Democrats and US President George W. Bush's Republicans grilled the top US commander in Iraq on Tuesday, questioning whether security gains were significant enough to keep US troops in the war zone.
General David Petraeus and US Ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker insisted progress was being made under Bush's strategy of temporarily building up troops to allow time for Iraqi lawmakers to achieve political reconciliation.
But the bipartisan criticism directed at both men during congressional hearings raised questions about whether Bush could count on Republican colleagues for help in staving off Democrats' demands for a faster pullout.
Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican critic of the unpopular war, struck at the heart of Bush's justification for increased force levels, asking why troops should stay when their presence had failed to lead Iraqi politicians to make needed compromises.
"Are we going to continue to invest American blood and treasure at the same rate we're doing now? For what? The president said, `Let's buy time.' Buy time? For what?" Hagel said.
Influential Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia, who last month urged Bush to send a message to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki by withdrawing some US troops by Christmas, sounded deeply skeptical of current strategy.
"I hope in the recesses of your heart that you know that strategy will continue the casualties, the stress on our forces, the stress on military families, the stress on all Americans," he told Petraeus.
Warner asked if the general's recommendations would make the US safer -- a reference to Bush's argument that Iraq is a central front in the war on terrorism.
"Sir, I don't know, actually," Petraeus first replied, saying he was concentrating on his military mission in Iraq. When asked again by another senator, the general said the US had clear national interests in Iraq and achieving those interests had implications for US security.
Senator Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican who joined war critics last year, said Petraeus' testimony appeared to secure Republican support for Bush. He predicted any legislation that set a withdrawal deadline would not pass.
Petraeus repeated his plan -- outlined on Monday -- to gradually pull out the extra 30,000 "surge" forces and bring troop levels down to between 100,000 and 130,000 by next summer.
He said he could not predict how quickly troop levels would fall after the summer. He also argued his force should still protect the Iraqi people, not focus solely on handing over to Iraqi forces and conducting counterterrorism missions.
Bush is expected to announce that 30,000 soldiers could return home next year in a nationally televised speech today on the divisive issue of US troop levels in war-torn Iraq.
Bush is expected to say that the "surge" could be trimmed by July next year, when just six months remain of his presidency, leaving the next stage of the conflict up to his successor amid a heated race for the White House.
The US president has long vowed to base his decisions about Iraq on the recommendations of military leaders on the ground.
But more than four years after the US-led invasion, Americans see an Iraq gripped by violence, sectarian strife and political corruption -- far from the ideal model of democracy in the Middle East that Bush had touted.
Anger is also rising over the human and material cost of the war, with more than 3,700 US soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis killed since March 2003 and half a trillion dollars spent.
Sixty-one percent of nearly 2,700 US adults surveyed online last month by the Harris Poll group said they felt Bush was "too eager" when he sent US troops into Iraq in March 2003, while two-thirds gave Bush bad marks for his handling of the conflict over the past few months.
According to another poll by ABC News and the Washington Post, 55 percent want to see troops come home by next spring.
If Bush does not replace the 30,000 extra troops currently in Iraq as part of the "surge," he will not actually be reducing troop levels but only restoring them to the same level as this year's numbers.
The Washington Post yesterday cited unnamed White House aides as saying that Bush planned to emphasize that he was able to order troop cuts only because of the success achieved on the ground in Iraq, and that he was not being swayed by political opposition.
Bush has shown no inclination to order drastic cuts in the 168,000 US forces now in Iraq that Democrats have sought.
"It sounds to me as if General Petraeus is presenting a plan for at least a 10-year, high-level US presence in Iraq," House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said after a White House meeting with Bush and other congressional leaders.
The California Democrat said she told Bush he should explain to US citizens "why our country should have to continue to make that commitment."
Crocker noted an effort by Maliki and other leaders to work out some national issues, including an announcement last month of agreement in principle on establishing provincial powers and on relaxing a ban on former members of the late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's Baath party from public service.
"These are modest achievements but I nonetheless find them somewhat encouraging," he said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
CARTEL ARRESTS: The president said that a US government operation to arrest two cartel members made it jointly responsible for the unrest in the state’s capital Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday blamed the US in part for a surge in cartel violence in the northern state of Sinaloa that has left at least 30 people dead in the past week. Two warring factions of the Sinaloa cartel have clashed in the state capital of Culiacan in what appears to be a fight for power after two of its leaders were arrested in the US in late July. Teams of gunmen have shot at each other and the security forces. Meanwhile, dead bodies continued to be found across the city. On one busy street corner, cars drove