A top US Democratic lawmaker declared on Thursday that the war in Iraq "is lost," pointing to the sustained bloodshed there even as US President George W. Bush urged patience with his strategy.
"This war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week," Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters, referring to the US-led security push in Baghdad.
Bush did not directly address Reid's comments, but White House spokeswoman Dana Perino quickly fired back that they were at odds with US military assessments of the two-month-old effort to quell sectarian violence in Iraq.
And "if this is his true feeling, then it makes one wonder if he has the courage of his convictions and therefore will decide to defund the war," the spokeswoman said as the president pleaded for time for his plan to work.
Locked in a bitter weeks-long feud with Democrats in Congress over emergency war funding, Bush said one day after a suicide blasts that killed more than 200 people in Baghdad that no crackdown could ever fully banish such attacks.
"If the definition of success in Iraq -- or anywhere -- is `no suicide bombers,' we'll never be successful," he told a friendly audience at a high school in Tipp City, Ohio.
"I'm optimistic we can succeed. I wouldn't ask families to have their troops there if I didn't think, one, it was necessary, and two, we can succeed. I believe we're going to succeed," he said.
A top military commander, however, warned that al-Qaeda in Iraq would press ahead with its campaign of high profile bombings to defeat US efforts to stabilize Baghdad.
"We should have realistic expectations. These high-profile attacks are going to continue," said Major General Michael Barbero, the Joint Staff's deputy director for regional operations.
Clashes yesterday erupted between gunmen and US and Iraqi forces around a Shiite mosque in western Baghdad just before Friday prayers, witnesses and local media said. The US military said it was looking into the reports.
Meanwhile, US soldiers were building a 5km-long wall to protect a Sunni enclave, Azamiyah, which is surrounded by Shiite neighborhoods and "trapped in a spiral of sectarian violence and retaliation," the military said.
Beijing’s continued provocations in the Taiwan Strait reveal its intention to unilaterally change the “status quo” in the area, the US Department of State said on Saturday, calling for a peaceful resolution to cross-strait issues. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) reported that four China Coast Guard patrol vessels entered restricted and prohibited waters near Kinmen County on Friday and again on Saturday. A State Department spokesperson said that Washington was aware of the incidents, and urged all parties to exercise restraint and refrain from unilaterally changing the “status quo.” “Maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is in line with our [the
EXTENDED RANGE: Hsiung Sheng missiles, 100 of which might be deployed by the end of the year, could reach Chinese command posts and airport runways, a source said A NT$16.9 billion (US$534.93 million) project to upgrade the military’s missile defense systems would be completed this year, allowing the deployment of at least 100 long-range Hsiung Sheng missiles and providing more deterrence against China, military sources said on Saturday. Hsiung Sheng missiles are an extended-range version of the Hsiung Feng IIE (HF-2E) surface-to-surface cruise missile, and are believed to have a range of up to 1,200km, which would allow them to hit targets well inside China. They went into mass production in 2022, the sources said. The project is part of a special budget for the Ministry of National Defense aimed at
READY TO WORK: Taiwan is eager to cooperate and is hopeful that like-minded states will continue to advocate for its inclusion in regional organizations, Lai said Maintaining the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, and peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region must be a top priority, president-elect William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday after meeting with a delegation of US academics. Leaders of the G7, US President Joe Biden and other international heads of state have voiced concerns about the situation in the Strait, as stability in the region is necessary for a safe, peaceful and prosperous world, Lai said. The vice president, who is to be inaugurated in May, welcomed the delegation and thanked them for their support for Taiwan and issues concerning the Strait. The international community
COOPERATION: Two crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank off Kinmen were rescued, two were found dead and another two were still missing at press time The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) was yesterday working with Chinese rescuers to find two missing crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank southwest of Kinmen County yesterday, killing two crew. The joint operation managed to rescue two of the boat’s six crewmembers, but two were already dead when they were pulled from the water, the agency said in a statement. Rescuers are still searching for two others from the Min Long Yu 61222, a boat registered in China’s Fujian Province that capsized and sank 1.03 nautical miles (1.9km) southwest of Dongding Island (東碇), it added. CGA Director-General Chou Mei-wu (周美伍) told a