Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(May 2004)
An ex-Brit gives his views-(without fear
or favor)---of the American Scene
I did it my way:
 Once
again the President’s news conference was long on
rhetoric and very short on substance when he preached
the gospel according to the White House scriptwriters.
Not a word about the failing economy.
Not a word about the out-sourcing of American jobs.
Not a word about the ever-increasing National debt, although
I do believe that he did mention the Patriot Act in the
context as to how much safer America has been since he
and his administration decided to unilaterally go to war
against Iraq.
No mention of some of the false reasons, or excuses, which
were given by the administration to invade Iraq in the
first place. This once again was more of a "cheerleading
speech", than a question and answer press conference.
I won’t bore you with all the questions and the
dubious answers, but the one question that intrigued me
was, (not quoted verbatim), "Mr. President have you
and/or your administration made mistakes, misinterpretations,
and miscalculations, both in the preparations to go to
war and the post war control of the civilian population
of Iraq?”. There was a long drawn out pause as Mr.
Bush stumbled his way through the thought process of trying
to develop an acceptable political answer, (obviously
the scriptwriters had not expected this question and he
hadn’t received instructions as how to answer it),
and he never did accept, acknowledge, or admit, that he
and/or his administration had made any mistakes.
 George
Tenet, the Director of the CIA, at least admitted during
questioning by the "National Committee on Terrorist
Attacks", that mistakes had been made and indicated
that the United States had not been fully protected against
acts of terrorism at the time of the eleventh of September
incident.
President Bush throughout the news conference defended
his decision to go to war against Iraq, but due to current
circumstances he indicated that he would be agreeable
to the replacement of American Forces now in Iraq with
a multi-national force, and he even relented to the point
of asking the United Nations for assistance. He also tried
desperately to make a case to sell the plan for handing
over sovereignty to the Iraqi Interim Government on the
30th of June 2004.
Two major questions that were not answered: Is the Iraqi
Interim Government ready, prepared, and fully qualified,
for such an important task as governing a multi-religious
population - and who are the people who will be the chosen
members of the proposed Government Assembly, as it appears
on the surface to be such an, "undistinguished group"
of would be politicians?
My Comment: As I have said before, the handing over of
sovereignty to an interim government on the 30th of June
2004, is so extremely premature that it is virtually guaranteed
to fail.
The title of this chapter says it all - he did it his
way - and his way got us into a "bloody" mess,
with American and coalition forces being killed in the
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, plus the fact that the American
national debt is soaring to an all time high.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these
newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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