EDITORIAL

There have lately been more and more insisting demands on the need to initiate an operation to withdraw the US troops from Iraq as soon as possible. They don't come only from the democratic adversaries of President George W. Bush, but also from his colleagues in the republican team. Four years ago many of them supported the White House boss's decision to invade Baghdad.

The problem is that this country has been not on the verge of a civil war, but at full civil war ever since 2003, as Bush's staff has kept on boasting about efforts taken to launch Iraq on the way to democracy once and for all. Violence and death have become part of daily life and the days with no attacks are real events. Even the (ordinary) Americans pay a daily and painful price for March 20, 2003, when Bush was proud to announce the start of the war against Iraq. A US helicopter crashed yesterday and all the 14 soldiers aboard died. The number of US troops dead in Iraq has now reached 3,721.

George W. Bush has never admitted and he is little likely to admit it in the future that the idea to assault Iraq was a huge blunder and an undeniable proof of amateurishness in military and diplomacy affairs. Still he is aware that he has taken a dead end way and he must do something to overcome it. It is just that he has found himself exceeded. The greatest ruler of the world's greatest power, the almighty and the omnipresent is groping and making no progress. His closest collaborators are leaving him one by one. He lost his political adviser Karl Rove, the man due to whom he won presidential elections twice. He lost Tony Snow, his spokesman, the man who struggled so many times to improve his stained image. And he had lost many other reliable men before. It is only state secretary Condoleezza Rice (showing great benevolence to get involved in all the world's conflicts and settling none) and vice president Dick Cheney (who got a nice fortune from monkey business with Iraqi oil) who have promised to stand by him all the way.

Since last year Bush has been promising a new strategy for Iraq to lead to a certain and full victory of democracy in this country. Whenever invoking the new planned strategy, the President, impenetrable to any foreign suggestion or interior pressure, has constantly proved very reluctant to the idea of planning a practical calendar on the withdrawal of US troops from the Iraqi territory. According to the latest statements, this prodigy plan is to be announced by mid September. As pressure pursuing troop withdrawal is expected not to cease until then, Bush is making preparations. Yesterday he delivered a speech in Kansas City in front of ex participants and he invoked "the Vietnam lessons" to ask the Americans to support the commitment in Iraq. He spoke about the millions of innocents who paid the price for America's withdrawal from Vietnam, but not about the Americans paying the price for America's presence.

Years on end he wouldn't admit any comparison between Vietnam and Iraq in order to keep public opinion at distance from the image of the American defeat. But now here is Bush clumsily trying to change the tune and argue that the US mistake was actually to have left Vietnam, but not to have got into a war. Over 58,000 US soldiers died in Vietnam.

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