The Orbis

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In the third prime-time press conference of his term, President Bush spoke to the nation last Tuesday night for an hour about the current situation in Iraq, trying to downplay the significance of the uprisings over the past month, which has become the deadliest for U.S. troops since the start of offensive operations more than a year ago.

He first delivered a 17-minute prepared statement outlining the importance of the U.S. presence in Iraq and the need for a successful transfer of sovereignty on June 30. With little of the stumbling and misspoken words characteristic of his oratory, the president maintained a dignified and solid appearance during this segment of the press conference. He was firm on his position on Iraq, repeating many of the stock phrases and propaganda that have become all too familiar during the year long occupation.

Utilizing his infamous "good vs. evil" comparison, Bush said, "The success of free government in Iraq is vital for many reasons ... Above all, the defeat of violence and terror in Iraq is vital to the defeat of violence and terror elsewhere, and vital, therefore, to the safety of the American people. Now is the time, and Iraq is the place, in which the enemies of the civilized world are testing the will of the civilized world. We must not waver."

Following this speech, Bush answered a series of questions from the White House press corps, which mostly focused on discrepancies between the president's pre-war assertions and the actual situation.

He did not appear quite as comfortable thinking on his own, grimacing, sighing and many times aimlessly rambling underneath the glare of the camera lights.

He also did not disappoint those eager to hear the grammatical concoctions and twisted phrases for which the president has a particular knack.

In one of the first questions, he acknowledged that more troops, perhaps as many as 20,000, will be added to the number already present, although he refused to pinpoint how long U.S. forces will remain in Iraq, only staying "as long as necessary, and not one day more. "Later, when the president was asked why Americans were not greeted as "liberators with sweets and flowers" as he had predicted a year ago, he had an interesting response.

"They're really pleased we got rid of Saddam Hussein. And you can understand why," Bush said. "This is a guy who was a torturer, a killer, a maimer; there's mass graves (sic). I mean, he was a horrible individual that really shocked the country in many ways, shocked it into a kind of -- a fear of making decisions toward liberty.

"That's what we've seen recently. Some citizens are fearful of stepping up. And they were happy -- they're not happy they're occupied. I wouldn't be happy if I were occupied either."

Bush refused to give an answer as to why he insisted on appearing with Cheney in front of the Sept. 11 commission, only saying, "Because it's a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the Sept. 11 Commission is looking forward to asking us, and I'm looking forward to answering them."

However, Bush was tripped up the most when asked to name the most significant mistake he had made since Sept. 11 and what he had learned from it. After admitting that he could not think of one at the moment, he engaged in a circuitous discourse that ranged from affirmation of his decisions to invade Afghanistan and Iraq to the discovery of mustard gas on a turkey farm in Libya.

He concluded with, "I hope I -- I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't -- you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one."

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