THE US: George Bush has a major task in winning over the US public, writes Conor O'Clery, in New York
With his scratched face from a bicycle-riding accident a metaphor for his political wounds, President Bush delivered a keynote speech last night to reassure Americans that he has an exit strategy for Iraq.
The President's choice of a direct TV address rather than a prime time press conference reflects a growing tendency to eschew dialogue and withdraw into his circle of advisers.
This has become more marked of late. When Mr Bush made a rare trip to Capitol Hill last week he gave worried Republicans a rousing pep talk for 35 minutes but took no questions.
When visiting G8 foreign ministers called on Mr Bush on May 14th, the President kissed the French and German foreign ministers on the cheek, spoke for eight minutes, but again took no questions before abruptly rising from the table and leaving the room.
At that meeting, Mr Bush portrayed those responsible for the prison abuse in Iraq as men with "evil in their hearts, evil in their souls", according to diplomatic sources in Washington who say the President seeks refuge more and more in religious certainties.
As he often does no matter how bad the news, Mr Bush retreated to his Crawford, Texas ranch at the weekend, and during a 17-mile mountain bike ride there he fell off and suffered "minor abrasions and scratches".
This will have not helped his mood, which in public is upbeat but in private, according to friends quoted by Elisabeth Bumiller in the New York Times, is "grim and subdued".
His mood was not helped either by his inability to attend the graduations of his two daughters, Jenna from the University of Texas in Austin on Saturday and Barbara from Yale yesterday, because of the prospect of demonstrations disrupting the ceremonies.
Mr Bush did give a commencement speech at Louisiana State University on Friday when he advised graduates to "choose your friends carefully" as "the company you keep has a way of rubbing off on you - and that can be a good thing, or a bad thing". Observers wondered if there was a slight hint in that remark about disillusionment with some of his friends and advisers on Iraq.
As he always does nowadays, Mr Bush said in his talk to the students that he would "complete the mission" in Iraq, and one of the main reasons for his speech to the nation last night was to address the growing concerns of Americans about what precisely that meant.
The President's highest-ranking military critic, retired general Anthony Zinni, charged on Sunday that staying the mission meant in fact "going over Niagra Falls".
Gen Zinni, commander of US troops in the Middle East from 1997 to 2000, accused senior officials at the Pentagon of "dereliction of duty" to the President in their conduct of the war and said America was no longer viewed in the Arab world as an entity promising positive change, but as "modern crusaders".
Speaking on CBS's Sixty Minutes, he singled out for specific blame the neo-conservatives in the administration who believed that attacking Iraq would stabilise American interests in the region and strengthen the position of Israel.
These included Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Under-secretary of Defence Douglas Feith, Defence Department adviser Richard Perle, national security council member Eliot Abrams and Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
This group may in fact be declining in influence in Washington as it engages in what conservative New York Times columnist William Safire yesterday described as "open tribal warfare" among the Pentagon, the State department and the CIA.
A "bureaucratic conflagration" engulfed the three groups over the ousting from favour last week of Ahmad Chalabi, the favourite of the neo-conservatives, who supplied them with false intelligence on weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion.
The credibility of the Pentagon has suffered devastating blows from the flood of revelations about the abuse and killing of detainees, and what the British Foreign Office criticised in a leaked memo as "heavy handed" military tactics, defended daily in Baghdad by Gen Mark Kimmitt, who is known to some correspondents as "Comical Kimmitt" after Saddam Hussein's ever-upbeat spokesman, "Comical Ali". While the Pentagon has "screwed up", in the words of Gen Zinni, no one has been dismissed. "Whose heads are rolling on this?" he asked. "That's what bothers me most."
Mr Bush is now facing intense pressure to make someone accountable for the Iraqi mess, something he may have been contemplating during his weekend cycle ride. The President is famously loyal to his closest aides, but the latest polls show that without drastic action he could lose the November election.
His approval rating has fallen to 41 per cent, the lowest of his presidency and down from 66 per cent a year ago, according to a CBS poll yesterday.
Last night's speech was the first of a series in which Mr Bush will try to convince the country he is on the right track, and to turn those numbers around before it is too late.