SALEM - President Bush's televised speech last night was a chance to tell viewers how he would change the course in Iraq and justify his plan to increase the number of troops.
Congressman John Tierney, a Democrat from Salem, thinks the president failed.
"He doesn't seem to offer anything new that hasn't been tried before," Tierney said after the prime-time address on Bush's war plans in Iraq. "There was nothing in the presentation that indicated how he expects to get cooperation from the Iraqi government.
"He's ignoring the advice of his own generals, (George) Casey and (John) Abizaid, that increasing troops won't be the solution."
The president called for an additional 21,500 troops to prevent a collapse of the Iraq government, tear the country apart and result in massive killings. The plan envisions Iraq's committing 10,000 to 12,000 more troops to secure Baghdad's neighborhoods.
Tierney criticism of the speech followed that of other new Democratic leaders in Congress and some Republicans, as well as long-established Bush opponents like Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry.
Congressman John Tierney, a Democrat from Salem, thinks the president failed.
"He doesn't seem to offer anything new that hasn't been tried before," Tierney said after the prime-time address on Bush's war plans in Iraq. "There was nothing in the presentation that indicated how he expects to get cooperation from the Iraqi government.
"He's ignoring the advice of his own generals, (George) Casey and (John) Abizaid, that increasing troops won't be the solution."
The president called for an additional 21,500 troops to prevent a collapse of the Iraq government, tear the country apart and result in massive killings. The plan envisions Iraq's committing 10,000 to 12,000 more troops to secure Baghdad's neighborhoods.
Tierney criticism of the speech followed that of other new Democratic leaders in Congress and some Republicans, as well as long-established Bush opponents like Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry.
Earlier in the week, Kerry said adding troops was not the answer.
"There is no military solution to the political crisis in Iraq," Kerry said in a statement. "A 'troop buildup' or sending more troops into harm's way to referee a civil war isn't an answer, it's more of the same."
For his part, Kennedy warned that Bush's plan to commit more troops to Iraq would "exact a fearsome toll" on the nation. The Bay State's senior senator is pushing legislation to deny Bush money needed to fund the extra troops, as a way of staving off their deployment. A similar resolution has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Tierney, who was easily re-elected to a sixth term in November, said instead of increasing the number of troops, the president should redeploy them in Iraq, away from front lines.
"Our principal mission ought to transition from combat to training troops, logistics, own-force protection and counter-terrorism, and we ought to begin phase redeployment in the next few months," Tierney said.
Tierney's congressional colleague Martin Meehan, a Lowell Democrat, also was unimpressed with the president's "change of course."
"Saying we have a new strategy and then repeating the same mistakes will not get us any closer to redeploying our troops out of Iraq," Meehan said. "That's why earlier this week I introduced a resolution in the House that opposes the troop surge and would require the president to get congressional authorization if he plans to raise troop levels above the current level."
Bush's strategy ignored key recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which in December called for a new diplomatic offensive and an outreach to Syria and Iran. Instead, he accused both countries of aiding terrorists and insurgents in Iraq. "We will disrupt the attacks on our forces," Bush said. "We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria."
Tierney believes the president is wrong and should engage the two terrorist-sponsoring countries in a dialogue.
"He's got to engage those people, as well as Saudi Arabia and Egypt," Tierney said.
The congressman also criticized the president for saying he took into consideration the advice of Democrats and questioned the sincerity of Bush's plan for a "bipartisan working group" on the war. Tierney says the president has heard from Democrats, but he hasn't listened to them.
"He doesn't seem to get it," Tierney said.
However, Tierney didn't disagree with the entirety of Bush's speech. The Salem Democrat found common ground with the president when Bush acknowledged things in Iraq are not going well, Tierney said.
Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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