[Anyone] stay the course or something else:

[Thos Myers]

A Study in Constant Motion
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102406A.shtml
Tuesday 24 October 2006

"We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve," said George W.
Bush during a press conference in December of 2003. "And the temptation is
to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the
definition of getting the job done. We're just going to stay the course."

"And so we've got tough action in Iraq. But we will stay the course," Bush
said again on April 5th, 2004. On the 13th of that month, he said, "And my
message today to those in Iraq is: We'll stay the course." Three days
later, he said, "And that's why we're going to stay the course in Iraq.
And that's why when we say something in Iraq, we're going to do it." In
August of 2005, he said, "We will stay the course, we will complete the
job in Iraq." A year later, in Utah, he said, "We will stay the course."

Got the picture? We are staying the course in Iraq. Period. No cutting and
running here.

Not so fast.

This past Sunday, George Stephanopoulos put the question to Bush in an
interview for ABC's "This Week" news show. "James Baker," said
Stephanopoulos, "says that he's looking for something between 'cut and
run' and 'stay the course.'"

Bush's reply? "Well, hey, listen, we've never been 'stay the course,'
George," he said. "We have been - we will complete the mission, we will do
our job, and help achieve the goal, but we're constantly adjusting to
tactics. Constantly."

Press Secretary Tony Snow was able to blend the facts on this matter with
true poetic voice when asked if "stay the course" is being abandoned by
the White House. "What you have is not 'stay the course,'" said Snow,
"but, in fact, a study in constant motion by the administration and by the
Iraqi government, and, frankly, also by the enemy, because there are
constant shifts, and you constantly have to adjust to what the other side
is doing."

A study in constant motion?

James Crabtree, writing for the UK Guardian, attempted to analyze the
phrase. "A brief search for the phrase on Google isn't terribly
revealing," wrote Crabtree. "A study in constant motion is, apparently, a
way to describe an obscure Michelangelo Antonioni movie, a description of
a soccer game, and an advert for a rental home in North Carolina's Outer
Banks. It is also, intriguingly, a way to describe the oeuvre of Scot's
born film Director Norman McLaren, and the 'approach to global success' of
computer giant Microsoft. It certainly, however, is not a description of
how to succeed in Iraq."

Poetry notwithstanding, the Bush administration's handling of Iraq has
indeed been a study in constant motion. Recall, if you will, the claims
made by Bush in his January 2003 State of the Union address: Iraq is in
possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin,
500 tons (which equals 1,000,000 pounds) of sarin, mustard, and VX nerve
agent, nearly 30,000 munitions to deliver the stuff, mobile biological
weapons labs, uranium from Niger for use in a robust nuclear weapons
programs, and connections to al Qaeda that led directly to the attacks of
September 11.

Yes, these claims can still be found on the White House web site. Yes,
these claims do not stand alone.

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of
mass destruction," said Dick Cheney during a speech to VFW National
Convention on August 26, 2002..

"There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering
weapons for the purpose of using them. And adding additional information
is like adding a foot to Mount Everest," said press secretary Ari
Fleischer on September 6th, 2002.

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for
the production of biological weapons," said George W. Bush in his
September 12th speech to the UN General Assembly.

"The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not
assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass
destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for
saying it," said Ari Fleischer on December 4th, 2002. A little more than a
month later, Fleischer said, "We know for a fact that there are weapons
there."

"There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the
capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to
dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive
death and destruction. If biological weapons seem too terrible to
contemplate, chemical weapons are equally chilling," said Secretary of
State Colin Powell in his February 5th, 2003, address to the UN Security
Council.

The study in constant motion truly began after these horrific weapons
failed to turn up in Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously
claimed of the Iraqi WMD during a March 30th, 2003, interview with ABC
News, "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and
Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." Not two months later,
Rumsfeld said during a Fox News interview, "We never believed that we'd
just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country."

Ari Fleischer's tapdancing behind his podium reached mythological status
in July of 2003 when, during a briefing in which he was pressed to explain
why no WMD had been found in Iraq, said, "I think the burden is on those
people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the
world where they are."

Come again? The people who said Iraq had no weapons and posed no threat
must be the ones to explain where the weapons are? Certainly, the myriad
administration officials who promised that stockpiles of WMD were
practically falling out of the sky in Iraq shouldn't have to explain
themselves. That wouldn't be cricket.

The rest, as they say, is history. The weapons stopped being the story, so
put away your plastic sheeting and duct tape. The whole point was to bring
democracy to the Middle East by way of Iraq. Then it became about fighting
them over there so we don't have to fight them over here. Then it became
about us standing down when the Iraqis stand up. Then it became about
standing as referee between factional militias. For a while, it was about
staying the course.

Not so much anymore.

Constant motion indeed.