Word: combatted
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Despite the President's bluster, Bush Administration officials are privately worried that U.S. forces are caught in a dangerous loop. The persistence of attacks has forced the U.S. to remain on a combat footing, which has diverted attention and resources away from the reconstruction effort. The heavy military footprint, in turn, has soured Iraqi opinion and created a more hospitable climate for anti-American agitators. "Going out on raids, busting up things and shooting people tend not to win you many friends," says a top foreign-policy aide to the first President Bush and adviser to the current White House...
...interview with TIME last week, Bremer, dressed in an ensemble befitting a Washington power broker in a war zone--pinstripe suit, red tie, white pocket square, combat boots--was keen to emphasize the coalition's successes but seemed all too aware of growing Iraqi impatience. "Saddam took 35 years to run the place down, and it's not going to take 35 days to fix it. People need to be patient. And I know that's hard when the temperature's 124° and the electricity goes off. But that's the message, and that's the only message there...
...said, "Bring 'em on." Kerry's response was two paragraphs of polenta: Bush's words had been "unwise, unworthy of the office" and so forth. As a Vietnam War hero, Kerry had the credentials to go ballistic. He could have said, "No one who's actually been in combat would ever say such a thing. You don't invite the enemy to attack your troops." But he didn't. After July 4, both Kerry and Dean held campaign-strategy retreats-and then staged a nifty little minuet, reversing styles in an attempt to broaden their appeal. Kerry attempted anger...
...building over the tribunals. "Does the Pentagon think the U.S. is the only country in the world ever to face terrorism?" asks Kelly of the Bar Council. Britain (to fight the Irish Republican Army), Italy (to fight the Mafia) and many other countries have modified their courts to combat terrorists without depriving suspects of so many rights. Especially galling has been the way the Bush Administration treated John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban. Even though he was captured fighting against coalition forces in Afghanistan, he was not deemed an "enemy combatant" like those in Guantánamo...
Alas, any "lessons learned" during the Peacekeeping Institute's 10-year life are not readily available to the public. That's because its website shut down May 1--the same day President Bush declared, from the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, that "major combat operations" in Iraq were over. --By Mark Thompson