NYT: Senate Armed Services Chairman Warner's remarks surprise White House

[DeepModem Mom]

Warner’s Iraq Remarks Surprise White House
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: October 7, 2006

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 — 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.”

With the blessing of the White House, a high-level commission led by James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state, is already reviewing American policy in Iraq. But the commission is not scheduled to report to Mr. Bush and Congress until after the November elections, a timeline that the White House had hoped would enable Mr. Bush to avoid public discussion of any change of course until after voters determine which party will control Congress next year.

Now, Mr. Warner’s comments are pushing up that timeline, forcing Republicans to confront the issue before some are ready. In an interview on Friday, Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who has been critical of the administration’s approach in the past, said there was a “growing sense of unease” among other Republicans, which she said could deepen because of Senator Warner’s comments....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/07/world/middleeast/07capital.html

[INdemo]

1. This is some game the Republicans play.....

Had a Democrat said this it would be cut and run policy.Democrats have called for a change in course months ago..months ago .Republicans refused to hold hearings which would include Democrats to find a solution dealing with the war.

[cadmium]

2. Warner gave Kerry-Feingold redeployment plan respect enough to actually de

This is a transcript of the Kerry-Warner colloquy. A real debate is rare these days and on some level the Kerry-Feingold proposal probably made sense to Warner for him to grant this time for debate.

It is a little lengthy. The transcript is ok but on C-Span you could see from their body language and attitudes that they were actually listening to each other.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=273&topic_id=105920&mesg_id=105985

[karynnj]

4. Thanks, Cadmium

It was so nice to see that debate, especially as the Democratic leader himself had worked so hard against the bill getting any visiblity - putting out the Levin amendment, created as a bland re-statement of the 2005 Levin amendment, instead.

Kerry/Feingold was a serious thoughtful, comprehensive attempt to detail a real exit plan - something neither side had publicly done before. Warner's debate with Kerry ended a day where Republicans and many Democrats made unwarranted, inaccurate attacks on the plan and on Feingold and especially Kerry. The decision to force a discussion on Iraq was made by Kerry, Feingold, Boxer and Harkin who all wrote amendments or supported them. (Yet it's Biden, who voted against it and who knocked it who is the one the NYT gets a comment from. You would think he had written one of this amendment.)

[Donna Zen]

3. Warner: a good soldier

Warner has been around long enough (too long) that never in a milllion years would he speak without giving the WHouse a head's up. It would be stupid, and Warner isn't stupid.

Stever Clemens, of the Washington Note, said a few weeks ago that bush's would be making changes in Iraq soon. One of the things they intend to do is draw Democrats into the plan. That might be alright, but then again....what Democrats? Right now it looks like Lee Hamilton working with James Baker III. Anytime Hamilton and Baker are in the mix, I get worried.

[karynnj]

5. I agree - Hamilton/Baker isn't a reassuring duo