Democrats to back down on Iraq war conditions

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080616/pl_nm/..._usa_funding_dc

Democrats to back down on Iraq war conditions

By Richard CowanMon Jun 16, 4:43 PM ET

Democrats in the Congress, who came to power last year on a call to end the combat in Iraq, will soon give President George W. Bush the last war-funding bill of his presidency without any of the conditions they sought for withdrawing U.S. troops, congressional aides said on Monday.

Lawmakers are arranging to send Bush $165 billion in new money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, enough to last for about a year and well beyond when Bush leaves office on January 20.

"It'll be the lump sum of money, veterans (funding) and that's it," said one House aide familiar with the negotiations on the legislation.

The aide was referring to the funding for the unpopular Iraq war, now in its sixth year, and a measure being attached to expand education benefits for combat veterans.

A House of Representatives vote on the war-funding bill was expected this week. Anything the House passes would have to be approved by the Senate before the legislation is sent to Bush.

With the Pentagon running out of money to continue fighting the two wars, Congress is trying to approve new funds before its July 4 holiday recess.

With this bill, Congress will have written checks for more than $800 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with most of the money going to Iraq.

Since January, 2007, when Democrats took majority control of the House and Senate, they have tried to force Bush to change course in Iraq, mostly through troop withdrawal timetables and requirements that U.S. soldiers be more thoroughly trained, equipped and rested before returning to combat.

And while various versions have passed each chamber since then, there have not been enough votes in Congress to enact the war conditions over Bush's objections.

DEMOCRATS LOOKING TO BUSH SUCCESSOR

The result is that the 110th Congress will wrap up most of its work this fall, before November's congressional and presidential elections, without forcing any changes to Bush's open-ended war policy, the defining issue of his presidency.

Anti-war Democrats instead are looking to Bush's successor, hoping it is fellow-Democrat Barack Obama, to bring at least some of the 147,000 U.S. troops home from Iraq.

Speaking to reporters in Michigan where he was campaigning, Obama said he was "encouraged" by the reduction in violence in Iraq, but underlined the importance of beginning "the process of withdrawing U.S. troops."

John McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has backed Bush's opposition to Congress setting timetables.

Democrats enter this campaign season poised to expand their House and Senate majorities.

Instead of Iraq being the dominant issue this campaign season, it has been the U.S. economy, jolted by skyrocketing energy prices and mounting home foreclosures, that has gotten most of the attention.

The war-spending bill has been the staging ground for a Democratic initiative to expand domestic unemployment benefits, in addition to the added veterans benefits.

 

Elected under false pretenses. Lied to our faces about their intentions. Their election was unjust.

Any other buzzwords I forgot?

Oh yeah, out with the old culture of corruption, in with the new.

 

Interesting. The British are going to leave their troops in Iraq, rather than bring them home as Brown promised.

Maybe the surge is working better than the anti-war crowd was willing to let on.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-06...sh_N.htm?csp=34

Bush gathers support of European leaders
By Jeffrey Stinson, USA TODAY
LONDON — President Bush ended his week-long European trip Monday, carrying home commitments from Europe's major leaders on Iran, Afghanistan and even Iraq.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave Bush the biggest round of support after two days of talks by promising to:

• Tighten sanctions against Iran, including a freeze on assets of Iran's biggest bank here, to stop its nuclear program. Brown said he would press the European Union for more sanctions on Iranian oil and natural gas. This week in Luxembourg, EU ministers will take up a plan that would freeze the foreign assets of Bank Melli.

• Send 230 British troops to an increasingly violent Afghanistan, reinforcing the 8,530 there. Britain's commitment to the NATO force fighting the insurgent Taliban is second only to the United States, which has 23,550 troops there.

• Keep the roughly 4,500 British troops in southern Iraq until the situation is stable enough to withdraw them.

"In Iraq, there is still work to be done, and Britain … will continue to play its part," Brown said Monday at a joint news conference.

An appreciative Bush told Brown, "You've been strong on Afghanistan and Iraq, and I appreciate it."

Brown's going-away gifts were similar to promises Bush picked up at the start of his trip at a U.S.-European Union summit in Slovenia and again in Germany, Italy and France.

The commitments symbolize the warmer relationship Bush has had with European leaders in his second presidential term, even as he remains unpopular with the European public over the Iraq war.

"There's been a rapprochement across the Atlantic since 2004 at the elite level of policymakers," said Michael Cox, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. "The headline is: Compare 2008 to 2003, and lots has changed."

The reason: Anti-war sentiment has faded either from fatigue or because Bush will soon leave office.

One example is the drop in protests during this trip. The largest was Sunday in London with about 1,200 demonstrators. Five years ago, tens of thousands of people marched past Downing Street in three days of protests.

Also, Europe's leaders have changed during Bush's two terms. Germany and France, the two nations most strongly opposed to the Iraq war, now have leaders more in tune with Bush. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has worked to forge ties with Washington. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is so pro-American that he has the nickname "Sarko l'Americain."

Merkel joined Bush on Wednesday in threatening more economic sanctions against Iran unless it halts its nuclear development program. Like Bush, she fears Iran is developing a bomb, although Tehran insists it wants to generate electricity.

Sarkozy, with Bush at his side, said it would be "totally unacceptable" for Iran to get a nuclear bomb.

Bush deserves credit, too, for the improved relations, Cox said. Bush abandoned his unilateral strategy toward Iraq in favor of building alliances to achieve global strategic aims.

That was a major theme throughout Bush's trip, such as his statement Monday about combating terrorism after talking with Brown: "We've got to work together to protect our people."

Bush has made several trips to Europe in the past seven years to promote a stronger alliance. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi noted Thursday that Bush has visited Italy six times.

"This has been an extremely successful trip," national security adviser Stephen Hadley said Monday. "We've been able to advance the policy agenda as a result of this trip."

Before returning to Washington, Bush stopped in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to punctuate what he wants to achieve around the globe with Europe's help.

Protestants and Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland ended generations of strife and have jointly governed for the past year after decades of British rule.

It's a "success story," Bush said, that is a lesson for warring factions in Iraq and other parts of the world.

 

I think we're 2-3 years away from Iraq being a done deal, finished, a success.

This op-ed from the Chicago Tribune, Obama's home town paper, states the obvious, and what I see as well:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion...0,1762763.story

Obama and the war

Dennis Byrne

June 16, 2008

Before Barack Obama can get his presidential hands on the Iraq War, it might end, not in disaster as he figures, but in an American victory.

He, his fans and much of the media haven't noticed in the heat of the presidential campaign, but the war is winding down, if not nearing its end. Fewer military and civilians killed or wounded; fewer insurgent attacks; more order and security, especially in such troubled areas as Basra and Sadr City; more reconciliation; improved quality of life, and—not the least—greater liberties.

Still, Obama's perspective remains unchanged. There's no accommodation to changed circumstances, only his iron-willed pandering to anti-war voters. As of this writing, his campaign's Web site proclaims: "Obama would immediately begin to pull out troops engaged in combat operations at a pace of one or two brigades every month, to be completed by the end of next year." Who knows, at the pace of progress in Iraq, maybe the troops could come home even quicker. But for Obama to withdraw troops faster than his stone-set timetable, he would have to acknowledge the progress Iraq has made. And explain how he would continue that progress. He would have to be as responsible as The Washington Post, which in a June 1 editorial noted: "Don't look now, but the U.S.-backed [Iraqi] government and army may be winning the war." The Post, ever critical of the policies of President Bush, could never be confused with drooling neocons.

No one should be uncorking the champagne and breaking out the ticker tape, and it is convenient for me—a war supporter—to quote the Post when it supports my position. So, let's turn to the Brookings Institution's "Iraq Index," which from the start has tried and succeeded to be the war's most objective observer.

It shows that civilian deaths, which a year ago numbered in the thousands a month, are down dramatically, although the hundreds still dying are way too many. Also dropping remarkably is the number of U.S.troops killed and wounded.

The number of Iraqi forces deployed is steadily increasing while the number of attacks against U.S. and other coalition forces is down dramatically. So is the number of Iraqi police and military personnel killed each month. The number of joint security stations and combat outposts, which are security checkpoints in strategic areas throughout Baghdad and manned 24 hours a day by U.S. and Iraqi security forces, has more than doubled. The number of multiple fatality bombings has dropped considerably, testimony to the greater security brought by the surge.

There have been no kidnappings of foreign nationals—once a standard tactic for insurgents—for the last year. Attacks on Iraqi oil and gas personnel and installations (e.g. pipelines) have nearly disappeared. Measures of political and press freedoms have improved appreciably, more children are attending school, more judges are being trained. Quality-of-life indicators have improved. Gross domestic product is more than twice what it was before the war. There has been an explosion of telephone and Internet use, of independent media and car ownership.

Since the surge has succeeded, war opponents have redirected their criticism: The Iraqis, critics say, have made no progress on the political front, which was supposed to be the point of the surge. The Iraq Index authors, Michael O'Hanlon and Jason Campbell, don't agree; they see a glass half full. On a scale of 0-to-1, the authors give a score of 0.5 to six benchmark categories dealing with de-Baathification, amnesty, purging extremists from government, security-force hiring, distribution of federal funding to provinces and allocation of provincial powers. Progress on issues dealing with Kirkuk, a permanent hydrocarbons law and provincial elections scored zero. In other words, progress on political benchmarks totaled five out of a possible 11. Not bad when you consider it took America 11 years after its independence to set up a workable form of government in the Constitution.

This is not to say that Iraq isn't a violent, dangerous place. And, of course, serious problems remain, such as inflation and unemployment. But Iraq isn't the same place that it was a year ago, which is one change that Obama needs to recognize.

Instead of just talking about change, Obama should start showing how he will adapt to change and continue the progress that the Bush administration achieved in Iraq.

Dennis Byrne is a Chicago-area writer and consultant. He blogs at http://dennisbyrne.blogspot.com

 

It was worth it, and there's little evidence that Obama will be "careful" about surrendering Iraq to Iran and/or Al Qaeda.

 

Tough talks. Surrender is always tough.

Iran has said "NO" to anything anyone in the world has suggested to them, short of surrender.

 

Iran's economy is already turned to shit and the sanctions route is only making it worse. At some point, the people are going to rebel or the leadership will come begging on hands and knees for relief.

At the begging/hands&knees stage, I have no problem with talking to the Iranian government.

"Change" for change sake is absurdity. I think Obama's going overboard with the "everything's broken and needs to be changed" line of reasoning.

This is a perfect example of it.