Republican senators challenge Bush's Iraq optimism
Republican senators challenge Bush's Iraq optimism
Sun Jun 19, 2005 3:10 PM ET
By Tim Ahmann
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush needs to tell Americans the nation faces "a long, hard slog" in Iraq, a key Republican senator said on Sunday, and another said the White House was "disconnected from reality" in its optimism over the war.
"Too often we've been told and the American people have been told that we're at a turning point," Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "What the American people should have been told and should be told ... (is that) it's long; it's hard; it's tough."
"It's going to be at least a couple more years," said McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, was quoted by U.S. News and World Report as saying the administration's Iraq policy was failing.
"Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality," said Hagel, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."
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As I have stated here many times. It was a terrific failure in judgement for Mr. Bush to inaved Iraq on the basis of failed intelligence about non-existent WMDs. But now that we're there, our only choice is to succeed. Unfortunately, the current administration is too incompetent to pull it off.