The Political Chase

TPC Roundup - Troop Interruptus

HEADLINES

• Bush Orders Withdrawal in Speech Filled with “Misstatements”; War Critics Not Amused
• White House Issues Iraq Report
• Key Sunni Leader Assassinated in Anbar
• NJ Refuses to Obey Federal SCIHP Rules
• Russia Confirms New Prime Minister
• Giuliani Attacks Clinton over MoveOn Ad
• Stevens Alaska Scandal Deepens

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WASHINGTON

• “President Bush tried to turn a corner in the fractious debate over Iraq last night by ordering the first limited troop withdrawals since voters elected an antiwar Congress last year,” the Washington Post reports. “But the move did little to appease Democratic leaders, who dismissed it as a token gesture masking an open-ended commitment of U.S. troops.”
• When discussing the status of Iraq, President Bush frequently refers to the “facts on the ground,” however, the President had difficulty with facts in his speech last night. The Washington Post reports, “President Bush made a case for progress in Iraq by citing facts and statistics that at times contradicted recent government reports or his own words.
• “Congressional Democrats vowed Thursday to press for steeper troop reductions in Iraq than President Bush wants, but the top Senate Republican predicted they won’t have the votes to alter the White House proposal,” USA Today reports. “‘The president failed to provide either a plan to successfully end the war or a convincing rationale to continue it,’ said Sen. Jack Reed” of Rhode Island.
• “A new White House report on Iraq shows slim progress, moving just one more political and security goal into the satisfactory column: efforts to let former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party to rejoin the political process,” AP reports via the Las Vegas Sun. “The latest conclusions, to be released” today, “largely track a comparable poor assessment in July on 18 benchmarks.” TPM Muckracker highlights some of the contradictions.
• “Democrats, anti-war groups and liberal bloggers are pounding on House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) for saying U.S. military deaths in Iraq are ‘a small price’ to pay to stop al Qaeda from carrying out more terrorist attacks and stabilizing the Middle East,’” The Politico reports. “Boehner made the comments during a Wednesday interview by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.”
• John Kerry lashed out at House Minority Leader John Boehner in a post at the Huffington Post. “What a stunningly cavalier statement about the lives of the young men and women who serve our country.Whether you support or oppose the Bush escalation, no American should ever for even a moment think the cost of war is small.”
• “After nine months of noisy controversy over his troubled tenure, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales is leaving office quietly today with a low-key farewell address to Justice Department employees in Washington,” the Washington Post reports. “Gonzales, who has made only three public appearances since announcing his resignation on Aug. 27, is expected to dwell on his record in combating terrorism, child exploitation and other crimes rather than on the divisive issues that forced him from the job.”

IRAQ

• “A charismatic tribal leader who allied himself with the United States and rallied fractious Sunni groups against extremists who claim links to al-Qaeda was killed Thursday afternoon when a bomb exploded outside his house in Anbar province,” the Washington Post reports. “The efforts of Abdul Sattar Abu Risha became the centerpiece of the Bush administration’s campaign to prove its troop buildup in Iraq has been a success.”
• “An al-Qaida-linked insurgent group released a video Thursday showing the body of a U.S. pilot killed in Iraq last year, a photograph of his identification card and footage of his aircraft’s wreckage site, U.S. monitors said,” AP reports. “The video,” which “was first obtained by the IntelCenter monitoring group in suburban Washington,” shows “the ID card photograph of Air Force pilot Maj. Troy L. Gilbert, whose F-16CG crashed Nov. 27, 2006, some 20 miles northwest of Baghdad.”

NATION

• “Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine informed President Bush this week that New Jersey will not obey federal rules that would make it harder to enroll middle-income kids for a popular government-subsidized health insurance program,” the Washington Post reports. “His move escalated the growing confrontation between a number of states and the administration over the new rules imposed on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.”
• “A judge ordered a cash bond of $5 million for Norman Hsu, the shadowy Democratic fund-raiser, after Colorado authorities told the court here that Mr. Hsu might have been involved in another multimillion-dollar fraud investigation involving dozens of investors in Orange County, Calif.,” the New York Times reports. “The revelation that Mr. Hsu, a fugitive for 15 years in a California fraud case, might be implicated in another fraud investigation came after New York investors learned this week that $40 million they had invested with Mr. Hsu might be in jeopardy.”

INTERNATIONAL

• “Viktor Zubkov has been confirmed as Russia’s new prime minister and has pledged to wage a war on corruption,” BBC News reports. “The lower house of parliament voted 381 to 47 to approve his nomination, submitted by President Vladimir Putin in a surprise move on Wednesday.”
• “At least 15 soldiers from an elite commando unit were killed Thursday evening when a blast, apparently set off by a suicide bomber, tore through the dining hall of a military installation in northwestern Pakistan,” the New York Times reports. “At least 27 soldiers were wounded; six were in critical condition.”
• “NATO is ready to discuss bringing France back fully into the fold after signals from Paris it may reverse its decision 41 years ago to quit the alliance’s military structures,” Reuters reports. “President Nicolas Sarkozy set the tone with a keynote foreign-policy speech last month, insisting NATO was no rival to France’s ambition of a robust European Union defense capability.”

ELECTIONS 2008

• “Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani on Thursday accused Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton of participating in ”character assassination” for questioning Gen. David Petraeus about his assessment of progress in Iraq,” AP reports. “Campaigning in Georgia, Giuliani assailed Clinton for the second straight day and tried to link her to a newspaper ad from the liberal anti-war group MoveOn that was critical of Petraeus. The ad accused Petraeus of ‘cooking the books’ for the White House. ‘General Petraeus or General Betray Us?’ it asked, playing off his name.”
• Although a link cannot be provided, Giuliani placed an ad in the New York Times in response to MoveOn’s ad on Petraeus.

SCANDALS

• The scandal surrounding Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AL) and his son continues to heat up. “The former head of an oil field service company admitted Thursday in court that he bribed three Alaska legislators, including the son of a U.S. senator who is the target of a federal investigation,” the Washington Post reports. “Former VECO Corp. CEO Bill Allen, 70, testified Thursday in the federal corruption trial of former state House Speaker Pete Kott. Allen and a former company vice president, Rick Smith, have pleaded guilty to bribing lawmakers, and await sentencing.”