Are they now trying to recruit, train, equip and deploy troops to fight the Iraqi civil war in Lawrence, Kansas? I believe that's where we've always heard the nuclear "ground zero" is! As to the troop carrier, isn't that the term used for a ship that carries troops? Ships have tires?

is what George Bush does not seem to have, especially when it comes to being a "war president". Great Decider or is it just Cider and its derivates that makes him go. The only president that started his own little war that got ouf of hand so that her lost it in the end.

"Ground zero" isn't the term for evolving from nothing, or maybe just zero. That was a very loaded word when Bush said it in this context. A military evolving from the geographic point the World Trade Center collapsed? Tying that to Iraq, again? Before September 11, "ground zero" was the term for the point of impact of an atomic bomb. If a military waits until then to start amassing forces, it's too late.

230 years ago, George Washington managed to build an army up from ground zero with little more than raw recruits, and he managed to do it with precious little in the way of funding. But the chief reqirement for accomplishing that is leadership.

Agree. But while Bush struggled and failed to come up with the accepted term "field support" he also failed to mention that it's Halliburton that was given a couple of billion dollars to gas 'em up, put air in the tires and clean their windshields. The money we spent just built Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld adjoining mansions and acres of prime woodlands in Eastern Maryland where they will both retire and write their memoirs on what a couple of swell guys they are.

Exactly right. While the Iraqi army may not have been much, it did at least seem to have the ability to get from point A to point B and get their vehicles there with them. It was almost certainly a better base to work with than 250K raw recruits.

I really found the recent "Phase 3" articles in Salon interesting because they pointed out that even though the army was dispersed when Bremer came in, there were negotiations going on to bring it back piece by piece. I hadn't realized that before. And, as far as I know, they were still being paid (something like $20/month).

does Bush mean what he did when he "served" his country in the 60's?

IMPEACH

GEORGE WALKER BUSH

IMPEACH

DICK CHENEY

Have Dick and George run!

Dick and George run fast!

Run George run.

Run Dick run.

RUN RUN RUN

SEE THEM RUN

ALL THE WAY TO 'GITMO': RUN GEORGE AND DICK, RUN, RUN, RUN !

But please,

No more MALARKEY from Iraq!

This is especially true when you completely dismantle an existing army and government and those people who had all the knolwedge and training necessary to do the job form their own militias and keep attacking you. Not that I am opposed to this strategy in all cases. I think Debushification is a great idea.

After all these years, it still amazes me to see how he butchers the English language. Apparently it's hard work just forming the sentences.

The difference between a group of thugs and a professional military is the ability to follow orders, self discipline, and a sense of loyalty to a social unit beyond your social class/ethnic group. This is off the top of my head, I'm sure if I spent more time on this I could come up witha better explantion.

A -modern- military unit needs to take that a step farther. You have to have an understanding on the importance of regular schedule maintenance, security protocols, and the like. A modern military assault rifle is a whole lot less forgiving of not being taken care of than, say, a Springfield rifle was several decades ago. Modern electronics in radars and radios even less so. Proper maintenance is a pain in the butt and time consuming, with no immediate pay-off. The sailors in my shop occaisionally whine at doing these things, and they're in an environment where this is an expected practice. I have no doubt that those trying to train up the new recruits of the police and army are having trouble teaching proper techniques in arrest procedures, or patrolling an area.

Of course, if the dumb-asses in charge of the invasion hadn't disbanded the Iraqi army (among their other grossly incompetent actions), we wouldn't be starting the training at "ground zero". Then again, if they weren't dumb-asses, we wouldn't have invaded in the first place...

He might have used the forbidden word "nuanced" instead of "sophisticated". We all remember how Sen. Kerry was flogged mercilessly during the 2004 campaign for daring to state the obvious -- that most issues are complicated, requiring nuanced analysis and response.

Oh, no -- things are (and MUST be) taken as absolutely black-and-white, with nothing but simplistic yes or no answers. Of course, that sort of "logic" has left us painted in a corner, with NO WAY OUT of Iraq that avoids continuing death and destruction.

Thanks, Dubya -- NOW you get all sophisticated on us.

When you are getting spanked By Maktada al-Sadr in a chess match, I'd expect the excuses to be plentiful.

His words are so mystifying and inexplicable, they could qualify as a zen koan.