|
Bad week trails Bush to Brazil
09/03/2007 15:02 - (SA)
Washington - US President George W Bush flew into a storm of protests at the start of a Latin American tour, still dogged by a week of woes back home.
The week brought the criminal conviction of vice-president Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, who was also a top aide to Bush; a scandal over the grim conditions for recovering soldiers wounded in conflicts like Iraq; and sustained violence there despite his much-trumpeted new crackdown.
There was also a controversy over whether his justice department improperly removed eight federal prosecutors in late 2005, and fresh concerns about the annual Springtime flare-up of fighting in Afghanistan.
With Bush's standing among the US public at record lows because of the unpopular war in Iraq, a new poll found sustained pessimism among Americans about the conflict and a majority strongly opposed to his new Baghdad plan.
Sixty-nine percent - the same as in December - said in the national Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that they are less confident about a successful conclusion while 20% said they were more confident.
Bush's decision to send 21 500 extra US troops to Iraq is unpopular, with 55% saying they strongly oppose the move. But 41% are strongly against congress restricting funding to limit Bush's ability to deploy the additional troops.
The telephone survey was conducted March 2-5 among 1 007 adults. It had a 3.1 percentage point margin of error.
Libby conviction
The poll came as the White House reeled from former Cheney right-hand man Lewis "Scooter" Libby's conviction on obstruction of justice and perjury charges in a case closely tied to the flawed case for going to war in Iraq.
Bush's Democratic foes pounced, suggesting that the guilty verdict reflected on the vice president himself and piling pressure on the president to promise not to use his power to pardon Libby.
Bush and his top aides have refused to rule out a pardon, while insisting that it's too soon to discuss and that they will have no further comment unless and until Libby's appeals are over.
But "on a personal note, I was sad. I was sad for a man who had worked in my administration, and particularly sad for his family," Bush said on CNN en Espanol on Wednesday.
Asked whether a cloud hung over the presidency, making it harder to govern, White House spokesperson Tony Snow expressed obvious frustration: "the use of terms like 'cloud' - because this has come up before - is, what does that mean?"
"You've got a president who has made it clear after the elections that he is going to be aggressive and he is going to be bold in dealing with the problems that the American people face," he said.
But Snow's predecessor, Scott McClellan, told CNN that Libby's conviction "does change the equation a little bit with the American public".
"Once you have someone that was a member of the president's senior staff as well as the top guy to the vice president of the United States involved in criminal wrongdoing, then this changes the equation," he said.
"For a long time, I don't think this has been much of a story for the American people. It's been more of an 'inside the beltway story'. But now they are kind of looking at it saying, what's going on here?" he said.
Iraq violence
In Iraq itself, fresh violence - including a suicide attack on Tuesday that killed at least 117 Shi'ite pilgrims - raised questions about Bush's new crackdown in Baghdad.
Aboard the Brazil-bound presidential airplane, US national security adviser Stephen Hadley pleaded for patience, saying there were early "positive signs" but warning that it would take months to be able to assess the effort.
"The bad guys are going to try to derail this thing with violence. It's going to be some months before we're really going to know how this is working," he said.
- AFP
|
News
