Rumsfeld Offers Optimistic View of Iraq: My Way News:
"WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday the American public should be optimistic about the situation in Iraq, and not judge progress based on the death toll or media reports alone.
'To be responsible, one needs to stop defining success in Iraq as the absence of terrorist attacks,' Rumsfeld said in remarks at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He said Iraqis are more upbeat about their country because it is on an improved political path and on the road to democracy.
Rumsfeld also delivered a broadside against the media, saying that in the present era of the 24-hour new cycle, events in Iraq may be reported too quickly and without context, and at times with little substantiation.
'A lie moves around the world at the speed of light,' he said, stressing there is a 'jarring contrast between what the American people are reading and hearing about Iraq and the views of the Iraqi people.'"
[..]
Pressure on the administration over the war has grown as the number of U.S. military deaths has surpassed 2,100. Rumsfeld said a focus on that number would be as misleading as concentrating on the large numbers of deaths at battles like Iwo Jima during World War II - without acknowledging the victories eventually achieved.
"How will history judge, if it does, the reporting some decades from now when Iraq's path is settled," Rumsfeld said.
He acknowledged that the war has not gone according to plan, but also said that many things that were feared - including destruction of oil fields - did not happen. And he said the insurgency was much larger than some people expected.
Rumsfeld's speech was part of an ongoing effort by the Bush administration to counter the increasing discontent with the war among Democrats and some Republicans in Congress, as well as within significant elements of the American public.
The administration has been urging patience in the face of growing calls for an exit strategy to bring the troops home. Bush, whose poll numbers have sunk to an all-time low, released a strategy last week for victory in Iraq that broke no new ground, but was meant to better explain the U.S. mission there.
He and Rumsfeld have insisted that withdrawal from Iraq will be based on the military and political conditions on the ground there, and that pulling out too soon would only bring victory to the insurgents and put the United States at greater risk.
The administration has cited figures showing that Iraqi troop strength is growing - one of the pre-requisites to drawing down U.S. troops. But in an interview Monday with The Associated Press, Iraqi Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer said the training of Iraqi forces has been troubled in recent months because some security units are being used to go after political rivals.
"WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday the American public should be optimistic about the situation in Iraq, and not judge progress based on the death toll or media reports alone.
'To be responsible, one needs to stop defining success in Iraq as the absence of terrorist attacks,' Rumsfeld said in remarks at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He said Iraqis are more upbeat about their country because it is on an improved political path and on the road to democracy.
Rumsfeld also delivered a broadside against the media, saying that in the present era of the 24-hour new cycle, events in Iraq may be reported too quickly and without context, and at times with little substantiation.
'A lie moves around the world at the speed of light,' he said, stressing there is a 'jarring contrast between what the American people are reading and hearing about Iraq and the views of the Iraqi people.'"
[..]
Pressure on the administration over the war has grown as the number of U.S. military deaths has surpassed 2,100. Rumsfeld said a focus on that number would be as misleading as concentrating on the large numbers of deaths at battles like Iwo Jima during World War II - without acknowledging the victories eventually achieved.
"How will history judge, if it does, the reporting some decades from now when Iraq's path is settled," Rumsfeld said.
He acknowledged that the war has not gone according to plan, but also said that many things that were feared - including destruction of oil fields - did not happen. And he said the insurgency was much larger than some people expected.
Rumsfeld's speech was part of an ongoing effort by the Bush administration to counter the increasing discontent with the war among Democrats and some Republicans in Congress, as well as within significant elements of the American public.
The administration has been urging patience in the face of growing calls for an exit strategy to bring the troops home. Bush, whose poll numbers have sunk to an all-time low, released a strategy last week for victory in Iraq that broke no new ground, but was meant to better explain the U.S. mission there.
He and Rumsfeld have insisted that withdrawal from Iraq will be based on the military and political conditions on the ground there, and that pulling out too soon would only bring victory to the insurgents and put the United States at greater risk.
The administration has cited figures showing that Iraqi troop strength is growing - one of the pre-requisites to drawing down U.S. troops. But in an interview Monday with The Associated Press, Iraqi Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer said the training of Iraqi forces has been troubled in recent months because some security units are being used to go after political rivals.
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