Stepping up

From today's White House press briefing:

MR. SNOW: I'm telling you, let's just wait and see what happens over the next couple of months. We have had many debates like this in this country. You may recall when people have gone on vacations before elections, when they haven't passed budgets, when things have been pushed off until the very end of the year. I don't want to be doing equations here, but the fact is the legislative process is something that you have to contend with. This is a democracy.

On the other hand, what have the Iraqis done? They have committed much of their budget surplus this year directly to economic development and to security matters. They have stepped up on the things that we have asked them to do. They're putting their lives on the line. They are working on professionalizing the police forces. They are working on building greater credibility and capability with the military. They're working on economic infrastructure matters. We've got a meeting in Sharm el Sheikh where there is a neighbors' conference. There is going to be another conference in Baghdad.

This is a government that's operational on a whole series of fronts, and again, rather than trying to leap to conclusions and to ignore the vast amount of stuff that that government is doing and the risks that they are undertaking in order to build a secure democracy, what I'd suggest is, wait and see what happens.

Over 5000 civilians have been killed in Iraq in the past three months, according to the Iraqi government. In April, 104 U.S. soldiers were killed there, making it the worst month in the war.

Why in the world is it "stepping up" for the Iraqis to commit their budget surplus to security? Why do they have a surplus at all? We don't and we're dumping trillions into that place.

Am I missing something? Seriously. If this is the kind of benchmark that the Bush administration is using to indicate "progress" is happening, then it's no wonder they don't want anything other than a blank check.

Snowjob back in action

Tony Snow, today:

Wait a minute, Chris. The president has been saying exactly that all along. I don’t know what the headline is. As a matter of fact, I can remember right after September 11 sitting here when I was a journalist and some of your colleagues, I believe Charlie Gibson may have been there at the time as well. The fact is the president made it clear before the State of the Union in 2002 that there was no link between Saddam Hussein and September 11. So Im afraid what’s happened there is that George Tenet may have been referring to something that has been misreported or at least twisted by people with political motives, but there has been no attempt to try to link Saddam to September 11.

George W. Bush, March 18, 2003:

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Sincerely,

GEORGE W. BUSH

UPDATE: Let's never forget, either, that Condoleezza Rice, with whom Bush shares a frontal lobe, was saying things like this on the very day that Bush sent his final draft of the AUMF to Congress:

"There clearly are contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented; there clearly is testimony that some of the contacts have been important contacts and that there's a relationship here," Rice said.

[...]

"We clearly know that there were in the past and have been contacts between senior Iraqi officials and members of al Qaeda going back for actually quite a long time," Rice said. "We know too that several of the (al Qaeda) detainees, in particular some high-ranking detainees, have said that Iraq provided some training to al Qaeda in chemical weapons development."

[...]

"No one is trying to make an argument at this point that Saddam Hussein somehow had operational control of what happened on Sept. 11, so we don't want to push this too far, but this is a story that is unfolding, and it is getting clearer, and we're learning more," Rice said.

Right, no operational control. Saying Saddam had "operational control of what happened on Sept. 11" was pushing it "too far." But they were "clearly" in league with one another. And it was only a matter of time before the evidence proved Saddam was behind 9/11 because it was becoming "clearer" and that's the direction it was going as the story was "unfolding" in front of their careful eyes.