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Growing GOP Dissent on Iraq
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1113582/posts

Thursday, April 08, 2004 4:41:59 AM · by DayTripper · 32 replies · 343+ views
cbsnews.com ^ | April 7, 2004 | David Paul Kuhn

President Bush is facing increasing dissent among leading conservative politicians and pundits in the face of mounting U.S. casualties in Iraq. The war has become the long slog that some Republicans feared.

Since Sunday, 32 Americans have been killed in fighting across Iraq. American body bags are on the front page of major U.S. newspapers.

The Washington Post and The New York Times brandished images of charred U.S. civilian remains last week.

The networks are leading their nightly news broadcasts with stories of dead Americans.

“If we have two or three more weeks of this you are going to start to see Republican members of Congress who have never been critical of President Bush and the Iraq policy starting to get that way,” said Charles Cook, editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

The White House continues to claim that most Iraqis support the American presence. But even some ardent conservative backers of the president are voicing skepticism.

“I’m not buying this ‘Iraqis are on the American side’ right now,” Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly said on the Tuesday night broadcast of “The O’Reilly Factor.” The leading conservative commentator repeatedly called the current conflict a “second war in Iraq.”

O’Reilly added, “I think Rumsfeld has got a lot of explaining to do here. There’s a lot of mistakes that are now killing American soldiers.”

Fellow conservative pundit and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough of MSNBC was even more critical in his broadcast Tuesday.

Scarborough: “Do we need more troops in Iraq? Hell, yes, we do. ... Should June 30 handover date to the Iraqis be extended? You can bet your life on it ... because creating this false deadline in time for a presidential election is no way to win a war.”
[snip]
The presumptive Democratic nominee’s criticism of the president is no surprise. But for that criticism to be echoed by leaders of Mr. Bush’s own party and top conservative pundits is a problem that could have grave affects on the president’s hopes of winning reelection.

“Now that things aren’t going so well, Republican critics are more open in their criticism,” Cook said. “When there was a limit in how critical they could be of their own president before, even though they thoroughly disagreed.”

Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska told CNN Tuesday that the Bush administration has “few good options” left regarding Iraq. The implication: the White House has dug a ditch that it possibly cannot get out of without getting its hands dirty.

The foundation of the president’s reelection campaign is the portrayal of Mr. Bush as the steady commander in chief successfully fighting the war on terror (the war in Iraq being one and the same to the Bush White House). Republicans questioning Mr. Bush’s leadership in that war adds more fodder to Sen. Kerry’s larger critique of the president.

A Pew Research Center national survey conducted this week shows that the majority of Americans now disapprove of President Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq. Adding to the GOP dilemma, on Election Day there is more at stake for Republicans than the White House alone.

“For the first time in this election cycle there is some doubt about whether the Republicans will be able to hold onto the Senate,” Cook said, adding his own critique of the Iraq war effort.

“Whether you agree about whether we should’ve done it or not, it is hard to say the war is being done well.”

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I LOATHE these pieces of garbage...those in the ENEMEDIA, the despicable demonRATS, the hot dog “republicans” and faux “conservatives” who are responsible for more of our troops deaths than the AQ savages they fight on the battlefield!

Month -—— Hostile — Non Hostile — Total

Mar-03 -——— 58 ————— 7 ———— 65

Apr-03 -——— 50 -———— 24 ———— 74
May-03 -——— 8 -———— 29 ———— 37
Jun-03 -——— 18 -———— 12 ———— 30
Jul-03 -——— 28 -———— 20 ———— 48
Aug-03 -——— 16 -———— 19 ———— 35
Sep-03 -——— 18 -———— 13 ———— 31
Oct-03 -——— 33 -———— 11 ———— 44
Nov-03 -——— 69 -———— 13 ———— 82
Dec-03 -——— 25 -———— 15 ———— 40
Jan-04 -——— 39 ————— 8 ———— 47
Feb-04 -——— 12 ————— 8 ———— 20
Mar-04 -——— 35 -———— 17 ———— 52
1st Year —— 351 ———— 189 ———— 540

Apr-04 ——— 126 ————— 9 ———— 135