Judith Miller's former paper ran an Editorial today, "More Realism, Less Spin" and concluded,
"Mr. Bush has invoked Vietnam to argue against leaving Iraq. That argument is specious, but there is a chilling similarity between the two American foreign policy disasters. In Vietnam, as in Iraq, American presidents and military leaders went to great lengths to pretend that victory was at hand when nothing could be farther from the truth."
The White House has attacked the GAO assessment of Iraq by stating that the standards set by Congressional investigators were too high. Perhaps, but there should be evidence of sustained and serious effort by the Iraqis and that is entirely missing. The White House has been using the August Congressional recess to pimp its stance and is warming up to ask for more money for Iraq, maybe $50 billion worth beyond the $600 billion already requested to take the war into spring 2008.
The NYT seems to think Congress ought to take a real look at what's out there when considering a fight over withdrawing troops. Take a real look and actually do something about it.
It is true that the Democrats don't have the votes at this time to override a veto, that's fine, just keep sending the same funding back until either Bush runs out of money or signs. If he won't sign, he's the one depriving the troops of funding. If Congress intends to do anything it had better remember that you don't oppose power except with power and signals that you'll just do what he wants after you make a gesture aren't power.
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