Bush's absence noted at funerals of American Soldiers Killed in Iraq

• Originally published in The Irish Times on November 8, 2003 Copyright 2003 The Irish Times

By CONOR O'CLERY, North America Editor

"Bush's script: Four Fund-Raisers and No Funerals." This sub-headline on a column in the New York Times has been widely quoted throughout the week in a growing debate on how President George Bush should respond to the sudden surge in military deaths in Iraq. The president has not attended any of the funerals of the 388 Americans killed in the conflict, but has spent the past few weeks criss-crossing the US to attend fund-raising events for the 2004 election.

Under pressure, the White House stated that Mr Bush cannot fairly pick and choose which funerals to go to, and that previous presidents did not regularly attend services in previous wars. But there is growing public discontent with the White House handling of the war, and criticism of Mr Bush.

Some 54 per cent of Americans disapprove of his handling of Iraq, according to a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll published yesterday. Three months ago the same poll found 57 per cent of Americans approved, and three months before that 75 per cent.

The slide in public opinion as casualties mount has come more quickly for Mr Bush than for President Lyndon Johnson, who faced a similar dilemma in the Vietnam War in 1967. That year Gallup showed that 40 per cent of Americans thought the US had made a mistake sending troops into Vietnam. Today almost exactly the same number - 39 per cent - think it was a mistake for Mr Bush to send troops to Iraq.

Yesterday Democratic candidate Mr Wesley Clark accused Mr Bush of having no post-war plan. "As president of the United States, I will never commit our forces unless we've got a real plan and the forces to execute it, and I will never commit our forces unless there is absolutely, absolutely, absolutely no other way," he said.