By putting the brakes on troop withdrawals from Iraq and shortening combat tours, US President George W. Bush has thrust his war strategy into a holding pattern through January, when a new commander in chief with a new defense team will begin setting his or her own course in Iraq.
The next administration will face the same Iraq complexities, but not necessarily the same circumstances or same choices. The dynamic nature of war makes it all but certain that the battlefield situation will be different, for better or for worse, when the next president enters the White House on Jan. 20.
What is unlikely to change much by then is the size of the US force in Iraq. The current total of 160,000 is scheduled to shrink to about 140,000 by the end of July, but big cuts beyond that are unlikely. The 140,000 figure is several thousand higher than has prevailed through most of the five-year-old war.
In his speech on Thursday, Bush made clear he is in no hurry to reduce the force. He said his field commander will have “all the time he needs” to consider when to resume a troop drawdown.
It is no surprise that Bush would see merit on going slow with troop reductions, given the tenuous nature of the security gains his strategy has achieved over the past several months and the fact that both Democratic contenders for his job have pledged to pull out of Iraq and end the war. The higher the starting point for a pullout under a Democratic president, the longer it would take.
Bush asserted that his strategy, to put an extra 30,000 troops in Iraq and place a higher priority on establishing security in Baghdad, has “renewed and revived” prospects for success.
Democrats remain unconvinced that Bush’s approach will force the Iraqis to settle their differences, which Democrats believe will come only with a declared US policy of winding down the war.
“What the president did today was to reinforce America’s open-ended commitment in Iraq by suspending troop reductions for an unlimited period of time,” said Democratic Senator Carl Levin.
In his view, that perpetuates an Iraqi dependency on US help and eases pressure on them to reach a political settlement.
Turning heads as they cruise past office buildings and malls, driverless taxis are slowly spreading through Chinese cities, prompting both wariness and wonder. China’s tech companies and vehicle manufacturers have poured billions of dollars into self-driving technology over the past few years in an effort to catch industry leaders in the US. Now the central city of Wuhan boasts one of the world’s largest networks of self-driving cars, home to a fleet of more than 500 taxis that can be hailed on an app just like regular rides. At one intersection in an industrial area of Wuhan, AFP reporters saw at least five
China and Vietnam yesterday inked 14 documents spanning cross-border railways to crocodile exports after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met with new Vietnamese leader To Lam in Beijing. The Vietnamese president’s visit to Beijing, his first overseas trip since becoming the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam earlier this month, signals a desire between the two communist neighbors to strengthen ties, amid growing trade and investment, despite occasional clashes over boundaries in the South China Sea. “China has always regarded Vietnam as a priority in its neighborhood diplomacy, and supports Vietnam in adhering to the party leadership, taking the socialist
A former Saudi Arabian official alleged in a report that the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman forged the signature of his father on the royal decree that launched the kingdom’s years-long, stalemated war against Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Saudi Arabia did not immediately respond to a request for comment over the allegations made without supporting evidence by Saad al-Jabri in an interview published yesterday by the BBC, but the kingdom has described him as “a discredited former government official.” Al-Jabri, a former Saudi Arabian intelligence official who lives in exile in Canada, has been a years-long dispute with the kingdom as
‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH’: Hospitals said faculty staff from medical colleges were assisting with emergency cases as more than 1 million doctors were expected to strike Hospitals and clinics across India yesterday turned away patients except for emergency cases as medical professionals began a 24-hour shutdown in protest against the brutal rape and murder of a doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata. More than 1 million doctors were expected to join the strike, paralyzing medical services across the world’s most populous nation. Hospitals said faculty staff from medical colleges had been pressed into service for emergency cases. The strike, which began at 6am, cut off access to elective medical procedures and out-patient consultations, the Indian Medical Association said in a statement. The discovery of the 31-year-old doctor’s bloodied