White House Torture Advisers

But as William Glaberson writes in the New York Times: "[T]he Sept. 11 case immediately hit a snag. Military defense lawyers were in short supply, and even now, two months later, not one of the six detainees has met his military lawyer. . . .

"[T]here is a growing consensus among lawyers inside and outside the military that few of those cases are likely to actually come to trial before the end of the Bush administration. . . .

"The road to a trial is difficult in some cases partly because they involve potential death penalties and claims of torture by interrogators, issues that raise thorny legal questions that could take months or longer to sort out. But even comparatively simple cases without capital penalty issues are proceeding slowly."

Bush's Iraq Speech

As expected, Bush at today announced that he is accepting Army Gen. David H. Petraeus's plan to indefinitely suspend the drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq. Bush said Petraues told him he needed time to consolidate his forces and assess his options, "and I've told him he'll have all the time he needs."

As I wrote in yesterday's column, that officially makes getting out of Iraq the next president's problem.

Bush characterized the past 15 months in Iraq as a significant turnaround and spoke optimistically about the future. (To U.S. troops, he said: "While this war is difficult, it is not endless.") But he had to twist the facts to support his view of reality -- and he made particularly threatening remarks about Iran.

Bush described the recent government offensive in Basra a sign of how "a free Iraq will no longer tolerate the lawlessness by Iranian-backed militants." But what happened in Basra was essentially a battle between rival Shiite groups, and it ended in a bloody standoff.

On Iran, Bush ratcheted up his so-far rhetorical battle with that country's government. Bush said the Iranian government has a choice: It "can live in peace with its neighbor, enjoy strong economic and cultural and religious ties, or it can continue to arm and train and fund illegal militant groups which are terrorizing the Iraqi people and turning them against Iran

"If Iran makes the right choice, America will encourage a peaceful relationship between Iran and Iraq. If Iran makes the wrong choice, America will act to protect our interests and our troops and our Iraqi partners."

Was he threatening Iran with attack? Sure sounds that way to me.

Talking about the stakes of the Iraq war, Bush said: "Iraq is the convergence point for two of the greatest threats to America in this new century: al-Qaeda and Iran."

He also asserted a much-disputed connection between Iraq and national security. Responding to criticisms about the cost of the war, Bush said "it is modest -- a modest fraction of our nation's wealth. And it pales when compared to the cost of another terrorist attack on our people." Later, he said that defeat in Iraq would "increase the threat of another terrorist threat on our homeland."