NYT:Warner's Iraq Remarks Surprise White House

[cal04]

The White House, caught off guard by a leading Republican senator who said the situation in Iraq was “drifting sideways,” responded cautiously on Friday, with a spokeswoman for President Bush stopping short of saying outright that Mr. Bush disagreed with the assessment.

“I don’t believe that the president thinks that way,” Dana Perino, the deputy White House press secretary, said when asked whether the president agreed with the senator, John Warner of Virginia. “I think that he believes that while it is tough going in Iraq, that slow progress is being made.”

Ms. Perino’s carefully worded response underscores the delicate situation that Mr. Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has created for the White House just one month before an election in which Mr. Bush has been trying to shift the national debate from the war in Iraq to the broader war on terror.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday after returning from a trip that included a one-day stop in Baghdad, Mr. Warner said the United States should consider “a change of course” if the violence there did not diminish soon. He did not specify what shift might be necessary, but said that the American military had done what it could to stabilize Iraq and that no policy options should be taken “off the table.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/07/world/middleeast/07capital.html?hp&ex=1160193600&en=fe3e1bb831881928&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. So when does the swiftboating of John Warner begin?

[eleny]

2. Something smells about Warner's statement

I'm suspicious. I keep thinking he's trying to make the Republicans look like they will do something about getting out of Iraq soon. So they should be kept in office. His saying that they'll look at it in a couple of months raised my antenna. Elect a Republican majority first and we'll do something after we're sworn in.

[Erika]

3. Exactly. He acknowedged Iraq was a total screw-up

but gave the GOP faithful a carrot by saying they would do something after the election.

[eleny]

4. Well, at least we have him on the record saying Iraq is a screw-up

It's cold comfort but he's stuck his foot in it now. No going back with over 20 soldiers killed in October already. How bad does it have to get, Warner?