Libertarian Party Responds to President Bush’s Press Conference

Yesterday, President Bush gave a press conference regarding the progress we’re making in Iraq and the need to continue the fight in Iraq:

As president, my most solemn responsibility is to keep the American people safe. So on my orders, good men and women are now fighting the terrorists on the front lines in Iraq. I’ve given our troops in Iraq clear objectives. And as they risk their lives to achieve these objectives, they need to know they have the unwavering support from the commander in chief.

And they do. And they need the enemy to know that America is not going to back down. So when I speak to the American people about Iraq, I often emphasize the importance of maintaining our resolve and meeting our objectives…

Iraq is obviously — it has got the attention of the American people, as it should. This is a difficult war. And it’s a tough war. But, as I have consistently stated, throughout this presidency, it is a necessary war to secure our peace.

I find it interesting that, as this young democracy has taken hold, radicals and extremists kill innocent people to stop its advance. And that ought to be a clear signal to the American people that these are dangerous people.

And their ambition is not just contained to Iraq. Their ambition is to continue to hurt the American people. My attitude is: We ought to defeat them there so we don’t have to face them here and that we ought to defeat their ideology with a more hopeful form of government.

Bush’s words were met with much frustration and skepticism by members of the Press Corps who attended the press conference and with anger from his critics throughout the blogosphere.

Within a few hours, the Libertarian Party, whose party leadership has opposed the war from the beginning, issued the following response:

“We strongly deplore President Bush’s comments today at his press conference,” says Shane Cory, Executive Director of the LNC. “We have been hearing this same rhetoric since the occupation of Iraq began over four years ago, with no results to be seen. However ‘clear’ the objectives Bush has given to our troops may be, it won’t change the fact that this unnecessary war in Iraq has done more damage than good, and the goals Bush laid out today are too vague for our troops to meet.”

“We are on the path that, within a year, our nation will suffer more than 4,000 casualties in Iraq,” Cory continues. “But what do we have to show for it? We have the Iraqi government failing to meet even the most basic benchmarks necessary for them to begin taking control of their own country. Bush says that we must stay in Iraq so the terrorists won’t replace the safe-haven they lost in Afghanistan. But, evidently they have found safe-havens in other nations, specifically Pakistan. Reports released today show al-Qaeda is now at pre-9/11 strength, in spite of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Bush says he’s not making the decision to leave Iraq just because it may be ‘good politics.’ That’s fine, but a true leader should be willing to admit where he has gone wrong and then take action to make things right. Maybe then we’d see the troops come home, and maybe then lives would not be lost due to an unjust war that is only made worse by a single man’s failure to admit wrong.”