With this administration incompetance will always win

[dajoki]

Don't you just love how Bushco slides their "stay the course" message in whenever and wherever they can, no matter how inappropriate?

Meanwhile, as counterinsurgency efforts continue against suspected hide-outs of gunmen and bomb-makers, a senior U.S. commander in Iraq said withdrawing troops would undermine gains.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, who commands more than one-third of the nearly 30,000 additional troops deployed to Iraq in recent months, rejected a call from a prominent Republican senator for President Bush to begin reducing troops, saying it would be a "giant step backwards."

All this tells me is how desperate they are for attention, like little children crying out to be believed when they are lieing through their teeth and badly misbehaving.

With Repub defections and the Joint Chiefs calling for troop reductions they are still trying to fool the American people with the help of the media. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is expected to advise President Bush to reduce the U.S. force in Iraq next year by almost half, potentially creating a rift with top White House officials and other military commanders over the course of the war. But then we have the other General about to release the White House's progress report.Petraeus is expected to support a White House view that the absence of widespread political progress in Iraq requires several more months of the U.S. troop buildup before force levels are decreased to their pre-buildup numbers sometime next year.

This just shows they are all over the place on this and have no clue what to do but continue to lie and spin, at which they are very good. You think they would at least open the same book, that way they will know who should be fired and who should be promoted. As we have seen all too many times, incompetance always wins.


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18 Iraqis killed in U.S. raid in Baghdad
The military says the dead were Shiite militiamen targeted after an attack on an American patrol, but locals say civilians died too.
By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 25, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq25aug25,0,3709401.story?coll=la-tot-world&track=ntottext

BAGHDAD -- U.S. forces firing from helicopters Friday pursued militiamen loyal to a radical anti-U.S. Shiite cleric into a west Baghdad district, killing at least 18 people, reportedly including some civilians.

Meanwhile, as counterinsurgency efforts continue against suspected hide-outs of gunmen and bomb-makers, a senior U.S. commander in Iraq said withdrawing troops would undermine gains.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, who commands more than one-third of the nearly 30,000 additional troops deployed to Iraq in recent months, rejected a call from a prominent Republican senator for President Bush to begin reducing troops, saying it would be a "giant step backwards."

U.S.-led forces said Friday's predawn raid in the Shula district, controlled by cleric Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, was in response to an attack on a U.S. patrol in the area. But residents said the U.S. helicopter attack caught many people asleep on their roofs, where they go to escape the stifling heat of apartments that get only an hour or two of electricity each day.

Hospital officials reported that two female bodies were among those brought to two local morgues, and a Sadr spokesman said four women had been killed. Angry relatives and neighbors vowed revenge as they carried the victims' coffins through the streets.
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Top general likely to urge troop cut
Advice by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs poses a potential clash with supporters of the buildup.
By Julian E. Barnes and Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
12:23 PM PDT, August 24, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pace24aug24,0,43964.story?coll=la-tot-world

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is expected to advise President Bush to reduce the U.S. force in Iraq next year by almost half, potentially creating a rift with top White House officials and other military commanders over the course of the war.

Administration and military officials say Marine Gen. Peter Pace is likely to convey concerns by the Joint Chiefs that keeping well in excess of 100,000 troops in Iraq through 2008 will severely strain the military. This assessment could collide with one being prepared by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, calling for the U.S. to maintain higher troop levels for 2008 and beyond.

<<snip>>

Petraeus is expected to support a White House view that the absence of widespread political progress in Iraq requires several more months of the U.S. troop buildup before force levels are decreased to their pre-buildup numbers sometime next year.

Pace's recommendations reflect the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who initially expressed private skepticism about the strategy ordered by Bush and directed by Petraeus, before publicly backing it.

According to administration and military officials, the Joint Chiefs believe it is of crucial strategic importance to reduce the size of the U.S. force in Iraq in order to bolster the military's ability to respond to other threats, a view that is shared by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

[dajoki]

1. kick