After Baker, what next for the war in Iraq?

[spindrifter]

Paul Harris and Peter Beaumont
Sunday December 10, 2006
The Observer

Gordon Smith stood up on the Senate floor, his voice slow and serious. The Republican Senator from Oregon had been an ultra-loyal supporter of the Iraq war and President Bush. Until last week.

Now he had changed his mind. Smith labelled US policy in Iraq absurd and 'maybe even criminal'. He had been spurred to speak, he said, by White House reaction to last week's Iraq Study Group (ISG) report. 'Let's cut and run, or cut and walk ... because we have fought this war in a very lamentable way,' Smith told colleagues.

It was an astonishing speech made all the more so by Smith's previously spotless Republican pro-war credentials. But then it has been a remarkable week in Washington. The ISG report spelt out the sheer scale of the disaster in Iraq. Many experts saw it as a devastating indictment of Bush's policies. But the panel, headed by Bush family friend James Baker and former Democrat congressman Lee Hamilton, also laid out a blueprint for success. Its 79 recommendations envisioned a gradual withdrawal of US combat troops by 2008 and a diplomatic offensive to engage Iran and Syria to bring stability to the country.

Many expected Bush and his coterie of top officials to accept the report. Or at least be chastened by it. In fact, neither happened. Just as the report exposed the divisions in Iraq, it also revealed the chasms in American attitudes to the conflict. Bush's reaction revealed a White House still determined to go its own way. Far from looking for a way out, he is still looking for a way to win the war. 'Some people believe the central challenge is how the US can leave Iraq. He believes the central challenge is how to make it work. He wants victory,' said Larry Haas, a political commentator and former Clinton White House official.

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http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1968558,00.html

[Bitwit1234]

1. Do you think maybe

bush will fly over Iraq and tell the terrorist they must stop fighting so he can win...he has told everybody else who will listen that he has to WIN, THAT'S THE ONLY WAY HE WILL BRING THE TROOPS HOME.

[Demeter]

2. A Double Impeachment, Conviction and Jail

and then President Pelosi can bring our soldiers home.