Poland has entered yet another lore into the US Presidential debates:
- 1976: Non-elected incumbent Gerald Ford went into a debate with Carter as Carter was sinking like a stone in the polls after coming out of the Democratic convention with a huge lead. One Ford mistake ultimately was credited with saving the election for Carter. Answering a question about the communist enslavement of Poland, Ford said that the people of Poland were free.
- 1980: Inept translator rendered Jimmy Carter's "love" for the Polish people as his "lust."
- 2004: George Bush's Last Stand: Whattabout Poland? My opponent says we didn't have any allies in this war... What's he say to Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland?
KERRY: Secondly, when we went in, there were three countries: Great Britain, Australia and the United States. That's not a grand coalition. We can do better.
LEHRER: Thirty seconds, Mr. President.
BUSH: Well, actually, he forgot Poland.
Bush can no longer draw on the support that once was there from Spain, whom he used to claim as the back-up to Britain, because Spain has pulled out. And it's not that long until both Poland and Britain are going to pull out of Iraq as well-- they are just waiting till after the election.
Poland:
Poland is planning to withdraw its troops from Iraq in the coming months, dealing another blow to the US-led coalition forces there... A senior adviser to the Polish government confirmed to The Irish Times that Warsaw's decision had been influenced by the Spanish move. "Given the circumstances [in Iraq], we will probably diminish significantly the forces at the end of 2004."
Britain:
The British Army is to start pulling troops out of Iraq next month despite the deteriorating security situation in much of the country, The Observer has learnt. The main British combat force in Iraq, about 5,000-strong, will be reduced by around a third by the end of October during a routine rotation of units.
It's not a coalition, and it's not even a group of nations; it is what it's always been-- a unilateral mistake.
Update: Bush flubbed up. Poland wasn't with the group that went "in" to Iraq. Bush also over-stated the amount of coalition support:
Poland later supplied troops, and actually commanded a zone of Iraq. But they were not part of the original ground invasion. And although Bush said there are 30 countries in the coalition, he neglected to say that about a half dozen countries have withdrawn their troops in recent months.
