By Joseph L. Galloway
McClatchy Newspapers
When 11 Republican members of Congress trooped over to the White House this week to speak frankly to President Bush about the Iraq War, it may not have popped the bubble around The Decider but it did pry a few bricks out of the wall that has kept unpleasant truths at a distance.
It seems that the representatives let their leader know that there will be a public reckoning of both American military progress and Iraqi political progress at the end of this summer.
The underlying message is that bad news on either front this September - when the U.S. commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus has promised an assessment of how the surge, or escalation of U.S. troop strength, is working - could provoke further defections of Republicans on the Hill.
For the moment the Republicans will uphold the president's vetoes of Democratic war funding bills that set a timetable for beginning the withdrawal of American troops, but that could change.
It was hardly an accident that the president soon afterward signaled a new willingness to negotiate with congressional leaders on benchmarks for action by the Iraqi government and parliament to settle such issues as sharing of national oil revenue, tamping down sectarian violence, disarming murderous militias and ensuring that Iraqi army, police and parliament serve a nation and not their religious sects.
rest of article @ link below:
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17211973.htm
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