WASHINGTON — Never has a presidential address been so anticipated — nay, so demanded and virtually dictated — by so many as the televised speech President Bush delivered on Sunday night.
The words that came from his mouth had been pronounced previously by the leading foreign policy spokesmen in both parties, members of Congress and veterans of past administrations. Their only question was not the content but the timing: Why did it take so long for the commander in chief to come to grips with the realities of Iraq so obvious to everyone else?
Last July 31, three months after Bush had proclaimed the end of major hostilities in Iraq, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware went to the Brookings Institution in Washington to talk about the phantom speech — the one he wished President Bush would make to the nation and the world.
Biden is the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, but his views — which he had offered many times in other speeches and interviews during the preceding months — were also being voiced throughout this period by committee Chairman Richard Lugar of Indiana and by such other Republican national security veterans as Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and John McCain of Arizona. All of them had supported the war and had returned from their trips to Iraq pleading with Bush to "level with the American people" about the size of the challenge ahead and the need to enlist help from more countries and the United Nations.
Here is what Biden said: "I wish the president, instead of standing on an aircraft carrier in front of a banner that said, ‘Mission Accomplished,’ would have stood in front of a banner that said, ‘We’ve Only Just Begun.’
"I wish he would stand in front of the American people and say, ‘My fellow Americans, we have a long and hard road ahead of us in Iraq, but we have to stay in Iraq. We have to finish the job.’ "
"I’m waiting for that speech," Biden said. "It is long past time for the president to address the American people in prime time, to level with us about the monumental task ahead, to summon our support."
On Sunday night, it finally came. The tone was sober, and the $87 billion request for next year’s operations in Iraq and Afghanistan — substantially higher than administration sources had earlier suggested — was certainly large enough to remove any illusions that this would be cheap or easy.
Why did it take so long to pry these words from the president? Because he and the Pentagon civilian chiefs could not be persuaded to abandon the rosy scenario they had anticipated following the ouster of Saddam Hussein and his regime. That script envisaged a grateful populace, liberated from the dictator, welcoming the troops that delivered their freedom, then quickly settling their historic religious and tribal differences, embracing democracy and rapidly rebuilding their nation with the profits from their vast oil supplies.
It was a fantasy — or, as Biden said Sunday on CBS’ "Face the Nation," "Every assumption the administration made about what would happen after the war was dead wrong." On that same program, Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged that "we might have underestimated" the difficulty of the postwar challenge in Iraq.
Now, finally, reality seems to have set in. But by insisting that the American military force does not have to grow and by saying that only one division of foreign troops will be added if new nations can be persuaded to offer their help, Bush still appears to be committing less to Iraq than many of those who have traveled to the country think may be required. And the president was strikingly silent on the degree of power-sharing he will accept in order to obtain fresh United Nations help in reconstructing Iraq.
Bush was also less than candid in acknowledging the errors of judgment that have contributed to the shaky situation in Iraq. But perhaps it is not too late to begin trying to repair the mistakes and salvage what is vital for the security of the United States and the safety of the world, to say nothing of the future of the miserable people of Iraq.
Bush’s speech was a start toward a realistic description of the work that remains to be done. We have no choice but to tackle it. But it would be comforting to know that Bush has freed himself from dependence on those who so badly misjudged the situation and who delayed his delivering the speech he finally made.
David Broder can be reached at The Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071-9200 or by e-mail at davidbroder@washpost.com.
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