US President George W. Bush was to huddle with top US generals yesterday to discuss the US strategy in Iraq amid a bloody surge in violence there and one of the deadliest months for US troops.
The meeting also comes in the midst of growing calls for Bush to change his strategy in Iraq and less than three weeks before legislative elections in which opposition Democrats hope to gain control of Congress.
White House spokesman Tony Snow insisted that the meeting had been "on the schedule for weeks" and was not in response to the rising violence and US death toll.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the meeting was "nothing unusual."
Bush already met with General John Abizaid, his top commander in the Middle East, at the White House on Friday.
He was scheduled to hold a broader meeting yesterday with Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, General George Casey -- the US commander in Iraq who was to join in via a video hook-up from Baghdad -- and Abizaid, officials said.
The meeting comes as Iraqi police battled Shiite militia for control of a city that had recently been turned over to Iraqi security forces.
A top US general also acknowledged this week that a campaign to secure Baghdad had failed to dampen sectarian violence there.
Opposition Democrats called on Bush to revise his strategy and convene an international conference to support a political settlement in Iraq.
"We urge you to change course, level with the American people, and join with us to develop a policy that will work, before the situation in Iraq is irretrievable," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said in an open letter to Bush.
Calls among Republican lawmakers for a change of course in Iraq also have mounted ahead of the midterm elections on Nov. 7.
Earlier last week, Bush agreed that a comparison of the situation to the 1968 Tet Offensive, which crystallized domestic opposition to the Vietnam War, "could be right."
Rumsfeld acknowledged at a press conference that the violence in Iraq is "higher than it has been."
But he would not say whether the administration and top US commanders were considering a change in strategy or merely refining tactics to deal with the worsening situation.
He said yesterday's meeting with the president "was a regular session where we -- I think this is the third or fourth of them -- where we are updated and review the circumstance and discuss the way forward."
Snow said, "The president understands the difficulty in a time of war, and he also understands that what you do is you adjust tactically."
But the latest fighting in the southern city of Amara struck directly at the US strategy of progressively turning over relatively secure areas to Iraqi security forces, thereby allowing the withdrawal of US and coalition forces.
British troops had turned over security for the city to Iraqi forces in August. When they pulled out, their base on the city's outskirts was looted.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
PHILIPPINE COMMITTEE: The head of the committee that made the decision said: ‘If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide, there is no reason to obstruct’ A Philippine congressional committee on Wednesday ruled that there was “probable cause” to impeach Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte after hearing allegations of unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and threats to have the president assassinated. The unanimous decision of the 53-member committee in the Philippine House of Representatives sends the two impeachment complaints to deliberations and voting by the entire lower chamber, which has more than 300 lawmakers. The complaints centered on Duterte’s alleged illegal use and mishandling of intelligence funds from the vice president’s office, and from her time as education secretary under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Duterte and the
As evening falls in Fiji’s capital, a steady stream of people approaches a makeshift clinic that is a first line of defense against one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In the South Pacific nation — a popular tourist destination of just under a million people — more than 2,000 new HIV cases were recorded last year, a 26 percent increase from 2024. The government has declared an HIV outbreak and described it as a national crisis. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Siteri Dinawai, 46, who came to be tested. The Moonlight Clinic, a converted minibus parked in a suburban cul-de-sac in Suva, is
RSS