I hope Rummy reads this

[Downthestretch55]

Well, here is the answer, folks.
Seems to me that he's still trying to justify the present with 9/11.
Not that there's anything wrong with fighting terrorists. It's about time to stop creating them.
This hand has been played and played again. It hasn't been a winner...other than in "red states". Take a minute and do a news search on google.
1/3 of Iraq is now in the hands of the insurgents. Good luck with that.
All the "emporer's spin" won't make it less.
Dubbya's words:

Bush reminds U.S. country is at war
2006/9


By MERRILL HARTSON, Associated Press Writer 15 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush reminded Americans that the United States is a nation at war on the same day his administration proclaimed significant progress in the war on terror but said the enemy has adjusted to U.S. defenses and that "America is safer but we are not yet safe."

Earlier today, the administration released an updated counterterrorism strategy. The White House said: "The United States and our partners continue to pursue a significantly degraded but still dangerous al-Qaida network."

The White House also rejected Democrats‘ calls for replacing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "It‘s not going to happen," presidential spokesman Tony Snow said. "Creating Don Rumsfeld as a bogeyman may make for good politics but would make for very lousy strategy at this time."

"Years of failed Republican policies have made America less safe and less able to effectively fight terrorism, and Democrats are ready to take this country in a new direction," Democrats said in statement.

The updated White House strategy came in the wake of the release of a new al-Qaida video over the weekend that raised concerns about the possibility of another attack as the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11 approaches. The tape featured an American — believed by the FBI to have attended al-Qaida training camps — calling for his countrymen to convert to Islam.

"We‘ve seen tapes before. We‘ve seen these sort of releases right near Sept. 11," she said on ABC‘s "Good Morning America."

The Department of Homeland Security had raised the terror threat for aviation to red — its highest level — in mid-August at the time the British, working with the United States, broke up what was purported to be a plot against international flights bound from Britain to the United States.

The administration‘s Iraq war policy and terrorism strategy have come under increasing criticism in recent months, and Republicans and Democrats returning to Capitol Hill Tuesday for the fall season were set to debate the strategy as the midterm elections draw near.

Five years after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon , about a third of the American people think the terrorists are winning, according to a recent AP-Ipsos poll.

In its updated terror-fighting strategy, the administration took credit for some successes, saying that "we have deprived al-Qaida of safe haven in Afghanistan and helped a democratic government rise in its place. It also said that "a multinational coalition joined by the Iraqis is aggressively prosecuting the war against the terrorists in Iraq."

_"Terrorist networks today are more dispersed and less centralized. They are more reliant on smaller cells inspired by a common ideology and less directed by a central command structure."

_"While we have substantially improved our air, land, sea and border security, our Homeland is not immune from attack."

_"The ongoing fight for freedom in Iraq has been twisted by terrorist propaganda as a rallying cry."

Bush has said on many occasions that the country must be prepared for a drawn-out battle against a new kind of enemy, and the new counterterrorism strategy released Tuesday says flatly that "the war on terror will be a long war."

It says that among the strategies the United States must emphasize are making all sovereign nations accountable for what happens on their soil, strengthening existing coalitions and partnerships against terrorists and continue to develop more expertise in this area.

One particular problem, it noted, is an "increasingly sophisticated use of the Internet and media" by terrorists and would-be terrorists, saying these tactics have allowed enemies of the United States to "rally support, proselytize and spread their propaganda without risking personal contact."

It also maintains that terrorism "is not simply a result of hostility to U.S. policy in Iraq."

"The United States was attacked on September 11 and many years earlier, well before we toppled the Saddam Hussein regime," it said. "Moreover, countries that did not participate in coalition efforts in Iraq have not been spared from terror attacks."

"There will continue to be challenges ahead, but along with our partners, we will attack terrorism and its ideology and bring hope and freedom to the people of the world," the policy statement said.

"This is how we will win the war on terror."