What's up with Pres. Bush and his Admin seeking "general time horizons" for troop withdrawals from Iraq?

Bush had no choice but to agree. Iraqi PM al-Maliki stuck to his guns on a time table and had the backing of most of the democratically elected Iraqi parliament.

Bush's only other choice beyond the security agreement would be an embarrassing hat-in-hand crawl to the UN security council and beg Moscow and Beijing to amend the UN resolution on US forces in Iraq.

So yes, Bush did flip flop. This is exactly why only morons deal in absolutes. Bush painted himself into a corner by insisting on no time tables, now he has no choice but to capitulate.

Compromising with the Iraqis I guess. But you'll hear a lot of talk of the differences between timelines and time horizons. The biggest (only?) objection to the timelines in the first place was naming dates that could be used by insurgents or Sadrists or whomever to help plan attacks. Without dates named I don't think it is the same. I'd actually slightly support time horizons as long as they are essentially just suggested goals not binding in any way.

And I do see the contradiction you point out. But look, NOBODY wants troops over there longer than they have to be. So if we have to compromise so be it. Besides the goal is to have Iraq defend itself. So obviously we would want them to hurry up and take more responsibility.

Supposedly, the time "horizon" allows for previously agreed upon conditions to be considered AND met before withdrawing, whereas the time "table" is inflexible and calls for withdrawal regardless of how things are going. The Bush admin has insisted on certain conditions being met before considering withdrawing any troops, so really it isn't so much of a flip-flop as just giving new terms to already-existing policy.

Bush wasn't "Seeking" its being dictated DUH

What's changed? The sharp reduction in violence in Iraq — to the lowest level in four years — has made the country's leaders increasingly confident and more assertive about its sovereignty, giving rise to demands for a specific plan for American forces to leave.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080718/ap_on_go_pr_wh...

Knowledge is POWER

General time horizons sounds like a cop out to me. In the Prez's mind there would NEVER be a withdrawal.

P.S.

He DOESN'T have a pair.

they're a soveign nation with a legitimately elected government. They have asked us to leave. All we can do is leave.

The surge is over. Now its time to go to Afghanistan.

Desperate ploy by the RNC in my opinion.

it is different now that we have won