Bush in his series of speeches has changed his tone from outright sunny optimism to a more candid assessment of Iraq, admitting that mistakes were made in the run-up to the war and that the road ahead is long.
Along those lines, Bush acknowledged the United States got off to a slow start in reconstruction efforts and in training Iraqi security forces, and that the work has been "more difficult than we expected." [And 2008 will be here before you know it -- with lots of impeachment time to spare!] |