Time to Focus on Iraq

Bush has consistently refused to set a timetable for withdrawal, saying that would only encourage the Iraqi insurgency.

But doesn't the American public deserve, if not a strict timeline, a general idea of what our exit strategy is militarily, and some specific benchmarks against which we can measure our progress, or the lack of it?

Here are some thoughts I had on that topic several weeks ago, on the NiemanWatchdog.org Web site.

Downing Street Memo Watch

Just a few weeks ago, it was being widely ignored by the mainstream press. Now it's permeating virtually all the coverage of the war. Go figure.

I'm talking about the Downing Street Memo , of course.

Howard Kurtz writes in The Washington Post that liberal anger, "amplified by left-wing advocacy groups, columnists, bloggers and some Democrats in Congress, has gradually forced the mainstream media to take a second look at a document that received spotty coverage after it was reported May 1 by London's Sunday Times.

"Journalists offered various explanations for the scant attention paid to the July 2002 British memo, which, in recounting a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top aides, said that the Bush administration had 'fixed' the intelligence on Iraq and that war was inevitable. They said the memo was old, that the U.S. mobilization for war was widely reported at the time, that there was an initial distrust of a British press report. Some maintained that the memo didn't prove anything."

Well, Kurtz writes: "For the past 15 years, conservatives have used their outlets -- in talk radio, right-leaning news operations, editorial pages and, more recently, blogs -- to pressure mainstream journalists into covering stories that might otherwise be ignored. And they have had striking success. . . . Now the left can claim a similar success."

CNN political analyst Bill Schneider asked yesterday: "There were a lot of reports during the summer of 2002 that the Bush administration was intent on going to war. What's so sensational about the allegations of the British documents?"

The he answers his own question: "The difference is, the mood of the country. In June, 2002, 61 percent of Americans favored sending U.S. troops to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Now only 42 percent say it was worth going to war in Iraq. That's why questions about how the U.S. got into the war are being raised now. More than they were then."

So in other words, yes it's old news -- but not to the Americans who didn't hear it back then because they didn't want to hear it. Now, more of them may be listening.

Ruby L. Bailey writes for Knight Ridder Newspapers: "The secret British memo of 2002 that reported that President Bush was determined to go to war against Iraq months earlier than he publicly acknowledged will get its first official hearing on Thursday -- sort of.