Nearly 4,000 U.S. soldiers have arrived in Baghdad as a crackdown aimed at quelling the sectarian violence enters its 12th week. Meanwhile, bombings and shootings killed 10 people Wednesday, including three Sunni brothers who were shot to death in Baghdad.
Go figure, Tenet says of Saddam that “the irony of the whole situation is, is he was bluffing.†How ironic that nobody thought this blowhard dictator might bluff.
The nation’s veterans disability system is severely strained and it could be strained to the point of collapse when 700,000 returning Iraq and Afghanistan war vets begin applying for help.
Here in the Oval Office, on this Saturday morning, an intelligence failure is about to erupt.
A story in The New York Times makes it clear White House officials are giving off-the-record interviews designed to dampen expectations regarding Iraq. These officials are saying that the administration will make no interim reports on the situation until September, and that in any event people shouldn’t expect much in the way of military or political progress by then.
President Bush’s veto of an Iraq war spending bill that set timelines for U.S. troop withdrawals puts new pressure on Democrats in Congress to craft a compromise even as their caucus grows more fractious on the topic.
The party’s most liberal members, especially in the House, say they will vote against money for continuing the war if there’s no binding language on troop drawdowns. Bush and almost all congressional Republicans continue to insist on a spending bill with no strings attached on troop movements.
Bush on Tuesday rejected legislation pushed by Democratic leaders that would require the first U.S. combat troops to be withdrawn by Oct. 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later.
“This is a prescription for chaos and confusion and we must not impose it on our troops,” Bush said in a nationally broadcast statement from the White House. “It makes no sense to tell the enemy when you plan to start withdrawing.”