Hi Gang:

In a report by McClatchy Newpapers comes the following:

"Bush is awaiting two other reports,one from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the other from an interagency group that includes the State Department and the National Security Council"

In an accompaning article from the same source it stated :

"Although the Group's[Iraq Study Group} visits to Baghdad--exclusively in the heavily fortified Green Zone--were brief,the 142 page report's assessment of the situation in Iraq is sound"

Still later:

"The report's call for Israel to give up the Golan Heights in exchange for Syrian cooperation may no be as farfetched as is may seem".

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My comments on the above :

By the time Bush hears from the State Department,the National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff ,he'll probably be out of office and it will be the next President's problem.

As far as the Iraq Study Group"s report is concerned ...if they never left the Green Zone, what can they possibly really know about the true situation in Iraq???

As for the Israelis giving up the Golan Heights,small chance of that happening as long as they keep lobbing shells at each other.

And we haven't even had the hearings the Democrats have promised us .

So...if you're looking for swift action in Iraq...don't hang by your thumbs in the meantime.

And the boys keep on dying...and we keep on talking...and the boys keep on dying.

hippolips

He only needs to stall for a couple more weeks, then he can start blaming problems on an obstructive congress.

Having said he'd take the Iraq Study Group report seriously, Bush seems to have already dismissed it:

'But Mr. Bush, making his first extended comments on the study, seemed to push back against two of its most fundamental recommendations: pulling back American combat brigades from Iraq over the next 15 months, and engaging in direct talks with Iran and Syria. He said he needed to be "flexible and realistic" in making decisions about troop movements, and he set conditions for talks with Iran and Syria that neither country was likely to accept.

The president addressed reporters after meeting in the White House with his closest ally in the war, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. In light of the report's stark warning that the situation in Iraq was "grave and deteriorating," Mr. Bush came close to acknowledging mistakes. "You wanted frankness - I thought we would succeed quicker than we did," the president said to a British reporter who asked for candor. "And I am disappointed by the pace of success."

But Mr. Bush, and to a lesser extent, Mr. Blair, continued to talk about the war in the kind of sweeping, ideological terms the Iraq Study Group avoided in its report. While the commission settled on stability as a realistic American goal for Iraq, Mr. Bush cast the conflict as part of a broader struggle between good and evil, totalitarianism and democracy.' NYT

The article does say that Bush might announce what he intends to do about Iraq sometime before Christmas.

Another attempt to guess what is going on inside Bush's head...

'In other words, Bush still insists on living in a world of ideology and made-up facts, not one of reality and pragmatism. Bush has fixed in his mind what his neoconservative advisers sold him on in 2001 – and he can’t break with that...

...If Bush cannot come to grips with reality – and adopt a less ideological approach toward the Middle East – there may be no realistic choice but for the American people and their elected representatives to make clear that it’s time for him to go.' Time for Bush to Go!

quote:

Originally posted by newnickname:


...If Bush cannot come to grips with reality – and adopt a less ideological approach toward the Middle East – there may be no realistic choice but for the American people and their elected representatives to make clear that it’s time for him to go.'[/i] Time for Bush to Go!

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Hi NN:

Outgoing Georgia Representative Cynthia Mc Kinney introduced a bill on Friday,12-08 to Impeach President Bush ,but the legislature chose to ignore it and instead adjourned until January,when a new Congress takes over.

By then the bill will have been forgotten.

How come Canadians can see what Americans cannot???

I think it has something to do with Brittany's bare bottom.

hippolips

Bush delays fresh Iraq strategy

Don't tell me - he did have it ready, but then the dog ate it.

'...President Bush wants to wait. He wants to delay. He wants to spend his holidays in peace. He wants us not to know what we’ve known all along. It isn’t indecision that’s keeping him from announcing his new strategy. It isn’t infighting among his staff, or figuring out how to navigate an opposition Congress. It is certainly not the possibility that he is incubating a Lincolnesque declaration. (He had his Lincolnesque moment, on the USS Abraham Lincoln, and look where that led us.) No. What we’ve known all along is what he’s been all along, in Iraq as elsewhere. Clueless. Pointless. And now we can safely add, heartless. His best strategy is to run out the clock on his term, to hand Iraq to the next president in the hope of making himself not be the president who lost Iraq, even as he’s been the only president, Saddam included, who managed to wreck Iraq.' As Bush Loiters: A Christmas Toll

"...even as he’s been the only president, Saddam included, who managed to wreck Iraq"

Ive never thought of it that way, but it is accurate. Consider that the US is occupying Iraq, and bush is the president of the US. That make bush the #1 guy in Iraq, too.

Heck of a job, George.

Bush and Britney's bare bottom. Is there some link ?

Hi Fred:

Yes,Fred, Brittany's bare bottom does have something to do with it.

Americans are so obsessed with Celebrities that nothing else seems to matter to them.

American are so obsessed with who's sleeping with who in Hollywood that they just don't have time to worry about things like what's happening to our boys in Iraq.

It's all about Angelina,Brad Pitt,Paris Hilton and the other Celebs.

Or some poor schmuck who's trying to win a million bucks on "Deal Or No Deal".

Or who's the Latest winner[or Loser}on "American Idol"...even the Losers are treated like the latest Celebs...we can't seem to create them fast enough.

And our boys in Iraq keep dying and dying.

And Paris Hilton parties on and on and on.

And our Media keeps up an unrelenting barrage of Celebrity news, so that we never seem to see what's going on around us,so that we don't wake up in time.

Yes,Fred,it really is about Brittany's bare bottom.

hippolips

'Thursday's talks, at the president's ranch in Texas, were described as "a non decision-making meeting", and Mr Bush took no questions from reporters after his brief remarks.' news.bbc.co.uk

The sense of urgency makes you dizzy, doesn't it?

While Bush was taking some time out to think things over...

'The number of Iraqi civilians killed in political violence edged to a new record high in December after a big leap the previous month, data from Interior Ministry officials showed on Tuesday.

The statistics, widely viewed as an indicative but only partial record of violent deaths, showed 12,320 civilians were killed in 2006 in what officials classified as "terrorist" violence - half of them in the last four months.

The ministry figure of 1,930 civilian deaths in December is three and a half times the figure of 548 for January, before the surge in sectarian killing which followed the destruction of a major Shi'ite shrine in February...

...Since the chaos in Iraq makes consistent reporting impossible, those tallies are approximate and certain to be an underestimate. They include no deaths among the many civilians wounded in attacks who may die later from wounds. Nor do they include many people kidnapped whose fate remains unknown.

The Interior Ministry said 125 police officers and 25 Iraqi soldiers were killed in December, similar totals to November and October. U.S. military reports show 112 American soldiers were killed in December, the deadliest month for them in two years.' www.truthout.org