20051214
Bush Says Iraq War Was Justified Even Though Intelligence Wronghttp://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aOxFsmhzls_g&refer=top_world_news
Bush said that even though the original rationale for the war turned out to be false -- that Hussein was compiling biological and chemical weapons -- the invasion was critical to the safety of the U.S.
Bush takes blame for Iraq war on bad intelligence
http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarticle.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nN14276640&imageid=top-news-view-2005-12-14-200523-eRPPISA%5B30%5D.jpg&cap=U.S.%20President%20George%20W.%20Bush%20delivers%20remarks%20on%20the%20war%20on%20terror%20in%20Washington,%20December%2014,%202005.%20As%20Iraq%20prepared%20for%20its%20election,%20President%20Bush%20on%20Wednesday%20vowed%20the%20United%20States%20will%20stay%20in%20Iraq%20%22until%20victory%20is%20achieved%22%20and%20he%20defended%20his%20decision%20to%20go%20to%20war.%20Bush%20gave%20the%20fourth%20in%20a%20series%20of%20speeches%20that%20the%20White%20House%20has%20used%20to%20try%20to%20explain%20his%20administration's%20strategy%20amid%20a%20drumbeat%20of%20criticism%20from%20Democrats%20who%20say%20Bush%20does%20not%20have%20a%20plan%20on%20Iraq.%20%20%20%20%20%20REUTERS/Jim%20Young
Bush's new admission was significant in that he rarely admits mistakes, although he has acknowledged failures in U.S. intelligence on Iraq before. His administration touted Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as a reason for going to war in March 2003, but such weapons were never found.
'MUCH OF THE INTELLIGENCE TURNED OUT TO BE WRONG'
On September the 11th, 2001, our nation awoke to a sudden attack, and we accepted new responsibilities. We are confronting new dangers with firm resolve. We're hunting down the terrorists and their supporters. We will fight this war without wavering _ and we will prevail. In the war on terror, Iraq is now the central front _ and over the last few weeks, I've been discussing our political, economic, and military strategy for victory in that country. A historic election will take place tomorrow in Iraq. And as millions of Iraqis prepare to cast their ballots, I want to talk today about why we went into Iraq, why we stayed in Iraq, and why we cannot _ and will not _ leave Iraq until victory is achieved.
Bush Defends Decision to Go to War in Iraq
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pri&dt=051214&cat=frontpage&st=frontpageap20051214_779&src=abc
The president could use some more good news in Iraq. With the violence showing no sign of waning, most Americans are unhappy with his handling of the war and some lawmakers are questioning how long the troops should stay.
The story of 2005 was told in the faces of human suffering _ people - touched by tragedy at the hands of nature's vicious winds and waters, or by the design of terrorists who set their sights on soldiers, hotels and simple morning commutes. You can mark the days and months of the year by tracing the grief and loss and horror that reached across the world, from far-off Pakistan to Sudan, in the capitals of Amman and London, in remote tornado- ravaged towns in Indiana.
And New Orleans.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/14/D8EG3K880.html
Indelibly, the suffering that 2005 brought to so many places was captured by the American catastrophe _ first natural, then humanitarian _ that devastated Louisiana and Mississippi over one wrenching late-summer week, and for years to come.
Beneath it all was the steady drip, drip, drip of U.S. military deaths in Iraq, leaving behind grieving families and a nation increasingly souring on the war. The conflict marked its 1,000th day this year, and its 2,000th fallen soldier.
There were moments when the suffering was reverent:
In April, Archibishop Stanislaw Dziwisz wept as he placed a white silk veil over the face of Pope John Paul II just before his coffin was closed, the world mourning with him as it bid farewell to a man known as the first rock-star pontiff.
And there were moments when it was highly disputed:
We watched grainy video showing the face of a brain-damaged Florida woman named Terri Schiavo, her eyes perhaps following a balloon, or gazing back at her mother. Deprived of a feeding tube, was she dying as her husband insists she asked? Or should she have been kept alive, as her parents demanded?
Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was slain in Iraq, staged an epic summer protest at President Bush's Texas ranch, galvanizing the nation's antiwar movement. Was she an anguished mother demanding answers? Or a publicity hound and lackey of the left exploiting her own child?
At times the suffering seemed inescapable, even like some cruel joke of fate. On July 6, cheers broke out on the London Underground subway as news spread that London had been awarded the 2012 Olympic Games.
"Many people do reckon that London is the greatest city in the whole world at the moment," said Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Not 24 hours later, those same subway cars were filled with smoke and blood and panic. During the morning rush hour, terrorists killed 52 commuters and injured more than 700 in the worst attack on London since World War II.
One particularly jarring picture taken that day showed a man embracing a dazed subway passenger and leading her away from the Edgware Road station. Her face was wrapped entirely in white gauze, her hands pressed to her cheeks, a ghostly image of shock.
"This has been a most terrible and tragic atrocity that has cost many innocent lives," the prime minister said. "This is a very sad day for the British people, but we will hold true to the British way of life."
But nothing _ not the somber, yearlong cleanup from the Asian tsunami, not the devastating earthquake in Pakistan _ captured the nation's attention, and evoked national horror and disbelief, like Hurricane Katrina.
The monster barreled toward New Orleans over a late August weekend, seemingly the storm the bowl-shaped, depressed Big Easy had always feared. Then it jogged to the east, devastating the Mississippi coast. New Orleans, it was said, had dodged a bullet.
But then the levees broke, and the water rose, and the country watched for a week as a great American city descended into a ruinous scene of looting, shooting, fires and bloated corpses floating in the reeking, toxic muck left behind by the storm.
New Orleanians who had opted to ride out the storm _ or simply did not have the means to get out of town _ desperately sought deliverance from the infamous convention center, or the teeming Superdome. Or their own rooftops.
"I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at an elderly woman who lay dead in a wheelchair at the convention center three days after Katrina. "I buried my dog."
Bush _ dogged by his remark to Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown that "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" _ made trip after trip to the Gulf Coast, and pledged in the French Quarter: "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again."
Still, at year's end, the victims of Katrina remained scattered in cities across the nation, unsure when they could return to their homes _ or whether even they wanted to. The death toll stood at more than 1,300.
And the hurricanes kept coming.
Rita followed four weeks later _ at one point it had menacing winds gusting to 185 mph _ and tore through east Texas and west Louisiana. Then Wilma slashed through Florida, leaving 6 million people without electricity.
And then, in a first, they ran out of names. Five new late-season storms were assigned Greek letters, all the way up to Epsilon, which formed in early December, mocking the official end of hurricane season Nov. 30.
The war in Iraq raged for a third year, and the war against terrorism entered its fifth, and the nation pondered the meaning of torture and when, if ever, it was appropriate.
American deaths in Iraq topped 2,100. One of them was Pvt. Christopher Alcozer of Villa Park, Ill., who was 21 and had proposed to his girlfriend _ she said yes _ just weeks before he was killed Nov. 19 by insurgents brandishing small arms and hand grenadres.
His mother, Kathleen Alcozer, said she opposed to the war. "But I was always ready to support my child. And now I have to bury my child," she said. "There's just no words."
It seems ages ago, but a year so defined by tragedy actually began with a bold challenge to end suffering and oppression: President Bush was inaugurated for a second term Jan. 20, and from the Capitol he issued a call for freedom in every nation with the ultimate goal of "ending tyranny in our world."
But then he watched as his administration suffered an interstate pileup of setbacks: The war. The response to Katrina. Soaring gas prices, past $3 per gallon in some places. A stalled effort to revamp Social Security. The Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination.
In October, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, was indicted on charges of lying to a grand jury investigating the outing of a CIA officer. The year ended with the investigation still open, and clouds of uncertainty still surrounding Karl Rove, the president's top adviser.
By November, Bush's approval rating had fallen to 37 percent in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll, the lowest of his presidency. "The war is an overriding issue. Look at the body count on a daily basis," said Tom Rector, a Democrat from Spokane, Wash.
The nation was one year removed from the bruising 2004 campaign, but cultural landmines remained. Advocates of "intelligent design," a notion dismissed by many scientists but embraced by some cultural conservatives, fought for a place in the nation's classrooms, where the theory of evolution has long been taught unchallenged.
And the battle over the future of the Supreme Court _ long anticipated by the left and right _ finally arrived. John Roberts won relatively easy confirmation as chief justice, replacing the late William H. Rehnquist, but the year ended with wrangling over Samuel Alito, Bush's pick to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and rumblings that his confirmation hearings would reignite the unending national debate on abortion.
In other courts, there were trials: Michael Jackson walked out of a California courtroom one June afternoon and returned to his Neverland ranch after being found not guilty on child-molestation charges. His lawyer proclaimed "Justice is done" _ but said the pop star would no longer sleep with children in his bedroom.
Saddam Hussein, brandishing a team of lawyers rather than a rifle, went on trial in Iraq for mass murder and torture, lashing out in theatrical rants about "American rules" and shouting for the five judges to "Go to hell!"
In New York courtrooms, formerly high-flying executives like Bernard Ebbers of WorldCom and Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco were sentenced to up to 25 years in prison apiece for leading the huge frauds at their companies.
Important as they were, these stories sometimes seemed no more than sideshows, distractions from the march of catastrophes that plagued the world this year. At times they seemed so frequent and massive that we were almost numb to their numbers.
Millions went without food in Niger, and epic violence raged in Sudan. An earthquake in Pakistan killed a staggering 87,000. The somber count of victims of the late 2004 tsunami continued all year, the death toll eventually climbing to an incomprehensible 176,000.
And so to truly understand 2005, you have to look at the individual faces.
At the tearful eyes of Tasleem Liaqat, 25, who was trapped under earthquake debris in the Pakistani village of Kialla. She was pulled out by neighbors and two hours later delivered a baby girl, one month early.
Waiting for help, she pulled a plastic sheet over herself and the newborn when it started to rain. Pulled in a cart by her husband and three neighbors, she reached a hospital eight days after the quake.
It was an extreme, gut-churning example of the suffering felt all over the world this tumultuous year.
In the hospital, with her right leg in a metal brace, and holding the baby in her arms, the young mother observed: "I don't remember anything but the pain. So much pain." ¶ 14.12.05
