Beginning of the End? NYT calls for Iraq withdrawal ASAP

"Defeatocrats"? Try "Republican'ts". Now that Karl Rove is "concerned", Bush will finally do something. Leadership? Hardly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/washington/09prexy.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

White House Debate Rises on Iraq Pullback

By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: July 9, 2007
White House officials fear that the last pillars of political support among Senate Republicans for President Bush’s Iraq strategy are collapsing around them, according to several administration officials and outsiders they are consulting. They say that inside the administration, debate is intensifying over whether Mr. Bush should try to prevent more defections by announcing his intention to begin a gradual withdrawal of American troops from the high-casualty neighborhoods of Baghdad and other cities.

Mr. Bush and his aides once thought they could wait to begin those discussions until after Sept. 15, when the top field commander and the new American ambassador to Baghdad are scheduled to report on the effectiveness of the troop increase that the president announced in January. But suddenly, some of Mr. Bush’s aides acknowledge, it appears that forces are combining against him just as the Senate prepares this week to begin what promises to be a contentious debate on the war’s future and financing.

Four more Republican senators have recently declared that they can no longer support Mr. Bush’s strategy, including senior lawmakers who until now had expressed their doubts only privately. As a result, some aides are now telling Mr. Bush that if he wants to forestall more defections, it would be wiser to announce plans for a far more narrowly defined mission for American troops that would allow for a staged pullback, a strategy that he rejected in December as a prescription for defeat when it was proposed by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

“When you count up the votes that we’ve lost and the votes we’re likely to lose over the next few weeks, it looks pretty grim,” said one senior official, who, like others involved in the discussions, would not speak on the record about internal White House deliberations.

That conclusion was echoed in interviews over the past few days by administration officials in the Pentagon, State Department and White House, as well as by outsiders who have been consulted about what the administration should do next. “Sept. 15 now looks like an end point for the debate, not a starting point,” the official said. “Lots of people are concluding that the president has got to get out ahead of this train.”

In a sign of the concern, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates canceled plans for a four-nation tour of Latin America this week and will stay home to attend meetings on Iraq, the Pentagon announced yesterday.

Last week, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, called in from a brief vacation to join intense discussions in sessions that included Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s longtime strategist, and Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff.

Officials describe the meetings as more of a running discussion than an argument. They say that no one is clinging to a stay-the-course position but that instead aides are trying to game out what might happen if the president becomes more specific about the start and the shape of what the White House is calling a “post-surge redeployment.”

The views of many of the participants in that discussion were unclear, and the officials interviewed could not provide any insight into what Vice President Dick Cheney had been telling President Bush.

They described Mr. Hadley as deeply concerned that the loss of Republicans could accelerate this week, a fear shared by Mr. Rove. But they also said that Mr. Rove had warned that if Mr. Bush went too far in announcing a redeployment, the result could include a further cascade of defections — and the passage of legislation that would force a withdrawal by a specific date, a step Mr. Bush has always said he would oppose.

“Everyone’s particularly worried about what happens when McCain gets back from Iraq,” one official said, a reference to the latest trip to Baghdad by Senator John McCain, who has been a stalwart supporter of the “surge” strategy. Mr. McCain’s travels, and his political troubles in the race for the Republican nomination for president, have fueled speculation that he may declare the Iraqi government incapable of the kind of political accommodations that the crackdown on violence was supposed to permit.

Officials say that Mr. Gates has been quietly pressing for a pullback that could roughly halve the number of combat brigades now patrolling the most violent sections of Baghdad and surrounding provinces by early next year. The remaining combat units would then take up a far more limited mission of training, protecting Iraq’s borders and preventing the use of Iraq as a sanctuary by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a Sunni Arab extremist group that claims to have an affiliation with Osama bin Laden’s network, though the precise relationship is unknown.

President Bush has repeatedly said that he wants as much time as possible for his 30,000-troop increase to show results. And publicly, administration officials insist that the president has no plans for a precipitous withdrawal — but the key word seems to be “precipitous,” and they appear to be recalibrating their message.

“I think it shouldn’t come as any surprise that we here in the administration, and in our conversations with Congress, and in our conversations with generals on the ground and policy makers in Iraq, are thinking about what happens after a surge,” Tony Fratto, the deputy White House press secretary, told reporters on Friday, at a briefing where he was peppered with questions about the defection of Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico.

That defection followed a similar move by Senator Richard G. Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.

In the meetings last week, officials say, there was frustration that Mr. Bush’s statements were being drowned out by a presidential race that has created a forum for daily critiques of his policies, past and present.

Moreover, the dynamics inside the administration have changed. The hawks who once surrounded Mr. Bush have been replaced by pragmatists like Mr. Gates, who has made it clear that he wants to lower the political temperature of the Iraq debate at home, and has joined with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to gradually shift White House strategy.

When it came time to pick a new “Iraq czar,” the choice was a general who had been openly skeptical about the prospects of the troop increase strategy. Mr. Bush will get a chance to make his case later this week, when he presents an interim report, required by law by Sunday, on the status of 18 “benchmarks” of progress.

The calendar may be working in Mr. Bush’s favor. If he can get through the next three weeks without more defections, Congress will recess until September, returning just as the report from Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker arrives in Washington.

Also, the Republican defectors have not agreed on what different strategy they would prescribe, giving the president some negotiating room. But Senator Lugar said yesterday on CNN that he would support a significant withdrawal that left “residual forces” in Iraq to ensure that “the whole area does not blow up.”

That approach would mean abandoning the current mission of using those forces to patrol Baghdad and try to reimpose order, which was Mr. Bush’s stated goal in January.

Asked whether he could support an amendment proposed by Senator Ken Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, that would put in legislative language the Iraq Study Group’s call for a withdrawal of combat units by March 31, 2008, Mr. Lugar said it was “worthy of a lot of discussion.”

John Hamre, the president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who was headed to Baghdad over the weekend to begin preparing another Congressionally mandated report, an independent assessment of the Iraqi military, said, “The political power of Salazar’s amendment is its ambiguity.”

“What does it mean?” Mr. Hamre asked. “That we will immediately implement all 76 provisions? I doubt it. It’s a way to give political cover.”

Senior officials involved in preparing the report Mr. Bush must deliver to Congress this week say he will be able to praise the Iraqi government for delivering the troops it promised — if a little late — and for removing the restrictions on arresting or killing violent members of Shiite militias. But on the critical issue of political compromise, Mr. Bush will be able to report little progress.

 

As mentioned earlier this year, the beginning of the end was when Congress delayed the funding bill. That was when a stake was driven in the heart of Bush's Iraq policy. The desperate "surge" was one last, and token, free pass Bush got that was doomed to fail because it was about 3 years too late.

Not only was the invasion wrong, my constant complaint was the Bush-ites ran the occupation like a continual campaign event instead of as a war. This has resulted in them arriving at conclusions 18-24 months too late.

Exiting from Iraq is going to be extremely painful for us and a tremendous amount of bloodshed will occur. It's likely the pathetic Iraqi government falls and civil war ensues. But it's a necessary price to pay since it is incapable of leading Iraq and is doomed to failure anyway.

This is a sad chapter in American history that will end up weakening the presidency. It already has diminished our standing in the world and set us back many years in the fight against terrorism. We can recover from this, but it will take a very looooooooong time. It's time to start the healing process by initiating a withdrawal and by electing a president who's hands aren't blooded by this catastrophe.

 

via TPM --

So the White House is debating whether to announce that it has the "intention" of beginning a "gradual" withdrawal at some point.

This is very nice to hear, but according to The Times, the explicit goal here is merely to prevent GOP defections on actual legislation that would accomplish a pullout. So doesn't it seem likely that such a White House announcement would simply give GOPers the cover they need not to defect and thus not to support any actual withdrawal policies?

Sure, an announcement of this sort would give war opponents some more leverage. But it would also allow Republicans allegedly thinking about defecting to say, you know, "the Commander in Chief has said he intends to begin pulling out, so let's pay him deference and give him the time and flexibility he needs to do this right,"

yada yada yada.

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/...tention_to_withdrawal_from_iraq_at_some_point

 

wasnt it agreed upon a couple of months ago that people would wait to re-evaluate in september?

 

More form the WaPo --

'Scouting' the Hill on Iraq

By Robert D. Novak
Monday, July 9, 2007; A15

National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley visited Capitol Hill just before Congress adjourned for the Fourth of July. Meetings with a half-dozen senior Republican senators were clearly intended to extinguish fires set by Sen. Richard Lugar's unexpected break from President Bush's Iraq policy. They failed.

Hadley called his expedition a "scouting trip," leading one senator to ask what he was seeking. It was not advice on how to escape from Iraq. Instead, Hadley appeared interested in how previous supporters of Bush's course had drifted away. In the process, though, he planted seeds of concern. Some senators were left with the impression that the White House still does not recognize the scope of the Iraq dilemma. Worse yet, they see the president running out the clock until April, when a depleted U.S. military can be blamed for the fiasco.

The tone set by Hadley signaled that the White House did not understand that Lugar, in his fateful speech on the Senate floor the night of June 25, was sending a distress signal to Bush that a change in policy can be instituted only by the president and that it is imperative he act now. Hadley was told that it is not too late to go back to the Iraq Study Group's 79 recommendations, neglected since their release in December. But the White House still seems unaware of the building tide, typified by the defection Thursday of six-term Republican Sen. Pete Domenici (who was not among the graybeards "scouted" by Hadley).

The White House no more expected Domenici to jump overboard than it did Lugar. The shock of Lugar's speech was the reason Hadley quickly scheduled sessions with senior Republican senators such as Lugar and Chuck Hagel, the top two GOP members on the Foreign Relations Committee, and John Warner, former chairman of the Armed Services Committee. "The president has sent me up here on a scouting mission," Hadley said to begin the meetings.

Always deferential, Hadley took copious notes. But he did more than listen. Based on what Hadley said, one senator concluded that "they just do not recognize the depth of the difficulty they are in." That difficulty entails running out of troops in nine months. Hadley increased latent fears of the U.S. military being made the fall guy -- a concern shared by many retired and some active senior officers, including a current infantry division commander.

During his expedition, Hadley was asked why Bush named a serving Army officer -- Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute -- as a deputy national security adviser and "czar" of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Isn't that Hadley's job? Freshman Democratic Sen. Jim Webb, a lawmaker who has worn the nation's uniform in combat, was one of four senators who voted against Lute's confirmation. He told the Senate that Lute's return to the Army after serving in the administration would threaten the military's status as a "non-political organization."

Sen. Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Armed Services Committee, managed Lute's confirmation with little enthusiasm. He noted that several retired four-star generals had refused the "czar" job. They included Marine Gen. Jack Sheehan, reported by Levin as having turned down the president because "hawks within the administration, including Vice President Cheney, remain more powerful than the pragmatists looking for an exit strategy in Iraq."

Though Lugar's defection brought the national security adviser to the Hill, Bush did not call the respected senator into the White House for a face-to-face talk. That is not this president's style, as shown by his reaction to an essay by Hagel in the Financial Times last week calling for an international mediator in Iraq under U.N. Security Council auspices. Hagel had advocated that proposal in a private letter to Bush several weeks earlier. Instead of the president responding to an overture from a longtime critic, Hagel was answered in routine fashion by a third-level bureaucrat (Jeffrey Bergner, assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs).

As the first in a succession of Republican senators to be critical of Bush's Iraq policy, Hagel feared the worst when he returned home to conservative Nebraska for Fourth of July parades. Instead, he was pleasantly surprised by cheers and calls for the troops to be brought home. Perhaps a White House scouting trip into the American heartland might be worthwhile.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/08/AR2007070800923_pf.html

 

so the new liberals are down w/ genocide. i suspected as much, given their general silence on darfur, but it's nice to see them come right out and admit it.

 

basso,

Do everyone a favor and restrict your messy wanking to your wet dream thread. You and tj can have a party in there.

 

so your war has resulted in genocide.. we told you so..

 

Hey! We've already got a new catch phrase!

Post-Surge Redeployment!

You heard it hear folks! Jr will start drawing down troops before Petraeus even gives his report in September.

 

I don't know how you can type this crap and not just kill yourself in disgust, but since you are apparently still alive (honestly, I'm not positive about that), I can only assume that you have truly lost your mind. Get some friends. Go on a search. Good luck.



D&D. Dumb and Dumber.

 

I chuckled heartily at that one.

 

oh, please. if the country has friends like the ny times, who needs enemies?

 

and if it has patriots like you, who needs comedians?

 

'Crack in the Dike':

White House in 'Panic Mode' Over GOP Revolt on Iraq

White House Trying to Find Consensus to Appease Democrats and 'Wobbly Republicans'

By MARTHA RADDATZ
July 9, 2007 —


ABC News has been told the White House is in "panic mode" over the recent defections of Republican senators on the president's stay-the-course policy in Iraq.

Senior Bush administration officials are deep in discussion about how to find a compromise that will "appease Democrats and keep wobbly Republicans onboard," a senior White House official told ABC News.

The official said the White House "is in panic mode," despite Monday's on-the-record briefing by White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, who played down any concern over the recent spate of GOP senators who have spoken out publicly in support of changing course in Iraq.

The Republican defections are seen as "a crack in the dike," according to the senior White House official, and National Security Adviser Steven Hadley is most concerned.

Bush administration officials are currently discussing options about how to get out of "this conundrum with the Republicans," while giving Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, time to implement the troop surge strategy in Iraq, according to a senior White House official.

"We're not retreating or announcing troop withdrawal," the official said, but, "we need to buy more time for Petraeus." The White House has not reached any kind of consensus about what to do, despite the high-level discussions.



http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3359764

 

tony vs dick

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nevermind

 

I definately think this is part of the White House strategy, to provide political cover to limit Republican defections. Even if they are serious about withdrawl though a withdrawl will take a long time and the Admin. could declare a withdrawl next month and still have a substantial number of troops in Iraq when GW Bush leaves office.