Stand Off

Car bomb kills 9 U.S. troops in Iraq
By HAMID AHMED, Associated Press Writer 19 minutes ago
BAGHDAD - An al-Qaida-linked group posted a Web statement Tuesday claiming responsibility for a suicide car bombing that killed nine U.S. paratroopers and wounded 20 in the worst attack on American ground forces in in more than a year.
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Harry Reid
Today, our House and Senate Conference Committee is meeting to hammer out the details of the bill that we will send to President Bush.
This plan is a strategy for success. President Bush's response has not been to rebut our plan on the merits, but rather to attack us for developing a new plan. And in an all too familiar tactic, he has deployed the Vice President as chief attack dog.
This is the same Vice President who said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction -- that we would be greeted as liberators -- and that we know Saddam Hussein had links to al Qaeda. To suggest he lacks credibility would be an understatement.
The Vice President demeans himself and diminishes his office by offering wildly irresponsible and inaccurate attacks on us and our strategy. He seems more interested in sound bites than sound policy - and his record shows it.
You deserve to know the facts:
First, our strategy is a responsible, strategically-driven redeployment, not a precipitous withdrawal. Troops in harm's way will always have the resources to do the mission their leaders ask of them.
Second, it ensures that Al Qaeda remains on the run, addresses refugee and humanitarian crises, and launches the diplomatic and political "surges" necessary to prevent regional instability.
It allows us to provide the longer-term investments in the political solutions that are needed in Iraq. It prevents the jihadists from being able to claim victory over America, and begins to restore America's prestige, power and influence in the region.
In the supplemental spending bill, we are sending the Administration a strong message that the American people want a new direction. Nonetheless, I understand the restlessness that some feel. Many who voted for change in November anticipated dramatic and immediate results in January.
But like it or not, George W. Bush is still the commander in chief - and this is his war.
We have made tremendous progress this year, but it has come with a slim majority of 51 in a body that requires 60 to do business.
That means every step forward has required the cooperation of Republicans who are willing to put partisanship aside.
But there have only been a few of them - and every day we hope to find a few more by forcing them to make the choice of sticking with an isolated president or standing on the side of the American people.
As long as the President remains obstinate and his Republican allies stick with him, we will continue to face an uphill climb. But the American people deserve to know that we hear them and we're standing up for them. The president has had a long time to dig the ditch we're in, but we're working very hard every day to dig out of that ditch.
The Iraq supplemental bill is only one step in that process, and we have used our new majority to change course at every opportunity.
We passed the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission in two months, something the previous Congress couldn't do in more than two years.
After five years of silence from Congress, Iraq is now openly debated on the Senate floor and as a result, bipartisan majorities supported two resolutions expressing our determined opposition to the President's war policy.
And we have finally administered real oversight. The founders mandated checks and balances in our Constitution for good reason, but until this year, Congress gave the president a rubber stamp and a blank check.
As Thomas Ricks wrote in his book Fiasco, a searing indictment of the Iraq war, "There were many failures in the American system that led to the war, but the failures in Congress were at once perhaps the most important and the least noticed."
No more will Congress turn a blind eye to the Bush Administration's incompetence and dishonesty.
We have already held more than 50 hearings on Iraq, we have already exposed the false and misleading evidence the administration sold the world and the American people as it swaggered toward war.
We may not be able to prevent President Bush from vetoing our supplemental bill, but we can and will keep trying to change his mind.
What a shame that after five and a half years, so many lost lives and so much treasure depleted, President Bush hasn't budged from the shoot-first, talk-never style that one national magazine described as "cowboy diplomacy" -- that got us into this mess in the first place..
Winning this war is no longer the job of the American military. Our courageous troops have done everything asked of them and more. They routed the Iraqi military, captured Baghdad in days, deposed and then captured the dictator.
The failure has been political. It has been policy. It has been presidential.
The president has dug in his heels in this fight, but it doesn't have to be that way. Only through accommodation, on both sides, and some degree of compromise, can we make progress.
We are anxious to have that conversation, but so far the President is not. Democrats are reaching out to Republicans in Congress in hopes of bipartisan cooperation.
Only the President is the odd man out, and he is making the task even harder by demanding absolute fidelity from his party.
We don't have meetings with the President - not real, substantive meetings. He holds carefully scripted sessions where he repeats his talking points.
Yes, he is our President, but we are the people's representatives. We will meet with him any time he calls upon us to discuss war policy.
But he owes it to us to listen as we represent the American people.
Our timetable is fair and reasonable. We have put our plan on the table. If the president disagrees, let him come to us with an alternative.
If he believes more time is needed, let him tell us why. If he has new benchmarks to finally hold Iraqis accountable, let him propose them. He says repeatedly that we cannot leave until we have achieved victory. Let him define victory.
Instead of sending us back to square one with a veto, some tough talk and nothing more, let him come to the table in the spirit of bipartisanship that Americans demand and deserve.
The night before the 9/11 Commission's report was released more than three years ago, I met with Lee Hamilton in the Capitol. He told me something that night that I will never forget.
He said that there are a finite number of terrorists who must be killed or captured. Nothing we can do will rehabilitate or deter them.
But beyond those few who must be hunted lies a large and growing population of millions -- who sit precariously on the fence. They will either condemn or contribute to terrorism in the years ahead.
We must convince them of the goodness of America and Americans. We must win them over. That is the great challenge of our time.
If we fail -- this so-called "war on terror" will become a multi-generational struggle.
If we succeed, we can protect our national security, rebuild our battered and betrayed military, and fight a real war on terrorism that drives the terrorists back into the darkest corners, caves and crevices of human existence.
But to win that war, we must choose a new path in Iraq.
The choice is ours. All of ours. And now is our time to make it
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Democrats agree on Iraq legislation Bush has threatened to veto, setting up showdown
DAVID ESPO AP April 23, 2007 05:16 PM
WASHINGTON — A historic veto showdown assured, Democratic leaders agreed Monday on legislation that requires the first U.S. combat troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by Oct. 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later.
"No more will Congress turn a blind eye to the Bush administration's incompetence and dishonesty," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a speech in which he accused the president of living in a state of denial about events in Iraq more than four years after the U.S.-led invasion.
Bush, confident of enough votes to sustain his veto, was unambiguous in his response. "I will strongly reject an artificial timetable (for) withdrawal and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job," he told reporters at the White House as he met with his top Iraq commander, Gen. David Petraeus.
Taken together, the day's events marked the quickening of a confrontation that has been building since Democrats took control of Congress in January and promised to change policy in a war has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis.
Congressional negotiators for the House of Representatives and the Senate set a meeting to ratify the details of the legislation.
The bill includes more than $90 billion (euro66.4 billion) for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the withdrawal timetable that Bush finds objectionable and billions of dollars in domestic spending that he also has threatened to veto. Overall, the bill totals $124.2 billion (euro91.6 billion)
Democratic aides said the House leader, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Reid hope to clear the measure through both houses by Friday and send it to Bush by early next week for his expected veto. The Democratic leaders have not said whether they will attempt to override the veto in what would be a largely symbolic act given the number of Republicans who have said they will back the president.
There is far less certainty about the next steps in the historic wartime confrontation between Congress and commander in chief. Reid and other Democrats have said repeatedly they will not leave the troops without the funds they need, but they have not said whether they will first force Bush to veto at least one more bill before sending him legislation he finds acceptable.
In his remarks, Reid criticized Bush and called Vice President Dick Cheney the president's "chief attack dog," lacking in credibility.
He likened the president to Lyndon Johnson, saying the former president ordered troop escalations in Vietnam in an attempt "to save his political legacy," only to watch U.S. casualties climb steadily.
Bush, he said, "is the only person who fails to face this war's reality _ and that failure is devastating not just for Iraq's future, but for ours."
Reid had made similar comments at a White House meeting last week among Bush and top lawmakers, and the president dismissed the comparison with Johnson, according to several participants in the session. This time, Dana Perino, the president's spokeswoman fired back. She said it was Reid who was ignoring reality, not the president.
She said Reid is in denial about the vicious nature of the enemy and about the U.S.-led plan to provide more security in Iraq. "He's also in denial that a surrender date _ he thinks it is a good idea. It is not a good idea. It is defeat. It is a death sentence for the millions of Iraqis who voted for a constitution, who voted for a government, who voted for a free and democratic society."
As outlined by Democratic officials, the emerging legislation would require the withdrawal of U.S. forces to begin by Oct. 1, even earlier if Bush cannot certify that the Iraqi government is making progress in disarming militias, reducing sectarian violence and forging political compromises.
Another provision in the measure would withhold foreign aid money if the Iraqi government does not meet those standards.
Also, the Pentagon would be required to adhere to certain standards for the training and equipping of units sent to Iraq, and for their rest at home between deployments. Bush could waive the guidelines if necessary. Democrats assume he would, but want him on record as doing so.
Under the non-binding timeline, all combat troops would be withdrawn by April 1, 2008.