Several more years of loosing 60 Americans a month - not to mention
probably another 300 billion?
.... and that brings us up to the mid-term elections, where the voters
get their say...
Nice to see the Rebpulicans are starting to fear re-election.
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Republican senators challenge Bush's Iraq optimism
By Tim AhmannSun Jun 19, 3:09 PM ET
President Bush needs to tell Americans the nation faces "a long, hard
slog" in Iraq, a key Republican senator said on Sunday, and another said
the White House was "disconnected from reality" in its optimism over the
war.
"Too often we've been told and the American people have been told that
we're at a turning point," Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record),
an Arizona Republican, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "What the
American people should have been told and should be told ... (is that)
it's long; it's hard; it's tough."
"It's going to be at least a couple more years," said McCain, a member
of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record), a Nebraska Republican, was
quoted by U.S. News and World Report as saying the administration's Iraq
policy was failing.
"Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is
completely disconnected from reality," said Hagel, a member of the
Foreign Relations Committee. "It's like they're just making it up as
they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."
The two senators' remarks came as the Bush administration makes a push
to counter growing U.S. public impatience with the Iraq war, and to
resist demands by some lawmakers to set a date for withdrawal of U.S.
forces.
U.S. public polls show the Iraq war is losing support and hurting Bush's
popularity. While Vice President ***** Cheney has asserted the insurgency
is in its "last throes," a suicide bombing in Baghdad on Sunday that
killed at least 23 people underscored the unabated bloodshed.
Iraq's al Qaeda group claimed the bombing and said U.S. forces were
doomed to failure.
CUT AND RUN
Although there are some hopeful signs in Iraq, Cheney's characterization
was inaccurate, McCain said.
"I don't think Americans believe that we should cut and run out of Iraq
by any stretch of the imagination," he said. "But I think they also
would like to be told, in reality, what's going on," he said.
Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd (news, bio, voting record) of
Connecticut, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said on "This
Week" on ABC, "It's important the administration quit trying to pretend
everything is going very well here. It's not."
CIA Director Porter Goss, however, said Cheney's assessment was not too
far off-mark.
"I think they're not quite in the last throes, but I think they are very
close to it," Goss told Time magazine in an interview. The emergence of
an Iraqi government shows the insurgents are "unwanted," he said.
Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record) of Delaware, the top
Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Goss' statement
did not comport with what he heard on a recent visit to Iraq.
"I wish Porter Goss would speak to his intelligence people on the
ground," Biden said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
"They didn't suggest at all it was near its last throes. Matter of fact
it's getting worse, not better," Biden said.
Bush said Iraq presented a "vital test" for American security. "The
mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight," he said
on Saturday in his weekly radio address.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said any withdrawal of U.S. troops
would depend on Iraq's ability to handle its own security, and said
events were moving in the right direction.
"The security forces of Iraq are getting better. We're making progress,
making steady progress. They're not yet ready but they are taking over
every day more and more of what the coalition has done. And that will
mean that there is less need for coalition forces," she told "Fox News
Sunday."
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