Bush speech on Iraq not honest: US dailies

Bush's speech would have been good a year ago after the fall of Baghdad, but it has come "after nearly 14 months of policy failures, none of them acknowledged by the president," said The New York Times.

Bush's attempt at convincing an increasingly skeptical American public and Congress was "at least, a beginning ... but it's not clear that (his) rhetoric, or the steps he is planning, are vigorous enough to turn the situation around," said The Washington Post.

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"Mr. Bush would be more persuasive if he would acknowledge more honestly what has gone wrong in the past year and how it can be corrected," added the Post.

"It's regrettable that this president is never going to admit any shortcomings, much less failure," said The Times, adding that it was an aspect of Bush's character "that we have to live with.

"But we cannot live without a serious plan for doing more than just getting through the June 30 transition and then muddling along until the November elections in the United States," added the Times editorial.

While applauding the proposed destruction of the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, the Post said "for US credibility to be repaired with Iraqis and US allies, Mr. Bush must also renounce the policies that led to the abuses."

And regarding his statement that he would send more troops to Iraq if US commanders asked for them, the Post editorial scoldingly noted that Bush "is the commander in chief; he can and should make that urgent and necessary decision himself."

Both dailies agreed that the right path to a stable Iraq is to bring in more international players to oversee the transition and share in providing security.

They also made suggestions that go beyond the draft resolution the United States and Britain have circulated at the UN Security Council, which the Times described as "disappointingly sketchy" on internationalising the military operation in Iraq.