AL ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq, Sept. 2 -- President Bush and his top national security advisers made a surprise joint visit to Iraq today for talks with Gen. David H. Petraeus and top Iraqi officials a week before the American commander is scheduled to deliver a long-awaited assessment of the situation in Iraq.
Administration officials said that Mr. Bush had made the decision to travel to Iraq along with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to meet face-to-face with General Patraeus and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki because it was his last chance to do so before completing a review of his Iraq strategy.
"He has assembled essentially his war cabinet here, and they are all convening with the Iraqi leadership to discuss the way forward," said the Pentagon Press Secretary, Geoff Morrell. "This will be the last big gathering of the president before the president makes a decision on the way forward," he added, noting that Mr. Bush will leave here for a trip to Australia.
Mr. Bush's one-day stop at this desert air base in Anbar Province, underscored the administration intention as part of the strategy review to boost support for the Sunni region, where former insurgents are increasingly cooperating with American forces.
But the dramatic summit-like meeting also had a clear political goal _ to shift the focus this away from Congress, where a series of hearings on reports critical of the progress of the administration strategy are planned, and to buttress White House claims that its efforts in Iraq are beginning to produce results.
IPOD
RADIO
_kungfoo_
Omaha, NE
April 2005
SEP 03, 2007 06:16 AM