President Obama's speech from the Oval Office, as prepared for delivery, is available after the jump.

by Mike Memoli

The common theme as Republicans comment ahead of President Obama's Iraq speech tonight is that he should acknowledge the surge strategy he opposed as a U.S. senator is what made tonight's announcement possible.

From a speech given today in Wisconsin by House Minority Leader John Boehner:

Some leaders who opposed, criticized, and fought tooth-and-nail to stop the surge strategy now proudly claim credit for the results. ... I want to thank President Obama for setting aside his past political rhetoric and recognizing the importance of the surge and the diplomatic agreement signed by President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki.

From Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, speaking today in Kentucky:

"I think we should also be thankful that another President had the determination and the will to carry out the plan that made tonight's announcement possible. You might recall that the surge wasn't very popular when it was announced. You might also recall that one of its biggest critics was the current President. One of his colleagues said the war was already a lost cause, implying, of course, that any further efforts on the part of our troops would be in vain.

"So it makes it easier to talk about fulfilling a campaign promise to wind down our operations in Iraq when the previous administration signs the security agreement with Iraq to end our overall presence there.

And Sen. John McCain, Obama's 2008 rival, wrote in the Wall Street Journal today about lessons learned from Iraq that could be applied to Afghanistan:

by Mike Memoli

President Obama addresses the nation from the Oval Office tonight, marking the fulfillment of a campaign pledge to wind down the war in Iraq. But his remarks will be carefully calibrated, officials say, to avoid any definitive declaration of victory - or "Mission Accomplished."

"You won't hear those words coming from us," press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Monday. "Obviously tomorrow marks a change in our mission. It marks a milestone that we have achieved in removing our combat troops. That is not to say that violence is going to end tomorrow. We understand that those that would foment violence will still continue to try to do so."

In advance of his speech, Obama is now en route to Texas, where he will meet with servicemen at Fort Bliss to thank them for their service. On Monday, the president spent more than two hours at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where he awarded 11 purple hearts.

Though the president's speech marks the end of America's combat mission in Iraq, approximately 50,000 troops will remain in a support role, assisting Iraq's security forces. Those forces will also be capable of responding in the event of escalated attacks.

by Michael Muskal

Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Iraq on Monday as part of the formal end of the United States' combat role in Iraq, the White House announced.

Biden will also hold talks with Iraqi officials, who have been struggling to form a new government. This is Biden's sixth trip to Iraq since January 2009, when the Obama administration took office.

There are currently less than 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, down from the high of 160,000 under former President George W. Bush. Combat troops completed their withdrawal last week. The remaining U.S. troops will assist and train Iraqi troops.

President Obama is scheduled to address the nation on Tuesday on Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to the White House, Biden will meet with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Vice President Tariq Hashimi, Vice President Adil Abd Mahdi and Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

by Julian E. Barnes

The Army issued a formal apology to the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan after it sent them letters with the salutation "Dear John Doe."

In December, the Army sent out 7,000 letters to the families of most of the 3,544 soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001 containing information about services or gifts for which they may be eligible.

Although the envelopes were properly addressed, a software problem caused an error that printed the place-holder salutation of "Dear John Doe" at the top of the letter. The letters were printed by a private contractor.

J. Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman, said the service had not received any angry complaints, but several families called to alert the military to the error on their letters. That prompted an investigation showing that most likely all the letters were misprinted.

"There are no words to adequately apologize for this mistake or for the hurt it may have caused," Brig. Gen. Reuben Jones, the Army's adjutant general, said in a statement. In addition to the formal apology from the military, Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, is sending the families a letter explaining the error.

See the rest of the report on the Army's Dear John Doe letter in Tribune newspapers and here in the Swamp:

by Frank James

Not surprisingly, reports are that the journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush's head last weekend in Baghdad was beaten.

The judge who visited Muntadhar al-Zeidi said he bore signs of being beaten.

Olivier Knox, a journalist with Agence Presse France who was at the press conference where the shoe-throwing took place, said on public radio's Diane Rehm Show this morning that he saw blood on the floor at the place where al-Zeidi was pounced on by the Secret Service and Iraqi security. He assumed it was al-Zeidi's.

Knox also said that in talking to people in the White House he learned that the Secret Service had noticed al-Zeidi acting suspiciously beforehand -- not taking notes, fidgeting and repeatedly stealing glances at security officials. The Secret Service wanted to station an agent in the aisle next to al-Zeidi, Knox said. But Iraqi security vetoed that idea.

Here's an excerpt of an Associated Press story:

BAGHDAD (AP) -- The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush during a news conference was beaten and had bruises around his eyes and other parts of his face, a judge said Friday.

Judge Dhia al-Kinani, the magistrate investigating the incident, said the court has opened a probe into the alleged beating of journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi during the news conference.

by Frank James

The Iraq War has cost more by itself than any other U.S. war with the exception of World War II.

That's just one sobering fact in the report issued this week by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments that examines the costs of the Iraq and Afghan wars.

Here's another fact. Both wars have cost more than any other war the U.S. has fought save World War II.

And how much have the wars cost all told since 2001? The CSBA says the costs are approaching $1 trillion and may by 2018 reach anywhere between $1.3 trillion to $1.7 trillion on the low end to $2 trillion to $2.5 trillion. The difference has a lot to do with how one calculates interest costs and certain components of overall costs such as veterans benefits.

As the CSBA explains in its report:

Since 2001, the US government and the American taxpayer have provided about $904 billion (unless otherwise noted, all cost and funding figures cited in this analysis are expressed in 2008 dollars) for military operations, including $66 billion to cover war-related costs for the first
part of 2009. Moreover, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan appear to be far from over. A set of illustrative scenarios developed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) suggest that the direct budgetary costs of these military operations could amount to an additional $416-817 billion through 2018--assuming the number of US troops involved in the two conflicts is reduced from today's level of about 200,000 to some 30,000-75,000 over the next several years. This would bring the direct
budgetary costs of these wars to a total of some $1.3-1.7 trillion ...

Children play with shoes owned by famous shoe thrower, President Bush's attacker Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zeidi outside his apartment in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Dec. 15, 2008. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

by Frank James

It was hard to resist this picture. Was this an instance of some older person egging the kid on to throw the shoe or was this a spontaneous act? Or were the kids throwing the shoes when the photographer happened on the scene?

Whatever the case, it does make a compelling picture, an Iraqi kid throwing a shoe that actually belong to the world's most famous shoe thrower, journalist Muntadar al-Zeidi. And then there's the little kid who appears to be smelling an al-Zeidi shoe. Again, some photo. How long before some of these shoes wind up on eBay?

A man beats with a shoe a mock poster of US President George W. Bush with a "War criminal" written in Arabic during a protest in Najaf, Iraq, Monday, Dec. 15, 2008. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)

by Frank James

On the way to Afghanistan last night, President Bush joked with reporters aboard Air Force One about the shoes seen 'round the world.

It seemed like he actually made fun of himself at one point, saying he didn't know what the man shouted but that he "saw his sole." That was an obvious allusion to one of the strangest things an American president has ever said about another foreign leader when, after their first meeting, Bush said he saw Vladimir Putin's soul.

Bush then acknowledged that the shoe-throwing incident was one of the "bizarre incidents" of his presidency, saying he had experienced other such moments during his tenure.

Another example he offered was the Falun Gong protester who interrupted a White House South Lawn welcoming ceremony for Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Actually, the Falun Gong protester didn't really seem that bizarre. Extraordinary at such an official event, yes, but not bizarre. The president passing out after choking on a pretzel, now that qualified as truly bizarre.

Also odd was Bush's complete refusal during his exchange with reporters on Air Force One to acknowledge any anger or unhappiness in Iraq or the Muslim Middle East with the invasion he ordered and its aftermath.

A sister of Iraqi journalist Muntada al-Zeidi watches video of her brother throwing shoes at President Bush. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban.)

"I don't think you can take one guy throwing shoes and say this represents a broad movement in Iraq," Bush said in response to a question. "You can try to do that if you want to. I don't think it would be accurate."

The White House reporters didn't follow up, perhaps knowing too well by now they weren't going to get him to admit something if he didn't want to since this president is well known by now for his stubbornness.

But the president's refusal to admit a reality fairly obvious to most observers, even in the 11th hour of his presidency, was clearly another bizarre Bush White House moment. Perhaps U.S. intelligence officials will brief him about the rallies in Iraq calling for the release of the shoe-thrower as a "hero."

by Frank James

One of the ugliest episodes of the U.S.'s time in Iraq was the Sept. 16, 2007 shooting of dozens of unarmed civilians by armed security guards who worked for the contractor Blackwater Worldwide. Thirty four civilians were killed.

Today, the Justice Department announced the indictment of five of the guards and the guilty plea of a sixth.

At a press conference, Jeffrey Taylor, U.S. Attorney for District of Columbia, recited details of the incident and the charges. Here's a partial transcript:

On September 16th, 2007, at around noon, the Raven 23 convoy was responding to the detonation of a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device that had just exploded in the vicinity of a different Blackwater personal security detail located about a mile away from Nisoor Square, and which was transporting a USAID protectee.

The four heavily armed vehicles in the Raven 23 convoy entered Nisoor Square and then positioned themselves in order to block any traffic from entering the circle. Seconds after the Raven 23 convoy entered the traffic circle, it is alleged that at least six members of the Raven 23 convoy, including the five defendants named in the indictment, opened fire with automatic weapons and grenade launchers on unarmed civilians located in and around Nisoor Square, killing, as Pat said, at least 14 persons, wounding at least 20 other individuals, and assaulting, but not injuring, at least 18.

by Frank James

Iraq is still a dangerous place, something we tend to forget because of the marked decline in violence there relative to two and three years ago.

Still, Iraqis continue to die as do members of the U.S. military, though in fewer numbers than at the violence's peak.

A fresh reminder that Iraq is far from being what we would recognize as safe came on Sunday with the near bombing of NPR's correspondent in Iraq, Ivan Watson and the group of Iraqis he was traveling with in Baghdad.

As NPR reports:

An NPR correspondent and three members of NPR's Iraqi staff narrowly survived an apparent assassination attempt in Baghdad on Sunday after a hidden "sticky" bomb exploded underneath their parked, armored BMW.

The bombing took place during a brief NPR reporting trip to western Baghdad's battle-scarred Rabiye Street.

by Mark Silva

That light at the end of the tunnel you see just might be the end of active U.S. military involvement in Iraq.

One way or another: President-elect Barack Obama has promised to withdraw combat forces within 16 months of taking office in January. And today, the Iraqi Parliament ratified a security agreement with the United States that sets a three-year timetable for troop withdrawal.

"Two years ago, this day seemed unlikely,'' President Bush said in a statement issued today - nearly six years after a U.S.-led invasion and ensuing war that has cost the lives of more than 4,000 Americans and tens of thousands more Iraqis.

The agreement was approved overwhelmingly, the International Herald Tribune reports today. With more than 140 of the 198 lawmakers present in the assembly voting for it. The agreement will come into play when a United Nations mandate now governing forces in Iraq expires on Dec. 31. The pact says that all American combat forces should withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30 of the coming year, and that all troops should be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.

The agreement allows Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government, or its successor, to negotiate a later, separate, agreement with the Americans allowing them to stay longer if it believes Iraq is not yet stable enough. And the pact gives the Iraqis say over what sort of operations American troops can undertake, setting limits on home searches and detainment of suspects.

See the agreements here:Iraqi security agreement.pdf Iraqi security agreement II.pdf

And more on the vote and Bush's statement here:

by Frank James

President Bush traveled today to Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, home of the 101st Airborne.

It was a chance for Bush to visit with one of the few groups of Americans where his popularity remains relatively high, the U.S. military. And it was another chance for him to make the argument that invading Iraq and ousting Saddam Hussein was the right decision despite all we now know which we didn't in 2003.

Most of the nation has heard his arguments before. Much of the nation has stopped listening to him at all.

But he was making his case as much to posterity as to the audience of soldiers sitting around him.

Here's a transcript:

PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you. Please be seated. Unless of course, you don't have a seat. (Laughter.)

In recent weeks, this post has been the scene of heartwarming family reunions. Many of you recently finished deployments to Iraq. You have performed with courage and distinction on the front lines of the war on terror. You have returned on success. On behalf of a grateful nation, I'm proud to welcome home the Bastogne Brigade, the Strike Brigade, the Rakkasans Brigade. (Cheers.) Job well done.

A protester uses his sandal to strike an effigy of U.S. President George. W. Bush as thousands of followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr converged on Firdous Square in central Baghdad, Iraq for a mass prayer to protest a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security pact on Friday, Nov. 21, 2008.(AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

by Frank James

Shiite followers of the Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a persistent thorn in the Bush Administration's side, held a large demonstration in Baghdad's Firdous Square to protest the agreement between the U.S. and Iraqi governments that would allow the American military to remain in Iraq until the end of 2011.

Sadr has been mostly quiet during the period of the U.S. and Iraqi security surge. But the agreement gives him the perfect opportunity to rally his supporters around assertions of Iraqi nationalism.

Thousands of followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr bow in prayer as they converge on Firdous Square in central Baghdad, Iraq to protest a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security pact on Friday, Nov. 21, 2008. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Here's a little color from the demonstration as reported by the Associated Press:

Chanting and waving flags, thousands of Muqtada al-Sadr's followers filled Firdous Square to protest a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security pact that would allow American troops to stay for three more years. The Bush effigy was placed on the same pedestal where U.S. Marines toppled the ousted dictator's statue in one of the iconic images of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Before it fell, the effigy held a sign that said: "The security agreement ... shame and humiliation."

by Frank James

For Iraq to have the greatest chance at success in 2009 and 2010 assuming President-elect Barack Obama draws down U.S. forces to the degree he promised during the campaign, Iraq will need enough infrastructure to provide adequate services like electricity, fuel and education. it will also require a well-equipped security forces.

Meanwhile, since 2003 the U.S. has appropriated $50.77 billion of American taxpayer money for Iraqi reconstruction projects.

So it's very troubling that the Iraqi government is reportedly ridding itself of its internal watchdogs who keep an eye on corruption within the government.

As the New York Times reports in an important story:

BAGHDAD -- The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is systematically dismissing Iraqi oversight officials, who were installed to fight corruption in Iraqi ministries by order of the American occupation administration, which had hoped to bring Western standards of accountability to the notoriously opaque and graft-ridden bureaucracy here.

The dismissals, which were confirmed by senior Iraqi and American government officials on Sunday and Monday, have come as estimates of official Iraqi corruption have soared. One Iraqi former chief investigator recently testified before Congress that $13 billion in reconstruction funds from the United States had been lost to fraud, embezzlement, theft and waste by Iraqi government officials.

by Frank James

So what exactly is in the Status of Forces Agreement or SOFA between the U.S. and iraq which was approved by the Iraqi cabinet yesterday and signed by U.S. and Iraqi representatives today? The answer is we're not exactly sure.

We know the agreement would allow U.S. troops to stay until 2011 and that it requires U.S. troops to return to their bases by June 30.

We also know the agreement grants protection to U.S. service members in Iraq accused of crimes against Iraqis from prosecution in the Iraqi court systems. But there appear to be some important details that aren't yet widely known.

It would allow the trial by Iraqi courts of off-duty and off base U.S. troops and contractors charged with crimes against Iraqis.

There are actually two agreements, the SOFA and the Strategic Framework Agreement.

According to an article on the Council of Foreign Relations website:

"A draft of that (SOFA) agreement (PDF) from October 2008 shows significant concessions from the U.S. side. For instance, the Bush administration agreed to a total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. The agreement would also place additional restrictions on how U.S. troops conducted missions, and require a pullout from Iraqi urban areas by July 2009.

Details of the second accord under discussion are more opaque. Referred to as a "strategic framework agreement," the measure would broadly address issues not covered by the SOFA, including those outlined in a "declaration of principles" document signed by President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in November 2007. Among these issues: the U.S. role in defending Iraq from internal and external threats; U.S. support of political reconciliation; and U.S. efforts to confront terrorist groups. Critics of the measures contend the Bush administration aims to tie the hands of the next president and usurp Iraqi sovereignty, charges the White House vehemently disputes.

Iraqi municipal workers begin the task of clearing up the debris of several restaurants following a twin bombing when a car first detonated in the Sunni district of Adhamiyah in Baghdad, followed by a suicide bomber on November 10, 2008. (Photo credit should read KHALIL AL-MURSHIDI/AFP/Getty Images)

Today's bombings in Iraq which left dozens dead is a stark and horrible reminder that, while violence has dropped significantly there as a result of the U.S. military's surge, that country is still very dangerous.

It's a measure of progress that today's blasts, which killed at least 31 people in Baghdad and more elsewhere, according to the Associated Press, represented the worst day of violence since June. Less than two years ago such a time gap in major attacks was unheard of.

But it's also true that the continuing violence indicates how difficult the challenge will be for President-elect Barack Obama.

He has promised to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by early 2010. But if removing U.S. forces were to result in increased violence and instability, that decision could result in criticism from not just Republicans who would say "I told you so" but foreign allies too, especially those in the region who would face the greatest risk from an increasingly unstable Iraq.

by Frank James

A lot of push back from the McCain campaign, as one might expect, to the Washington Post's story today on a posting on an al Qaeda linked website that expressed a preference for Sen. John McCain to win the White House over Sen. Barack Obama.

In a teleconference for which the McCain campaign provided a partial transcript, Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign-policy adviser, questioned why the WaPo would run the story in the form it did, with what he called an "inflammatory" headline: "On al Qaeda web site, joy over U.S. crisis, support for McCain."

He also suggested the WaPo cherry-picked information, implying that it was an anti-McCain hatchet job.

by Frank James

Gen. David Petraeus, architect of the U.S. military's surge strategy, now widely viewed as a great success for bringing down the levels of violence in Iraq, officially turned over command of U.S. and allied forces in that nation to Gen. Ray Odierno.

Petraeus, who has become one of the most famous American generals of recent decades, goes on to head U.S. Central Command with responsibility for the Middle East, and parts of north Africa and Central Asia.

Few military commanders in American history have been so identified in the general public's mind with turning around a failing war effort as Petraeus is. During the American Revolutionary War, George Washington established himself as the nation's first military turnaround specialist. Ulysses Grant did the same during the Civil War.

Petraeus, no Douglas MacArthur in terms of self-promotion, certainly wouldn't appear to be the type to place himself in that aforementioned pantheon of great military strategists. But he did accomplish something many thought impossible a few just two years ago, an Iraq trending towards something that resembles normal.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in Baghdad for the change-in-command ceremony expressed as much:

The situation here is much different today than when General Petraeus took command of MNF-I in February 2007 for this tour, and when General Odierno arrived as corps commander in December 2006. They were an incredible team. The darkness has receded. Hope has returned. After four years off and on in Iraq, General Petraeus leaves this country transformed -- but does not leave it for good. I'm sure that, as commander of Central Command, he will be back in short order. General, you have set an incredible example for everyone in uniform. More importantly, you have dealt the enemies of the United States of America and Iraq a tremendous, if not mortal, blow. And I believe history will regard you as one of our nation's great battle captains.

by Mark Silva

Clearly, Sarah Palin didn't get the meaning of the term, "the Bush Doctrine.'' But just as clearly, she supports it.

For supporters of Palin, the Alaska governor whom the Republican Party has nominated for vice president, the lack of recognition for a fairly common term inside the beltway of Washington for a strategy formulated by Bush's National Security Council in the fall of 2002 could be considered a badge of maverick honor.

For supporters as well, her certain belief in the underlying tenet of the justification that President Bush used to wage a preemptive war in Iraq should also bring some cheer.

For critics, the gotcha moment in ABC's interview with Palin is a clear lesson in how little attention the first-term governor of Alaska has paid to affairs which, as vice president and potentially president, she would quickly be expected to comprehend.

For critics as well, Palin's clear alliegance to the underlying principal of the doctrine, despite her failure to recognize the name on the political media equivalent of a Jeopardy board - "Charlie, I'll take foreign policy for $1,000'' - will also serve as fodder for the Obama campaign argument that McCain and Palin represent "more of the same.''

Thomas Donnelly wrote for the American Enterprise Institute in January 2003: "If nothing else, the Bush Doctrine, articulated by the president over the past eighteen months in a series of speeches and encapsulated in the new National Security Strategy paper released in September, represents a reversal of course from Clinton-era policies in regard to the uses of U.S. power and, especially, military force.

"So perhaps it is no surprise that many Americans--and others in the rest of the world as well--are struggling to keep up with the changes.''

But that was more than five years ago.

"Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?'' ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson asked Palin in the first installment of the network's interview last night.

Palin paused, looked at Gibson, and correctly guessing that she had been tossed a question for which she did not know the answer, adroitly asked a question of her own:

"In what respect, Charlie?''

Not, what are you talking about?. But rather, please what part of the doctrine are you asking me to agree with? Give the governor credit for thinking in the hot seat.

by Mark Silva

It's an extraordinary fact of the campaign underway that three of the four candidates for president and vice president have sons who already have or are soon deploying for military service in Iraq.

They say this is a foreign war that has touched only the enlisted, with most Americans disconnected from any personal investment in a conflict that has raged for nearly six years. But it has touched most of the families with eyes on the White House.

Private Fist Class Track Palin, son of the Republican vice presidential nominee, enlisted in the Army National Guard a year ago, on, yes, the anniversary of the Sept. 11. attacks, which, as everyone knows, have nothing to do with Iraq. (He is pictured right in an AP photo by Rex Arbogast from the Republican convention.)

And, as Gov. Sarah Palin, the GOP's vice presidential nominee, announced at the Republican National Convention last week: "One week from tomorrow, Sept. 11, he'll deploy to Iraq with the Army infantry in the service of his country.''

Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden's son, Beau Biden, a captain in the Army National Guard, will deploy to Iraq in an administrative role. This is his first deployment to Iraq. He joined the Guard in 2003. An attorney, he will be deployed for a year, part of his brigade's administrative staff, providing counsel as a JAG. (The Biden's are pictured at the Democratic convention in an AFP photo by Paul Richards.)

Marine Lance. Cpl. Jimmy McCain has been there already.

In a family with a legacy of service starting at the U.S. Naval Academy - his older brother, John S. McCain IV, is a midshipman - the Marine McCain's six-month deployment came and went without notice, because his father, John S. McCain III, a retired Navy captain, has not spoken about it publicly during his campaign for president. (Jimmy McCain is pictured below arriving in Minneapolis for his father's convention in an AP photo by Stephan Savoia.)

But the senior McCain has spoken quite directly about the war itself: The United States can, and must, win it, says the senior senator from Arizona, held as a POW in Vietnam.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama promises to bring most troops home from Iraq within 16 months of election as president. He has no personal connection to the deployments in this conflict. He is a father of two young girls.

Among all these families, it would seem, there should be an urgency about settling the American score in Iraq.

And, even though Sept. 11 has nothing to do with it, this somehow seems an appropriate day to be talking about all this. As President Bush repeatedly insists, the U.S. is fighting terrorists in Iraq so it doesn't have to fight them at home.-- and three of the four families who hope to succeed Bush and Cheney in Washington are fighting the war in Iraq, in their own ways.
.
Bush says the troops will be "return on success'' - and he has made what is probably his last withdrawal of forces from the war in Iraq before his own retirement, with the announcement this week that 1,000 Marines will leave Iraq in November.

In an election year in which the long-running war has taken something of a backseat to economic turmoil at home, almost everyone involved in the pursuit of the White House has a personal connection to a conflict which most Americans, as the polls clearly show, now consider a mistake.

by Mark Silva

Barack Obama, who has pledged to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months of his election as president, today dismissed President Bush's declared "next step forward'' as too little - and attempted to connect his Republican rival, John McCain, with a misguided Bush war strategy.

Bush announced "a very modest troop redeployment from Iraq,'' Obama said. "Meanwhile, we will continue to keep nearly 140,000 troops in Iraq, while our military is overstretched... We will continue to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq, while Iraq continues to sit on a $79 billion surplus.

'In the absence of a timetable... we will continue to give Iraq's leaders a blank check.

"The president's talk of a return on success is a new name for continuing the same strategic mistakes that have dominated our foreign policy for over five years,'' the senator from Illinois said.

The president also is deploying new troops to Afghanistan, Obama noted, but "his plan comes up short... It is not enough troops, not enough resources with not enough urgency...

"What the president doesn't understand is that the central front in the war on terror is not in Iraq, and it never was. The central front is in Afghanistan and Pakistan,'' Obama said. "Under the president's plan, we still have nearly four times the troops in Iraq as in Afghanistan'' and no plans to deal with al Qaeda's sanctury in Pakistan.

"John McCain has been talking a lot about change,'' the Democratic presidential nominee said, "but he is running for four more years of the same foreign policy as we've had under George Bush.''

The president announced today that a Marine battalion of about 1,000 will come home in November, but not until February 2009, after he has left office, will more forces start withdrawing: An Army brigade of about 4,000 will leave then, along with about 3,400 combat support forces - military police, construction engineers and the like. In total, this means 8,000 leaving without replacement. On the ame timetable, the military will deploy an additional 4,500 troops to Afghanistan.

"Reduced levels of violence in Iraq have been sustaiend for several months,'' Bush said in his address today. "The progress in Iraq is fragile and still reversible,'' he said, but General David Petraeus, recommending the pace of withdrawals in the months ahead, has told him it appears "durable.''

by Mark Silva

It was Donald Rumsfeld, the former secretary of defense, who famously said, "You go to war with the Army you have.''

And now President Bush effectively is saying that the United States will fight the war in Iraq with the Army it has there through the end of his term:

A Marine battalion of about 1,000 will come home in November, the president said, but not until February 2009 -- after he has left office -- will more forces start withdrawing: An Army brigade of about 4,000 will leave then, along with about 3,400 combat support forces - military police, construction engineers and the like.

In total, this means that about 8,000 people will be coming home, without replacement, by February. And in the first half of the new year, Bush said today at the National Defense University in Washington, more troops should be able to withdraw from Iraq - conditions permitting.

While all five of the combat brigades and the Marine battalions and expeditionary force that were deployed to Iraq as part of the president's "surge'' of military forces have returned, the pace of the coming withdrawals - 1,000 this fall, and another 7,000 by February - is perhaps slower than the pace that Republican presidential nominee John McCain may have anticipated, based on the "success'' of the surge.

And it certainly is slower than the two-brigade-per-month withdrawal that Democrat Barack Obama is proposing. Which means the debate over the war will continue into Election Day on Nov. 4.

"Reduced levels of violence in Iraq have been sustaiend for several months,'' Bush said in his address today. "The progress in Iraq is fragile and still reversible,'' he said, but General David Petraeus, recommending the pace of withdrawals in the months ahead, has told him it appears "durable.''

Why not a swifter withdrawal?

"What I can tell you is that Gen. Petraeus made his recommendation up through the change of command,'' Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said today.

by Aamer Madhani

For much of the first five years of the Iraq War, the U.S. struggle to pacify Anbar province seemed like a quixotic effort.

The western province was where U.S. forces saw some of the fiercest fighting since Vietnam, a place where more than 1,100 U.S. troops have been killed in action since the start of the war. And with a largely Sunni population that was hostile to U.S. forces and the newly empowered Shiite government in Baghdad, Anbar looked as if it would be the toughest nut to crack in Iraq.

But on Wednesday, in a potent symbol of strides made in what was one of the most troublesome corners of Iraq, the U.S. Marine commandant, Gen. James Conway, said that U.S. troops will turn over control of Anbar to the Iraqi security forces sometime next week. Conway suggested that the security situation has improved so much that it is time to shift the Marines' presence to Afghanistan.

As the Marines hand over control of security to the Iraqis and move toward shrinking their bootprint in Iraq, they will leave behind a once-hostile Sunni population that is now more empowered but still mistrusted by Iraq's Shiite-dominated political apparatus in Baghdad

The final decision on shifting future deployments of Marines--there are now 25,000 in Iraq--would be made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has expressed his desire to send more troops to Afghanistan as fewer are needed in Iraq. But it's noteworthy that Conway's statement comes just weeks before Gen. David Petraeus, the outgoing top commander in Iraq, is expected to make recommendations to Gates for further troop cuts in Iraq.

Conway, who recently returned from a visit to Iraq, said Marines serving in the province told him that the areas where U.S. troops once were regularly assaulted by gunfire and roadside bombs are these days largely quiet.

"There aren't a whole heck of a lot of bad guys there left to fight," Conway said the Marines told him.

The transfer of authority in Anbar has been expected for weeks but was delayed in part by the reluctance of top Iraqi security officials to see the Americans go.

Still, the moment offers the Pentagon and Bush administration another emblematic reminder of the strides that U.S. troops and Iraqi forces have made in turning around the situation in a giant swath of Iraq that was the scene of some of the most gruesome episodes of the war and what many military analysts feared was a lost cause.

From 2004 through much of 2007, U.S. troops fought pitched battles along the Euphrates River in Anbar's infamous cities--Fallujah, Ramadi and Hamdaniyah--that were known as strongholds of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

by Frank James

First Lady Laura Bush has said that her husband had the best luck when it came to timing of anyone she's known.

More proof of that today. CNN is reporting that U.S. forces in Iraq will hand over the once super violent al-Anbar Province to Iraqi security forces on Monday.

Monday just happens to be the first day of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. It is also the day when President Bush will address the convention.

The White House will say that the two events aren't linked and they may not be. It may be just a coincidence.

But even if it's just happenstance, there's no denying that the timing is fortuitous for Bush who no doubt will be able to elicit a big cheer from the crowd by mentioning in the part of his speech where he talks about the progress that's been made in Iraq.

Here's a snippet from an Associated Press story about the Marines drawing down in Anbar.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Marine commandant said Wednesday that his forces in Iraq's once-volatile western Anbar Province can be reduced, as the military moves to hand over control of the region to the Iraqis next week.

Reducing forces in Iraq, Conway said, is necessary in order to move any additional Marines into Afghanistan, where violence is on the rise.

by Mark Silva

About a month before President Bush announced his plans for a 'surge'' of U.S. military force in Iraq, he received a letter from a certain fellow Republican who had been publicly critical of the earlier conduct of the war.

Sen. John McCain, who was held as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam for five and a half years, long has held that the U.S. lost that war for a lack of will to win, as our colleague James Gerstenzang notes in Countdown to Crawford today.

"The question is one of will more than capacity,'' McCain wrote to the president on Dec. 12, 2006.

"As the world's richest country, with 1.4 million troops under arms, and having contained sectarian conflict in the Balkans in the 1990s, we have the capacity to properly resource this war,'' he wrote. "It is my strong belief that we need to begin doing so immediately. If we are not willing to provide the troops necessary for victory, however, victory itself will be impossible.''

McCain's letter to the president was revealed today in the Washington Times, with a front-page splash presenting the missive of the man who now stands to claim the Republican Party's presidential nomination in September as "the climax of a 3 1/2-year effort to persuade the president to send more troops to Iraq."

Today, McCain calls the surge an unequivocal success. And Bush, whose own standing in opinion polls has plummeted with an increasing public opposition to the war, told the Times: "John recognized early on that more troops would be needed in order to achieve the security necessary for the Iraqis to make the political progress we're seeing now.''

The letter, Gerstenzang notes, draws a clear distinction between McCain and his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, an opponent of the war in Iraq who promises to bring troops home and was launching his bid for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination at the time that Bush announced his surge. And it firmly connects McCain with the president's policy.

by Liz Sly

BAGHDAD -- Having two wives at the same time makes life complicated, as many a polygamist can attest. But having two wives in a war zone can be particularly problematic, as Walid Karim has found out to his peril.

Islamic and Iraqi law permit a man to marry up to four times, but the husband is supposed to do so only on condition that he treat his spouses equally. It's an injunction most men are obliged to observe, if not by law then because their dueling wives insist.

In common with others in his situation, Karim, 37, therefore alternates the nights he spends with his wives--one night with his first one and their three children in the house he provides for her in Sadr City, the next with the second one and their child across the city in the neighborhood of Bayaa, and so on.

When he awoke one morning earlier this year with his second wife to find out that fierce fighting had broken out around the home of his first wife, he called to say he wouldn't be able to make it that night.
But she begged him, insisting it was her turn.

"I had to go because she was afraid, and the children needed me," Karim said.

The next morning he awoke with his first wife to find that the violence had worsened and a curfew had been imposed on the entire city.

But the tears of his second wife left him no choice but to venture out, on foot because vehicles were banned.

by Mark Silva

Republican John McCain, addressing fellow veterans of foreign wars in Orlando today, is telling them that both he and Democratic rival Barack Obama plan to bring U.S. forces home from the war in Iraq - "the great difference is that I intend to win it first.''

"I'm sure many of you will also recall from your experiences in war, as I do from mine, that when you're somewhere on the other side of the world in the service of America you pay attention to the news from back home. It affects morale,'' McCain tells the VFW, in remarks prepared for delivery of the speech underway.

"Though victory in Iraq is finally in sight, a great deal still depends on the decisions and good judgment of the next president,'' says McCain. "The hard-won gains of our troops hang in the balance. The lasting advantage of a peaceful and democratic ally in the heart of the Middle East could still be squandered by hasty withdrawal and arbitrary timelines. And this is one of many problems in the shifting positions of my opponent, Sen. Obama.

"With less than three months to go before the election, a lot of people are still trying to square Sen. Obama's varying positions on the surge in Iraq,'' McCain is saying. "First, he opposed the surge and confidently predicted that it would fail. Then he tried to prevent funding for the troops who carried out the surge.

"Not content to merely predict failure in Iraq, my opponent tried to legislate failure. This was back when supporting America's efforts in Iraq entailed serious political risk. It was a clarifying moment. It was a moment when political self-interest and the national interest parted ways. For my part, with so much in the balance, it was an easy call. As I said at the time, I would rather lose an election than lose a war...

"Even in retrospect,'' McCain says of his opponent, who plans to address the VFW at its convention in Orlando on Tuesday, "he would choose the path of retreat and failure for America over the path of success and victory. In short, both candidates in this election pledge to end this war and bring our troops home. The great difference is that I intend to win it first.''

by Aamer Madhani

With anticipation that Sen. Barack Obama will choose his running mate soon after returning from his Hawaii vacation, there are some rumblings in the liberal blogosphere for Obama to choose someone other than Sen. Evan Bayh.

Some political prognosticators say that by picking Bayh, who was a strong supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton's run for the Democratic nomination, Obama can give a nod to angry Clinton supporters and put Indiana into play in November.

But some liberals seem to be chafing at the thought of an Obama-Bayh ticket.

In a column on the Huffington Post published today, Steve Clemons wrote that Bayh, the son of the former Indiana politician and Democratic hero Birch Bayh, would be an uninspired choice.

"In contrast to his indefatigable, passionate, and legislatively masterful father, Evan Bayh's approach to policy and politics comes off as flat and squeezes the air, sizzle, and enthusiasm out of the Obama balloon," wrote Clemons, who urged his readers to let the Obama campaign know what they think about Bayh.

The Washington Independent notes that earlier today, a new group was launched on the social networking site Facebook called "100,000 Strong Against Evan Bayh for VP.

by Aamer Madhani

On the sprawling U.S. bases in Iraq, you can't go far without stumbling across the private citizens who do the little things that keep the war machine humming.

Filipino workers are charged with laundering the troops uniforms, Indians and Pakistanis are often the ones ladling the chow at the D-FAC, and Americans and other westerners are paid handsomely to provide security for diplomats and perform other tasks.

So, it's not much of a surprise that a new report unveiled by the Congressional Budget Office today reveals that the U.S. government has relied more on private contractors during the war in Iraq than any other war in the nation's history.

U.S. agencies awarded $85 billion in contracts in Iraq from 2003 to 2007 for logistic support, construction, fuel, food and other projects. As of early this year, at least 190,000 contractors and subcontractors were working on U.S. funded projects in Iraq, Kuwait and elsewhere in the Middle East to support the war effort.

The contracting workforce essentially matches the number of U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq.

"According to the rough historical data, the ratio of one contractor employee for every member of the U.S. armed forces in the Iraq theater is at least 2.5 times higher than the ratio during any other major U.S. conflict, although it is roughly comparable with the ratio during the operations in the Balkans in the 1990s," the report said.

During the Revolutionary War, there were six U.S. troops for every contractor. The ratio was 24-to-1 for World War I, 7-to-1 for World War II, 5-to-1 during the Vietnam War and 55-to-1 during the first Gulf War, according to report.

Nearly 40 percent of the workers in the Iraq war are Iraqis or other Middle Eastern citizens, and about 20 percent are U.S. citizens. The other 40 percent are third-country nationals.

by Frank James

For months, members of Congress, especially but not only Democrats, have questioned why the Iraqi government doesn't spend more of its own billions in oil dollars (it has the world's third largest known oil reserves) on its reconstruction, instead relying on billions of U.S. tax dollars.

Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John Warner (R-Va) asked The General Accountability Office to examine the Iraq oil revenue issue and the GAO has come back with an answer.

The thumbnail: from 2005 to 2007, the Iraqis had $96 billion in revenues with $90.2 billion coming from oil revenues. And 2008 was expected to be a good year because of high oil prices, with revenues this year coming in between $73.5 billion and $86.2 billion, again with 90 percent coming from oil.

During the same period the Iraqi government spent $67 billion on its operating expenses, such as government workers' salaries and pensions as well as goods and services. Only one percent went to "maintaining Iraq- and U.S.-funded investments, which includes the maintenance of roads, bridges, vehicles, buildings, water and electricity installations, and weapons."

The Iraqis had a $29.4 billion surplus at the end of December which they kept in Iraqi and U.S. financial institutions. The GAO estimated that It's 2008 surplus would range between $38.2 billion to $50.3 billion.

It's those surpluses that are really driving some U.S. lawmakers crazy. They want the Iraqis to start spending that money so that U.S. taxpayers could stop picking up so much of the reconstruction tab. The GAO says the U.S. has appropriated $48 billion for Iraqi reconstruction and stabilization since 2003, with about 70 percent of those funds having been spent.

Part of the problem is that the Iraqis don't have the capacity to spend their money effectively. As the report says:

U.S. government, coalition, and international officials have identified a number of factors that have affected the Iraqi government's ability to spend more of its revenues on capital investments intended to rebuild its infrastructure. These factors include Iraq's shortage of trained staff, weak procurement and budgeting systems, and violence and sectarian strife. As we have previously reported, the United States has funded, since 2005, activities to help build the capacity of key civilian and security ministries and thereby improve the Iraqi government's ability to execute its budget for capital projects.

by Mark Silva

First it was former CIA Director George Tenet calling the case for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction a "slam dunk,'' as our colleague, Johanna Neuman, at the Los Angeles Times notes.

Now it is author Ron Suskind contending that the White House ordered the CIA to forge and backdate a handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein connecting the Iraq regime to Al Qaeda.

"The White House calls the assertion nonsense,'' Neuman notes, in Countdown to Crawford, the Times' online diary about the final days of the Bush administration.

In The Way of the World, published today, Suskind writes:

"The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001. It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq -- thus showing, finally, that there was an operational link between Saddam and al Qaeda, something the vice president's office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade Iraq. There is no link.''

The White House dismissed the accusation as sensationalism from a sensationalist. Politico.com quotes spokesman Tony Fratto: "The allegation that the White House directed anyone to forge a document from Habbush to Saddam is just absurd."

Tenet, too, has a statement: "There was no such order from the White House to me nor, to the best of my knowledge, was anyone from CIA ever involved in any such effort.''

Asked about Tenet's response on NBC News' Today Show, Suskind today dismissed it as "part of George's memory issue." (See the video above.)

Suskind was last in the news, Neuman reminds us, as co-author of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's kiss-and-tell memoir, The Price of Loyalty.

"Ron Suskind makes a living from gutter journalism,'' The White House's Fratto suggests. "He is about selling books and making wild allegations that no one can verify, including the numerous bipartisan commissions that have reported on prewar intelligence.''

by Mark Silva

President Bush, proclaiming "a degree of durability'' in security gains made in Iraq, today asserted that progress is being made toward his stated policy of "a return on success.''

The five Army brigades and three Marine units that Bush deployed for a "surge'' of forces in Iraq last year have returned, Bush said today, and the military will soon make decisions about further returns "as conditions permit.''

The Bush administration and government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have been negotiating and had hoped to agree by today on the framework of a longer-term agreement on security - including deployment of U.S. forces there. But, in the absence of an accord, Bush stepped out this morning to assert that "progress" is being made.

"This has been a month of encouraging news from Iraq,'' Bush said, making a statement to reporters at the colonnade of the White House grounds before leaving for a weekend at his father's family compound at Kennebunkport, Me. "Violence is down from its lowest level since the spring of 2004.''

"Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker report that the progress is still reversible,'' the president said, but there "appears to be a degree of durability'' in that progress. A "significant reason for this sustained progress is the success of the surge,'' he said, "and increased capability of Iraqi forces.

by Liz Sly

BAGHDAD--Every evening at dusk, men gather on the Jadriyah Bridge spanning the Tigris River and turn it into an impromptu bar.

It's a sign of the improving times, the revival of an old habit that dates to the rule of Saddam Hussein, before the militias and extremists blew up the liquor stores and shuttered the bars as part of their effort to impose new forms of Islamic law on this once resolutely secular society.

Young men prop up the railings holding cans of beer and chat and smoke as if they were in a real bar. Old men pull up carts selling lablabi, a chick pea snack served in bars, back when there were bars. Sometimes there is dancing to the rhythmic sounds of Arabic music played on someone's car stereo, as the last of the evening's commuters whiz past and the sun sets over the green river swirling below.

And just as with real bars anywhere, the people who come here have sorrows to drown and tales to tell that come tumbling out after a few drinks have been downed--except that these are uniquely Iraqi tales.

Among those who go to the bridge is Rafat Nadhem, 22, who has paid a heavy price for his refusal--and inability--to kick the drinking habit in these past years of violence.

Pulling back his shirt, Nadhem reveals the ugly scar across his neck that he says was left by Shiite Mahdi Army militiamen who slashed his throat and left him for dead after catching him with bottles in his trunk and alcohol on his breath.

"Don't you know alcohol is haram [forbidden]?" said the men who stopped him at a checkpoint in 2006 in the slum neighborhood of Sadr City, a Mahdi Army stronghold. They dragged him to a nearby field and lashed him with cables. Then, he said, one took out a knife and slit his throat.

by Aamer Madhani

The good news is that July is on pace to be the least deadly month for U.S. troops in Iraq since the start of the war. The bad news is that nearly twice as many Americans have been killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq this month.

Iraq has been relatively quiet this month with the American death toll standing at 11 with two days remaining in the month. And that figure includes the deaths of Sgt. Alex Jimenez and Private Byron Fouty--whose bodies were recovered earlier this month more than a year after their patrol was ambushed. The U.S. military listed five of the July troop deaths as occurring in "non-hostile" incidents.

In fact, it's been more than two weeks since the last U.S. service member was killed in action in Iraq.

"This is not the metric by which we measure success," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said during a Pentagon news conference yesterday. "But it is stunning nonetheless that there remain four U.S. KIA [killed in action] in Iraq so far this month... it is certainly an encouraging sign."

Richard Perle. Chicago Tribune photo by Chris Walker.)

by Frank James

Richard Perle, a leading neocon who argued forcibly before the Iraq War for the invasion and ouster of Saddam Hussein, looks to be trying to get in on the action when it comes to oil in Iraq and Kazakhstan.

It's the Iraq part that sentence that is bound to fuel a lot of war critics' resentment towards Perle, which is already high to begin with. It's likely to give renewed impetus to the claim that Iraq was a war of choice for oil.

As The Wall Street Journal reports:

Mr. Perle, one of a group of security experts who began pushing the case for toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein about a decade ago, has been discussing a possible deal with officials of northern Iraq's Kurdistan regional government, including its Washington envoy, according to these people and the documents.

It would involve a tract called K18, near the Kurdish city of Erbil, according to documents describing the plan. A consortium founded by Turkish company AK Group International is seeking rights to drill there, the documents say. Potential backers include two Turkish companies as well as Kazakhstan, according to individuals involved.

The story goes on to report this:

People with knowledge of the discussions said they involve Alexander Mirtchev, a Washington consultant and adviser to the government of Kazakhstan, and an associate of his, Kaloyan Dimitrov. Mr. Perle has attended events promoting the interests of Kazakhstan, an oil-rich nation whose ruler, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is involved in a long-running U.S. investigation of 1990s-era oil-company bribery. Mr. Perle has publicly lauded President Nazarbayev as "visionary and wise," according to a publication distributed by the Kazakh embassy in Washington.

Asked about pursuing oil concessions, Mr. Perle said, "I am not involved in any consortium involving Mr. Mirtchev or Mr. Dimitrov, nor am I 'framing plans for a consortium'" involving either one. He declined to elaborate.

by Frank James

Today's bombings in Iraq of a Shiite pilgrimage in Baghdad and a Kurdish rally in northern Iraq are just the latest examples of a sadly increasing trend: attacks featuring female suicide bombers.

As such, they demonstrate once again the resiliency of the al Qaeda terrorists who refuse to surrender despite the best the U.S. military has been able to throw at them, i.e. the surge of U.S. and Iraqi military forces.

As journalists on the ground have reported, the use of women suicide bombers is particularly challenging for Iraqi and U.S. security forces since Iraqi culture and Islamic religion and tradition all make it harder for women to be searched for explosive suicide belts under their abayas.

So the U.S. military has started the Daughters of Iraq, the equivalent of the Sons of Iraq groups. The Sons of Iraq organizations have helped to lower the violence in Iraq as local men, given the incentive of U.S. payments, have taken back their neighborhoods from insurgents and terrorists.

Likewise, the Daughters groups are also paid to be on the lookout for female suicide bombers. As is obvious from today's tragedies, they have their work cut out for them.

It's difficult to know if this relatively new phase in terrorism in Iraq will become a significant problem. People familiar with Iraq say that there are many women in Iraq in despair because they are widows, have been brutalized, or for other reasons.

But it's hard to believe that there's an inexhaustible supply of such female suicide bombers, even in Iraq.

Perhaps these women are like the Japanese kamikaze pilots who, late in World War II after it appeared the war had turned against Japan, crashed their airplanes into U.S. naval vessels, creating casualties but not changing the war's eventual outcome.

by Mark Silva

It seems that Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain have now met in the middle on Iraq:

Obama has long called for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months after election, should he be elected president. McCain this week called that a "pretty good timetable,'' and said U.S. forces should be "out of there'' by the end of his first term, should he be elected.

But McCain also has predicated any "horizon'' for troop withdrawals on "conditions on the ground,'' like President Bush. And Obama acknowledges, too, that , after his promised withdrawal of combat forces, the timetable for continuing support from residual U.S. troops in Iraq will be "conditions-based.'' Obama even cited Bush in his remarks in an interview near the end of his vaunted European tour.

McCain has suggested that forces may remain in Iraq in some capacity for a long time - "100 years... fine by me,'' he famously has said - so long as Americans are not suffering casualties. Obama allows that Iraq is "going to need our help for some time to come.''

Near the close of Obama's widely touted tour of Afghanistan, Iraq and Europe, Newsweek's Richard Wolfe put a few questions to the senator from Illinois on their way into Paris. See what Wolfe is reporting today about Obama and his evolving stance on the U.S. military presence in Iraq, a stance which in some ways appears to be meeting McCain's own evolving position in the middle.

"it's not new that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has wanted to take control of his own country,'' Wolfe noted in his talk with Obama. "But there's always been this gap between his assessment of his abilities and American commanders' saying he's not up to it. As president, faced with that difference between what he says he can do and what the commanders say he can do, how would you choose between them?

"Iraq is a sovereign country,'' Obama replied. "Not just according to me, but according to George Bush and John McCain. So ultimately our presence there is at their invitation, and their policy decisions have to be taken into account.

"I also think that Maliki recognizes that they're going to need our help for some time to come, as our commanders insist, but that the help is of the sort that is consistent with the kind of phased withdrawal that I have promoted,'' Obama said. "We're going to have to provide them with logistical support, intelligence support. We're going to have to have a very capable counterterrorism strike force. We're going to have to continue to train their Army and police to make them more effective.

"You've been talking about those limited missions for a long time,'' Wolfe noted. "Having gone there and talked to both diplomatic and military folks, do you have a clearer idea of how big a force you'd need to leave behind to fulfill all those functions?

"I do think that's entirely conditions-based,'' Obama replied. "It's hard to anticipate where we may be six months from now, or a year from now, or a year and a half from now.''

Now, Obama's 16-month withdrawal involves combat troops, leaving at the pace of one-to-two brigades per month in his promised scenario. And he maintains that he has not wavered from that. He could be addressing the question of the "residual'' support and training forces that remain afterward in this "conditions-based'' scenario. But then, the terms of the debate are starting to align -- McCain warming to 16 months, Obama talking about "conditions.'

Debate over? Not likely.

by Aamer Madhani

Last month, independent photojournalist Zoriah Miller was on a foot patrol with a Marine unit in a small town near the western city of Fallujah, when a call came over the radio about a bomb blast.

Miller and the Marine unit he was embedded rushed to the scene to find a scene of utter chaos of a suicide bombing that took the lives of three marines and at least 20 Iraqis.

"Several dozen people lost their lives... children, old men, civilians, police, and military men," Miller wrote in an entry on his blog four days after the June 26 blast in Garma. "The scene was horrific beyond words, even for someone like me who has a fairly high threshold for such things. I found it nearly impossible to look through the viewfinder."

In that blog entry, Miller also posted a series of photographs that leaves no doubts about the cruelty of war--one is of a dead an elderly man slumped over in a garden chair, another of dismembered hand-- and the most provocative of his shots-- two black-and-white images of the dead marines.

Miller was asked by the Marines to remove the photographs soon after posting them, but he refused because he felt his publishing of the images didn't break any of the ground rules set by the U.S. military. The dead Marines were unidentifiable, and he waited more than three days before posting the photographs, which gave the Marines plenty of time to notify the next-of-kin of the fallen troops.

by Mark Silva

First Barack Obama said he'd withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months after election as president.

Then Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called that a good timetable.

Now John McCain says it's "a pretty good timetable'' - with the caveat that "conditions on the ground'' must dictate the actual terms of engagement.

"I think it's a pretty good timetable, as we should (have our) horizons for withdrawal,'' McCain said in an interview Friday with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "But they have to be based on conditions on the ground. ''

Conditional, perhaps, but a remarkable concession for a Republican candidate for president who has vowed to keep U.S. forces in Iraq for as long as necessary to ensure stability there. McCain famously has said that it's "fine by me'' if U.S. forces remain in Iraq for 100 years - much like in Germany or South Korea -- so long as they are not suffering casualties.

McCain's comment about a 16-month "horizon''is perhaps one of the first signs that Obama's widely covered tour of Iraq, Afghanistan and Europe has had a tangible impact on the political debate back home. The other came the day before, when MCain suggested this of Iraq in an interview with NBC Nightly News: "I'm sure that by the end of my first term as president we will be largely out of there.'

This would also represent a neat trick for McCain: Were he able to neutralize Obama on the question of the war in Iraq - accepting both his rival's "pretty good timetable'' for withdrawal, while standing by the Bush administration's insistence on acting in accordance with "conditions on the ground'' - a factor which Obama, too, has acknowledged.

Here's the exchange, and see it above:

by Mike Dorning

AMMAN, Jordan--Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama completed a visit to Iraq on Tuesday acknowledging progress in the country over the past year but unwilling to declare that the Bush Administration troop surge he opposed has been a success.

"I believe that the situation in Iraq is more secure than it was a year and a half ago. I think that the definition of success depends on how you look at it," Obama said at a news conference in Jordan shortly after he landed here for the next stop on an international tour that also will take him to capitals in the Middle East and Europe.

After the news conference Obama met with Jordan's King Abdullah and then had dinner with the king and other Jordanian and American officials. Later in the evening, he was scheduled to go on to Israel, where he meets with government leaders Wednesday.

The international trip, which began with visits to combat zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, is an opportunity for the candidate to assure American voters of his capabilities as a potential commander in chief. Though polls show Obama ahead in the presidential race at the moment, many voters say they have reservations about his readiness to lead the country on national security issues, a key potential vulnerability.

At the news conference, held at the site of an ancient ruin that provided a striking panoramic view of the Jordanian capital, many of questions focused on his policy judgments on the Iraq War.

Obama stressed that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and even the Bush administration have in recent days moved closer to his signature policy on Iraq calling for a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. combat troops within 16 months after Obama would take office. Maliki said on Monday he favored a goal of removing U.S. combat troops by 2010, within a few months of the date Obama has proposed.

by Kim Barker and John McCormick

KABUL, Afghanistan - Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama arrived Saturday in this war-torn country seen as crucial to his foreign policy, in an attempt to shore up his presidential credentials on the world stage and show how important Afghanistan is to the future of the war on terror.

But Obama was almost invisible to most Afghans, despite accusing Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his government recently of spending too much time in a bunker and not enough on development.

Security for the two-day visit of the congressional delegation in Afghanistan was so tight, all of Obama's plans were kept secret. He was described as having met with only one Afghan official - the governor of an eastern province - and U.S. officials and troops.

Most Afghans did not even know he was in the country. U.S. officials would not acknowledge it publicly or that Obama planned to move onto Iraq as soon as Sunday afternoon. Obama's campaign verified that he arrived in Kabul just before noon.

"I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense, both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad of ... their biggest concerns," the Illinois senator said before leaving the U.S. "I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they've been doing."

Enroute to Afghanistan, the delegation briefly visited troops in Kuwait. But the Afghanistan leg is the first lengthy stop of a much-hyped international journey designed to make Obama seem more presidential. The trip also aims to counter critics who say Obama has little foreign-policy experience compared to his Republican opponent, John McCain, a Vietnam War hero with an extensive foreign background.

The congressional delegation, paid for by taxpayers, is also expected to visit Iraq and meet with Iraqi leader Nouri al-Maliki. Separately, in a campaign-funded trip, Obama plans to visit Europe and the Middle East.

(Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. AP photo: Khalid Mohammed)

by Frank James

Who could blame President Bush or Sen. John McCain for privately fuming right about now since Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has just delivered a big gift with a bow on top to Sen. Barack Obama by embracing his 16-months timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

Maliki said as much in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel. Here is the relevant excerpt:

SPIEGEL: Would you hazard a prediction as to when most of the US troops will finally leave Iraq?

Maliki: Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems. Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business. But it's the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited.

by Frank James

As if U.S. troops in Iraq didn't have enough to deal with -- the many tours in-country and consequent separations from family, the possibility of being killed or maimed, the heat -- there's the possibility of being electrocuted or dying in a fire caused by faulty electrical work.

Congress has heard testimony about the problem, which has resulted in deaths of and injuries to U.S. troops and contractors and which appears related to Defense Department contractors using incompetent workers to do the wiring.

For instance, Senate Democrats held a hearing last week to examine the problem. The Democratic senators heard from Debbie Crawford, a licensed electrician who worked in Iraq.

Here's an extensive excerpt from her testimony last week which provides an excellent description of the problem:

Most work done in the Green Zone was awarded to subcontractors. The subcontractors employed third-country national and local national workers who were not familiar or skilled in U.S. quality standards, U.S. safety standards, and installation techniques, or U.S. codes. It was not uncommon for KBR electricians to go in after a subcontractor had supposedly completed a job, to actually complete it or repair their work.

The construction of small, temporary man-camps was a particular problem, and I personally received several complaints from Blackwater employees that they were being shocked in their trailers. The KBR employees supervising these electrical contractors often had no electrical experience at all. It was not uncommon for a labor foreman with no electrical experience to supervise Iraqi electrical subcontractors or third-country nationals doing electrical work.

A U.S. transport helicopter takes off from Baghdad's Green Zone. (AP/Vadim Ghirda)

by Mark Silva

For some time now, President Bush has refused to talk about any "timelines'' for withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq - vetoing war-spending bills approved by Congress with timelines included and chiding lawmakers for playing generals.

But now the White is ready to talk about timelines - while inserting that long-held caveat that American forces will deploy in accordance with "conditions on the ground" - and in fact is talking about them in very general terms today, following a secure videoconference between Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

And the White House asserted today that these will not be "arbitrary'' timelines, which is what the president has accused Democratic leaders in Congress of proposing.

Yet even the discussion of a "horizon,'' which is the term included in a statement from the White House today, is likely to figure into the war debate in the presidential campaign underway.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the GOP's presumptive nominee, is certain to take this word as sign of the "success'' of the surge in U.S. forces that Bush ordered into Iraq last year and has since largely withdrawn. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic candidate calling for a withdrawal of forces in a 16-month timeframe after his election, is likely to amplify his call for a redeployment of U.S. forces to Afghanistan, where violence has increased - as he embarks this weekend on a tour taking him to both war fronts.

"In the area of security cooperation, the president and the prime minister agreed that improving conditions should allow for the agreements now under negotiation to include a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals,'' the White House said today of the long-distance meeting that Bush and Maliki held, curiously near the eve of Obama's own voyage. This includes "the resumption of Iraqi security control in their cities and provinces and the further reduction of U.S. combat forces from Iraq.''

by Aamer Madhani

The Pentagon continues to inch towards shifting troops from Iraq to Afghanistan.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, today said he continues to be pleased by the progress on the ground in Iraq and was hopeful that he could recommend further troop reductions early in the fall.

"I won't go so far as to say that progress in Iraq, from a military perspective, has reached a tipping point, or it is irreversible," Mullen said. "It has not, and it is not. But security is unquestionably and remarkably better. Indeed, if these trends continue, I expect to be able early in the fall to recommend to the secretary and to the president further troop reductions."

Mullen's statement, which did not include any specific numbers, is not new. Gen. David Petraeus, who is the top commander in Iraq, told Congress back in May that he was hopeful of recommending a further reduction in troops before he takes off for his new job in September as head of U.S. Central Command.

But Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who spoke with reporters this afternoon, acknowledged that the situation in Afghanistan has become increasingly volatile in recent months. Last week, nine U.S. troops were killed when hundreds of militants attacked them at a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan.

The incident, which occurred on Sunday near the village of Wanat, was deadliest attack on American forces in Afghanistan in more than three years. U.S. troops have since abandoned the outpost. Mullen said the attack underscored that the militants have "grown bolder, more sophisticated and more diverse."

by Jill Zuckman

While Sen. Barack Obama was giving a speech this morning saying that the war in Iraq is distracting the United States from Afghanistan, Sen. John McCain said at a town hall meeting in New Mexico that Obama was wrong on the surge and wrong to lay out his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan before traveling there next week.

"In my experience, fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around: first you assess the facts on the ground, then you present a new strategy," McCain said.

McCain said that both he and Obama agreed that the Bush administration had pursued a failed strategy in Iraq. But at that point, they part company.

"I called for a comprehensive new strategy -- a surge of troops and counterinsurgency to win the war. Senator Obama disagreed. He opposed the surge, predicted it would increase sectarian violence, and called for our troops to retreat as quickly as possible," McCain said.

"Today we know Senator Obama was wrong. The surge has succeeded," said McCain, noting that the commander-in-chief is not allowed a learning curve.

by Frank James

Now that the U.S. military surge in Iraq has succeeded in significantly reducing violence there, Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign appears to have changed its website to catch up with the facts on the ground.

The Daily News reports that Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign revised its website to remove criticism of the U.S. military surge.

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq, the Daily News has learned.

Obama's campaign posted a new Iraq plan Sunday night, which cites an "improved security situation" paid for with the blood of U.S. troops since the surge began in February 2007.

by Frank James

Many national polls suggest that the presidential election is going to be close if nothing changes to shift the race's dynamics significantly in one direction or another.

Here's another indicator of how close the election could be. Voters appear evenly split on whether or not there should be a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, according to a Washington Post and ABC News poll.

According to the poll, 50 percent of the respondents favored a timetable while 49 percent didn't. Here was another close one: 47 percent of those surveyed said they trusted Sen. John McCain, the all-but-official Republican nominee, on Iraq while 45 percent said they trusted Obama.

But when asked whether McCain would make a good commander-in-chief, 72 percent said yes while 25 percent said no.

By comparison, respondents were evenly split at 48 percent on the question of whether Obama would make a good leader of the U.S. military.

However, many analysts believe the election will turn not on Iraq but on the economy. If that holds, then Obama could have the advantage since polling shows him leading McCain on economic issues.

But what's really interesting about this Iraq poll is that it seems to indicate that McCain's position on Iraq isn't as unpopular with voters as it's frequently portrayed.

by Frank James

Sen. Barack Obama is making another effort to convince voters that he hasn't significantly shifted his position on withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq with his op-ed in today's New York Times and to defang accusations that he's a flip flopper.

The op-ed is a reprise of the argument the all-but-official Democratic nominee has been making in recent weeks on the campaign trail that he has has always wanted a measured withdrawal of U.S. combat troops that took into account conditions on the ground.

When you read it, it should be with an eye towards answering these questions: will this reassure Democratic Party activists that Obama isn't abandoning his earlier position on Iraq in an attempt to move to the center. Will it persuade others, like independents, that he isn't a flip-flopper, as Republicans have tried to portray him?

Obama starts his piece with was an apparent boon for his campaign and bane for the Bush Administration and Sen. John McCain's campaign -- the alleged request for a U.S. withdrawal timetable from the Iraqi leadership. (As with so much having to do with Iraq, there is some doubt as to what Iraqi officials have really said, as this BBC story indicates.)

The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States...

A few paragraphs later, he gets to the point he wants to drive home, that he hasn't shifted, that's what he's saying now is what he's long been saying:

As I've said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 -- two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.

by Katie Fretland

HBO describes its new upcoming miniseries "Generation Kill" as a true account of how Marines in the first 40 days of the Iraq war battled the enemy, as well as "equipment shortages, incompetent commanding officers, ever-evolving rules of engagement and an unclear strategy."

The miniseries premiering Sunday is based on the book by journalist Evan Wright, whose story first appeared as a condensed series of articles in Rolling Stone. Wright was embedded with the Marines of the First Recon Battalion.

The show was produced by the makers of "The Wire," the HBO series about drug-dealing and police/government corruption in Baltimore.

At a recent screening, Wright said publishing the articles in Rolling Stone after he arrived home from Iraq--instead of as events happened--allowed him to write freely. He did not have to get back in the Humvee daily with the Marines after they had read and judged his work. Wright sat next to a Marine who often talked about his desire to get his first kill.

Producer David Simon said the series is not pro-war or anti-war.

"It's just an account of something," he said.

If a moment in the miniseries appears to have a political edge, that is because the true moment had a political edge, he said.

Here is what critics are saying so far:

"The drama is all in the staging and cutting, and in the almost musical alternation of long stretches of relative quiet with passages of brilliantly rendered violent action," writes Los Angeles Times TV critic Robert Lloyd. "The camera work rarely calls attention to itself. There is no music apart from what the soldiers sing themselves as they ride along (and Johnny Cash singing the apocalyptic "The Man Comes Around" over the last minutes of the last episode)."

"It's nearly impossible to tell anyone in the beefy ensemble cast apart," writes the San Francisco Chronicle's Tim Goodman. "Military jargon flies everywhere without explanation. The direction -- purposeful, we come to find out -- seems to be telling 10 nonlinear stories at the same time."

"It is a true story of combat and male bonding, but it is told disjointedly and atonally, perhaps because it pursues clashing goals," writes The New York Times' Alessandra Stanley. ""Generation Kill" tries to honor the ordeal -- and the humanity -- of its heroes while exposing the futility of their quest."

by Matthew Hay Brown

After a year and a half of pushing unsuccessfully for a timeable for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, congressional Democrats have found an ally in Baghdad.

Iraq's national security adviser told reporters in Najaf today that the U.S.-backed government would not agree to the security deal it is negotiating with Washington unless it included details of a pullout.

"We will not accept any memorandum of understanding if it does not give a specific date for a complete withdrawal of foreign troops," National Security Adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie said. His comments echoed those made by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to Arab diplomats in Abu Dhabi on Monday.

The State Department slapped the Iraqi demand down today.

"The U.S. government and the government of Iraq are in agreement that we, the U.S. government, we want to withdraw; we will withdraw," spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos told reporters. "However, that decision will be conditions-based."

But the demand has found a willing audience among the congressional majority.

"President Bush refuses to listen to Congress or the American people, but he cannot support Iraqi political reconciliation and security and ignore Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki's call for a timetable for the withdrawal," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

by Frank James

President Bush was heckled today by anti-war and civil-liberties protestors at an Independence Day naturalization ceremony he attended at Thomas Jefferson's old slave-plantation home, Monticello.

As the president started his speech protesters, at least one of whom appeared to be from the group Code Pink, started shouting "war criminal" and "fascism" at the president.

Bush, who doesn't even generally like to be interrupted by cell phone ring tones while he's talking, appeared to take the interruption in stride.

In fact, he adeptly played off the protestors to make a point about American democracy.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, and happy Fourth of July. (Applause.) I am thrilled to be here at Monticello. I've never been here before. (Audience disturbance.)

To my fellow citizens to be, we believe in free speech in the United States of America. (Applause.)

That Bush had never been to Monticello before was perhaps the biggest news of the event. Monticello is right up there with George Washington's Mount Vernon in terms of places that are must-sees on the list of presidential sites. For a man who has a helicopter at his disposal, it seems he would have made what's around a 100 mile trip as the crow flies a lot sooner than the last few months of his second term.

Of course, a president doesn't really plan his itinerary; the staff does. In any event, we're glad he got to Monticello and we hope he took the tour. Jefferson was quite the innovator. For instance, he designed a dumbwaiter that brought wine up from his basement wine cellar into the dining room and placed a bed where a wall separating two rooms, his study and bedroom, would normally be, allowing him to roll out of bed to either area, depending on what he wanted to do.

You can view the entire speech or read the transcript.

by Katie Fretland and updated

"Let me be as clear as I can be. I intend to end this war," Obama said. "My first day in office I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war responsibly, deliberately but decisively... "This is the same position I that had four months ago. It's the same position that I had eight months ago. It's the same position that I had 12 months ago."

Earlier today, Obama responded to questions about whether he is backing off of his timeline to withdraw troops in Iraq. He said he would "continue to refine" his policies.

"I've always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That assessment has not changed," he told reporters in Fargo, N.D., according to news reports. "And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I'm sure I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies."

Obama's campaign website details his plans for Iraq if elected president. It states that Obama will remove one to two combat brigades each month and all combat brigades from Iraq within 16 months. It also states that Obama will not build permanent bases in Iraq, but keep some troops to protect the embassy and diplomats, according to the website.

The Republican National Commitee criticized the comments as a reversal of Obama's views.

"Iraq was the defining issue of Obama's primary campaign and now it is defining him as the self-interested, typical politician he really is," said RNC Spokesman Alex Conant. "Obama's Iraq problem undermines the central premise of his candidacy and shows he places politic expedience above everything and anything else."

Obama said the 16-month timeline was always premised on making sure the troops were safe.

"I said that based on the information that we had received from our commanders that one to two brigades a month could be pulled out safely from a logistical perspective," he said. "And my guiding approach continues to be that our troops are safe and that Iraq is stable.

"And I'm going to continue to gather information to find out whether those conditions still hold. My job is to make sure that the strategic issues that we face, not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan, in Iran and Pakistan are all taken into account and dealt with in a way that enhances America's national security interests over the long-term."

Our colleagues at Top of the Ticket have more on this story here.

President Bush and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani shake hands during a meeting June 25, 2008 in the Oval Office. (Photo credit MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

By David Nitkin

President Bush will travel to Asia after Independence Day for the annual G8 meeting, the latest part of a hectic travel schedule that has shuttled him across the globe during his last months in office.

Is he getting jet-lagged? Nah. Bush inisists he is feeling "good," he said today, answering a question intended for his guest in the Oval Office, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

The meeting was a late addition to the president's weekly schedule, having been announced yesterday. Talabani is in the United States for what published reports say is a three-week visit for medical treatment on his weight and/or his knee. (Reports give conflicting accounts.)

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., has confirmed that Talabani received treatment there, according to the Associated Press, but did not disclose the condition. Talabani, 73, has a history of health issues: he collapsed last year and was treated at the Mayo Clinic.

According to the Independent newspaper in London, Talabani's office released a quote from a recent news conference referencing the president's health.

"I don't have any health problems except my obesity and I will treat it, God willing," the Independent quoted Talabani as saying. "I will go to the USA and stay nearly three weeks to lose weight and have some rest and relaxation ... away from meetings and work."

But a little more than a week after arriving in the U.S., Talabani was in Washington for a meeting with Bush. Bush called Talabani a "friend" who has been "on the front lines" of creating a free Iraq. Talabani went further, calling Bush a "great friend."

A group of reporters and photographers was allowed to enter the Oval Office, as is customary, for pictures and to hear a statement. At the end, one reporter ventured a question: "How is your health, Mr. President? How are you feeling?"

President Talabani looked blankly. An answer instead came from President Bush. "Good, thanks," Bush said.

by Jill Zuckman

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) has one of the more difficult races for reelection this year. He's running against Democrat and comedian Al Franken, but he's also running with an unpopular war on his back in a decidedly purple swing state.

Coleman voted for the war in Iraq, though he later expressed serious concerns about the course of events there.

"When the current path isn't working, you have to be flexible. You have to shift. You have to make a change," Coleman said on the Senate floor a year and a half ago.

Still, Coleman opposed the surge of troops sent to Iraq. And he also opposed adding timetable language into law. "But to tell the enemy, 'This is when we are going to be leaving' - that's a bad idea," he said.

Now, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has attempted to boil the issue down with a quick web ad called "No, no, no." Filmed to haunting music, the ad notes the numbers of wounded soldiers, the number of dead soldiers, the financial toll and the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found.

"Based on what you know now was your support for the war then wrong?" a woman asks Coleman. "Uh, no...no...no," he said, as an unflattering portrait of him is shown.

by Aamer Madhani

BELLMORE, N.Y. -- Kristofer Goldsmith was so distressed about the prospect of returning to Iraq that he decided he was willing to kill himself to avoid serving a second tour.

Just as Goldsmith's three-year Army contract was to expire, it was extended under the military's "stop loss" program, and his unit was set to deploy to Baghdad to take part in the troop surge. On the day before he was to ship out in May 2007, he took a dozen Percocet painkillers, washed down with more than a liter of vodka.

Soon after Goldsmith was admitted to Winn Army Community Hospital at Ft. Stewart, Ga., a senior non-commissioned officer from his brigade visited the young sergeant, along with an Army psychologist, to discuss discharging him from the military.

"We all agreed that it was for the best that my Army career come to an end then," said Goldsmith, 22, who added that he'd scrawled the words "stop loss killed me" in marker on his body before his suicide attempt. "It was a few days later when they told me that they were going to come at me for faking a mental lapse."

Goldsmith's case illustrates the complex decisions facing the U.S. military, which says it is eager to address the mental health problems plaguing its troops while maintaining its warrior ethos and respect for the chain of command.

The rear detachment commander of Goldsmith's unit, Maj. Douglas Wesner of the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, quickly initiated an administrative punishment known as an Article 15 against Goldsmith for malingering--that is, feigning a mental lapse or derangement or purposely injuring oneself--to avoid being deployed to Iraq.

Eventually his commanders dropped the Article 15, but not before removing Goldsmith from the service on a general discharge. Because he did not receive an honorable discharge, Goldsmith was stripped of his Montgomery GI Bill benefits, which he'd been counting on to help pay for college.

Goldsmith's tough treatment is not unheard of.

Twenty-one soldiers in Iraq have been punitively discharged since 2003 after being convicted of malingering, according to the Army.

Check out the rest of the story in today's Tribune.

(Photo by Haraz N. Ghanbari/Pool/Getty Images)

by Frank James

A very earnest story in The Hill about the strained relationship between Sen. John McCain and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Rummy's failure to say declaratively during an interview with The Hill whether he would support McCain's presidential effort.

As the article notes McCain, the all-but-official Republican nominee, has made his disagreements with Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq War a major selling point for his presidential candidacy:

McCain, the GOP presidential standard-bearer, has been one of Rumsfeld's harshest critics.

McCain has said that Rumsfeld will "go down as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history."

Still, the premise of the article is that as a long-time top Republican, Rumsfeld appears to be dissing McCain by not openly embracing him.

One obvious question the story doesn't really address is why McCain would want Rumsfeld's publicly stated support at all.

Rumsfeld is one of the Washington's most radioactive figures. Even President Bush, who glows in the dark in himself from his own radioactivity, dropped Rummy so quickly after Democrats took over Congress in 2006 as to induce whiplash.

In fact, getting it out there that McCain is on Rumsfeld's bad side arguably helps McCain, especially with those all-important independents.

That's so much the case that the McCain campaign should be blast e-mailing this story.

by Mark Silva

While facing repeated questions about the war in Iraq during a weeklong tour of Europe, President George W. Bush has made it clear: He regrets only some of the words he used, not the actions his administration took.

"Presidents don't get to do 're-dos,' they don't get to do 'look backs ... ifs,' " Bush told a British newspaper toward the end of what is likely to be the last tour of a continent where some leaders and much of the public have openly opposed the war.

"History will judge the tactics," Bush added Monday, facing the question anew at a news conference with Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London, where a reporter asked Bush, "Is it possible you got it wrong?"

"Removing Saddam Hussein was not wrong," the president replied. "It was the right thing to do."

All Bush regrets, he told reporters during a tour that carried him through Slovenia, Italy, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, is some of his harsher rhetoric.

"I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric," the president said in an interview with The Times of London at the start of this journey.

He meant phrases such as "bring them on" and "dead or alive."

See the rest of the analysis in today's Tribune:

by Mark Silva

President Bush, concluding a European tour in Great Britain today, faced a pointed question about Iraq:

Is it possible he "got it wrong?''

Bush, who had a private breakfast this morning with Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who had stood as his ally in the invasion and war in Iraq, was asked at a press conference with Blair's successor, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, about Blair's parting words on the war.

"Mr. President, in his last major speech, Tony Blair said on Iraq, 'Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. But if I got it wrong, I'm sorry,''' a reporter asked. "Is it possible you got it wrong? Would you share at this point those slightly more reflective sentiments?''

"History will judge the tactics,'' Bush replied.

"History will judge whether or not, you know, more troops were needed earlier, troops could have been positioned here better or not,'' he said. "Removing Saddam Hussein was not wrong. It was the right thing to do. Right thing to do for our security, right thing to do for peace, and the right thing to do for 25 million Iraqis.

"And now the fundamental question is will we have the willpower and the patience to help the Iraqis develop a democracy in the heart of the Middle East,'' he said. "It's a democracy that's not going to look like America, it's not going to look like Great Britain, but it's a democracy that will have government responsive to the people.

"People say, was that worth it, is it necessary. Absolutely it's necessary if you believe we're in an ideological war being -- the theaters of which right now, the most notable theaters are Afghanistan and Iraq. ''

Now, while Great Britain scales back its military presence in Iraq, it is ramping up in Afghanistan. And Bush and Brown maintain they are on the same page.

by Katie Fretland

In Europe yesterday, President Bush gave this reflection on the war in Iraq: he could have used different words to indicate a better effort at diplomacy.

"First of all, you don't get to do things over in my line of work, but I could have used better rhetoric to indicate that one: we tried to exhaust diplomacy in Iraq and two: I don't like war," Bush said, following talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In an interview with The Times of London, Bush also suggested that phrases which he had used such as "dead or alive" and "bring them on" had given a wrong impression, that he is "not a man of peace."

The president added that he was pained by putting "youngsters in harm's way."

"I try to meet with as many of the families as I can," he said. "And I have an obligation to comfort and console as best as I possibly can. I also have an obligation to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain."

But in the end, perhaps the sentiment Bush presents most often about the war is this.

"I don't regret it at all. Removing Saddam Hussein made the world a safer place."

Tomorrow, Bush will be in Paris where he plans to bring a message that freedom in the Middle East is essential to peace.

"The rise of free and prosperous societies in the broader Middle East is essential to peace in the 21st century, just as the rise of a free and prosperous Europe was essential to peace in the 20th century," Bush plans to say, according to a text of his prepared speech. "So Europe and America must stand with reformers, democratic leaders, and millions of ordinary people across the Middle East who seek a future of hope, liberty, and peace in Afghanistan ... Lebanon ... the Holy Land ... Iran and Syria ... and Iraq."

Here is a text of Bush's prepared speech for tomorrow:

by Matthew Hay Brown

The Democratic House leadership is preparing to stick the articles of impeachment raised by Rep. Dennis Kucinich Monday night against President Bush on the same shelf that they stuck a similar effort the Ohio Democrat filed last year against Vice President Dick Cheney.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters today that the 35-count indictment of Bush, which took Kucinich more than four hours to read on the House floor, would be forwarded to the House Judiciary Committee. The Democratic leadership has opposed impeachment as an unhelpful distraction; the Judiciary Committee is unlikely to pursue further action.

Kucinich, using arguments similar to those he employed last year against Cheney, says Bush misled Congress and the American people into war with tales of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

House leaders were caught off-guard last year when Republicans voted to take up the Cheney impeachment in order to force a debate that could have proved awkward for Democrats. They avoided that debate by sending it to the Judiciary Committee.

Hoyer said today that Kucinich had "an absolute right" to raise the issue. But he questioned whether it made sense to spend time on it during what he called "the waning months" of the Bush administration.

Hoyer said the administration has one of the worst records of any administration in his lifetime, or maybe ever. He said Congress has conducted wide-ranging oversight since Democrats took over last year.

Books on the president, including McClellan's. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

by Mark Silva

The White House isn't fond of having past and present members of the administration testify before Congress, but Scott McClellan, the now-readily-forthcoming former press secretary is ready to step up to the House Judiciary Committee and talk about the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity - something that McClellan spent a lot of time refusing to talk about at the press podium in the West Wing.

McClellan, who served as White House press secretary from 2003 to 2006 and served President Bush since his last two years as governor in Texas, is now saying what a lot of outside critics have long said: The Bush administration advanced the intelligence that made the case for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and attempted to discredit an outspoken critic, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who accused the White House in the summer of 2003 of manipulating that intelligence to make the case for war. The name and profession of Wilson's wife, the CIA's Plame, soon became public knowledge as well.

"I think (U.S. Att'y) Patrick Fitzgerald had it about right when he said during the trial of (former vice presidential chief of staff) Scooter Libby that she became just another talking point in this effort to discredit Joe Wilson,'' McClellan said in an interview with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Countdown last night, echoing a contention that McClellan has made in his book about the administration and war, "What Happened." "That`s unfortunate. Whether or not there was any criminal activity involved, I don`t know. It was wrong to do that. And I will speak to the questions that they ask me and share exactly what I know.''

As for that pre-war intelligence: "What I do know is that the White House never wanted to have the way the case was made, the way the intelligence was used to sell the war to the American people, looked into or investigated by Congress. This was delayed for quite some time. And finally (Senate Intelligence) Chairman Rockefeller, Senator Rockefeller, pushed this forward to get to the truth. And the White House can continue to bury their heads in the sand, but the reality is still the same. I think the American people see it for exactly what it is.''

Here is the rest of that interview, courtesy of MSNBC:

by Matthew Hay Brown

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who introduced legislation last year to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney, is now aiming higher.

On the House floor this evening, the Ohio Democrat proposed impeaching President Bush. In language similar to that in the articles of impeachment he raised against Cheney, Kucinich sought support for a 35-count indictment charging Bush with misleading Congress and the American people into war with tales of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Democratic House leaders have opposed impeaching Bush or Cheney as an unhelpful distraction. They were nearly embarrassed last year when Republicans voted to take up Kucinich's effort against Cheney in order to force a debate; they are unlikely to let the matter get so far this time.

Bob Fertik, president of Democrats.com, one of the groups pushing for impeachment congratulated Kucinich on his "historic leadership."

"We've waited seven years to find one Member of Congress brave enough to stand up for our Constitution, for which generations of Americans have fought and died," Fertik said. "We are thrilled and honored that Dennis Kucinich has chosen to be that one genuine patriot."

by Mark Silva

President Bush has been waiting a long time for a new war funding bill.

The Defense Department is running out of time, the president says.

"The Pentagon will run out of money it needs to support critical day-to-day operations that help keep our nation safe,'' Bush said in his weekly radio address today.

"And after July, the department will no longer be able to pay our troops -- including those serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.''

There are many in Congress who would like to have it that way.

See the rest of the president's comments here:

by Aamer Madhani

One of the most interesting anecdotes in NBC Iraq correspondent Richard Engel's new book didn't take place on the streets of Baghdad but in the Oval Office.

In February 2007, weeks after President Bush announced his plans for the troop buildup in Iraq, Engel, one of the longest serving Western correspondents in Iraq, received an out-of-the-blue invitation to sit down with President Bush, Engel writes in the recently published "War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq."

NBC Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert warned him to use caution in his off-camera meeting with the president. "Don't tell them anything you wouldn't broadcast...You want to make sure you stay a reporter."

But by Engel's account, he offered the President a surprising amount of analysis, commentary and advice.

Engel writes that he told Bush that Abdul Aziz Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq and one of the White House's close allies in Iraq, had a reputation of being a liar and was set on establishing an oil rich mini-state allied with Iran. He also told the president that Moqtada al-Sadr's ambition was to become the Hassan Nasrallah [the Hezbollah leader] of Iraq.

"I was laying it all out, insulting the men the president was counting on to democratize Iraq," Engel writes. "Hakim, Sadr, Maliki and his aides weren't up to it or interested."

But perhaps Engel's most striking comment to