>>John,
>>I don't say that President Bush is part of any cabal. I say there is a cabal that has gained the trust of President Bush.
>>I think President Bush is a decent and honourable man, but the combination of his delegatory style and complete trust in his advisors has led him to believe people who have objectives that do not mesh with his but who have disguised them as being fully in line with his own.
>>Hopefully he'll figure this out soon and deal with it appropriately.
>
>How do you think any leader worth anything governs? The best surround themselves with advisors who are not afraid to offer their opinions. Only idiots surround themselves with advisors they can not trust. Colin Powell [a former 4 Star General and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] was adamantly opposed to war with Iraq and was advising Bush against it. Whatever he found out through the intelligence sources had to be so convincing to change his position or else he would not have personally made "our" case to the UN.

Of course I know that advisors are critical. But using your own head and counter-balancing with the advice by other advisors are important components too.

I still believe that Secretary Powell is against the war and have the opinion that he will resign once the war is won.

The cabal seized on 9/11 and, along with others, gave politically excellent advice as to waht President Bush should say etc.
They then formulated war plans for Afghanistan which were way more successful, way faster, than had been envisioned [thoughts of the USSR experience had people worried, but of course things are radically different now with an absolutely POOR Afghanistan and WITH NO UNDERGROUND SUPPLIED BY A SUPER-POWER. Yet still CONTROL is only held in Kabul and people forget this.]
With this success the cabal put their 1998 plan on the table and the President bought it, hook, line and sinker.
The President should be realizing by now that he has been gravely mislead by the cabal. They had appeared on Sunday morning talk shows - mouthpieces for U.S. policy dissemination - talking about "a cakewalk" (Perle) and "welcomed in the streets with flowers" (Cheney) and similar remarks by Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld.
The people, and I believe the President too, fully expected a 100 hours war or at most a 6-days war, having been CLEARLY led to that expectation by cabal members talking it up wherever they could.

Of course the U.S. will win. They chose an enemy that had been under blockade for 12 years, had inspectors destroying semi-capable equipment intermittently for much of those years, has NO SOURCE of re-supply and a people that is mal-nourished. No country can survive long under such circumstances!
Yet it has gone past 6-days! This is indicative of GRAVE mis-calculations by the powers that be (and I'm also convinced that the uniformed military didn't want this war because they intrinsically know different) and they have only themselves (the cabal does) to blame. They can argue that they expected the Iraqi to prosecute the war under Marquis de Queensbury rules, but of course NO COUNTRY UNDER SEIGE ever has or ever will (just as the U.S. gained independence using terrorist (of that day) tactics). The Iraqis are doing NOTHING that good military planners don't expect [underground operations in WWII had their similar tactics made into movies where viewers cheer their small successes).

The war mongers - the cabal - have done President Bush a serious disservice and they should reap their rewards accordingly. And that should be firing in clear DISGRACE for the whole world to see.
Rumsfeld should be quick to fire Perle and Wolfowitz and any helpers thay have engaged, then Cheney should quickly fire Rumsfeld, then President Bush should fire Cheney. I don't know where Dr. Rice fits in, but she may need the boot too.

Then we can have a chance to see the real dub'ya to confirm (or not) that he is a good and decent and hounourable man.