor did Bush substantively address [2] the prison scandal, except to say that "a few American troops" had dishonored American values - a reading of the scandal that fails to jibe with the suspicions of key Republican senators who believe it goes much higher.

Most important, Bush did not address the most troubling questions about how his vision for Iraq will actually work in practice. And that's arguably what skeptical Americans most want to know.

He said, for example, that "our coalition will transfer full [3]sovereignty" to the Iraqis on June 30. But American officials have repeatedly indicated in news briefings that this government (whose leaders have not been chosen) would have "limited sovereignty" and that it would not have any power to enact major laws; nor would it control the 135,000 American troops still on the ground.

Bush said that Iraqi troops would be led by Iraqi commanders and that those troops would battle alongside the U.S. troops - in his words, "working as allies." But he didn't address the nagging question of [4]whether Iraqi commanders will have the option to refuse American battle orders in sensitive cases where the Iraqis disagree with U.S. strategy. (The recent disputed U.S. attack on what Iraqis say was a wedding party probably won't help matters, at least in the short run.)

Bush said America will provide "technical experts" to help establish 26 ministries, including criminal justice. But he didn't say [5]whether the new Iraqi criminal-justice system would have the right to prosecute Americans for crimes against Iraqis on Iraqi soil. Americans are immunized under a decree from the U.S.-led occupation authority, but that decree expires along with the authority June 30.

What happens [6]if a sovereign Iraqi government, reflecting the popular will, decides that it doesn't want U.S. troops roaming the land, and doesn't want U.S. advisers roaming the corridors of power?

A Gallup poll a few weeks ago said 57 percent of Iraqis wanted the U.S. troops to leave immediately. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said this month that the Iraqis would have the right to order the Americans to go, but other administration officials, in testimony on Capitol Hill, have suggested otherwise.

Bush added nothing to that debate. The answer to that question may hinge on who actually runs the country. At one point, Bush did say that the new government - which is temporary, pending elections in January - is slowly taking shape, under the auspices of a special envoy from the United Nations (the same body that he called "irrelevant" in 2002). But he said nothing about [7] who [the new] leaders would be, probably because the U.N. envoy is still mediating among Iraq's ethnic rivalries. (The Kurds, for example, want one of the top two posts.)

He also said nothing about [7]any kind of U.S. exit strategy, perhaps because he doesn't foresee the favorable circumstances for withdrawal. He also said nothing about [8]what he thought it would cost to achieve those circumstances.

Roughly half the American electorate opposes Bush already, and probably nothing he said last night will change those minds, and he wouldn't expect to do that. His primary aim is to hold the allegiance of his Republican base, because that's where the problem is. In recent weeks, national polls have found that roughly 8 percent of self-identified Republicans have turned against Bush on the war.
(via Inky)

Looks to me like Inerrant Boy's still got some 'splainin' to do.

UPDATE A nice roundup from alert reader justin here.