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Latest news from Reuters this morning …

Rumsfeld backed pullback in Iraq
Sun Dec 3, 2006 10:45am
By Aseel Kami

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces attacked insurgent bases in Iraq on Sunday as a leaked memo from the man who sent them there revealed that Donald Rumsfeld believes their strategy is not working and it may be better to reduce troop numbers.

A day before election defeat cost Rumsfeld his job, the outgoing defense secretary told the White House: "It is time for a major adjustment. Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough.”

(cutting)

Bush, who met Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki last week, indicated on Saturday he will look closely at -- but not necessarily heed -- the Iraq Study Group's findings and insisted he was not looking for a "graceful exit".

But the proposals -- said to include a U.S. shift away from a combat role over the next year or so, and a regional conference that could lead to talks with Iran and Syria -- will carry significant weight even if Bush chooses to ignore them.

continue…

Even Rumsfeld is(has been) saying it’s not working and is (has been) offering suggestions, solutions – and there’s Bush still saying he doesn’t have to follow any of the good advice he’s being given. What an asshole! He’s still blindly “Staying The (his) Course!” while everyone else is working on which direction shall we head now.

He really should be removed from office, or at the very least, rendered impotent.

hmmmm.... maybe he already is/has been/is happening now?
hope so!

Dec. 6 will reveal what the Iraq Study Group has recommended, and after that ~ we'll all get to see what Bush will decide to do with the recommendations (which I say he'll stay true to his ideals and stay his course) -- and then we'll see what type of congress we really have.

Yeah I have seen that about ten times in the last 24 hours. What I wonder is if that is why he was fired?

Bottom line Rumsfeld still did not offer a plan, a rehash of what Murtha and other democrats said.

and then we'll see what type of congress we really have.

I am putting a lot of hope on Pelosi, I think she is very shrewd.

Bush has had a free hand, no congressional oversight.

At least that much will change.

But when I hear talk of of impeachement I get the he be jeebies.

What plays in Peoria, are you old enough to remember Everet Dirksen of Illinois.

stilltrucking wrote:Bottom line Rumsfeld still did not offer a plan, a rehash of what Murtha and other democrats said.
(cutting)
What plays in Peoria, are you old enough to remember Everet Dirksen of Illinois.

No, I don't know anything about Everet Dirksen, and I agree with you that Rumsfeld didn't offer anything new, but it was a surprised to me to hear he actually agreed with Murtha.

There was another interesting article at CSM - and there is a quote by a general that I think bears heeding (emphasis added by me):

Now in control, Democrats seek unified war strategy
In pushing for a bipartisan plan, they seek to avoid 'ownership' of the war.
By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
December 1, 2006
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1201/p01s02-usfp.html

Before the midterm elections, Democrats in the House and Senate agreed to three points on Iraq strategy: ensuring a "significant transition" to full Iraqi sovereignty in 2006, including the "responsible redeployment" of US forces; regional diplomacy and more pressure on the Iraqis to "make the political compromises necessary" to defeat the insurgency; and holding the Bush administration accountable on issues ranging from "manipulated prewar intelligence" to poor planning and contracting abuses.

Last June, all but six Senate Democrats backed a nonbinding amendment by Sens. Carl Levin (D) of Michigan and Reed, calling for a phased withdrawal within six months. The amendment failed by a vote of 39 to 60.

In the first congressional hearings on Iraq since the elections, Senator Levin, the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, renewed his call for a "phased redeployment of our forces within four to six months."

"America has given the Iraqi people the opportunity to build a new nation at the cost of nearly 3,000 American lives and over 20,000 wounded. And the American people do not want our valiant troops to get caught in a crossfire between Iraqis if Iraqis insist on squandering that opportunity through civil war and sectarian strife," he said at the Nov. 15 hearings.

On Tuesday, his cosponsor, Reed, said he was "less comfortable with the timetables and deadlines," and that redeployment could also mean "redeployment of forces in Iraq."

All nine freshmen Democratic senators in the new Congress campaigned to redeploy US troops as rapidly as possible.

In fact, critics say, it will be tough for Democrats to fulfill voter expectations for any quick change in the situation on the ground in Iraq.

"Congress wants to maintain the fiction that somehow we have control of the affairs on the ground and that we are decisive actors. We are not. We haven't had much control or influence in that country in the last two years," says retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, author of three recent books on the US military.

"Nothing is going to be sorted out until we get out. This is what the Democrats are failing on: They need to say this occupation is a serious mistake, and we need to get south of the Euphrates river as soon as possible," he adds.

On Nov. 14, Sen. Russ Feingold (D) of Wisconsin introduced legislation requiring US forces to redeploy from Iraq by July 1, 2007.

Meanwhile, many Republicans are shifting into defensive mode as they give up control of oversight committees. GOP Rep. Zach Wamp of Tennessee and Sen. Johnny Isakson (R) of Georgia said this week that they are backing Sen. John McCain's plan to boost troop levels by as much as 20,000 in Iraq.

I think the General is correct and we tend to forget this when we argue over this stuff; further - if anyone can stand up in congress and say "this occupation is a serious mistake, and we need to get south of the Euphrates river as soon as possible" - Pelosi can.

December 6th the recommendations will be coming out.

So 'til then ~ it's just 'wait-n-see'

Dirksen was a republican senator from Illinois back in the fifties and sixties, the last of the loyal opposition. When somebody came up with a plan he would ask if it would play in Peoria. I don't know why I thought of him, maybe nothing has changed, maybe I was naive back then and politics has always been like this.
I liked Clay's comment about politics being as tawdry as pro wrestling these days.

I don't know deb, I don't expect the war to end until 1/20/09 maybe. It won't be cut and run they say, more like a cut and walk, not a bang but a wimper.

I heard a talking head say that he was suprised that Rumsfeld made so many proposals but the bottom line was he still did not have a plan. You know I wonder if that is why he was fired after the election, because Cheney thought he had wimped out.


I am trying to be careful what I say to the people I meet day to day. Trying to be politic, make small points, not confront, just plant some seeds of doubt in the minds of the true believers I meet. Find a way to say it with humor if I can. Even if I feel like ranting and raving.

I want to be wrong.
Who knows, there maybe a statue erected in Bush's honor downtown Baghdad by then.

I hear those right wing policy wonks say "but we have not been attacked on our homeland in five years" Hard to argue with that. even if I think it has nothing to do with the war on Iraq.

More than Bush, or Cheney, Paul Bremmer is responsible for the disaster, his De-Baathification plan. He will probably live to be an old man and die peacefuly in his sleep one day. But I hate him more than anyone else. Listened to him being interviewed on Now. Brancacio asked him about the marine general who warned him not to disband the Iraqi army and police, told him he would put 50,000 insurgents on the streets overnight. Bremmer said he did not remember cause he was so busy with other important stuff. I think he was trying to order new rugs and drapes for his office. I know Bush and Cheney are responsible but the hell of it is if they had taken the advice of the marine general who was in charge before Bremmer arived they might have pulled it off. For the life of me I can't remember his name. But he had a grip on it. just my opinion. And you know I am full of those. Full of something anyway.

damn damn

I don't write well enough for this long a reply. Spontaneous gib.

If the NYTIMES has any credability left:

News Analysis
Amid Hints Bush Will Change Iraq Policy, Clues That He Won’t

Mr. Hadley offered a different explanation on Sunday, saying on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that after the first leaks of the Iraq Study Group’s conclusions, the president simply felt “he needed to stop” any talk that the commission, led by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, was going to provide “cover for an American withdrawal.”

“That’s cut and run and, of course, as the president has said, cut and run is not his cup of tea,” Mr. Hadley said.



http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/world ... r=homepage

If the NYTIMES has any credability left:

Cut and Paste

News Analysis
Amid Hints Bush Will Change Iraq Policy, Clues That He Won’t

"This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all."—responding to speculation that American forces could be called back from Iraq, Amman, Jordan, Nov. 30, 2006

Mr. Hadley offered a different explanation on Sunday, saying on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that after the first leaks of the Iraq Study Group’s conclusions, the president simply felt “he needed to stop” any talk that the commission, led by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, was going to provide “cover for an American withdrawal.”

“That’s cut and run and, of course, as the president has said, cut and run is not his cup of tea,” Mr. Hadley said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/world ... r=homepage[/quote]

Administration officials say Mr. Bush is likely to embrace that part of the report, which will call for vastly increasing the number of American trainers embedded in Iraqi units, along with other provisions that he can argue are already being implemented.
Source: News Analysis: Will Bush Change on Iraq?

Now see that's scary. This is not good.

You see my friend's son was a trainer and was killed by the very people he trained and it was covered up for 2 years before the truth came out: I posted about it at S8 HERE

Seems the people most interested in getting military training from the US are the terrorists themselves - and the military is very aware of this ... and also they are not supporting the president's ideas and haven't been for awhile now.

So Bush is pushing for something that those in the trenches, our own military, knows full well could end up killing our own men & women.

The good part of all this is, Bush needs congress' approval - of his plans as well as for the money to implement them ~ and I don't think he'll get it.

Nadia (my friend whose son was killed) went to Barbara Boxer (US Senator-CA 1 of 2) - and Boxer and Pelosi are close, informed and Fienstein (our other US Senator-CA) knows as well and none of these women are bashful. So Bush will not be able to pull the wool over the eyes of women from California. How much that will help ... we'll see.


....

Nadia (my friend whose son was killed)

Am I using 'whose' correctly?

if it was compressed onto a bumper sticker, it would boil down to “train and walk backward

ibid above

What would cheer me up would be that as the new congress starts looking into things that Cheney has been stone walling about, for example the secrete meeting on energy policy held early in 2001 that has been classified. That is when they met with Ken Lay of Enron and the rest of the boys to plan energy policy; the records of that meeting have never been disclosed. Something so dirty and rotten turns up that it would force Cheney from office. Then they dig around and find a coke dealer with a video camera that has film of Bush powdering his nose. Kind of like Spiro Agnew/Nixon redux. So Pelosi becomes president of the United Snakes of America. No I am not smoking wacky tobaccky, just my fantasy.

Feinstein voted for the war, Boxer and Pelosi voted against it. I can't forget that.

Whose? Whose you asking me? I am fine one to give advice about writing.

Hard for me to imagine that someone as smart as Feinstein and Clinton could be fooled. I think they are like Kerry, they went along to get along.

Barbara Mikulski still my girl. But she ain't pretty in pink, what's a poor boy to do.

It is a very sad story about your friend's son I am very sorry.

Cindy Sheehan got arrested at the capital about a week ago. It was on page four on my local Hearst paper.