国产热热热精品,亚洲视频久久】日韩,三级婷婷在线久久,99人妻精品视频,精品九热人人肉肉在线,AV东京热一区二区,91po在线视频观看,久久激情宗合,青青草黄色手机视频

   

W.House denies debating troop withdrawal

(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-07-10 02:58

President George W. Bush has no plans to withdraw troops from Iraq now, the White House said on Monday, despite increasing pressure from members of his own Republican party for a change in war strategy.


White House Press Secretary Tony Snow responds to reporters questions about President Bush's pardon of I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby during his daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, July 3, 2007. [AP]

The New York Times reported on Monday that debate was intensifying inside the White House over whether Bush should try to prevent more Republican defections by announcing intentions for a gradual withdrawal of troops from high-casualty Iraqi areas.

"There is no debate right now on withdrawing forces right now from Iraq," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

The Times said officials fear the last pillars of political support among U.S. Senate Republicans for Bush's Iraq strategy were collapsing.

"The president has said many times, that as conditions required and merit, that there will be, in fact, withdrawals and also a pulling back from areas of Baghdad and so on," Snow said.

"But the idea of trying to make a political judgment rather than a military judgment about how to have forces in the field is simply not true," he said.

The administration is compiling an interim report to deliver to Congress by Sunday on Bush's strategy in which he sent thousands of additional troops to Iraq.

The report has gained significance as an increasing number of both Republican and Democratic lawmakers call for a change in Bush's strategy for the unpopular war.

Snow called the July report a "first snapshot" and described the president's strategy as still in its early stages because it took time for the "surge" to become fully operational. The report will not discuss any timetable for withdrawal, he said.

"This is not a midpoint of operations in Baghdad, but really the very beginning," Snow said.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman also tried to temper expectations about the report, saying it was only recently that Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, had the full capability he had sought to conduct operations in Iraq.

"I don't think that anyone would expect all the benchmarks to be met or achieved at the front end of the surge operations," Whitman said.

Bush's public opinion ratings are at the lows of his presidency amid discontent over the Iraq war where sectarian violence results in almost daily bloodshed.

The White House played down the much-anticipated September 15 report, when Petraeus, and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, must present an assessment on Iraq's security and political progress.

"Nor do we think that it is accurate to think that September 15th is the drop dead date and everything should be completed," Snow said.

The Senate is preparing this week to begin what is likely to be a contentious debate on the war's future and financing, and four more Republican senators recently declared they can no longer support the president's strategy.



Top World News  
Today's Top News  
Most Commented/Read Stories in 48 Hours
揭阳市| 清远市| 新兴县| 宁南县| 饶平县| 云梦县| 天长市| 东宁县| 房产| 宽城| 都匀市| 东方市| 诏安县| 中阳县| 麻江县| 禹州市| 宁武县| 凤庆县| 鄄城县| 化隆| 潮安县| 乌审旗| 波密县| 钟山县| 嵊州市| 甘德县| 垦利县| 黄陵县| 如东县| 金川县| 静乐县| 太康县| 新源县| 慈溪市| 南丹县| 高尔夫| 宿州市| 梁平县| 达尔| 漳州市| 合川市|