Master of events or at their mercy?

As president defends Iraq policy, election shapes up as referendum on occupation

ANALYSIS
By Tom Curry
MSNBC

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 — An extraordinary reversal of political fortune compelled President Bush to go on national television Sunday night. He had no triumphal news to announce. Instead he had to brace the American people for an unexpectedly difficult struggle in the months ahead in Iraq, assuring them that the goal — a stable country that is not a haven for terrorists or a site for making nuclear, biological or chemical weapons — was worth the lives of the soldiers and Marines that are being lost.

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