:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::
"Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough." -Walter Cronkite, RE TV news. The Web has changed that for many, however, and here is an extra dose for your daily news cocktail. This prescription tends to include surveillance and now war-related links, along with the occasional pop culture junk and whatever else seizes my attention as I scan online news sites.:: 7.09.2007 ::
:: Withdrawal::
W.House debate over troop withdrawal deepens
Reuters via The New York Times
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A debate is intensifying inside the White House over whether President George W. Bush should try to prevent more Republican defections by announcing intentions for a gradual withdrawal of troops from high-casualty Iraqi areas, the New York Times said on Monday.
Citing administration officials and consultants, the newspaper said these officials fear the last pillars of political support among U.S. Senate Republicans for Bush's Iraq strategy are "collapsing around them."
The president and his aides had thought they could wait to begin discussions about any change in strategy after September 15, when the U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, must present a much-anticipated report on Iraq's security and political progress.
But these aides acknowledge it appears that forces are converging against Bush just as the Senate prepares this week to begin what promises to be a contentious debate on the war's future and financing, the newspaper said.
On Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates canceled a long-planned trip to Latin America to help prepare a report for the U.S. Congress on the war, according to the Pentagon.
The administration must deliver an interim report to Congress by July 15 on Iraq. The report has gained significance as an increasing number of both Republican and Democratic lawmakers call for a change in Bush's strategy in Iraq.
Four more Republican senators, including Pete Domenici of New Mexico last week, have recently declared they can no longer support the strategy.
As a result, the newspaper said, aides are telling Bush that if he wants to forestall more defections, it would be wiser to announce plans for a far more narrowly defined mission for U.S. troops that would allow for a staged pullback.
That strategy was proposed by the Iraq Study Group late last year, but the president rejected it.
Read more here.
posted by me
:: 10:40:00 AM [+] ::
...
