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House Rejects Nine-Month Iraq Withdrawal (AP) WASHINGTON The Democratic-controlled House defeated legislation Thursday to require the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq within nine months, then pivoted to a fresh challenge of President Bush's handling of the unpopular war. The vote on the nine-month withdrawal measure was 255-171. On a day of complex maneuvering, Democrats said they would approve legislation funding the war on an installment plan and Bush said he would veto it. But the president, under pressure from lawmakers in both parties, coupled his threat with an offer to compromise on a spending bill that sets standards...

Can President Bush recover? It matters enormously in the 2008 election -- particularly in the presidential race -- whether he does or not. Either way, recovery or no recovery, the president will have a powerful impact on the outcome. If he fails to lift himself out of the political doldrums, his successor in the White House is likely to be a Democrat. But should he pull off a strong finishing kick, as President Reagan did in 1988, the prospects of another Republican president will improve significantly. President Bush of course won't be on the ballot. But the status of his...

TIM RUSSERT, NBC NIGHTLY NEWS: Brian, all eyes on the Republican party. How long will they support the president's position on the Iraq War? Yesterday may have been a defining, pivotal moment. At two-thirty in the afternoon, in the private quarters of the White House, the Solarium Room, eleven Republican congressmen had a private meeting with the president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, the chief political advisor Karl Rove, and the White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, and others. This delegation was headed by Mark Kirk of Illinois and Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania. It was, in the...

The call has gone out from on high at the Commerce Department for a few good men and women. Heeding President Bush's recent appeal for government civilians to serve stints in Iraq helping with the embattled rebuilding mission, Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez sent an agency-wide memo last week imploring workers to sign up for a year in Iraq. "I am asking all Commerce employees to consider supporting this important effort," he wrote. Gutierrez noted that volunteers would work "under challenging circumstances with access to few amenities." On the bright side, he said, they "may" be eligible for overtime pay...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) condemned the Iraqi government for its failure to resolve security and political problems more expeditiously and predicted that, unless the current troop surge succeeds, U.S. policy will be changed by year's end either by President Bush or congressional action. McConnell, in an interview for washingtonpost.com's PostTalk program today, offered a harsh assessment of the Iraqi government's performance and made clear that neither the American people nor elected officials have unlimited patience for the U.S. commitment there. "The Iraqi government hasn't done anything it said it would," McConnell said, pointing to lack of progress on...

A sharp increase in mortar attacks on the Green Zone - the one-time oasis of security in Iraq's turbulent capital - has prompted the U.S. Embassy to issue a strict new order telling all employees to wear flak vests and helmets while in unprotected buildings or whenever they are outside. The order has created a siege mentality among U.S. staff inside the Green Zone following a recent suicide attack on parliament. It has also led to new fears about long-term safety in the place where the U.S. government is building a massive and expensive new embassy. The situation marks a...

House Republican moderates, in a remarkably blunt White House meeting, warned President Bush this week that his pursuit of the war in Iraq is risking the future of the Republican Party and that he cannot count on GOP support for many more months. The meeting, which ran for an hour and a half Tuesday afternoon, was disclosed by participants yesterday as the House prepared to vote this evening on a spending bill that could cut funding for the Iraq war as early as July. GOP moderates told Bush they would stay united against the latest effort by House Democrats to...