Especially meritorious

December 2, 2004

STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY

President Bush will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to L. Paul Bremer III, Tommy R. Franks, and George J. Tenet in a ceremony at the White House on December 14, 2004.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the Nation's highest civil award. It was established by President Truman and later re-established by President Kennedy. It is awarded by the President of the United States to persons who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.

That would be the guy who told the President that Iraq would be a "slam dunk", the guy who redeployed Special Forces troops away from hunting Osama to prepare for Iraq and didn't fight for enough troops to occupy after the invasion, and the guy who, in disbanding the Iraqi army, destroyed the only existing indigenous organization that might have helped prevent chaos, and generally bungled administration of the country.

Meritorious? Mr. Bush, to borrow a line from The Princess Bride, "I do not think that word means what you think it means."