White House Week
Is It Possible to Lose Even More Control Over Iraq?
Iraq's restoration of diplomatic relations with Syria could be good news, if Syria seals its porous border with Iraq to stop passage of foreign fighters. But the word of Syria's engagement, as well as a scheduled trip by the Iraqi president to Iran, handed the White House a dilemma. Democrats and Republicans-and Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair-have urged President Bush to bring Syria, Iran, and Turkey to the table to work toward a diplomatic solution to the war. And some think the Iraq Study Group headed by James Baker and Lee Hamilton will suggest just that. Yet if the new overtures show anything, analysts say, it's that the United States doesn't have unilateral influence over Iraq-if it ever did. And while some at the State Department fretted that the United States had lost control of this vital diplomacy, there were no signs that Bush was willing to talk to Syria and Iran-the one believed to be fueling the insurgency and the other said to be a member of the "axis of evil."
The Battle for Middle Earth, in Politics
Democratic pollster Geoff Garin is one of the many analysts who argue that independents now hold the balance of power in American politics-as seen in the midterm election when independents and centrists rebuked the GOP for its courting of conservatives. Garin says a quarter of the electorate on November 7 consisted of independents and 59 percent of them voted for Democrats-the best the Democrats have done with that group in a decade. Contrary to the White House's strategy to appeal to the GOP's conservative base, Garin says, "the center still matters in American politics."
Hell Hath No Fury Like a Solon Scorned
Congressional Republicans are still seething over the timing of Donald Rumsfeld's ouster as defense secretary on the day after the November 7 elections-and the bitterness could hurt White House efforts to win approval for its legislative agenda next year. If President Bush had forced the resignation a few weeks earlier, say disgruntled Republicans, the move might have "saved" two or more GOP seats in the Senate, keeping it under GOP control, and reduced the Democrats' margin in the House. "The White House doesn't understand how livid the House and Senate Republicans are," says a senior Republican. "They feel they don't owe Bush and these SOBs in the White House anything. And they're not going to go out of their way to help the White House anymore." GOP legislators think Bush held on to Rumsfeld to maintain his image of resolve and strength, a position one source branded as "selfish."
The More Spooks the Merrier
The latest recruiting figures out of the CIA show the agency is making rapid progress toward its goal of a 50 percent expansion by 2011-a goal mandated by the White House in 2004. Nearly 40 percent of the CIA's current workforce began work after 9/11-and 1 in 7 CIA employees has joined in just the past year, agency officials say. The CIA took in a record 135,000 rÃÂÃÂÃÂésumÃÂÃÂÃÂés in the fiscal year ending in September. That's more than double the 63,000 it received in 2001. The growth in hiring is the CIA's most rapid since its inception almost 60 years ago, according to agency officials. Sources say about 20,000 people work out of its Virginia headquarters and at CIA "stations" worldwide.
PHOTO OP: 7:45 a.m., November 21, Hickam Air Force Base, Honolulu
With President Bush at the podium, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shares a laugh with troops at a breakfast in Hawaii. Bush thanked the service personnel for working for peace but also used the occasion to condemn the killing of Lebanese Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel and to accuse Syria and Iran of fomenting instability in Lebanon.
With Kenneth T. Walsh and David E. Kaplan
This story appears in the December 4, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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