Bush: Outside forces 'unbelievably counterproductive' in Africa, but needed in Iraq Eric Brewer

Published: Thursday February 28, 2008



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Print This Email This I don't know whether it was the whining I did in my last post about how Dana Perino was ignoring me, or whether it was just that there were so few reporters in the briefing room on Monday that I was able to move up to the second row of chairs (I took the seat reserved for the NY Times), but I finally got to ask Dana a question. My inspiration for the question was the great surge of hope I felt when I heard President Bush claim last week that he had recently learned something: "A clear lesson I learned in the museum was that outside forces that tend to divide people up inside their country are unbelievably counterproductive." He was in Kigali, Rwanda, talking about his visit to the genocide museum there, and although the remark was part of his explanation for why he has not intervened in Darfur, I thought the "clear lesson" might apply equally to other countries. Iraq, for instance. So I asked Dana: "Last week, President Bush said that during his visit to Rwanda, he learned the clear lesson that outside forces that tend to divide people up inside their country are unbelievably counterproductive. How will the President's newfound insight affect his Iraq policy?" Sadly, it appears, not very much. The rest of our interchange: Dana: The President has been working towards reconciliation between the Sunnis and the Shia, and it's actually working on a political level in some ways. Especially we saw that last month, when they passed three laws in one day, which was quite a significant achievement for the Iraqis. And he will continue to work with them on it. Me: Does he know what percentage of the Iraqi people want U.S. forces to leave? Dana: Look, what we do know is that the -- there might be polls telling -- saying different things about who wants us where. What we know is that the Iraqi government wants us there, neighboring countries want us there. And we also know that if we were to leave too quickly that the possibility for chaos and mass violence is too great, and the President won't risk that. On Wednesday, Perino called on me again, so I followed up Monday's question. Me: The U.S. military conducted 19 focus groups throughout Iraq last November, and its report on those focus groups stated that Iraqis from every ethnic and sectarian group are united in the belief that the U.S. invasion is the root cause of the sectarian violence in Iraq, and that the departure of the U.S. military is the key to national reconciliation. And I wondered, has the President seen the military's report on those focus groups? Dana's reply: I don't know if he has. I haven't either, and I'd refer you to DOD because I don't know the accuracy of that. I knew that the Bush White House would never acknowledge that its strategy for preventing chaos and mass violence in Iraq is, in the eyes of the Iraqi people, the very cause of that violenceeven when the evidence was provided by a report prepared by the U.S. military. But someone in military must've taken a big risk in leaking that report to Washington Post reporter Karen De Young. And I didn't want his or her bravery to be completely wasted. The preceding article was a White House report from Eric Brewer, who will periodically attend White House press briefings for Raw Story. Brewer is also a contributor at BTC News. He was the first person to ask about the Downing Street memo at a White House briefing.



