Bush Quickens Search for New War Plan
Associated Press | December 09, 2006
WASHINGTON - Quickening his search for a new war strategy, President Bush sought ideas from lawmakers on Friday and lined up three days of urgent talks with military brass, diplomats and outside experts on how to stop Iraq's slide toward anarchy.
Bush is expected to settle on a new course and present it to the nation in a speech before Christmas, the debate and his new efforts framed by the Iraq Study Group's stinging rebuke this week of U.S. policy.
In the meantime, Americans' dissatisfaction with his handling of Iraq has climbed to an all-time high of 71 percent in the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll.
Incoming Senate Democratic leaders said Bush did not offer them hints of his plan when they met with him in the Cabinet Room to talk about Iraq. They also talked about ending the bitter bipartisan divide that has characterized relations between the White House and Congress.
Incoming Senate Democratic Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois said the president talked about the Iraq panel's report and said he was open to changing tactics.
"I think we all understand tactics need to be changed, but the Iraq Study Group went further than tactics," Durbin said. "The Iraq Study Group talked about the new direction in Iraq in terms of starting to bring American troops home, redeploying them to safer places, holding Iraq to new standards of responsibility and opening up a new line of diplomacy."
"That goes beyond tactics. So the president did not endorse the Iraq Study Group at this meeting and his statements leave me (with) question(s) as to whether or not he is ever going to support their conclusions," Durbin said.
Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., a longtime supporter of the war, compounded the White House's problems with a blistering speech on the Senate floor.
"I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our Soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day," Smith said Thursday night. "That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore. ... So either we clear and hold and build or let's go home."
Bush goes to the State Department on Monday for talks, and then meets in the Oval Office with independent experts on Iraq. On Tuesday, the president confers in a video conference with senior military commanders and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq.
On Wednesday, he meets with senior defense officials at the Pentagon. Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday that the U.S. military is doing everything it can but the war cannot be won only "militarily." He said the power struggle in Iraq is partly about religion, economics and political power, and "not terribly military in its nature."
The release of the Iraq report set in motion a delicate waltz for the administration. On the one hand, it doesn't want to dismiss the ideas of a bipartisan commission partly led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, a Bush family friend. On the other hand, Bush doesn't want to be held hostage to the panel's recommendations.
Bush's national security aides are drafting their own evaluation of Iraq, due in a week or two.
The Baker-Hamilton study paints a dismal picture both of conditions in Iraq and of the Bush administration policies in the wider Middle East.
"None of us see the situation in Iraq as favorable," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday in her first response to the independent report. "We all see it as extremely difficult."
Baker said the administration should not pick and choose among the report's 79 recommendations. "I hope we don't treat this like a fruit salad," he said. White House press secretary Tony Snow said the president was not treating the panel's document as a fruit salad, but neither did he offer any tidbits about the president's thinking.
"I am loath to characterize it because, frankly, the final recommendations have not been delivered, nor has the president determined what he will recommend as the way forward," Snow said.
Bush spoke on the phone Friday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who gave the president a readout on his recent visits to Iran and Syria.
"One of the things that the president was making clear is that regional allies, Muslim countries, can play a constructive role and they are doing so," Snow said.
Rumsfeld said there was nothing in the report that Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace and General John Abizaid, the top commander for U.S. forces in the Middle East, and others in the administration hadn't thought about or worked to implement.
Tracking one theme of the Iraq Study Group calling for phasing combat troops into training missions, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli said Friday that significant U.S. combat troops could be pulled out of Iraq by early 2008 - as long as the Iraqis meet specific goals toward establishing a unified government.
http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,120288,00.html
Full Version: Bush Quickens Search for New War Plan
Common Ground Common Sense > Issues that Affect Our Lives > U.S. Military Issues > U.S. Military Issues Archive
Everyone in Congress not voting to restrict future funding in the Iraq War are
voting to endorse the NeoCon foreign policy and Bush's determination to keep prosecuting the same war in slightly altered ways.
voting to endorse the NeoCon foreign policy and Bush's determination to keep prosecuting the same war in slightly altered ways.
Bush can't be a "war president" unless he has a war.
Just buy him this software and he'll leave the rest of alone for the rest of his presidency, while we pull out of Iraq.
http://www.download-free-games.com/war_gam...vietnam_war.htm
http://www.download-free-games.com/war_gam...vietnam_war.htm
QUOTE(jeffmoskin @ Dec 9 2006, 06:04 PM)
Bush can't be a "war president" unless he has a war.
More on the bush scramble to find a way out.
Experts Advise Bush Not to Reduce Troops
President Looking Beyond Study Group's Plan
By Michael A. Fletcher and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 12, 2006; Page A01
President Bush heard a blunt and dismal assessment of his handling of Iraq from a group of military experts yesterday, but the advisers shared the White House's skeptical view of the recommendations made last week by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, sources said.
The three retired generals and two academics disagreed in particular with the study group's plans to reduce the number of U.S. combat troops in Iraq and to reach out for help to Iran and Syria, according to sources familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was private.
The White House gathering was part of a series of high-profile meetings Bush is holding to search for "a new way forward" amid the increasing chaos and carnage in Iraq. Earlier in the day, Bush met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other high-ranking officials at the State Department, where he was briefed on reconstruction and regional diplomatic efforts in Iraq.
The military experts met with Bush, Vice President Cheney and about a dozen aides for more than an hour. The visitors told the officials that the situation in Iraq is as dire as the study group had indicated but that alternative approaches must be considered, said one participant in the meeting. In addition, the experts agreed that the president should review his national security team, which several characterized as part of the problem.
"I don't think there is any doubt in his mind about how bad it is," the source said.
The group disagreed on the key issue of whether to send more troops to Iraq, with retired Gen. John M. Keane arguing that several thousand additional soldiers could be used to improve security in Baghdad, and others expressing doubt about that proposal, according to sources at the meeting. But the five agreed in telling Bush that the Army and Marine Corps both need to be bigger, and also need bigger budgets.
The group suggested the president shake up his national security team. "All of us said they have failed, that you need a new team," said one participant. That recommendation is likely to fuel Pentagon rumors that Bush and his new defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, may decide to replace Marine Gen. Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
White House officials emphasized that although the experts gave a bleak assessment, they still believe the situation in Iraq is "winnable."
"I appreciate the advice I got from those folks in the field," Bush said after emerging from the morning session. "And that advice is . . . an important component of putting together a new way forward in Iraq."
The carefully choreographed meetings are coming on the heels of the release last week of the Iraq Study Group's report, which pronounced the situation in Iraq "grave" and recommended fundamental shifts in how the Bush administration handles the war. To stem the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the report said, the administration should shift the focus of its military mission from direct combat to training Iraqi troops, while pressing harder for a diplomatic solution by engaging Iran and Syria -- something Bush has pointedly refused to do.
Yesterday's meetings are to be followed today by a videoconference with military commanders before Bush receives Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi at the White House. On Wednesday, Bush is scheduled to meet with his outgoing defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, and another group of military experts.
Coming amid growing public discontent with the war and the defeat of his party in last month's congressional elections, the president's very public review of his Iraq policy is expected to culminate in a major address in which he will lay out what the administration has billed as a "new way forward" in the nearly four-year-old conflict. Press secretary Tony Snow said the administration is hoping for the president to deliver the speech before Christmas, although he said the timing has not been nailed down.
Even as the president has been reviewing his approach to the war, he has not backed off his position that victory in Iraq is crucial to victory in a larger fight against terrorism. Bush also calls it essential for Iraq to be stabilized as a functioning democracy -- a sweeping goal on which the Iraq Study Group's report was notably silent.
"Iraq is a central component of defeating the extremists who want to establish safe haven in the Middle East, extremists who would use their safe haven from which to attack the United States," Bush said. "This is really the calling of our time, that is, to defeat the extremists and radicals."
When the White House review began, the interagency group debated whether to try to beat the Iraqi Study Group's report or let it play out and then look "bigger and better" by doing a report later, said an official familiar with the discussions. It was agreed to wait. But the emphasis throughout the month-long process has been to produce a strategy that would be deliberately distinct, the official added.
The White House review does not have the depth or scope of the Iraq Study Group's, according to officials familiar with the deliberations. "There's a lack of thinking on other big issues -- oil, the economy, infrastructure and jobs," said one source who was briefed on the interagency discussions and requested anonymity because talks are ongoing.
During yesterday's White House meeting, Bush asked all the questions, except for one at the end from Cheney, a source said. But Cheney took copious notes throughout, filling several pages, he said. "They didn't really reveal their own views" in their questions, said retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, one of the five participants.
As a whole, the group of retired generals and academics who met Bush tend to be skeptical of the Iraq Study Group's proposals, and so were able to give him additional reasons to reject its recommendations.
The first to speak was Eliot A. Cohen, an expert in military strategy at Johns Hopkins University, who has criticized the study group's findings, particularly on engaging Iran and Syria and on decreasing combat troops. He was followed by Keane, McCaffrey and Wayne A. Downing, all retired four-star Army generals. Two have told friends they are skeptical of the study group's recommendation to cut U.S. combat forces over the next year while quadrupling the size of the training and advisory effort, which currently numbers around 4,000.
Experts Advise Bush Not to Reduce Troops
President Looking Beyond Study Group's Plan
By Michael A. Fletcher and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 12, 2006; Page A01
President Bush heard a blunt and dismal assessment of his handling of Iraq from a group of military experts yesterday, but the advisers shared the White House's skeptical view of the recommendations made last week by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, sources said.
The three retired generals and two academics disagreed in particular with the study group's plans to reduce the number of U.S. combat troops in Iraq and to reach out for help to Iran and Syria, according to sources familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was private.
The White House gathering was part of a series of high-profile meetings Bush is holding to search for "a new way forward" amid the increasing chaos and carnage in Iraq. Earlier in the day, Bush met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other high-ranking officials at the State Department, where he was briefed on reconstruction and regional diplomatic efforts in Iraq.
The military experts met with Bush, Vice President Cheney and about a dozen aides for more than an hour. The visitors told the officials that the situation in Iraq is as dire as the study group had indicated but that alternative approaches must be considered, said one participant in the meeting. In addition, the experts agreed that the president should review his national security team, which several characterized as part of the problem.
"I don't think there is any doubt in his mind about how bad it is," the source said.
The group disagreed on the key issue of whether to send more troops to Iraq, with retired Gen. John M. Keane arguing that several thousand additional soldiers could be used to improve security in Baghdad, and others expressing doubt about that proposal, according to sources at the meeting. But the five agreed in telling Bush that the Army and Marine Corps both need to be bigger, and also need bigger budgets.
The group suggested the president shake up his national security team. "All of us said they have failed, that you need a new team," said one participant. That recommendation is likely to fuel Pentagon rumors that Bush and his new defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, may decide to replace Marine Gen. Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
White House officials emphasized that although the experts gave a bleak assessment, they still believe the situation in Iraq is "winnable."
"I appreciate the advice I got from those folks in the field," Bush said after emerging from the morning session. "And that advice is . . . an important component of putting together a new way forward in Iraq."
The carefully choreographed meetings are coming on the heels of the release last week of the Iraq Study Group's report, which pronounced the situation in Iraq "grave" and recommended fundamental shifts in how the Bush administration handles the war. To stem the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the report said, the administration should shift the focus of its military mission from direct combat to training Iraqi troops, while pressing harder for a diplomatic solution by engaging Iran and Syria -- something Bush has pointedly refused to do.
Yesterday's meetings are to be followed today by a videoconference with military commanders before Bush receives Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi at the White House. On Wednesday, Bush is scheduled to meet with his outgoing defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, and another group of military experts.
Coming amid growing public discontent with the war and the defeat of his party in last month's congressional elections, the president's very public review of his Iraq policy is expected to culminate in a major address in which he will lay out what the administration has billed as a "new way forward" in the nearly four-year-old conflict. Press secretary Tony Snow said the administration is hoping for the president to deliver the speech before Christmas, although he said the timing has not been nailed down.
Even as the president has been reviewing his approach to the war, he has not backed off his position that victory in Iraq is crucial to victory in a larger fight against terrorism. Bush also calls it essential for Iraq to be stabilized as a functioning democracy -- a sweeping goal on which the Iraq Study Group's report was notably silent.
"Iraq is a central component of defeating the extremists who want to establish safe haven in the Middle East, extremists who would use their safe haven from which to attack the United States," Bush said. "This is really the calling of our time, that is, to defeat the extremists and radicals."
When the White House review began, the interagency group debated whether to try to beat the Iraqi Study Group's report or let it play out and then look "bigger and better" by doing a report later, said an official familiar with the discussions. It was agreed to wait. But the emphasis throughout the month-long process has been to produce a strategy that would be deliberately distinct, the official added.
The White House review does not have the depth or scope of the Iraq Study Group's, according to officials familiar with the deliberations. "There's a lack of thinking on other big issues -- oil, the economy, infrastructure and jobs," said one source who was briefed on the interagency discussions and requested anonymity because talks are ongoing.
During yesterday's White House meeting, Bush asked all the questions, except for one at the end from Cheney, a source said. But Cheney took copious notes throughout, filling several pages, he said. "They didn't really reveal their own views" in their questions, said retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, one of the five participants.
As a whole, the group of retired generals and academics who met Bush tend to be skeptical of the Iraq Study Group's proposals, and so were able to give him additional reasons to reject its recommendations.
The first to speak was Eliot A. Cohen, an expert in military strategy at Johns Hopkins University, who has criticized the study group's findings, particularly on engaging Iran and Syria and on decreasing combat troops. He was followed by Keane, McCaffrey and Wayne A. Downing, all retired four-star Army generals. Two have told friends they are skeptical of the study group's recommendation to cut U.S. combat forces over the next year while quadrupling the size of the training and advisory effort, which currently numbers around 4,000.
He will just be changing language labels again, the man is incapable of true change.
And this committee sounds like they were more interested in one-upping the ISG than anything that held consideration of a wider range of factual data.
In other words, a pi**ing contest.
Shameful. But that is what W digs.
lenal
And this committee sounds like they were more interested in one-upping the ISG than anything that held consideration of a wider range of factual data.
In other words, a pi**ing contest.
Shameful. But that is what W digs.
lenal
QUOTE(lenal @ Dec 12 2006, 11:05 AM)
He will just be changing language labels again, the man is incapable of true change.
And this committee sounds like they were more interested in one-upping the ISG than anything that held consideration of a wider range of factual data.
In other words, a pi**ing contest.
Shameful. But that is what W digs.
lenal
And this committee sounds like they were more interested in one-upping the ISG than anything that held consideration of a wider range of factual data.
In other words, a pi**ing contest.
Shameful. But that is what W digs.
lenal
Do you think this insanity will continue until our Congress takes away his money and he, like Nixon, is forced to bring the military home? Right now I see no other course possible, and it worked with Nixon & Ford. I was hoping it wouldn't come to that.
Congress can withdraw the AUMF, or declare that the conditions that required the AUMF are no longer applicable, therefore the AUMF is voided. I do not know if this has ever been done, but constitutionally, practically and politically it is a better strategy than withdrawing the funding.
They can place the declaration in a military funding bill, which would be essentially veto-proof, because if Bush vetoed it, he'd be saying he wants the troops to stay without any money. But if Bush signs the bill, he is agreeing to end the war.
They can place the declaration in a military funding bill, which would be essentially veto-proof, because if Bush vetoed it, he'd be saying he wants the troops to stay without any money. But if Bush signs the bill, he is agreeing to end the war.
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 12 2006, 02:25 PM)
Do you think this insanity will continue until our Congress takes away his money and he, like Nixon, is forced to bring the military home? Right now I see no other course possible, and it worked with Nixon & Ford. I was hoping it wouldn't come to that.
QUOTE(progressivephoenix @ Dec 12 2006, 03:03 PM)
Congress can withdraw the AUMF, or declare that the conditions that required the AUMF are no longer applicable, therefore the AUMF is voided. I do not know if this has ever been done, but constitutionally, practically and politically it is a better strategy than withdrawing the funding.
They can place the declaration in a military funding bill, which would be essentially veto-proof, because if Bush vetoed it, he'd be saying he wants the troops to stay without any money. But if Bush signs the bill, he is agreeing to end the war.
progressive -- excuse my ignorance but what is the AUMF?
They can place the declaration in a military funding bill, which would be essentially veto-proof, because if Bush vetoed it, he'd be saying he wants the troops to stay without any money. But if Bush signs the bill, he is agreeing to end the war.
Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Iraq. Also known as the Iraq War Resolution.
QUOTE(Robin @ Dec 12 2006, 04:31 PM)
progressive -- excuse my ignorance but what is the AUMF?
QUOTE(progressivephoenix @ Dec 12 2006, 03:03 PM)
Congress can withdraw the AUMF, or declare that the conditions that required the AUMF are no longer applicable, therefore the AUMF is voided. I do not know if this has ever been done, but constitutionally, practically and politically it is a better strategy than withdrawing the funding.
They can place the declaration in a military funding bill, which would be essentially veto-proof, because if Bush vetoed it, he'd be saying he wants the troops to stay without any money. But if Bush signs the bill, he is agreeing to end the war.
Didn't Senator Warner hint at something like that if they determined Iraq had devolved into a civil war?
They can place the declaration in a military funding bill, which would be essentially veto-proof, because if Bush vetoed it, he'd be saying he wants the troops to stay without any money. But if Bush signs the bill, he is agreeing to end the war.
QUOTE(progressivephoenix @ Dec 12 2006, 04:08 PM)
Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Iraq. Also known as the Iraq War Resolution.
Thanks.
If GW isn't going to be looking at a change until after the New Year, how is this quickening his search - or is the mere fact that he's looking at alternatives quickening?
Not sure. He said that there was law that prohbits US troops from entering a civil war zone, so if Iraq were to be declared a civil war, then the troops would have to be withdrawn. I don't know if this is related to the AUMF or not.
I guess the bottom line is that if Congress wants the troops to come home, they have some tools they can use to press the issue directly, instead of indirectly through cutting the funds. There has never been a case in US history where Congress forced an end to a war, but we've also never had a president too stupid to know when the war was over.
I guess the bottom line is that if Congress wants the troops to come home, they have some tools they can use to press the issue directly, instead of indirectly through cutting the funds. There has never been a case in US history where Congress forced an end to a war, but we've also never had a president too stupid to know when the war was over.
QUOTE(Robin @ Dec 12 2006, 05:16 PM)
Didn't Senator Warner hint at something like that if they determined Iraq had devolved into a civil war?
He is quickening his search to find new ways of avoiding the painfully obvious.
QUOTE(Noonan @ Dec 12 2006, 05:26 PM)
If GW isn't going to be looking at a change until after the New Year, how is this quickening his search - or is the mere fact that he's looking at alternatives quickening?
QUOTE(progressivephoenix @ Dec 12 2006, 07:41 PM)
He is quickening his search to find new ways of avoiding the painfully obvious.
I think that's what Jack was saying today.
How many will die in the interim, a little procrastination might be ok for bush, but how many on both sides will die while he waits for his answers to come in a moment of clairvoyance. We could be forever waiting for the divine answers to appear in bushs mind.
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 15 2006, 07:28 AM)
How many will die in the interim, a little procrastination might be ok for bush, but how many on both sides will die while he waits for his answers to come in a moment of clairvoyance. We could be forever waiting for the divine answers to appear in bushs mind.
Well, I'll agree with you on this Vaughn.
If we ain't going to play to win let's get em home and quit now.
QUOTE(Marine @ Dec 15 2006, 09:33 AM)
Well, I'll agree with you on this Vaughn.
If we ain't going to play to win let's get em home and quit now.
If we ain't going to play to win let's get em home and quit now.
You’re exactly right Gunny. Most of us know the good ol USA can be the best azz kickers on the planet, if properly motivated and furthermore properly led. We've had a tendency to involve ourselves in a half azzed manor. When we should have put ourselves in the mindset similar to WW2, kick azz and go home.
IMHO, it matters not who the enemy is, when properly motivated we can not be defeated. I don’t believe there was ever any hope of a military victory in Iraq, bush couldn't get but about half of America on his page, and it appears now that that page has dwindled to somewhere in the 20% range.
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