WaPo/Reuters has a preview of the address, which appears to be carefully timed to take place between NFL matchups. The purpose of the speech, however, is unclear, as it appears he is going to say nothing new:
President Bush will say in a speech to the nation on Sunday night that crushing a guerrilla campaign in Iraq will take time and require sacrifices, and he will vow to spend whatever is necessary for victory.
According to speech excerpts released by the White House, Bush also will say members of the United Nations “now have an opportunity, and the responsibility, to assume a broader role in assuring that Iraq becomes a free and democratic nation.”
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“There is more at work in these attacks than blind rage. The terrorists have a strategic goal. They want us to leave Iraq before our work is done. They want to shake the will of the civilized world,” he will say.
Bush will offer a stay-the-course commitment to Iraq, calling it part of the war on terrorism although no conclusive evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction has been found and no substantive links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda have been established.
One also has to love the editorializing contained in what’s supposed to be a straight news story.
