The Decider Continues to Alienate Us

And we're kinda happy that Junior thinks he needs to keep expressing his will in such forceful terms. As he alienates more people, he makes it more difficult for his party to ever regain its former influence.

Troop 'cap' would hamstring US efforts in Iraq: Hadley
Mon Jan 29, 10:12 AM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush will reject any effort in Congress to limit the number of US forces in Iraq because it would hamstring American efforts to stabilize the wartorn country, national security adviser Stephen Hadley has said in an article.

"Any plan that limits our ability to reinforce our troops in the field is a plan for failure -- and could hand Baghdad to terrorists and extremists before legitimate Iraqi forces are ready to take over the fight," Hadley said in an opinion piece written for the Washington Post.

"That is an outcome the president simply could not accept," Hadley wrote in the administration's latest defense of the president's plan to deploy an additional 21,500 troops in Iraq.

Congress is due to vote in early February on a non-binding motion criticizing Bush's plan to introduce a troop "surge" to help quell sectarian violence in Iraq, with lawmakers from both parties readying resolutions ranging from broad support the president's program to outright repudiation of it.

But Hadley said the president would not even consider tinkering with his plan.

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