White House Week
New Faces, a New Plan, as Bush Nears His Endgame
President Bush shook up his administration last week, putting in place the lead elements of a new team to deal with military and diplomatic policy in Iraq-and even with Congress. The changes carried the feel of a president knowing that as he describes new policy, new faces will be needed to carry it out. First to move was John Negroponte, the first director of national intelligence. He'll take charge of Iraq policy as a deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. On the military side, Bush will replace Gen. John Abizaid, who commanded U.S. forces in the Middle East, and Gen. George Casey, the top general in Iraq. Abizaid had planned to retire in March. Taking his post will be Adm. William Fallon, the chief U.S. commander in the Pacific, and Casey will be replaced by Gen. David Petraeus, who had been in charge of training Iraqi security forces. On the home front, Bush will be replacing White House counsel Harriet Miers as he girds for investigations by the new Democratic Congress.
So Now We're All Fiscal Conservatives
Democrats saw chicanery, but Republicans smelled political reality in President Bush's announcement last week that he will seek a balanced budget in five years and an end to pork-barrel politics. Bush, after all, had taken a budget of surplus and turned it into one of deficit, but now he seemed to be adopting the new Democratic majority's fiscal pledges. Insiders at the White House spun it a different way: They said the president had hoped to push for deeper tax cuts in the next and future budgets, but the election of Democratic majorities in the House and Senate killed those plans. Now, they said, the president will submit a budget for fiscal 2008 that will leave little room for new Democratic add-ons without deeply cutting into defense spending or raising taxes.
The Give-Him-Enough-Rope Strategy
With his big speech on Iraq expected this week, President Bush's strategists say he has a lot more latitude in setting a new policy than his antiwar critics realize-at least for the next few months. "The Democrats are going to be in a real bind," says a Republican insider with close ties to the White House. "The president will come out with a strong plan to get order in Baghdad, and if the Democrats do anything to undermine or block it, it will look to Americans as though they wouldn't give his plan a chance." The strategist predicts that "their tendency will be to give the president a free hand and blame him if doesn't work." This could be a clever political gambit, but it also would give Bush one more chance to get things right in Iraq. Says one Bush aide: "The White House now feels that urgency."
For Those Who Predicted His Demise...
He is showing no signs of leaving, as some had predicted. Indeed, White House political guru Karl Rove is as aggressive as ever in making policy arguments-his main theme being that Republicans lost the congressional elections because they didn't sufficiently live up to their core conservative ideals. And his influence is still pervasive, sources say. For instance, GOP insiders suspect that Rove had a big hand in distancing Bush from the Iraq Study Group because he believed the bipartisan panel was too critical of current Iraq policy. Rove, aides say, believes that victory is still achievable and that Bush should pursue it as vigorously as he can.
PHOTO OP: 9:47 a.m., January 5, the Roosevelt Room
He had served in the new post of director of national intelligence only two years, hardly enough time to unify the nation's 16 disparate spy agencies. But last week John Negroponte was moving on to direct Iraq policy at the State Department. His replacement, President Bush announced, would be retired Navy Vice Adm. Michael McConnell (right).
With Kenneth T. Walsh, Paul Bedard and Anna Mulrine
This story appears in the January 15, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.