Keith Hudson (Editorial)

For some two years now in my longer web postings, and more recently in Sapientia, I have been forecasting that President Bush will sack Secretary of State for Defense Rumsfeld and force the resignation of Vice-president Cheney because they have been the authors of the Iraq invasion and the principal cause of Bush's declining credibility. I've been wrong so far, but it's apparent that Rumsfeld has been a loose cannon -- literally and metaphorically -- in recent months. For one thing he's been giving speeches all over the world somewhat at variance with Bush's and, for another, he appears to be personally directing the nastiest operations in Iraq -- such as the attack of Fallujah and the present ones on the border of Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, Cheney lies low, though he has also given a couple of speeches that are not consistent with what Bush is saying.

Then there's curious matter of Bush's relationship with his father, ex-President George H. W. Bush. The latter, together with Kissinger, visited Russian oil companies in St Petersburg in the November after the invasion in 2003 -- and after the US and UK oil majors declined to start developing northern Iraq's large oifields until a legitimate government was in place. Presumably Bush Senior was trying to help Bush Junior by encouraging Russian oil companies to go in. They haven't, of course.

We now learn that ex-President Bush is in Beijing before his son arrives there in a few days and he's saying to the Chinese leadership "There is no more important bilateral relationship than the one between the United States and China". Together with the ex-President is his former Secretary of State, Brent Scowcroft -- the same person who implied recently in the New Yorker magazine that Vice-president Cheney is not up to his job. At the same time as his father is in Beijing, President Bush is in Tokyo excoriating China in the strongest terms for its lack of "Taiwanese democracy". Who is writing his speeches?

American blogsites are also saying that President Bush is not talking with his father now and is now very isolated in the White House, trusting only four women around him -- first lady Laura Bush, his mother Barbara Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes.

It is all very odd. It looks as though the White House is now flying apart under the stresses.