Senior WH Official: When you count up the votes that we’ve lost (over Iraq) it looks pretty grim

[bigtree]

White House now planning for a “Post-Surge Redeployment.”


from the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/washington/09prexy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper%E2%80%9D&pagewanted=print


White House Debate Rises on Iraq Pullback

By DAVID E. SANGER
July 9, 2007

“When you count up the votes that we’ve lost and the votes we’re likely to lose over the next few weeks, it looks pretty grim,” said one senior official, who, like others involved in the discussions, would not speak on the record about internal White House deliberations.

That conclusion was echoed in interviews over the past few days by administration officials in the Pentagon, State Department and White House, as well as by outsiders who have been consulted about what the administration should do next. “Sept. 15 now looks like an end point for the debate, not a starting point,” the official said. “Lots of people are concluding that the president has got to get out ahead of this train.”

In a sign of the concern, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates canceled plans for a four-nation tour of Latin America this week and will stay home to attend meetings on Iraq, the Pentagon announced yesterday.

Last week, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, called in from a brief vacation to join intense discussions in sessions that included Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s longtime strategist, and Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff.

Officials describe the meetings as more of a running discussion than an argument. They say that no one is clinging to a stay-the-course position but that instead aides are trying to game out what might happen if the president becomes more specific about the start and the shape of what the White House is calling a “post-surge redeployment.”

article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/washington/09prexy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper%E2%80%9D&pagewanted=print


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree

[Tanuki]

1. All they care about is the lost votes, not the lost and ruined lives

of Americans and Iraqis alike that resulted from their lies and disastrous incompetence.

[bigtree]

2. that's what makes our democratic system work

sometimes.

The upcoming elections look like they're shaping up to be a pretty brilliant motivator.

[wakeme2008]

3. BS come Aug 1 Bush will be on his one month vacation

Nothing stand in way of that :grr:

[frogcycle]

5. with any luck the doors will be barred when he returns

[frogcycle]

4. it makes my blood boil every time I see rove's name -

a completely unprincipled political hack, never elected to anything, never confirmed by the Senate, participating in "strategy" discussions affecting the most crucial of national policy issues

[bigtree]

6. playing politics

with our soldiers' lives

[Bonhomme Richard]

7. I thought these were the guys that created reality. n/t

[Sapere aude]

8. WH is afraid that the oil law won't be passed before they are forced out of the country.

[frogcycle]

9. It looks more and more like

the Iraqi's are becoming aware that they are being raped and pillaged

the "oil law" is a dead duck, I hope

That it was set up as the primary "benchmark" is as transparent as guarding only the refineries and oilfields right after the invasion

If our Congress had refused to include the part about giving 78% to Big Oil I'd have found them a lot more credible when they passed the spending bill.

[loyalkydem]

10. that's the first

honest thing they have admitted in years. There's hope for them yet.....NOT