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U.S. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Despite the mistakes
that have been made, despite the problems we have
encountered, seeing the Iraqis through as they build
their democracy is critical to keeping the American
people safe from the terrorists who want to attack
us.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER: President Bush today telling the
Veterans of Foreign Wars that America needs to stay
in Iraq to give democracy a chance. Speaking to crowd
that largely believe that pulling out of Vietnam was
a mistake, he said leaving Iraq will be a similar
mistake. Now, people differ on that but most agree
that the symptoms of the Vietnamese and Iraq
entanglements are starting to look eerily alike:
troops win every battle but can't seem to finally win
the war, the Baghdad government barely functions,
growing rumors of a coup, and even as the president
pushes the goal of democracy, his top men in Iraq are
lowering the bar. General David Petraeus and
Ambassador Ryan Crocker saying today, "We are now
engaged in pursuing less lofty and ambitious goals
that was the case at the outset." Subordinates went
further.
BRIG. GEN. JOHN BEDNAREK, U.S. ARMY: The democratic
institutions is not necessarily the way ahead in the
long-term future.
COOPER: General Bednarek there talking with CNN's
Michael Ware who joins us now from Baghdad, along
with former presidential advisor David Gergen who is
in Boston.
Michael, if it's not democracy U.S. officials are
saying is achievable, what are they hoping for?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson,
officially the mission is still plugging away for
democracy, but what they're saying is it's not the
democracy that President Bush and the policy makers
once had in mind. The bar, as you say, has definitely
been lowered. However, there is much talk, rising
talk among the military field commanders that perhaps
what's needed is what former prime minister Ayad
Allawi -- and a leading U.S. political ally -- has
been calling for: an emergency government, just
something that can lock this country down, can
stabilize it, can try and finally bring an end to
some violence and restore stability so that democracy
will have some time to grow. They are saying
"stabilize first, not democratize," and they are
looking to American Arab allies, none of whom are
democracies, yet they're able to deliver services to
their people and they're an ally in the war on
terror.
COOPER: Essentially they are talking about some sort
of Iraqi strongman. Are officials optimistic? On the
ground, the military, how do they view Maliki's
government? Are they optimistic that his government,
if you can really call it his government, can make
progress on these so called benchmarks?
WARE: Again, you're right, Anderson. This really is
not the Maliki government. Prime Minister Maliki is a
man without power. The currency of power in this
government, a government of loose coalition of
militias, is how strong is your militia? How many men
with guns do you have? And the prime minister has
none. And according to one senior U.S. official of
all his cabinet ministers, there's only three he can
actually rely on. So he can't force his own
government to really do anything anyway.
So honestly, the heart of this government lies with
the militias, most of whom U.S. intelligence says are
backed by Iran. So to be honest, most American
commanders do not regard this government as an ally
in the war on terror or even in the project here in
Iraq.
COOPER: David, I guess it should come as no surprise
that U.S. officials are kind of trying to lower the
bar in terms of speaking about democracy, speaking
about some of the loftier things, to use the phrase
that Petraeus and Crocker used, that they spoke about
years ago.
Obviously, we are having a problem with David's
audio. We are going to try to get that fixed. Let's
go back to Michael Ware in Baghdad. Michael, how
surprised were you -- President Bush has always sort
of avoided the comparisons to Vietnam. Have you heard
-- do troops on the ground, commanders you talk to,
do they make Vietnam analogies? And if so, in what
capacity?
WARE: Well, by and large, Anderson, people are
extremely wary of intoning the name of the Vietnam
War. They know that there's a lot of American
societal, cultural baggage that goes with it. So they
really don't like going there. But what they look to
from Vietnam obviously is counter-insurgency
strategies and primarily the need to stay the course,
as the prime minister says. The question for them now
is, "forget Vietnam. We have a mission here. We are
supposed to be trying to instill a democracy here but
we have bungled it so very, very badly, that we
actually have in place now a government that, if it's
not hostile to U.S. interests, certainly is doing
nothing to serve U.S. interests." So what they are
looking for as opposed to Vietnam is a government
that they can actually work with and go forward.
COOPER: Let's try to check in with David Gergen again
to see if we have his audio. David, do we have you?
No, we don't. We will continue to try to work on
that.
Let's take a short break. We will be right
back.