{"id":7666,"date":"2006-06-12T15:16:14","date_gmt":"2006-06-12T19:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7666"},"modified":"2006-06-12T15:16:14","modified_gmt":"2006-06-12T19:16:14","slug":"i-read-the-news-today-oh-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/i-read-the-news-today-oh-boy\/","title":{"rendered":"I read the news today, oh boy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Noting Richard Holbrooke’s dire pessimism about the future of the war, Kevin Drum noted<\/a> today that he’s “pretty gloomy” about Iraq. “A year ago, I thought (or maybe just hoped) that a milestone-related withdrawal plan might improve Iraq’s chances of avoiding complete chaos,” he wrote. “Today I can’t even convince myself of that little.”<\/p>\n

Neither can I. Heard the talk today about withdrawing some of the U.S. forces in Iraq? Keep in mind that there’s another plan<\/a> under consideration.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bush on Friday made clear that the American commitment to the country will be long-term. Officials say the administration has begun to look at the costs of maintaining a force of roughly 50,000 troops there for years to come, roughly the size of the American presence maintained in the Philippines and Korea for decades after those conflicts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We are, of course, still<\/i> in Korea.<\/p>\n

And what about the permanent-base question mentioned<\/a> last week? Republicans on the Hill are playing fast and loose<\/a> on this one, too.<\/p>\n

Congressional Republicans killed a provision in an Iraq war funding bill that would have put the United States on record against the permanent basing of U.S. military facilities in that country, a lawmaker and congressional aides said on Friday.<\/p>\n

The $94.5 billion emergency spending bill, which includes $65.8 billion to continue waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is expected to be approved by Congress next week and sent to President George W. Bush for signing into law.<\/p>\n

As originally passed by the House of Representatives, the Pentagon would have been prohibited from spending any of the funds for entering into a military basing rights agreement with Iraq.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, at least there’s a big debate in the House coming up on the war. Might that offer some political progress? According to a report in Roll Call, House GOP leaders have carefully stacked the deck<\/a>.
\n<\/p>\n

While the debate will be designed to allow all sides to air their views of the war on the House floor, the resolution itself — which portrays the Iraq conflict as a front in the larger war on terrorism — is likely to inspire controversy, since its language largely reflects the views of House Republicans rather than Democrats.<\/p>\n

The Rules Committee is scheduled to meet [tomorrow] to set the parameters of Thursday’s debate. Because the legislative vehicle is a resolution rather than a bill, it would not be amendable by Democrats, though they will have an opportunity to offer a motion to recommit.<\/p>\n

According to a draft version that was obtained Friday and is still subject to change, the resolution will begin by “declaring that the United States will prevail in the Global War on Terror, the struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary.”<\/p>\n

The resolution goes on to emphasize the importance of fighting terrorism and says that Saddam Hussein “constituted a threat against global peace and security.” The language also refers to Iraq and Afghanistan as two parts of the same fight.<\/p>\n

The resolution further praises Iraqi security forces for “taking over … a growing proportion” of responsibilities in the country and praises the newly elected government, which “sends a compelling message: the future of the Middle East belongs to freedom.” The resolution concludes by honoring “all those Americans” who have taken part in the war on terror and declares that the United States “will prevail” in that broader conflict.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Pretty gloomy” just about sums it up, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Noting Richard Holbrooke’s dire pessimism about the future of the war, Kevin Drum noted today that he’s “pretty gloomy” about Iraq. “A year ago, I thought (or maybe just hoped) that a milestone-related withdrawal plan might improve Iraq’s chances of avoiding complete chaos,” he wrote. “Today I can’t even convince myself of that little.” Neither […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}