THERE'S GOT TO BE A MORNING AFTER:

Iraqi Dissidents Reassured in a Talk With Bush About the Post-Hussein Era (JUDITH MILLER, 1/12/03, NY Times)

President Bush told Iraqi opposition figures on Friday that he favored a sweeping transition to democracy in Iraq and a short military occupation after Saddam Hussein is out of power, according to Iraqis and others who attended the meeting.

The hourlong session in the Oval Office was Mr. Bush's first extensive meeting with Iraqi dissidents. Three dissidents attended, two of whom are closely associated with the Iraqi National Congress, the umbrella opposition group. Vice President Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and other senior White House aides also took part.

None of the Iraqi participants were willing to discuss precisely what Mr. Bush said. But Kanan Makiya, a professor at Brandeis University and a leading Iraqi intellectual, said he was "deeply reassured" by what he called "the president's intense commitment to a genuinely democratic post-Saddam Iraq" and by Mr. Bush's determination to press forward not only with "removing Saddam from office, but reconstructing Iraq after a military conflict."

"Mr. Bush was clearly aware that Iraq was not Afghanistan, and that it has the human and financial resources needed to support democracy," Mr. Makiya said.

Sure, that's the spin, but we know they were really divvying up the oil reserves. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 12, 2003 6:34 AM