Vice President Dick Cheney accuses the senior Democrat in the Senate of cynically opposing the Iraq war for political gain. In response, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the vice president is nothing more than an "attack dog" not worth arguing with.
As public support ebbs for the war, now in its fifth year, tempers are building.
What set off Cheney and Reid on Tuesday was yet another promise from President George W. Bush that he would veto the latest war spending bill taking shape in Congress, which will include a timetable for withdrawing American forces from Iraq.
"Some Democratic leaders seem to believe that blind opposition to the new strategy in Iraq is good politics," Cheney told reporters at the Capitol after attending the weekly Republican policy lunch. "Senator Reid himself has said that the war in Iraq will bring his party more seats in the next election."
"It is cynical to declare that the war is lost because you believe it gives you political advantage," Cheney said.
Cheney said he felt compelled to make a statement in front of cameras to express his frustration with Reid after the Senate's top Democrat told reporters last week the war was lost. Cheney's remarks also showed the high stakes involved for the Bush administration in trying to stave off Democratic efforts to end the war.
Bush has enough Republican votes to sustain his veto -- the Democrats could not must the necessary two-thirds majority to overturn it in neither the 100-seat Senate nor the 435-seat House of Representatives. But the Democrats say they have public opinion on their side, and that eventually will force Bush to change.
"This isn't a political issue," said the Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. "I respect where the president is coming from on this. I wish he would respect where we are coming from, which is a reflection of where the American people are coming from."
Reid shrugged off Cheney's remarks.
"I'm not going to get into a name-calling match with the administration's chief attack dog," he said.
With Democrats expecting to send Bush the final bill as early as next week, Bush stood firm Tuesday against any measure that would set a timetable.
"They chose to make a political statement," he said. "That's their right, but it is wrong for our troops and it's wrong for our country."
Bush said US commander in Iraq General David Petraeus will know in about four months whether the president's plan to increase the U.S. troop presence in Iraq is working. The president would not discuss what he would do if the answer is no.
"The Plan B is to make Plan A work," he said. "You know, the problem is you start talking about Plan B, that's where everybody defaults."
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion