Bush Speech and the Resistance want us to stay.

While yes McCellen passed out excerpted copies of the speech, he did not give the full speech as far as I see and AP wrote it as it did happen with quotes signifying that he said the exact phrases.

It does look as if the president did stay on the speech text. I would have loved if he would have stumbled on his words or change the speech around and make some changes. Thusly he would get the word out first and then say no I meant this...

In this paragraph by AP:

"The terrorists can kill the innocent, but they cannot stop the advance of freedom," he said in a speech that was to be attended by 750 soldiers and airmen. "They will fail."

In the original speech version he probable mentioned it more than once but in the speech these two phrases above were 23 paragraphs apart.

And now for something completely different...

Iraqi front demands US withdrawal:

A former cabinet minister has formed a political front to represent the demands of an umbrella group of fighters in Iraq demanding a timetable for US troop withdrawal.

Yes a vast majority of Iraqis and a vast majority of Americans want withdrawal of troops but even the resistance do not want us to leave now...

Al-Samarrai said that a group of Iraqi fighters he is representing, wants US occupation troops to leave in no less than one year and no more than three years.

Just as a poll of Iraqis recently showed most wanted US troop withdrawal but only 12% wanted immediate withdrawal. Thusly 88% of Iraqis wanted us to stay for at least the time being.

The US has been beefing up the civilian forces (40,000 in recent raids) but has anyone asked the question as to who will defend the sovereignty of Iraqi air, sea and land? As of 2000 Iran had a standing army of +500k.