HOW HE SEES IT It's not always possible to know

By JAY AMBROSE
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
When President Bush was asked at Tuesday night's press conference how long American troops would be staying in Iraq, he let himself in for criticism by his lack of specificity. It would be "as long as necessary," he said, but "not one day more."
Was that answer evasive? While it might seem so, it's impossible to know when Iraq might have the degree of stability required before U.S. forces can leave with some reasonable assurance that a new version of Saddam Hussein won't then club his way to power. Some say it could be a couple of years. Some say 10 years. In the final analysis, there is no way of predicting with certainty.
A predicament for any president -- or for that matter, for people in all sorts of positions of power -- is that even educated guesses about future events can go terribly wrong, making the person look like a liar later. Another risk is that the prediction can come to seem as if it is a goal and tie the prognosticator to unrealistic expectations.
Deadline
Some think it unrealistic that the United States plans to meet a June 30 deadline to establish an interim government of Iraqis. U.S. forces are now engaged in difficult fighting in Iraq, and the administration does not seem to know who will be tapped to serve. Some might not want to serve for fear of being assassinated. Others might want to serve in order to betray the pursuit of liberty. The administration should maybe have had a government lined up before the date was ever announced, but a failure to move as definitively and expeditiously as possible toward Iraqi control of Iraq would have angered even those Iraqis most obviously grateful for Saddam's ousting.
The administration must be held accountable for its decisions in Iraq on these and other matters, such as troop levels. It does not follow that it is always an easy matter to say what the future holds or that there is just one side to issues such as turning the government over to Iraqis.
X Jay Ambrose is director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard Newspapers.