Posted on 01/02/2007 7:14:44 AM PST by Lunatic Fringe
US President George W Bush intends to reveal a new Iraq strategy within days, the BBC has learnt.
The speech will reveal a plan to send more US troops to Iraq to focus on ways of bringing greater security, rather than training Iraqi forces.
The move comes with figures from Iraqi ministries suggesting that deaths among civilians are at record highs.
The US president arrived back in Washington on Monday after a week-long holiday at his ranch in Texas.
The BBC was told by a senior administration source that the speech setting out changes in Mr Bush's Iraq policy is likely to come in the middle of next week.
Its central theme will be sacrifice.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
"...speech setting out changes in Mr Bush's Iraq policy is likely to come in the middle of next week. "
'Surge' speech next week...
bump!
Is this really a good idea given the current ROE? A troop surge would simply give the terrorists more opportunities for target practice.
Is this some opening 'strategery' to have the Pelosi Congress go on record as a 'Cut-and-Run' Congress for the '08 elections? Dubya must realize that this proposal will be DOA with top Democrat leaders on Capitol Hill.
There's already a thread by the same title.
I agree, it's big news.
Screw the congress critters, they have no say in troop level. If they want to cut funding, let them have at it.
We surge, they surge, all surge!
Its central theme will be sacrifice.
The Bushies would be wise to term their new strategy for Iraq as "The McCain Doctrine" in name of its biggest booster. Political fallout from the Bushies' failed policy will then be deflected to where it belongs. I can't wait to see Senator McCain in the Rose Garden when Bush announces his "new" policy and places a dollar figure on the sacrifices it will require.
Such a leak would be found out and the person that leaked it would be fired from the Bush administration.
There has been very very few leaks in the Bush administration for the simple reason that Bush warned that he would find and fire any leaker.
The primary reason people leak is to influence policy. If someone did leak to the BBC it is unlikely that Bush has made a decision and the leaker wants to see if there is support for a SURGE in troop numbers. Traditionally a leaker will leak to the press his recommendation and then try to use the favorable response to convince the president to adopt his plan.
There was a case early in the first Bush administration in which a staffer used "the leak to gain support for a plan" to try to influence the president. It did. He dropped the reference to the plan from his speech and in fact did the exact opposite to the desires of the leaker. The result became clear... leak your recommendation to the press and your recommendation will be killed.
That is the primary reason that there have been few if any accurate leaks in the Bush administration. It is one reason the press hates Bush. He had refused to play the game by their rules. Leaks to gain support or to harm a competitors recommendation have been the largest source of "News" for generations. Now reporters have to work to gain information. They hate that and they hate Bush for changing the way the game has always been played.
The likely situation is the BBC reporter asked a Bush administration official if Bush was going to recommend a "surge" in troops. The Bush official likely refused to comment. The reporter then said... "If you will not confirm or deny the surge I am going to print and/or broadcast that Bush is going to promote a surge."
That is the method many in the media used to force officials to leak. The approved Bush administration response to that ploy is to say "Print or broadcast anything you want. But I am telling you that you don't have a clue about what this administration is going to do. If try to guess our policy decision and report is as inside information the odds are you are going to be wrong more than half the time. That will effect the media's reputation for accuracy not this administrations."
That is the approach the Bush administration has taken to the press and after guessing wrong a few times the US Media stopped playing the "Refuse to leak to us and we'll put words in your mouth!" game.
I believe the BBC is trying a failed method of making the administration leak information.
At least* 115 17-year-old Americans died in Korea in November and December 1950, under Democrat Truman.
*I did a search on those who were born in 1933 and died in November and December of 1950. These men can not have been older than 17 when they died. Some could possible have been younger. I did not include those who were born late in 1952 and died before their birthdays in Nov or Dec 1950, even though they would have been 17 yo, also.
GOP Challenges Bush On "Surge"
For some time now, the Bush Administration has been signaling that in order to enhance the security situation in Iraq, it intends to increase the number of US troops there. The Wall Street Journal reports White House officials now "say a troop 'surge' almost certainly will be the centerpiece of Mr. Bush's new strategy for Iraq." However, the Financial Times says Bush "is facing mounting opposition" on that proposal, with "a number of prominent Republican senators, including Arlen Specter and Richard Lugar, the outgoing chairmen of the Senate judiciary and foreign relations committees," voicing "strong scepticism about an increase in troops." The AP notes the senators' criticism, while syndicated columnist Robert Novak, offering a similar assessment over the weekend, said Republican leaders "around the country, anticipating that the 2006 election disaster would prompt an orderly disengagement from Iraq, are shocked that the president now appears ready to add troops."
U.S. News and World Report reports some senior Republicans "are looking at the next four weeks as 'make it or break it' time for the White House." In early January, "the Democrats will take over Congress and signal how aggressively they will confront the administration on Iraq and a wide range of domestic issues." By mid-January, President Bush "will have delivered his high-stakes speech setting forth 'the way forward' in Iraq."
Newsweek reports the White House "insists it knows that simply adding more troops isn't the answer. The plan being considered is far more nuanced than what has been reported in the media, a senior aide to Bush, who would only discuss the talks in Crawford anonymously, told NEWSWEEK." Another U.S. News and World Report story reports says the plan "will very likely include an economic package that will fund microloans for small businesses and jobs in neighborhoods that have been targeted by military strikes elements of classic counterinsurgency strategy that weave economic and political incentives together with armed measures."
This morning, in a 3,000-word, front page article, the New York Times reports that in interviews in Washington and Baghdad, "senior officials said the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department had...failed," during 2006, "to take seriously warnings, including some from its own ambassador in Baghdad, that sectarian violence could rip the country apart."
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_070102.htm
No longer satisfied by leaking to the NYT, these leaking insiders go International.
The far left, anti American, BBC is just the appropriate vehicle.
There goes your retirement right down the crapper ping.
If the dems go out of their way to cut funding for Iraq and prevent a temporary surge then they run the ultimate risk of Joe Lieberman leaving their caucus (he accompanied McCain to Iraq recently and he supports a surge) and handing the Repubs the majority, with or without Senator Johnson.
You're a coward MurryMom. You disappeared when your Dhimmicrats were out of power and have only reappeared since the last election. Anything you say should be taken in that context-what's the plan of your beloved Rat party for fighting the GWOT. We already know what their plan is for fighting Republicans.
The strategist in me says this is the final touch before Iran/Syria. I just don't see Bush leaving office without damaging their war capacity.
Naive? Hope not.
Taking down the Mahdi "army" would increase security greatly.
central theme will be sacrifice.
I suggest we sacrifice al Sadr, followed by his buddy Ahmadidajob.
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