George bush is genetically incapable of admitting mistakes or even processing information he does not want to hear. Perhaps that is why Colin Powell seemed to break ranks with Shrub's Pollyannaish view of his idyllic Iraq on the Sunday talk shows. W can't do it, yet Chief Eunuch Rove knows somebody has to do it or else folks will start wondering outloud if Georgie has not only started drinking again but if he's also started smoking his socks.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday said anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world had increased and the insurgency in Iraq was worsening, but the United States was taking action to improve security ahead of elections. ...
"We have seen an increase in anti-Americanism in the Muslim world ... I'm not denying this," Powell said on ABC's "This Week" program.
"But I think that that will be overcome in due course because what the Muslim world will see as well as the rest of the world is that in Afghanistan 10 million people who have registered to vote will vote on the ninth of October and bring in place a freely elected president, and I think we're going to do the same thing in Iraq if we stay the course, if we defeat this insurgency," Powell said.
Iraq plans to hold elections in January, but U.S. officials warn that insurgents will aim violence at preventing voting, including shooting at polling places.
"We are fighting an intense insurgency," Powell said. "Yes it's getting worse and the reason it's getting worse is that they are determined to disrupt the election."
"And because it's getting worse we will have to increase our efforts to defeat it, not walk away and pray and hope for something else to happen," Powell said.
"There is a military offensive under way now, you can see the aggressive action we've been taking in Falluja lately, there is a political and military offensive under way to take back Samarra," Powell said on CNN's "Late Edition."
"What we're going to do over the next several months is to go into these areas and bring them back under government control," Powell said. "Now it remains to be seen how successful we will be, but right now we are moving to have elections at the end of January of 2005."
