In spite of the Seahawks losing, Bush and Cheney have made my day.....they are going for broke!
Bush, Cheney Press Case for Iraq Policy
President Says Critics Won't Halt Iraq Surge
By BEN FELLER
AP
WASHINGTON (Jan. 14) - Digging in for confrontation, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney said they will not budge from sending thousands more U.S. troops to Iraq no matter how much Congress opposes it.
"I fully understand they could try to stop me," Bush said of new Democratic-run Congress. "But I've made my decision. And we're going forward."
A defiant Cheney said Sunday that majority Democrats have offered no credible alternative to Bush's revised war strategy. Cheney said withdrawing from Iraq would mean giving in to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and other U.S. enemies.
"They're convinced that the United States will, in fact, pack it in and go home if they just kill enough of us," Cheney said. "They can't beat us in a standup fight, but they think they can break our will."
The aggressive White House reaction comes as both the House and Senate prepare to vote on resolutions that oppose additional U.S. troops in Iraq. Cheney said those nonbinding votes by Congress would not affect Bush's ability to act as he sees fit.
"You cannot run a war by committee," the vice president said.
Those postelection promises of bipartisanship seem quite distant today.
The White House, also seeing some GOP support peal away for the war plan, went all-out to regain some footing. Bush gave his first interview from Camp David, airing Sunday night on CBS' "60 Minutes," while Cheney and national security adviser Stephen Hadley made the rounds of the morning talk shows.
Lawmakers hardened their stance, too, pledging to explore all ways possible to stop Bush.
Beyond the promised votes in opposition to the president's approach, the Democratic leadership is considering whether, and how, to cut off funding for additional troops.
You don't like to micromanage the Defense Department, but we have to, in this case, because they're not paying attention to the public," said Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat who helps oversee military funding.
"We need to look at what options we have available to constrain the president," said Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, a possible White House candidate in 2008. Democrats are wary, though, of appearing to undermine the troops that are already in Iraq.
It is unclear how any effort by Congress would affect Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq. Hadley said the White House already has money appropriated by Congress to move the additional forces to Iraq "and the president will be doing that."
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a potential 2008 presidential contender who endorses Bush's call for more troops, said votes to express disapproval were pointless. "If they're dead serious," he said of those fighting Bush's strategy, "then we should have a motion to cut off funding."
The Bush administration had hoped that the president's overhauled strategy would lead to some bipartisan unity. Or, in the least, that it would get an extended hearing and debate before legislative leaders made up their minds.
Instead, the White House encountered a Congress - and a public - that vastly rejected the military and political ideas he announced last week in a nationally televised address.
Most Americans oppose sending more troops to Iraq. The war was the dominant issue in the November election, in which Republicans lost control of the House and Senate.
"It's a complete absurdity to be pursuing the notion that somehow troops are going to resolve the security issue," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
When asked if the White House was ignoring the will of the American people, Cheney said no president worth his salt would make big decisions based on polls. "You cannot simply stick your finger up in the wind and say, 'Gee, public opinion's against; we'd better quit."
Bush announced last week he will send 21,500 more troops to Iraq to halt violence, mainly around Baghdad, as an essential step toward stabilizing the country's government.
That plan and economic and political steps are meant to allow Iraqis to move ahead with securing the country themselves and allow U.S. troops to return home gradually.
Kerry and other Democrats say they want to start a phased withdrawal of troops, along with stepped-up diplomacy with Iraq's neighbors, to speed up the transfer of responsibility to Iraqis.
Like Bush, Cheney braced Americans to frame the war in Iraq as part of a much longer effort.
"It is the kind of conflict that's going to drive our policy and our government for the next 20 or 30 or 40 years. We have to prevail and we have to have the stomach for the fight long term," he said.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, meanwhile, arrived in London for talks Sunday with Prime Minister Tony Blair on Iraq.
Hadley was interviewed on "This Week" on ABC and "Meet the Press" on NBC. Cheney was on "Fox News Sunday." McCain and Obama were on CBS' "Face the Nation." Kerry was on CNN's "Late Edition."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. |
