The White House spent Tuesday trying to counter sky-high expectations that today’s report by the Iraq Study Group will trigger a major course correction by President Bush.
“I don’t know that there is some sort of magic change in direction,” White House Press Secretary Tony Snowsaid. “I would discourage you from trying to leap to peremptory conclusions about what’s going to happen.”
Asked Monday about the study group’s report, Bush told Fox News: “I’m getting a lot of advice.” He emphasized that the report is only one of many he will be receiving from a variety of sources, including the Pentagon and his own National Security Council.
“It’s very hard for me, you know, to prejudice one report over another — they’re all important,” the president said. “My attitude is I ought to absorb and listen to everything that’s being said because I’m not satisfied with the progress being made in Iraq.”
While Bush has said he is willing to change tactics to counter the insurgency in Iraq, he has ruled out changing his goal, which he described as “a free government that can sustain, govern and defend itself and is an ally in the war on terror.” He emphasized: “My objective hasn’t changed.”
Although Democrats have been eagerly anticipating the Iraq Study Group report for weeks, some seemed less interested in the report on Tuesday than they were in Senate testimony by Defense Secretary nominee Robert Gates.
Asked by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., if America is winning in Iraq, Gates replied “no, sir.”
Bush, who nominated Gates, made the opposite assertion in October.
“Absolutely, we’re winning,” he said. “We’re winning, and we will win, unless we leave before the job is done.”
