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Bush: Pace of Withdrawal from Iraq May Have to Slow
In a development that could have an impact on the US presidential race, President George Bush said yesterday that the US could slow the pace of troop withdrawals from Iraq if commanders on the ground considered it necessary.
Mr Bush, speaking in Kuwait after meeting General David Petraeus, the senior US commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the American ambassador in Baghdad, said further reductions this year, beyond the 30,000 already announced, would depend on what the general recommended. He and Mr Crocker are due to report to Congress in March.
"My attitude is, if he [Gen Petraeus] didn't want to continue the drawdown, that's fine with me, in order to make sure we succeed," Mr Bush said after the meeting. "I said to the general, 'If you want to slow her down, fine. It's up to you.'" But in an election year, such a proposal could have a tough time in Congress. Iraq is the main reason for Mr Bush's record unpopularity in the polls, and Democrats have been pushing hard, so far unsuccessfully, for faster and deeper troop cuts.
In the past week, 5,000 US and Iraqi troops have launched an offensive to clear al-Qa'ida militants from Diyala province, north of Baghdad, which the research group Iraq Body Count says is now the most violent in Iraq. But military experts have warned that pacifying Diyala, with a mixed population of Sunnis, Shias and Kurds, will be far more difficult than in Anbar - the success story of the "surge" - which is almost exclusively Sunni. Yesterday, however, the Iraqi parliament finally adopted a measure long urged by the US, aimed at reversing one of the main causes of Sunni resentment: the sacking of Baath party members from all government jobs. The way has now been cleared to reinstate them.
Mr Bush is touring Arab states to seek support for his new Middle East peace effort. One of his main tasks is to try and persuade hitherto reluctant Arab states to put political as well as financial support behind Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during the negotiating process with Israel over the next year. Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, have been slow to give full backing to a process that entirely excludes Hamas, which seized full internal control of Gaza over six months ago.
The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, implicitly acknowledged the skepticism, saying she did not expect the Arab states to have a "blinding flash" in favour of it on this trip, but hoped their endorsement would come "over time".
Gulf states have shown equal lack of enthusiasm for another of Mr Bush's preoccupations: banging the drum against Iran, which he mentioned four times in his 15-minute statement after the Petraeus-Crocker meeting. Local reports said Kuwait's emir would tell Mr Bush of his concerns that a US strike on Iran would destabilize the Gulf, which is the key to world oil supplies.
A senior Omani official stressed that the members of the Gulf Co-Operation Council were seeking a negotiated solution to the crisis with Iran over its nuclear ambitions, and did not see why a country should be prevented from obtaining nuclear-generated electricity under UN supervision.
"We have excellent relations with Iran. We don't see a threat from Iran's nuclear programme and we are their next-door neighbor," the official told The Independent on Sunday. He also played down Iran's threat to close down the Strait of Hormuz in the case of a possible armed confrontation with the US, pointing out that the Iranians "would also suffer from the closure of Hormuz".
But the Gulf states believe that "we must stand firm against military intervention," the official said.
© 2008 Independent.co.uk
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19 Comments so far
Show AllHow can anyone look at this man and think "That's the man I want as president! Gore and Kerry couldn't have done a better job. He brings honor and dignity to the white house."
ARE WE LOOKING AT THE SAME GUY? This guy looks like he would ask if an instruction manual comes with a basketball.
a puppet.
This ASSHOLE, has never had any intentions of ever leaving Iraq. I doubt that any of those that are running to replace the ASSHOLE, have any intentions of leaving either. So what does that make the next president. All together now.....
:)
We would lose the Hormuz channel if we started that off. Does this idiot even think at all? Betrayus is a pudge hole licker. The general should sell chicken.
"Mr Bush is [torturing] Arab states to seek support for his new Middle East peace effort. One of his main tasks is to try and persuade hitherto reluctant Arab states to put political as well as financial support behind Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during the negotiating process with Israel over the next year."
Like that isn't a joke.
"Gee, we can't leave now, my buddies haven't got all that oil yet! "And don't forget, commondreamers, the American way of life (wastefulness and war profiteering) is NOT negotiable.
What - 4,000 of ours dead and 100,000 of theirs dead (oh I forgot - Tommy said, "We don't do body counts.") isn't enough of a population reduction?
It should be an embarrassment to this administration, and certainly every single person in this nation, that a country of 300 million invades a country of 15 million to install a Coca Cola democracy and has failed so miserably after so long. You're beginning to hear about their "final solution" (sounds like Nazi Germany, eh?)...Preemptive Nuclear Strikes....
Can't you just hear the morning mantra in the pentagon:
"Nuke Their Ass and Take The Gas!"
@donnny January 27th, 2008 5:51 pm
There have only been two estimates of the Iraqi death toll. One was by the Lancet,
which is one of the worlds most highly regarded medical association, which used best practice statistical techniques. It estimated about 1 million dead about mid last year. The other estimated 1.3 million a little later.
The number you quoted probably originated from the Iraq Body Count (IBC). While there work may be admirable, it is not an estimate, but a count. They count each death that is reported in at least two western media organs. It is impossible to dispute, because each death is documented. Of course, most deaths go unreported in our media. The real figure is of course much higher.
Politicians and media organs that quote the IBC as an estimate of the Iraqi dead are either dishonest, or ignorant.
Of course the deaths are not all you could count as a measure of destruction. You
might count 5 million refugees.
How? This warmonger has already sold all his subjects and their children into economic slavery.
Bush says, ___ "My attitude is, if General Petraues didn't want to continue the drawdown, that's fine with me." __ What a load of pure crap. General Petraues does EXACTLY what Cheney and Bush tell him to do and what to say and he does it. __ Exactly!
And while we have troops over there, in any capacity, military or Blackwater, the deaths will continue. How did this country manage to ever survive, with NO embassy in Iraq? That Green Zone monstrosity is just another way to have Halliburton make billions in profits and pass some of that on to Cheney and Bush. Why everyone in our country, down to the eight grade level, cannot see that is beyond belief.
Somehow the look on his face telegraphs desperation. Where has his "base" of "haves and have more" gone? Indeed, where is God in his time of need? Is Laura whuppin him? Does he wonder about his "legacy"? Is there anything he can point to as a success other than his tax cut for the rich? I cannot wait to see what kind of a spin he can put on the state of the union in his upcoming speech. How do you put a good face on this mess?
As I watch him struggle to read sentences he could not possibly have written I actually feel sorry for him, because he's dim enough not to have grasped the level at which he has been little more than a prop for some very evil people. But it will be his face and name that are id'd with this godawful period as long as there's something called "history", and it looks as if that will be a very long time.
KEM - Wouldn't one have to be a total idiot to venture even one big toe onto Iraqi soil, regardless of the tremendous spoils of war? With depleted uranium everywhere, it would be a gamble far greater than Russian roulette. Obviously, Blackwater, KBR, Halliburton, US Military, etc. do not read Common Dreams, but do they not have anyone even warning them about the very dangers they are causing? It would be a cosmic and karmic irony if they were to die by their own hands, their own toxic demise. I'm just deeply saddened for the millions of Iraqis who never asked for any of this. Satya
George Bush should be arrested for the murder of Saddam Hussein along with his Daddy and Clinton. Saddam being a man at this point in time that appears more like a victim of circumstances when compared to the evil that personifies George Bush & Company!
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: Leave Iraq before every barrel of oil is drained out of her. Then MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
Hi~Satya~ That is correct, since you brought up the DU issue, and justafiably so, I will offer just one link that fairly well explains what inhaling DU does to people.
Actually, we have killed almost everyone over there. It just usually takes a long time for most people to die from radiation poisoning. Then they die from cancer or some other disease caused from inhaling DU and the root cause of their death is never known. DU readings in downtown Baghdad, are over 2,000 times normal background readings. Any reading of DU above normal background is abnormal, 20 times above is scary.
http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/background.htm
Geroge, Please come to Vermont. Oh, and bring Dick!
just another six months.
Don't bet on it.
YES, Bush is doing what he's told, he's PUPPET; else he would not have been made the president. They needed someone they could easily puppet; the real and hidden ruling elites did.
I'm not sure if it's related, but maybe Cheney's refusal to be chosen to run for the presidency might well be related. If I'm guessing this correctly, then he wants someone to hide behind while he's actually the real president; a part of his "art of deception" techniques.
NO? Maybe not, but I won't be forgetting that hunch and will just wait to see if the future provides any further helpful clues, the kind to make my hunch stronger than it presently is.
I have a questioning mind, and to suspect politicians of these wicked kind; oh, I guess we can say that it's instinctive or second-nature for me to do this. I don't trust such jerks as far I could throw a 12lb sledgehammer (not that I've tried doing that though, so maybe I'd need to find a heavier object).
" donnny January 27th, 2008 5:51 pm
What - 4,000 of ours dead and 100,000 of theirs dead (oh I forgot - Tommy said, "We don't do body counts.") isn't enough of a population reduction?""
100,000 is NOT skipping death toll counting for Iraqis, but it's surely far fewer than the real number of Iraqis who've been killed; really murdered, and MASSACRED. And that's not counting the injured and severely injured, and children being born radiologically poisoned, Iraqis dying from the diseases that are caused by the "West's" flagrant refusal to restore necessary infrastructure, etc. Well, actually, what was reported via The Lancet does account for not all Iraqis killed, but them plus other 'excess deaths' caused by this war, so the total of all 'excess deaths'. But 100,000 must surely be much lower than those who were killed; and if it's close enough to what the real number is, then the total of all 'excess deaths' is the number that we should use, for all of these deaths are due to THIS F*CKING WAR.
The more credible numbers are in the half-million to over one million, SO FAR; the war's not over yet, and many Iraqis are still be killed, murdered, every week.
100,000 is higher than the number that I read in a very recent article which stated the IBC, Iraq Body Count, tally, which IBC clearly says (at its website) is the number arrived at by calculating the total of all of the numbers IBC found in regular news media; not articles referring to the very careful, peer-reviewed, thorough accounting, etc., study reported through The Lancet, f.e.
The latter report's methodology has been very clearly explained, and has been fully supported by the U.S., U.K., ... before this war on Iraq. Some UK govt official, a senior scientist and very respected one, sides with the report via The Lancet, saying it's about the highest quality study that we can have in an ongoing war context; although that's not quoting him, so to know his actual words will require some Web searching for the interested, unless someone else posts a link after this post, or if a link was already provided in one of the above posts.
100,000 most surely is serious underreporting of what the reality must be in Iraq.
Bush might continue to say around 30,000 have been killed, or maybe he could muster up enough courage to added a few thousand to that number, which he stated I believe around a year ago or so.
In the Vietnam War, it's believed by [respectable] analysts that the U.S. killed around 2MN Vietnamese, total, and I believe it's the number killed immediately during the war. That war lasted a total of around 10 years or so, and the Iraq War is now five years since the initial [official] launch (really launched and covertly as of Spring 2002); and the warfare applied to Iraq has been, I believe anyway, much more intense with the bombers and gunships.
Using that reasoning, I figure that 1MN Iraqis killed so far and due to this present war, so excluding the 1MN to 1.5MN killed due to the 1991-2003 criminal sanctions, is not difficult to believe.