What's the Plan?

President Bush emerges from his Texas compound this week to make two speeches about Iraq in an effort to restore sagging public support for his war and his presidency.

But news reports suggest it's unlikely that he will answer the many questions being raised by the country's increasingly vocal antiwar movement.

In a preview of his remarks, Bush used his Saturday radio address to reassert a connection between Iraq and the September the 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks and to suggest a parallel to earlier, more popular wars.

"The veterans of World War II defended America when ruthless foes threatened our freedom and our very way of life. And after winning a great victory, they helped former enemies rebuild and form free and peaceful societies that would become strong allies of America. The World War II generation endured great suffering and sacrifice because they understood that defeating tyranny in Europe and Asia was essential to the security and freedom of America.

"Like previous wars we have waged to protect our freedom, the war on terror requires great sacrifice from Americans."

(Vice President Cheney, as I wrote in Friday's column, tried casting the war in Iraq as a battle in the same great tradition as the Revolutionary War in a speech on Thursday.)

Former presidential adviser David Gergen tells Josh Getlin and Elizabeth Mehren of the Los Angeles Times that Bush's repeated insistence that the invasion of Iraq was necessary after the Sept. 11 attacks continues to be persuasive to some Americans.

" 'I think people are really worried that if we get out of Iraq the end result will be worse, because of the fear of terrorism,' Gergen said. 'That has sustained the president.' "

But at the same time, with protests at his Texas doorstep and a growing number of mainstream political figures asking him to explain his exit strategy, Bush's continued refusal to describe his Iraq plans in any detail carries increased political risk.

And Bush's "stay the course" message became more problematic yesterday after an influential member of his own party, Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, asserted on ABC News's This Week: "Stay the course is not a policy."

Hagel Watch

Josh Meyer writes in the Los Angeles Times: "As President Bush prepared to hit the road this week to bolster public support for his policies in Iraq, a senior Republican senator said Sunday that the United States needed to craft an exit strategy because its continued presence had created a potential Vietnam.

" 'We should start figuring out how we get out of there,' Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said on ABC's 'This Week.' 'I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur.'