Iraq – Page 12 – Hank Kalet

No compromises!

Democratic congressional leaders on Friday offered their first major concessions in a fight with President Bush over a spending bill for Iraq, but the White House turned them down.

In a closed-door meeting with Bush’s top aides on Capitol Hill, Democrats said they’d strip billions of dollars in domestic spending out of a war spending that Bush opposed if the president would accept a timetable to pull combat troops out of Iraq. As part of the deal, Democrats said they would allow the president to waive compliance with a deadline for troop withdrawals.

But no agreement was struck.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog

E-mail me by clicking here

Live from Iraq

Great piece of reporting and analysis on Iraq by Patrick Cockburn — not the kind of thing the so-called big boys (NY Times, Washington Post) tend to run.

Eric Alterman describes Cockburn this way:

The Middle Eastern correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, he’s been on the spot from the moment when, in February 2003, he secretly crossed the Tigris River into Iraq just before the Bush administration launched its invasion. Often, he’s to be found in the most dangerous place around, completely
unembedded, ready to record the unraveling of Iraq under the pressure of American invasion and occupation.

Gives you a real sense of this mission’s inevitable failure.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog

E-mail me by clicking here.

Bring ’em home

The Record memorializes another soldier killed in Iraq — reminding us along the way that each death demands our attention and strengthens the case for bringing the troops home:

The longer the war continues, and the more towns that are draped in mourning, as
Lodi is, the louder will be the call to end the war and bring the troops home.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog

E-mail me by clicking here.

An expert on what doesn’t work

Hey, the president says the Democrats’ plan for funding the Iraq War “won’t work” — and perhaps we should take him seriously. After all, as my colleague John Saccenti points out, if anyone knows what won’t work in Iraq it is President Bush. “He’s an expert in what doesn’t work.”

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog

E-mail me by clicking here.

Closer to home?

I’d like to believe this will accelerate the return of American troops from Iraq — after all, presidents who lose support from their own party tend to fade ito irrelevency (Nixon resigned when it became clear that Republicans were not going to stand in the way of impeachment). But the this president lives in his own bubble, so no one should expect a change of direction from him.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Cranbury Press Blog

E-mail me by clicking here.