John Nichols (The Nation): Bush's Crumbling "Coalition" in Iraq

[Jack Rabbit]

From The Nation
Dated Tuesday April 11

Bush's Crumbling "Coalition" in Iraq
By John Nichols

"We have won, and now we have to start working to implement our program and unify the country," Romano Prodi told Italians after the official count confirmed from that country's national elections confirmed exit polls showing Prodi's center-left coalition had deposed the government of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who had allied Italy with George W. Bush's foreign policies.

With his Olive Tree coalition of moderate Christian Democrats, liberals, Greens, Socialists, former Communists and Communists on track to gain solid control of the lower of the two houses of the Italian Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, and a narrow majority in the upper house, the Senate, Prodi says he is positioned to begin to implement an ambitious agenda. If all goes as planned, one of the new prime minister's first moves will be to pull Italy's contingent of 2,600 troops out of Iraq.

That will deprive the Bush administration's "coalition of the willing" occupation force in Iraq of its fourth largest contingent.

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