Friday, Aug. 19, 2005 | 6:04 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
August 20-21, 2005
President Bush's intractability on the issue of "staying the course" in Iraq reflects how pitifully disconnected he is from the realities of this conflict. Deaths and injuries among our troops and Iraqi citizens are mounting each day.
The war in Iraq, an attempt to bring Western-style democracy to a disparate collection of Middle Eastern people, was doomed from the start. This, and the ever-mounting national debt, are the realities Bush refuses to see from his privileged perch in Crawford.
This completely unjustified war is not on terrorism, but on Iraq. The irony is that there are probably more terrorists in Iraq now than before Bush's invasion. Bush is the emperor who believes he is clothed in the finest of moral garments, but almost everyone can see that he is not.
JOHN ESPERIAN
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