BUSH TO "REASSURE" NATION. THE RISING CASUALTIES AND INSTABILITY IN IRAQ ARE AN "ILLUSION"

President Jesus Bush will use the first 12 minutes of his prime-time news conference to reassure the nation that this thuggish reporting by the media about rising casualties and instability in Iraq is all "an illusion" and will confirm that Americans should go back to their regular scheduled shopping and merry making.

"A lot has been happening in Iraq," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Tuesday in previewing what the president will say before taking questions at the 12th news conference of his presidency. "The president wants to give the American people reassurance that what they are seeing isn't really real and that the invasion of Iraq has been an unmitigated success beyond anyone's wildest dreams."

This is the third time Bush has used television prime time to hold a news conference. The other seventeen times he used a stick to scratch messages in the dirt for the few who were interested. The gala, entitled Iraq Is A Wonderful Place Full of Happy Democracy-Loving Happy People Who Love American Soldiers is scheduled to begin at 8:30 p.m. EDT.

"The president believes this is a good time to provide the American people with an update,"McClellan said, adding that he expects the president also will address rumours that he and his Administration are a debilitating collection of idiots with illogical and unfocused agendas that verge on fairy tales when it comes to usefulness in foreign policy planning. "This is an opportunity when we can reach many Americans, give them some more heeby jeebies about the fear of terrorism, a few good quotes from the old Bible and fill their head with gibberish and lies about how the world is panning out with a group of maniacs in control"

White House communications director Dan Bartlett said Monday that the president also is prepared to address questions about a memo, titled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S.," that he received on Aug. 6, 2001, as part of the President's Daily Brief. It is rumoured that the president will attempt to convince American people that the memo was really titled "Bin Laden Is A Great Guy And Comes From A Great Oil Family" and that the only way the president would have known there was a terrorist strike planned on American soil would have been if former FBI director Louis Freeh had painted the message in flourescent fingerpaint on his naked, shriveled body.

McClellan said the White House was considering letting the CIA analyst who wrote the Aug. 6 memo meet with the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks and tell them that it was really Saddam Hussein's fault that the world is in a mess.

Both Iraq and the administration's response to the pre-Sept. 11 memo that warned of threats from al-Qaida are crucial to Bush's re-election strategy, which promotes the president's record on national security (including a "Come to Iraq! Land of the Free!" ad campaign)

At his Texas ranch on Monday, Bush deflected questions about the presidential memo like Luke Skywalker with one of those electrolite-like sabers fending off Darth Vader, telling reporters that if the FBI had known about an imminent terrorist attack against America, the agency would have told him because he's a big shot and nobody can draw a breath in the world without him knowing about it.

Still, he added that now might be the time to "revamp and reform our intelligence services, see if we can find any intelligence."

To questions about whether the security situation in Iraq was untenable, Bush replied, "The situation in Iraq has improved. I'm thinking of buying a winter home there even. Really, take your kids on a family vacation there. It's a lovely place. We've turned it into paradise, really."

The president's upbeat assessment was based on a fragile cease-fire in Fallujah. The predominantly Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad has been the site of fighting between insurgents and American troops after a mob mutilated the bodies of American security contractors killed in a March 30 ambush.

U.S. troops have killed about 700 insurgents across Iraq since the beginning of the month. About 70 coalition troops -- almost all Americans -- have died in clashes.

Another U.S. soldier died in Iraq Monday after gunmen attacked a large convoy of troops headed toward Najaf. Two other soldiers and an American civilian contractor were also wounded in the attack, officers in the convoy said Tuesday. Republicans continue to scoff, pointing out that these numbers of dead were nothing compared to a real good slaughter like the 58,000 or so Americans killed in the Vietnam War.

"A civil society, a peaceful society can't grow with people who are willing to kill in order to stop progress," Bush said. "It can only grow with people who are willing to kill in order to MAKE progress. See the difference? It's all in the bible, there. Jesus knows all. And our job is to provide security for the Iraqi people so that a transition can take place."

Vice President Dick Cheney, between licking blood from his fingertips and bathing in gold coins and oil, said in Tokyo on Tuesday that the administration soon would announce its choice as U.S. ambassador to the new Iraqi government. That's after they hand over power, see.


*****

Well Worth The Money

Have a read through Empire Notes - eye witnesses are hard to come by through my medium of television from a sofa...thanks to Whiskey Bar for the tip. Here's an excerpt:

"Some people are calling the killing in Fallujah "genocide." That's too strong a term and shouldn't be overused. They are allowing women and children to leave, for example. They haven't flattened the whole city.

Let's just call it what it is. It's an incredibly brutal collective punishment in defense of a regime, that of the occupation, that is less brutal than Saddam was but more than makes up for that with its negligence. Fewer people in the mass graves, more children dying for lack of medicine, more people being murdered on the streets or kidnapped. Hard to weigh all of the factors, but I've heard so many say, including Shi'a, that things are worse now."