WP (A01): Embattled, Bush Held To Plan to Salvage Iraq

[sabra]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/20/AR2007012001446.html

Embattled, Bush Held To Plan to Salvage Iraq
In Face of Advice, He Pushed Buildup

By Michael Abramowitz and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 21, 2007; Page A01

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had a surprise for President Bush when they sat down with their aides in the Four Seasons Hotel in Amman, Jordan. Firing up a PowerPoint presentation, Maliki and his national security adviser proposed that U.S. troops withdraw to the outskirts of Baghdad and let Iraqis take over security in the strife-torn capital. Maliki said he did not want any more U.S. troops at all, just more authority.

The president listened intently to the unexpected proposal at their Nov. 30 meeting, according to accounts from several administration officials. Bush seemed impressed that Maliki had taken the initiative, but it did not take him long to reject the idea.

...

He never seriously considered beginning to withdraw U.S. forces, as urged by newly elected Democratic congressional leaders and the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. And he had grown skeptical of his own military commanders, who were telling him no more troops were needed.

So Bush relied on his own judgment that the best answer was to try once again to snuff out the sectarian violence in Baghdad, even at the risk of putting U.S. soldiers into a crossfire between Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias. When his generals resisted sending more troops, he seemed irritated. When they finally agreed to go along with the plan, he doubled the number of troops they requested.

It was a signature moment for a president who seems uninfluenced by the electorate on Iraq and headed for a showdown with the new Democratic Congress. Presented with an opportunity to pull back, Bush instead chose to extend and, in some ways, deepen his commitment, gambling that more time and a new plan will finally bring success to the troubled U.S. military mission

[LynnTheDem]

1. That little 3-letter word...

"I know some Americans don't think that is a threat. I view it as a threat because — and the reason it's a threat is I can conceivably see a world in which radicals and extremists control oil. And they would say to the West: You either abandon Israel, for example, or we're going to run the price of oil up."
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/story?id=2594541&page=2

"They are there as an expression of the American national interest to prevent the Iranian combination of imperialism and fundamentalist ideology from dominating a region on which the energy supplies of the industrial democracies depend."
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?section=opinion&xfile=data/opinion/2007/january/opinion_january62.xml

[rodeodance]

2. and the Bush gamble cost 21 troops their lives Saturday

[rodeodance]

3. Maliki said he did not want any more U.S. troops at all, just more authority.

[cmd]

4. There are times when it is hard for me to breathe.

His arrogance leaves me speechless.

[gratuitous]

5. "Bush relied on his own judgment"

A phrase that should send a chill down the spine of every thinking person on the planet. Of course, this being the Washington Post, they will soon be denying that the troop augmentation was a bad idea, or that it was solely Bush's idea, or that anyone could have known that it wasn't going to work out, and really, wasn't it all the Democrats' fault for not stopping it?