Democrats: US held hostage to Bush's war

Democrats launched a blistering attack on US President Geroge Bush’s war policy today, challenging him to redeem America’s credibility and his own with an immediate shift towards a diplomatic end to the bloody conflict in Iraq.

“The president took us into this war recklessly,” the Democrats’ chosen messenger, Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, said in his prepared response to Bush’s State of the Union address.

“We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable, and predicted, disarray that has followed.”

Webb, a Vietnam veteran who was navy secretary during Republican president Ronald Reagan’s administration, called for a new direction.

“Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos,” said Webb.

“But an immediate shift toward strong regionally based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq’s cities and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.”

Bush offered no such plan in his speech, nor did he defend his proposed dispatch of 21,500 more troops into Iraq before the most unfriendly joint session of Congress of his tenure.

Instead, the president focused on making the case that “failure would be grievous and far-reaching”.

He also issued a long list of domestic policy initiatives centred on such pet Democratic issues as energy independence and healthcare.

Newly-installed majority Democrats had made clear since Friday that they believed Bush no longer controls the nation’s policy agenda, especially on Iraq.

In a speech written himself and previewed by senior Democratic officials, Webb, a freshman senator, acknowledged some of Bush’s domestic policy proposals.

“We in the Democratic Party hope that this administration is serious” about improving education, healthcare and speeding the recovery of hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, Louisiana, he said.

Webb also challenged Bush to support the House-passed minimum wage increase and nurture an economy that restores the middle class. He said Democrats would work with Bush to promote energy independence.

He chose harsher rhetoric for what he framed as Bush’s abuse of the public’s loyalty, trust and welfare in the rush to war.

“The war’s costs to our nation have been staggering,” he said. “Financially. The damage to our reputation around the world. The lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism, and especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve.”

Democrats also hammered home a message that achieving bipartisanship must be as much a part of Bush’s agenda as proposals on the war, energy independence and healthcare.

“It will be clear to us whether he’s ready to work co-operatively to do that or if he’s saying: ’I’m the decider,'" House speaker Nancy Pelosi said, quoting Bush’s famous retort on Iraq.

Webb, whose son is now serving in the military in Iraq, in a suggestion-veiled threat, said Bush should take “the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world”.

“If he does, we will join him,” Webb said. “If he does not, we will be showing him the way.”

The speech capped the Democrats’ effort to have the first, most frequent and last words on the president’s annual address, which Bush delivered in the most unfriendly congressional environment of his tenure.