As President Bush earns “positive” job rating of 63 percent in Harris poll, Secretary of State Colin Powell scores 75 percent, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld 60 percent, and Attorney General John Ashcroft 53 percent. . . Bush, in Oregon: “I think we need to be honest with the American people. The forest policy of our government is misguided policy. It does not work.” . . . Bush on Iraq, in Texas: “Regime change is in the interests of the world. . . Nothing [Saddam Hussein] has done has convinced me … that he is the kind of fellow that is willing to forgo weapons of mass destruction, is willing to be a peaceful neighbor.” . . . Bush’s summer reading list includes Supreme Command. by NR contributor Eliot A. Cohen, according to AP.
Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.): “The saber-rattling and loud war talk of this administration exceeds their capacity or their preparedness to move.” … Former defense secretary Bill Cohen on whether Bill Clinton would have supported invasion of Iraq: “I think he would have continued the containment policy which has worked up to date and unless he had much greater intelligence on the nature of the threat, probably not.” . . . Military has best recruiting year in recent memory. “All the services have had a good year, and I think there’s no doubt there’s been some spillover from Sept. 11,” says Army Maj. Gen. Michael Rochelle, in USA Today. … In CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll, 53 percent of Americans support war with Iraq “to remove Saddam Hussein from power,” down from 61 percent in July. . . American oil companies slash imports of Iraqi oil, in anticipation of invasion. . . Rumsfeld: “There are al-Qaeda in a number of locations in Iraq.” . . . Former Republican secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger declares opposition to Iraq invasion, blasts Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, on Fox News: “I must tell you,I think they’re devious. … I am scared to death that they are going to convince the president that they can do this overthrow of Saddam on the cheap, and we’ll find ourselves in the middle of a swamp because we didn’t plan todoitin the right way.” . . . Managers at 133 airports say they can’t meet Dec. 31 deadline for screening all luggage without creating tremendous headaches for passengers.
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