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What happened to the Texas swagger? Maybe it went the way of his poll numbers. Maybe this is a newly reflective President Bush. Or maybe the first lady had her say. Whatever the case, when Mr. Bush said at a news conference on Thursday night that he regretted some personal mistakes, like declaring "bring 'em on" in 2003, he seemed a little like the chastened husband who finally admitted he had done something wrong. Whether it worked or not depends on whom you ask. "Sad day in Crawford, they're hanging their heads," said William J. Bennett, the former education secretary...

Pelosi: 'Having Admitted Error of His Words, President Must Admit Error of His Ways' Fri Jan 14, 2:19 PM ET To: National Desk Contact: Brendan Daly or Jennifer Crider, 202-226-7616, both of the Office of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 /U.S. Newswire/ -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on remarks by President Bush in an interview with regional newspapers yesterday in which he said he regretted saying "bring 'em on" in reference to insurgents in Iraq who wanted to attack our troops: "The President has finally acknowledged that his taunting the Iraqi...

<p>SANAA, Yemen, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- A purported statement by al-Qaida in Yemen warned Saturday of a "major strike" soon in the United States.</p> <p>The statement, distributed by the Yemeni Tagamoo Party for Reforms, said: "A major strike, a big event will take place in America soon," reminiscent of the Sept. 11 attacks.</p>

LONDON - The retired American general who headed the first occupation government in Iraq (news - web sites) says the decision to disband the Iraqi army was one of several major mistakes Washington has made in Iraq. AP Photo Latest headlines: · Pentagon Sending More Marines to Iraq AP - 51 minutes ago · US readies extra marines for IraqAFP - 56 minutes ago · Iraq's Shiites Oppose U.S. Election Plan AP - 1 hour, 47 minutes ago Special Coverage   The United States should also have put more more troops into Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein (news...

LONDON, Oct. 31 — Across Europe and the Middle East, young militant Muslim men are answering a call issued by Osama bin Laden and other extremists, and leaving home to join the fight against the American-led occupation in Iraq, according to senior counterterrorism officials based in six countries. Advertisement The intelligence officials say that since late summer they have detected a growing stream of itinerant Muslim militants headed for Iraq. They estimate that hundreds of young men from an array of countries have now arrived in Iraq by crossing the Syrian or Iranian borders. But the officials say this influx...

TIKRIT, Iraq, (Agencies): Your average American soldier in post-war Iraq may want better food, more rest time and above all to go home, but the infantrymen out on night patrol in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit have only one wish - to get shot at. The soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Regiment swear they have divine protection and say the easiest place to be attacked is in what they call ‘RPG alley.’ The mile-long main street’s two-storey homes, cafes and furniture shops are daubed with ‘Saddam is our leader’ graffiti and the road is holed by grenades. But the...

Al-Qa'ida Supporters Arrive in Diyala Province In a special report, the independent Al-Yawm Al-Aakher quoted sources in the Diyala Province as stating that they have been witnessing the emergence of an "unusual organization in the province identifying itself as 'Ansar Al-Qa'ida' [Supporters of Al-Qa'ida], and that their numbers have been increasing daily… Citizens in Ba'qouba described the developments in the province as harbinger of an armed military eruption in the near future if the American forces in the area fail to curtail the activities of such armed organizations…" [21] [21] Al-Yawm Al-Aakher, August 18, 2003. [Emphasis in Original].

What are we doing in Iraq? The latest explanation is the so-called flypaper thesis. That is, it's a good thing that we have 140,000 troops in Iraq, because the terrorists are going after our men and women there, lured like flies to flypaper. As President George W. Bush said on Tuesday, "Our military is confronting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other places so our people will not have to confront terrorist violence in New York, or St. Louis or Los Angeles." This argument is dubious, however, for three reasons.

Rumsfeld Says Country Faces Two Options in War on Terror By Jim Garamone American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Aug. 25, 2003 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told service members at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, today that only two options faced the United States in its war on terror: Fight the terrorists where they live today, or fight them in America tomorrow. Rumsfeld said the war on terrorism is unlike any war the United States fought in the past. Sept. 11 ushered in a new age of asymmetric warfare. "The threats we have faced have not been so much...

Rumsfeld Says Country Faces Two Options in War on Terror By Jim GaramoneAmerican Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Aug. 25, 2003 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told service members at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, today that only two options faced the United States in its war on terror: Fight the terrorists where they live today, or fight them in America tomorrow. Rumsfeld said the war on terrorism is unlike any war the United States fought in the past. Sept. 11 ushered in a new age of asymmetric warfare. "The threats we have faced have not been so much...

Some of the Nine Dwarves are trying to spice up their foundering presidential campaigns by blaming President Bush for the deadly bombing at the U.N.'s headquarters in Baghdad. "Had the president pursued the war on terrorism prior to initiating military action against Saddam Hussein, as I advocated last year, it is likely that al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks would not have been able to take advantage of the chaos that now exists in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq," said Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla. "It is becoming increasingly clear each day that the administration misread the situation on the ground...

Al Qaida operatives and their allies are flooding Iraq. Many of them are coming over unhampered from the border areas of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.More than 1,000 Al Qaida operatives have entered Iraq just in the last three months.Many other supporters have also entered Iraq.These are not the young and unemployed looking for action. These forces appear highly trained a disciplined.

First, the pertinent excerpt: ABC News' Raddatz reporting, "Last month, President Bush said the United States had the security situation under control, and enough forces to fight. "'There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there,' the president said on July 2. 'My answer is "Bring 'em on." We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation.' But officials may now have to look at adding troops to the nearly 150,000 already there." (ABC News, Raddatz, 8/18/03) Here's the rest of the article: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/World/unbombing030819.html New Fears U.N. Bombing Raises Concern in...

<p>August 20, 2003 -- THE first strategy employed by Iraqi dead- enders and their terror- tourist allies failed miserably: They attacked U.S. forces head-on - and paid a bitter price.</p> <p>With their comrades killed, wounded or captured, their leaders apprehended (another one yesterday), their bases of support whittled away and U.S. resolve only hardened, our enemies have turned to a new, desperate strategy.</p>

WASHINGTON The Bush team has now created the very monster that it conjured up to alarm Americans into backing a war on Iraq. Rushing to pummel Iraq after 9/11, Bush officials ginned up links between Saddam and Al Qaeda. They made it sound as if Islamic fighters on a jihad against America were slouching toward Baghdad to join forces with murderous Iraqis. There was scant evidence of it then, but it's coming true now. Since America began its occupation, Iraq has become the mecca for every angry, hate-crazed Arab extremist who wants to liberate the Middle East from the "despoiling"...

In the sizzling heat of an Iraqi summer, Saddam Hussein’s loyalist guerrillas cannily select targets that will make the life of the ordinary Iraqi unbearable, trusting in acute disruptions to provoke him to rise up en masse against the Americans. Their organization is Saboteurs are systematically disrupting oil, electricity and water supplies. There is efficient organization somewhere in the background. In ten days, guerrillas set two calamitous fires at key points on the 600-mile pipeline just when oil exports were due to resume from northern Iraq’s huge Kirkuk fields, source of 40 percent of country’s oil, to Turkey’s Ceyhan terminal...

By Mark Huband in London Published: August 18 2003 19:45 | Last Updated: August 18 2003 19:45 Increasing numbers of Saudi Arabian Islamists are crossing the border into Iraq in preparation for a jihad, or holy war, against US and UK forces, security and Islamist sources have warned. A senior western counter-terrorism official on Monday said the presence of foreign fighters in Iraq was "extremely worrying". A statement purportedly from al-Qaeda was broadcast on Monday by the Arab satellite television channel al-Arabiya. It claimed the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the leader of the Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime Mullah...

Iraq becomes a battleground in war on infidels By Robin Gedye, Foreign Affairs Writer (Filed: 19/08/2003) Muslim fundamentalists from throughout the Middle East are being drawn to Iraq for a protracted guerrilla war, senior military officials said yesterday after a wave of weekend sabotage attacks. "Far from a new Vietnam, we appear to be heading for a new Afghanistan, Somalia or Chechnya as the next battleground between Islam and the infidels," said one official in Washington. As he spoke fires still raged on a broken oil pipeline in northern Iraqi and youths bathed in the water gushing from a sabotaged...

The US army is hoping to stick up posters of Saddam Hussein's face superimposed on Hollywood heroines and other stars in an attempt to enrage his followers and draw them out. In one called 'Zsa Zsa Saddam', he has his head tossed back, his blonde locks flowing and a filter-tipped cigarette dangling coquettishly between his delicate fingers. 'Zsa Zsa Saddam' is the US army's latest ploy in the four-month hunt for the fugitive dictator. In a campaign starting this week, US forces plan to put up the posters around Saddam's home town of Tikrit. As well as Saddam dolled up...

Inside the resistance August 16, 2003 Alert and alarmed ... patrolling the streets of Baghdad can never be considered routine. Photos: Jason South The United States likes to think that all it confronts in Iraq are a few die-hard Saddamists. But Paul McGeough meets a new guerilla movement with growing popular support. There's a knock on the door. Standing in the first-floor corridor of the Al Safeer Hotel are two men - Ahmed, a weapons dealer and group commander in the Iraqi resistance, and Haqi, one of his foot soldiers. They enter and take a seat on the sofa, edgy...