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Monday, February 13, 2012
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On Monday, President Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq's al-Anbar province, where he touted recent progress. McClatchy reports the president left Washington Sunday "under the cloak of darkness and the guise that he was preparing to depart for an economic conference in Australia, and flew to Al Asad Air Base, a sprawling, heavily fortified American facility in Iraq's mostly Sunni Muslim Anbar province." Most of the reports on Bush's trip highlight his allusion to a possible troop withdrawal if the security situation continues to improve. The Los Angeles Times, under the headline "Bush Talks Of Withdrawals Without Timetable," says Bush "held out the possibility that some US troops might be withdrawn if security gains made in one part of the country can be spread to other areas." The Financial Times quotes the President saying, "General [David] Petraeus [top US commander in Iraq] and Ambassador [Ryan] Crocker tell me if the kind of success we are now seeing continues, it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces."
But generally, Bush's tour of Anbar is widely seen as an attempt to reshape the public's perception of his Iraq policy ahead of next week's much-anticipated Congressional testimony from Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, and the president himself did not discount that interpretation. The Washington Times titles its story "In Anbar, Bush Optimistic For Pullout," and reports, "Acknowledging that his comment about troop reductions may have stolen some thunder from Democrats, the president told reporters on Air Force One after he left Iraq: 'Maybe I was intending to do that.'" The Times adds, "Although he generally deplores hypothetical questions from reporters, the president yesterday allowed himself to indulge in a 'what if?' scenario. 'Now the situation has changed where I'm able to speculate on the hypothetical,' he said." The AP calls Bush's trip "a dramatic move to steal the thunder from the Democratic Congress," and notes that "virtually all of [Bush's] war advisers joined Bush in Iraq" -- including Secretaries Rice and Gates, as well as National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, "war czar" Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, Gen. Peter Pace and Adm. William Fallon, the top US commander in the Middle East -- in what the New York Times calls "an extraordinary gathering of top leaders in a war zone." The Times adds Bush's visit "had a clear political goal: to try to head off opponents' pressure for a withdrawal by hailing what he called recent successes in Iraq and by contending that only making Iraq stable would allow American forces to pull back." The Chicago Tribune runs a similar story under the headline "Bush Hints At Drawdown If Iraq Gains Continue."
The Financial Times reports National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley told reporters that "only last year al-Qaeda had controlled Ramadi, Anbar's capital, and many of the other big cities in the province." Kimberly Kagan, president of the Institute for the Study of War, writes in the Wall Street Journal that as Bush "pointed out during his surprise trip to Iraq, operations and events on the ground are already showing successes well beyond Baghdad in Anbar, Diyala and Salahaddin provinces -- formerly al Qaeda strongholds and hotbeds of the Sunni insurgency." Kagan adds, "The tide in Iraq is clearly turning, as the Iraqi people are voting with their lives to fight with us against terrorists and militias. Now is not the time to give up the fight."
The New York Times reports that "by summoning Mr. Maliki and other top officials to the Sunni heartland," Bush "succeeded in forcing a public display of unity." The AP notes Bush "spoke warmly about al-Maliki even while expressing frustration" over the slow pace of political progress. However, USA Today says "Bush's decision to visit Anbar instead of Baghdad was interpreted by some Iraqis in the capital as a slight to al-Maliki." The Washington Post reports in a front page article that Sunni tribal sheiks in Anbar province, "frustrated with the lack of basic services in the area, said before meeting Bush that they would press him for specific action," while "other sheiks said they saw Bush's visit as a celebration of the military's cooperation with former Sunni insurgents." Farhan Jassem, a sheik from the Dulaimi tribe, said Bush's visit to Anbar "is a strong message to the Maliki government in Baghdad and a rebuke to the Shiite opposition to arming the tribesmen to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq." Asked about Monday's meeting, Defense Secretary Gates told ABC World News that he is "more optimistic than I have been at any time since I took this job."
Biden Plan Gaining Favor With Bush? The Wall Street Journal reports that the Bush administration "is quietly moving toward a major shift in Iraq policy, driven by successes in formerly intractable insurgent strongholds combined with dispiriting failures at fostering national reconciliation." According to the Journal, the new policy "is a profound shift away from the Bush administration's original goal of building a multisectarian democracy," and "seems likely to lead to an Iraq with a very weak central government and largely self-governing and homogenous regions." Though administration officials aren't saying so, the new policy "looks similar to the 'soft partition' or federalism approach" advocated by Sen. Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Similarly, in an analysis, the AP says that Bush "symbolically underscored US impatience with the central government's political paralysis. And he highlighted his hope that progress at the local level...can provide the spark for political reconciliation at the national level." David Brooks, in his column for the New York Times, writes, "The big change in the debate has come about because the surge failed, and it failed in an unexpected way," explaining that while the plan called for creating stability at the central national government level and have it radiate outward, stability is being achieved at the local level and it is radiating inward.
Most Analysts Insist Surge Has Failed Several news analysis pieces and op-eds in today's major newspapers sharply disagree with Bush's assessment of his "surge" strategy. Under the headline "Troop Buildup Fails To Reconcile Iraq," the Los Angeles Times reports "the US military buildup that was supposed to calm Baghdad and other trouble spots has failed to usher in national reconciliation, as the capital's neighborhoods rupture even further along sectarian lines, violence shifts elsewhere and Iraq's government remains mired in political infighting." The Washington Post, in an above-the-fold, front-page story, reports, "Visits to key US bases and neighborhoods in and around Baghdad show that recent improvements are sometimes tenuous, temporary, even illusory." Eugene Robinson writes in the Washington Post that "the most fascinating aspect of...Bush's no-holds-barred campaign to keep Congress from meddling in his foolish and tragic war is the way he has begun invoking the Vietnam War. ... Thanks for the reminder, Mr. President. When you talk about 'victory' in Iraq and the Petraeus report discerns a light at the end of the tunnel, we'll think of Vietnam." On the other hand, Jeff Emanuel, director of the RedState.com and currently embedded in Iraq, has an op-ed in the Washington Times titled, "The Surge Is Working."
Democrats Said To Hope For "Bleak" Reports U.S. News and World Report notes this week reports on the situation in Iraq from the Government Accountability Office and an independent commission of military experts will provide the context for congressional hearings on Iraq. According to US News, Democrats "are hoping this flood of new appraisals will be so bleak that congressional Republicans will be forced to change course." USA Today reports September is when Democratic congressional leaders "hoped to break the political impasse over the war. They put off votes on the Pentagon's 2008 budget and on the administration's $147 billion war funding request for next year until September in the hopes of achieving the political consensus that so far has eluded them." But "if interviews with some of the 38 members of Congress who visited Iraq over the August break are any indication...the additional information may tend to reinforce opinions rather than change minds." Roll Call reports Democratic leaders "will use the first week back from recess to renew their calls to wind down the Iraq War, seizing on anticipated bleak reports on Iraqi political progress to pressure Republicans who have voted in lock step with...Bush."
Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times noted excerpts from journalist Robert Draper's new book, "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush," which describe President Bush "saying that he initially wanted to maintain the Iraqi army and, more surprising, that he cannot recall why his administration decided to disband it." Bush said, "The policy was to keep the army intact; didn't happen." Draper "pressed Bush to explain why, if he wanted to maintain the army, his chief administrator for Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, issued an order in May 2003 disbanding the 400,000-strong army without pay." Bush said, "Yeah, I can't remember; I'm sure I said, 'This is the policy, what happened?'"
Today, in a front-page article, the New York Times reports that Bremer supplied a series of letters to the Times regarding the dissolution of the Iraqi army "after reading that Mr. Bush was quoted in a new book as saying that American policy had been 'to keep the army intact' but that it 'didn't happen.'" According to the Times, on May 20, 2003, Bremer wrote to former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Bush, "We must make it clear to everyone that we mean business: that Saddam and the Baathists are finished." Bremer went on to describe "efforts to remove members of the Baath Party...from civilian agencies," and said he would "'parallel this step with an even more robust measure' to dismantle the Iraq military." The Times notes that in the Draper book, Bush "sounded as if he had been taken aback by the decision." In a telephone interview with the Times, Bremer "indicated that he had been smoldering for months as other administration officials had distanced themselves from his order. 'This didn't just pop out of my head,' he said."
The Washington Post reports this morning that "many in the Arab world are convinced that the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 was not the work of Arab terrorists but was a controlled demolition; that 4,000 Jews working there had been warned to stay home that day; and that the Pentagon was struck by a missile rather than a plane." A report last year by the Pew Global Attitudes Project "found that the number of Muslims worldwide who do not believe that Arabs carried out the Sept. 11 attacks is soaring -- to 59 percent of Turks and Egyptians, 65 percent of Indonesians, 53 percent of Jordanians, 41 percent of Pakistanis and even 56 percent of British Muslims."
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Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama began to campaign in earnest this weekend as the nation marked the unofficial commencement of the presidential race on Labor Day. The big theme: Is Clinton an experienced insider who brings unique knowledge to the presidency or is she part of a moribund inside-the-beltway establishment? Speaking across Iowa yesterday, with former President Bill Clinton warming up the crowds, Clinton focused on her experience. The AP reports that in a stop in Sioux City, Iowa, yesterday, Clinton "courted labor activists with a sharply populist theme, making the argument that the party must focus on results, not rhetoric, and that she's the candidate best able to change the nation's course." Drawing "a clear distinction with her Democratic rivals," Clinton "brought her former president husband along for a Labor Day swing underscoring her experience." Clinton said "she would hit the ground running, acting even before sworn into office." The Des Moines Register reports Hillary Clinton "tried during a Labor Day swing through Iowa today to tamp down criticisms that she cannot win a general election and is too connected inside Washington, D.C., to usher in change." Former President Bill Clinton "stressed in introducing the senator that Democrats must choose whom they feel is best experienced in order to bring about change in the nation's economic, foreign policy and national security policies."
NBC Nightly News reported, "Hillary Clinton also before a labor audience in Iowa said she had the experience to bring change, both in Iraq and here at home. And who better to back up that message than her husband, who she brought from New Hampshire to Iowa today to help drive that point home." Bill Clinton, former president of the United States: "She is, including me in 1992, the best qualified, best prepared, most suited for the times person I ever had a chance to vote for in a presidential primary."
However, campaigning in New Hampshire yesterday, Obama made it clear that he sees Clinton's experience as a decided negative. The AP reports Obama on Monday "sharpened his critique of lead rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, warning against a return to 'divisive, special interest politics' that had demoralized the country even before President Bush took office." At a Labor Day rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, Obama said, "As bad as this administration has been, it's going to take more than just a change in parties to truly turn this country around." The AP adds, "Without mentioning Clinton by name, Obama struck back hard at that argument." Obama said, "There are those who tout their experience working the system in Washington. But the problem is the system in Washington isn't working for us, and it hasn't been for a very long time." The Washington Post reports with the "unofficial start of the primary season this weekend, Obama sought to sharpen the distinctions between his campaign and that of" Clinton, "taking swipes at the Washington establishment and the 'cynical math' that he implied other candidates are using to calculate a narrow victory rather than a broad consensus." If the "Milford parade several hours later was a snapshot of how Obama is faring, it bodes well. He drew by far the loudest and most boisterous group of supporters, who became so enthusiastic about marching that they started down the road ahead of schedule -- and were then banished by organizers to the back of the parade line."
ABC World News showed Obama saying: "I might not have the experience Washington likes but I believe I have the experience America needs right now." Fox News' Special Report reported Obama "drew 1,000 people to a Manchester, NH rally where he slammed Hillary Clinton as a Washington insider incapable of change." Obama: "There are those who tout their experience working the system in Washington. But the problem is that the system in Washington isn't working for us. And it hasn't been for a very long time." Fox said Obama portrayed Clinton as "little more than a party hack."
The AP reports John Edwards "won the endorsement of the United Steelworkers and the United Mine Workers of America as more than 1,000 union members cheered the Democratic presidential candidate." Speaking at a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Labor Day rally and parade, Edwards said, "America was not built on Wall Street. America was built by steelworkers and mine workers." The AP adds, "Wearing union T-shirts and carrying signs that urged an end to the war in Iraq, the crowd booed heartily when UMW President Cecil Roberts brought up the name of President Bush. Roberts said Bush is to blame for many good-paying U.S. jobs going overseas."
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports Edwards "ignored the rising temperatures, smiling and sweating under a blue jacket that allowed him to show off the emblems of the United Steelworkers and the United Mine Workers, and with them, the twin endorsements that gave a Labor Day shot of adrenaline to his campaign for the Democratic nomination for president." The Washington Post reports the rally "was what Edwards hopes will deliver a boost to a campaign that has struggled to keep pace in summer fundraising and polls."
The CBS Evening News reported, "Perfect timing for Democrat John Edwards. On the holiday celebrating America's workers, Edwards won endorsements from the United Mine Workers and the United Steel Workers." Edwards: "America was built by men and women who were steel workers, who were mine workers, who went out and worked with their backs and with their hands, and made this country what it is today." NBC Nightly News reported, "For John Edwards this Labor Day, the focus was on labor unions. And the two big endorsements he picked up. The United Steel Workers and United Mine Workers of America. Together, nearly 2 million members strong. But his happy demeanor turned critical quickly when he heard of the President's surprise trip to Iraq calling it nothing short of another mission accomplished photo-op."
The Washington Post, noting that Sen. John McCain is "now, as he was in 1999, an underdog," reports that the '08 GOP hopeful "spent Labor Day slogging it out, making his case for the Republican nomination by shaking hands with voters one at a time in tiny towns dotting western Iowa. ... Five months ago, McCain launched what was planned as a mega-campaign with a flashy tour of Iowa, kicking off a months-long spending spree that left his operation broke. His support for the war and for an unpopular immigration bill in Congress has left him in fifth place here." However, McCain is not giving up on Iowa, as The Post adds that he will be back next week "for the launch of what he is calling the No Surrender Tour, highlighting his support for the war in advance of the Senate's debate over progress in Iraq."
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Bill Richardson's presidential campaign has been struggling for attention despite his impressive resume. In comments that are likely to generate a great deal of coverage in coming days, Richardson suggested yesterday that God wants Iowa to hold the leadoff presidential nominating contest. The Des Moines Register reported on its website, "God's will is for Iowa to have the first-in-the-nation caucus," Richardson told a rally in Sioux City, IA on Monday. Speaking at the Northwest Iowa Labor Council Picnic, Richardson said, "Iowa, for good reason, for constitutional reasons, for reasons related to the Lord should be the first caucus and primary. And I want you to know who was the first candidate to sign a pledge not to campaign anywhere if they got ahead of Iowa. It was Bill Richardson." The Register noted, "Several people in the crowd snickered after Richardson made the comment. 'That was a little weird,' said Sioux City resident Joe Shufro. 'I don't know what God had to do with choosing Iowa among other states. I found that a little strange.'"
Idaho Sen. Larry Craig (R) ended a turbulent week on Saturday by announcing that he would resign his seat on September 30. Speculation inside the beltway and in Idaho immediately turned to his likely replacement. For example, the DC-insider publication Roll Call reports this morning that Idaho Gov. Butch Otter (R) has yet to name a replacement for Craig. Otter's spokesman "said Monday that no announcement was imminent. Idaho is considered solid GOP territory." But "Republican insiders based in the Gem State said Otter, a former House member, was choosing from among Lt. Gov. Jim Risch (R) -- who already has said he would run for Senate if Craig retired, and was seen as the heavy favorite to be tapped by the governor -- Rep. Mike Simpson (R) and state Sen. Brad Little (R)."
The Democrats believe they have a shot at the seat in the wake of Craig's resignation, despite the state's heavy GOP leaning. The Hill reports that less than an hour after Craig announced his resignations, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chief Sen. Charles Schumer said, "Democrats can win in Idaho, and we intend to run a competitive race." Ex-Rep. Larry LaRocco is the leading Democratic hopeful.
Blogger Threatens To "Out" More Republicans Meanwhile, the worst may not be over for the GOP. The Washington Post this morning profiles blogger Mike Rogers, who first posted allegations that Sen. Larry Craig is gay last fall. For the last three years now, Rogers has been a "feared one-man machine, 'outing,' he says, nearly three dozen senior political and congressional staffers, White House aides and, most damagingly, Congress members on his blog. ... In Rogers's mind, if you're against gay rights in your public life and you live a secret homosexual life, all bets are off. In 2004, one of the first public officials he targeted was then-Virginia congressman Ed Schrock because of his voting record on such issues as gays in the military, same-sex marriage and gay adoption." Schrock "decided not to run for reelection because of the rumors." In 2005, Rogers wrote about former Rep. Mark Foley "months before his inappropriate instant-messages to male congressional pages became public and he was forced to resign." According to the Post, "In the coming months, he plans to post the names of 'a few more' closeted Congress members on his blog, he says, all of them Republicans."
Virginia Sen. John Warner's (R) announcement last week that he will not seek another term has set the stage for a Senate contest that will likely draw significant national attention. On the Democratic side, many expect former Gov. Mark Warner to be the standard bearer. On ABC's This Week on Sunday, Democratic Senate campaign chief Chuck Schumer touted his likely candidate, saying, "Mark Warner is an outstanding man. I've gotten to know him and spend some time with him recently. He's just exemplary. And yes, he'd be our strongest candidate. We hope he will run. But I have no idea whether he will. He's talking it over with his family, his confidants, his friends. And we'll see what happens."
On the GOP side, former Gov. Jim Gilmore and Rep. Tom Davis are seen as the most likely candidates. Roll Call reports Warner's retirement "sets up an all-but-certain GOP battle between" Davis and Gilmore, which has state Republicans "bracing for a nasty nomination fight." State Republicans "can opt for a primary or convention and the 82-member state GOP central committee will meet in October to vote on the method." A primary "would favor Davis, who already had more than $1 million in the bank at the end of June and has a base in vote-rich Northern Virginia," while "a convention, a smaller forum dominated by social conservatives and party activists, would seemingly heavily favor Gilmore."
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Jay Leno: "President Bush was going to give the White House staff the day off for Labor Day, but then he realized that everybody resigned."
Jay Leno: "In fact, today was Karl Rove's last day at the White House. Yeah. See, he wanted to wait until everything was just perfect before he left, you know. You don't want to leave the country in a mess."
Jay Leno: "Idaho Senator Larry Craig getting a lot of criticism from his fellow members of the GOP, which, of course, as you know, stands for 'Gay Old Party.'"
David Letterman: "Top Ten Signs You Have a Bad Job: 9. Each day, you have to find new way of saying, '29% is a wonderful approval rating, Mr. President.'"
Jimmy Kimmel: "Today was the last day at the White House for the man known as President Bush's brain, Karl Rove, so President Bush now is officially brainless."
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