US President George W. Bush, facing new pressure to start bringing US troops home from Iraq, said on Tuesday he would not consider it until hearing a fresh assessment from his top commander there this fall.
"That's what the American people expect. They expect for military people to come back and tell us how the military operations are going," Bush said. "And that's the way I'm going to play it as commander in chief."
General David Petraeus is due to present a progress report to Congress in September on the effects of the recently completed troop buildup in Iraq. Frustration in Congress has led to calls for changes in strategy before then.
Bush, though, said he would not be swayed.
"We just started. We got all the troops there a couple of weeks ago," Bush told the Greater Cleveland Partnership, a coalition of northeast Ohio companies.
Bush's comments came as the White House scrambled to respond to growing opposition to the war.
"I wouldn't ask a mother or a dad -- I wouldn't put their son in harm's way if I didn't believe this was necessary for the security of the United States and the peace of the world," Bush said. "I strongly believe it, and I strongly believe we'll prevail."
The closest he came to signaling a troop withdrawal was to say: "I believe we can be in a different position in a while."
He described that as a troop level that would remain high enough to protect Iraq and keep training Iraqis.
One man asked the president if the war on terror will ever really end. The president didn't answer directly, saying instead that it was possible to marginalize those who train people to hate the US and seek terror.
"Liberty prevails every time if we stay with it," Bush said.
Meanwhile, Bush was also trying to pressure lawmakers into taking up what's left of his shrinking domestic agenda.
In stops through the Cleveland area, he hoped to draw attention to a strung-together list of topics -- energy alternatives, affordable health insurance and restrained spending. Bush's itinerary underlined the White House strategy: Get beyond the collapse of immigration reform by focusing on what's next -- and blame Congress for inaction.
NATIONAL SECURITY: The Chinese influencer shared multiple videos on social media in which she claimed Taiwan is a part of China and supported its annexation Freedom of speech does not allow comments by Chinese residents in Taiwan that compromise national security or social stability, the nation’s top officials said yesterday, after the National Immigration Agency (NIA) revoked the residency permit of a Chinese influencer who published videos advocating China annexing Taiwan by force. Taiwan welcomes all foreigners to settle here and make families so long as they “love the land and people of Taiwan,” Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) told lawmakers during a plenary session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. The public power of the government must be asserted when necessary and the Ministry of
Proposed amendments would forbid the use of all personal electronic devices during school hours in high schools and below, starting from the next school year in August, the Ministry of Education said on Monday. The Regulations on the Use of Mobile Devices at Educational Facilities up to High Schools (高級中等以下學校校園行動載具使用原則) state that mobile devices — defined as mobile phones, laptops, tablets, smartwatches or other wearables — should be turned off at school. The changes would stipulate that use of such devices during class is forbidden, and the devices should be handed to a teacher or the school for safekeeping. The amendments also say
EMBRACING TAIWAN: US lawmakers have introduced an act aiming to replace the use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan’ across all Washington’s federal agencies A group of US House of Representatives lawmakers has introduced legislation to replace the term “Chinese Taipei” with “Taiwan” across all federal agencies. US Representative Byron Donalds announced the introduction of the “America supports Taiwan act,” which would mandate federal agencies adopt “Taiwan” in place of “Chinese Taipei,” a news release on his page on the US House of Representatives’ Web site said. US representatives Mike Collins, Barry Moore and Tom Tiffany are cosponsors of the legislation, US political newspaper The Hill reported yesterday. “The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official US
CHANGE OF TONE: G7 foreign ministers dropped past reassurances that there is no change in the position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including ‘one China’ policies G7 foreign ministers on Friday took a tough stance on China, stepping up their language on Taiwan and omitting some conciliatory references from past statements, including to “one China” policies. A statement by ministers meeting in Canada mirrored last month’s Japan-US statement in condemning “coercion” toward Taiwan. Compared with a G7 foreign ministers’ statement in November last year, the statement added members’ concerns over China’s nuclear buildup, although it omitted references to their concerns about Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Also missing were references stressing the desire for “constructive and stable relations with China” and
RSS