The question of whether or not to remove Saddam Hussein from power never came up for a vote. The President knows that. In fact, as the Congress and the country discussed the possibility of invading Iraq, Mr. Bush and his spokespersons maintained that their only objective was to disarm Iraq and to insure that it would not be in a position to invade its neighbors. Mr. Bush and his administration’s talking heads specifically declared to the country, the Congress, and the World that regime change was not an objective of American foreign policy. Mr. Bush and his spokespersons specifically told the country, the Congress, and the world that if Saddam would only disarm; if he would give up his weapons of mass destruction then we and our allies would leave him alone. That is the history of how the war began as Mr. Bush wrote it with his statements and his orders as the war began. It is that history that Mr. Bush was trying to re-write in Tobyhanna.

The remainder of his remarks echoed the speeches that Pat Buchanan used to write for Richard Nixon. Critics of the war and its conduct are undercutting our troops and giving aid and comfort to the enemy. It wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now but it is unsurprising as the US Army repeats the same failed strategy that lost in Vietnam. We fight nasty little battles for god forsaken desert towns. When the enemy melts into the desert we declare the area free of insurgents and go back to Baghdad leaving the town we died to secure open to the insurgents once again.

William Westmoreland called it “search and destroy”. In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute John McCain called it “sweeping and leaving and told the conservative think tank that those tactics aren’t working”. "Rather than focusing on killing and capturing insurgents, we should emphasize protecting the local population, creating secure areas where insurgents find it difficult to operate," he told the AEI. McCain recognizes that such a change in doctrine will require an increase in manpower. The administration has been promising a reduction in troop strength next year.

Condi Rice visited Mosul, donned a flak jacket and told the assembled reporters that US tactics in Iraq were working. She apparently sees the light at the end of the tunnel. Let us hope that she is not seeing the same light that Lyndon Johnson saw – the headlamp on an oncoming train.