Sharply Divided House Passes US Troops' Early Home-Coming

April,1,2008 or October,1,2007, the date for 'withdrawal of troops from Iraq' issue, should be weighed mainly by "The Message that is echoed" to the world at large.

That the House is marginally divided by 218-208,speaks all in silence.

Be it what may,what matters is "Peace in Iraq" and none but the 'warring factions', the peace-aspirants and the Govt. there, with a strong 'will, compassion and tolerance', can and only can make all the difference.

Read this Seattle Times absorbing article by ANNE FLAHERTY.

Love and Peace.

BEST OF FUTURE

----------------------------------------------------------------------

WASHINGTON -- A sharply divided House brushed aside a veto threat Wednesday and passed legislation that would order President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq by Oct. 1.

The 218-208 vote came as the top U.S. commander in Iraq told lawmakers the country remained gripped by violence but was showing some signs of improvement.

Passage puts the bill on track to clear Congress by week's end and arrive on the president's desk in coming days as the first binding congressional challenge to Bush's handling of the conflict now in its fifth year.

"Our troops are mired in a civil war with no clear enemy and no clear strategy for success," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

Republicans promised to stand squarely behind the president in rejecting what they called a "surrender date" handed to the enemy.

"Al-Qaida will view this as the day the House of Representatives threw in the towel," said Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee.

The $124.2 billion bill would fund the war, among other things, but demand troop withdrawals begin on Oct. 1 or sooner if the Iraqi government does not meet certain standards. The bill sets a nonbinding goal of completing the troop pull out by April 1, 2008, allowing for forces conducting certain noncombat missions, such as attacking terrorist networks or training Iraqi forces, to remain.

House and Senate appropriators agreed to the legislation earlier this week. The Senate was expected to clear the measure Thursday, sending it to the president.

While Bush was confident the bill would ultimately fail because Democrats lacked the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto, he kept up pressure on lawmakers. On the same day as the House vote, the president dispatched his Iraq commander, Gen. David Petraeus, and other senior defense officials to Capitol Hill to make his case: Additional forces recently sent to Iraq are yielding mixed results and the strategy needs more time to work.

Petraeus told reporters sectarian killings in Baghdad were only a third of what they were in January, before Bush began sending in additional U.S. forces. He added that progress in the troubled western Anbar province was "breathtaking," and that he thought Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was "doing his best" at leading the country.

But "the ability of al-Qaida to conduct horrific, sensational attacks obviously has represented a setback and is an area in which we're focusing considerable attention," Petraeus said.

Petraeus said he would not touch on the "minefield of discussions about various legislative proposals," but he noted that the new strategy in Iraq was just beginning. He said he planned to provide more details in early September.

Petraeus briefed his findings to lawmakers in a private room, where protesters outside chanted "Troops home now!" Republicans and Democrats alike emerged to say Petraeus had only confirmed their positions.

"This briefing reinforced our view that the solution in Iraq is a political solution," Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters. Also confirmed, he said, was "our belief that we must hold the Iraqis accountable for achieving real progress."

Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, said Petraeus acknowledged there were challenges. "But considering where we are, I think the general feels good about the progress thus far," Boehner said.

Bush said he stands firm on his latest strategy for winning the war and dismisses as counterproductive the Democratic call for withdrawal.

"That means our commanders in the middle of a combat zone would have to take fighting directions from legislators 6,000 miles away on Capitol Hill," Bush said this week. "The result would be a marked advantage for our enemies and a greater danger for our troops."

Petraeus' comments Wednesday put a finer point on when the much-awaited decision about the length of the U.S. troop buildup may come, saying he will make an assessment of the conditions in Iraq in early September, and report back to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other military leaders.

Gates has said he expects the assessment this summer, but this is the first time military leaders said it would not be until September.

Iraq : What the Warriors Cannot Do

......"For four years President Bush has given Iraq's leaders unconditional support. They have not interpreted it as a reason to make compromises. In fact, talking to both U.S. officials in Iraq and Iraqi politicians, it appears that the chief reason there has been some movement on a few of these issues—the oil laws and noninterference in U.S. military operations, for instance—was the fear that Congress was going to force a withdrawal of U.S. forces."..........
Read this indepth geo-political analysis by Fareed Zakaria , in Newsweek.
BEST OF FUTURE

Speculations Over 2008 US Election

With the Senate poised for a showdown on Iraq today, Republicans along the campaign trail and on Capitol Hill appear trapped between their loyalty to President Bush and growing fears about the war's impact on the party's political fortunes.
As Democrats have vigorously and sometimes angrily debated the war among themselves, Republicans have marched in near lock step behind Bush. GOP officials acknowledge that the paucity of dissent, in the face of deep public discontent, could jeopardize their chances of holding the White House and regaining majorities in the House and Senate in 2008.
The party's quandary comes as the Senate prepares to begin debate today on a Democratic resolution that calls for withdrawing U.S. forces by March 31, 2008, something Democratic leaders describe as a goal, not a firm deadline. Whatever peril the resolution carries for Democrats, the debate will provide a public test of Republican unity.
The lack of debate inside the Republican Party reflects not just loyalty to the president but also a belief that Bush's policies still offer a chance for success in Iraq, GOP officials said.But that has done little to calm growing fears that Republicans will be punished politically unless there is a dramatic improvement in the course of the war and Americans' perceptions about it.
"I don't think there is a lot of Republican anxiety that we're doing the wrong thing and it's hurting us," said Vin Weber, a Republican former congressman from Minnesota. "There's a lot of feeling that we're doing the right thing and it's killing us."
War support among the party's elected officials and presidential candidates reflects the attitudes of rank-and-file Republican voters. "It doesn't take a pollster to look at data among Republican primary voters to see that President Bush is still popular and his Iraq strategy is popular", said a GOP pollster,Neil Newhouse.
.........."There is no question that there's a general-election risk," he said. "This is one of these issues where the position a Republican candidate takes in the primary may be detrimental to that candidate's health in the general election."
The decision to proceed with debate in the Senate was a significant shift by GOP leaders. Last month, Republicans used parliamentary tactics to block the Senate from debating a nonbinding resolution opposing Bush's plan to send more troops. This time, Democrats are back with a different measure: binding language that would restrict military actions in Iraq. But Republicans have decided to let that debate proceed -- at least for now.
"Changing times call for changing tactics," said Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.). "We're adjusting to the circumstances that we're confronted with."
For many Republicans, the stalemate is deeply frustrating, signaling that the party places loyalty to Bush ahead of addressing what has become voters' paramount concern.
"It hurts both sides, the fact that the debate hasn't occurred," said Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine), a moderate Republican. But, she added, "the disproportionate burden is borne by Republicans because we have a Republican president.".......................
"It's unfortunate that we haven't had an opportunity to vote for all the different alternatives that are out there", said Sen. John E. Sununu of New Hampshire, whose state is strongly antiwar, has already drawn several Democratic opponents for his 2008 reelection campaign.
Republicans say a moment of reckoning may come later this year, when there will be more evidence of whether the president's troop-increase policy is reducing sectarian violence and leading to political accommodation among Iraqi factions........
Even some of Bush's Republican critics questioned the timing of the Senate action. They want to give Bush's new plan a chance to work. "Let's just watch it for a while, and let's see," said Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.), who is seeking the 2008 GOP presidential nomination and opposed the plan when Bush announced it.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said: "We have a window of opportunity through the end of this year." But at that point, he added, "we've got to have some progress or you're going to start seeing more and more people saying we've got to try something new."
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, currently seen as the leading candidates for the Republican nomination, all support the troop increase, which has helped to dampen debate about the plan on the campaign trail.
Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) might have sparked more discussion about the wisdom of Bush's policies had he entered the GOP race on Monday, but his decision to announce that he had nothing to announce, at least for now, leaves the candidates mostly in unity behind Bush's current policy.
"I think there's a belief that this is bigger than trying to figure out the consequences for the primary or the general [election] and trying to nuance your position," said Mike DuHaime, Giuliani's campaign manager. "There's a belief we need to do the right thing and let the consequences be what they may."
...........A strategist for one GOP presidential campaign said unity among Republicans over the war is to be expected, given the attitudes toward terrorism and national security. But he added that there is a "chasm" between the views of rank-and-file Republicans and of the independents and moderate Democrats whose votes may be needed in 2008.
"It's like two different worlds," he said. "One is the family and the other is the general election, and Republicans are like, 'We'll deal with this later.' "
=================================================
Read this article in entirety, from the washingtonpost.com .
Love and Peace.
BEST OF FUTURE

Probes On Disordered Execution :Saddam

This aricle should have been in my post earlier,

but posted belated, due to a fire in the Regional

Branch of National Internet Backbone of India on

the 29th Dec., that took an unprecedented 8 days, for

the entire internet services to restore and this blogger

was disgustedly handicapped.

However it is always 'better to be late than never' .

The interesting article, Iraq Probes Disorder At Hussein Execution

can't be left unpublished and missing my page !

BEST OF FUTURE.

A Soldier Says No To War :Mother Fights

A touching story of a fighting mother of a captain , in washingtonpost , who faces court-martial, for his refusal to join war in Iraq is posted here for my visitors.

BEST OF FUTURE.

CIA's post-9/11 Reach:An Inside story

Craig Whitlock, of the Wasington Post, brings to light an investigative interesting article "Testimony Helps Detail CIA's post 9/11 Reach",

"MILAN -- A few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the CIA station chief in Rome paid a visit to the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, Adm. Gianfranco Battelli, to float a proposal: Would the Italian secret services help the CIA kidnap terrorism suspects and fly them out of the..."

=================================================

Thanks to Washington Post for putting on news, such a revealing indepth anlytical and hair-raising article !

I am putting here hence, for my adored visitors, to go through in detail and enjoy their reading.

Hope the article will take you deep and deeper into the indepth it has.

BEST OF FUTURE.

MSN Encarta Article: World War II

=Snap of Pearl Harvor Survivor Veteran William Brown 'oblivious' at the Celebration by US Navy=

(Courtesy The Seattle Times)

I saw this on the MSN Encarta site and thought you might be interested in:

World War II

Contributed by Earl F. Ziemke,Research Prof. History,University of Grorgia.

This is not to be named a blog rather compilation of a series of eventful literary debates between two history scholars of eminence, an example of how vibrant is Democracy and how powerful is their 'blogoshere' community, acting as a true watch-dog of their country's political and Nationalistic ethos, vis a vis, kudos, to their cultural,political and historical indepth and concern.

I am drawn deep into ocean of ponder and my head bows down to them and their conscious citizenry of a true Democratic country.

The catalysts, those helped streaming down this post of mine, coincidently were one the Celebration by the US Navy, of Pearl Harbor Day(Dec.7), and the second above photo (thanks to The Seattle Times,for their article) of The Survivor-Veteran Mr.William Brown looking oblivious in his uniform with ghastly reminiscences of that D-Day, that stirred my mind.

I will do grave injustice to my conscience, if I do not utilise this opportunity to express my heart-felt gratitude to one of above historian Mr.B.R.Dirck, for his generous gesture in replying to this poor blogger's email, looking at his eminence and stature!

My thanks also goes to another versatile blogger 'elektratig' who is also a link of the chain that I have referred above. I specially wish my readers to go through the blogsite URL and leave it on you to judge and post your comments.

And the last link of that chain, I felt it worth-mentioning to draw attention of my adored readers to, is the pro-active response of President Bush on Iraq issues, and the resolve with which he addressed to the people of America.

Please be patient, in reviewing all the links below and I am hopeful you will get the real essence and spirit of this post, thereby.

It is tried to put down chronologically, below the links :

A.Lincolnblog

He's The Worst Ever

Historians Acting Badly

CNN.com