Word: troop
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Democrats have yet to decide precisely what they plan to do, considering they are well short of the votes they need to override the veto. It looks all but certain that they will have to jettison the bill's deadlines for troop withdrawal - a move that is certain to lose some of their more liberal members, but that could attract support from Republicans, who are facing increasing impatience for progress in Iraq from their voters at home. And while there is still some discussion of a "short leash" strategy - passing a small funding bill, and continuing to fight - that idea...
...move to punish the Iraqis if they do not meet those targets, but some congressional Republicans say they might be willing to consider reducing non-military aid, including reconstruction funds. What they will not support, says one G.O.P. leadership aide, is anything that ties the benchmarks to a troop withdrawal - "creating a benchmark that's a surrender date by another name." Republicans are also likely to insist that Democrats strip the bill of some of the $20 billion included for extraneous spending on items that range from peanut storage to aid to spinach farmers...
...analogy that springs to Iraqi minds is the Israeli barrier in the West Bank - justified as a security measure but viewed by Iraqis and other Arabs as a permanent seizure of territory. As the Shi'ite advance in Baghdad continues - slowed substantially but not halted by the American troop surge - the walled-away Sunni neighborhoods could just as well become U.S.-protected bastions, carved out of what, in Shi'a eyes, should be Shi'ite territory...
...McCain was hard on the opponents of the war here at home. He didn't just describe troop withdrawal proposals as unwise. He derided "the fanciful and self-interested debates about Iraq that substitute for statesmanship in Washington." And he suggested that the Democrats had decided "to take advantage of the public's frustration, accept defeat," and hope that "the politics of defeat" would benefit them...
...Mahdi Army is also able to use its political clout to insulate it from the worst effects of the troop surge, by pressuring the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to limit how and where American troops operate in Shi'ite areas. When they feel the heat from the Americans, they are able to make life difficult for al-Maliki by precipitating political crises - as they did this week by announcing the withdrawal of their ministers from his cabinet in protest at his failure to demand a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq...