DATE=09/08/03

TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP

NAME=BUSH IRAQ SPEECH

NUMBER=6-13079

BY LINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS

TELEPHONE=619-3335

CONTENT=

INTRO: American newspapers have been quick to comment on President Bush's Sunday [9-7] speech to the nation, updating the situation in Iraq. The president says America has no choice but to persevere, and explained that he is asking Congress for an additional 87-billion dollars for the security and reconstruction effort. We get a sampling of early reaction from V-O-A's ____________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.

TEXT: It was a far more somber address than the president's Iraq assessment on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln in early May, as sailors cheered. At that time, Mr. Bush declared the war over. But a succession of combat deaths and large explosions since, have amply demonstrated that assessment was premature. Now, in the words of The Los Angeles Times, the president is "Facing Up to a 'Hard Reality.' We begin our sampling in the capital of Texas, where Mr. Bush was previously governor, and where The Austin American-Statesman says:

VOICE: We finally got a bill: 87-billion dollars to nation-build Iraq, an investment whose payoff, if it pays off, would be a peaceful Iraq in the middle of the Middle East, a democratic rebuke to terrorism. In his … address … [However,] President Bush avoided all the most difficult questions stemming from his actions [in] Iraq: Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Where is Saddam Hussein? Or Osama bin Laden? Why do we not have enough troops there to enforce law and order? When can the troops come home?

TEXT: Turning to southern Ohio, a somewhat cynical Cincinnati Post suggests:

VOICE: The Bush administration got the military victory in Iraq right. It was clean, quick and decisive. But the administration was wrong on just about everything else. Wrong about the chaos and looting that followed [;] the numbers of troops it would take to keep the lid on … and about the need for U-N help. And now wrong, wildly so, on the cost of occupying and rebuilding Iraq.

TEXT: A more positive tone comes in this editorial excerpt from the Chicago Tribune, which counsels patience.

VOICE: Those who want their history resolved in a heartbeat are understandably frustrated by the slow pace of progress … But there is progress, as schools reopen, local governments form and wide reaches of the country remain peaceful. … What each of us should never forget is that, for many years, the rest of the world dithered while only Saddam Hussein nurtured a vision for Iraq ... Now, at long last, someone else has a vision for Iraq. It is a costly and difficult vision, but as the president made clear … it very much needs to be achieved.

TEXT: Back to that Los Angeles Times editorial we mentioned earlier, which adds that:

VOICE: … if [Mr.] Bush is to justify the breathtaking 87-billion [dollar] price tag he proposed for rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan, he needs to provide Congress with more than vague assurances about bringing democracy to the Middle East. … However welcome it was to have the removal of Saddam Hussein and his sons, the steady … attacks against U-S and coalition forces … shows that the administration wildly underestimated the costs and dangers of imposing its headstrong will in Iraq.

TEXT: Still in the Midwest, an even less appreciative view from The Minneapolis [Minnesota] Star Tribune, which calls the speech:

VOICE: … oddly fashioned to be a combination of pre-anniversary [of 9/11] reassurances and a defense of what is happening in Iraq …[but he] offered nothing new in the war against those who carried out that attack. Indeed, he offered very little that was new at all [;] It was spin, spin, spin. [Editors: "spin" is slang for "the biased interpretation of a particular point of view."]

TEXT: Another supporting voice from the Pacific Northwest, where Washington State's Seattle Times points out that 87-billion-dollar figure:

VOICE: … works out to just under 300-dollars per American, which is less than one-percent of the average wealth produced per American per year. We can afford it; there is no question of that. The question is whether money spent to suppress violence in Iraq, to train an army and police, and to rebuild from war is worthwhile. History suggests that it is.

TEXT: On that economic analysis from The Seattle Times, we conclude this sampling of early reaction to the president's speech on the costs of rebuilding Iraq.

NEB/ANG/RAE