Warner Says He May Vote With Dems On A Timetable For Defeat

This just in at Drudge:

WASHINGTON (AP) - GOP Sen. John Warner, who wants U.S. troops to start coming home from Iraq by Christmas, said Sunday he may support Democratic legislation ordering withdrawals if President Bush refuses to set a return timetable soon.
"I'm going to have to evaluate it," Warner said. "I don't say that as a threat, but I say that is an option we all have to consider."
Warner, a former Navy Secretary and one-time chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is seen as someone who could influence the debate among senators who have grown increasingly uneasy about the unpopular war.
Warner's suggestion last week about bringing back some troops put him at odds with Bush, who has insisted that conditions on the ground should dictate any such decisions. Warner long has opposed legislation pushing for timetables.
(AP) In this photograph provided by "Meet the Press," Sen. John Warner, R-Va., appears on "Meet the...Full Image The Virginia Republican said Sunday it would be best for the president, not Congress, to make a decision on withdrawals and that overriding a presidential veto would be difficult. But Warner made clear his view that people are losing patience with the administration's strategy in Iraq, a significant change is needed in September and troop withdrawals were the best way to accomplish that.
"That's precisely what I said to the president. I said, 'Here is an option. You can initiate a first withdrawal. You pick the number, Mr. President. And it would send a signal to the Iraqi government that matches your words,'" Warner said. "His words being, 'We're not going to be there forever.'"
"The president has got to put teeth in these comments that we're not there forever," he added.
The political wrangling comes as the White House and Congress are headed toward a showdown on the Iraq war. In mid-September, Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker plan to give their assessment of Bush's decision this year to send 30,000 additional troops to Iraq.
"We've got to show our resolve in the face of the Iraqi government inaction," Warner said. "I'm looking for in that message of the 15th what the president's going to do to get this (Iraqi) government jump-started to deliver on its commitment to our troops, 'You fight and die, get the security, I will deliver Iraq as a reconciled unity government.'"

I don't think that withdrawing the troops from Iraq (especially since we JUST started a surge, and JUST began to see success in dropping violence) is the way to show Al-Maliki and the Iraqi government that we will not be there forever to protect him.

The Iraqi government needs 2 things: an Iraqi police force to keep law and order, and an army to protect it from it's "neighbors" who (like Syria, whom he just visited) want to see it destroyed and become a terrorist state.

Our withdrawal should center on the rise of that police force along wtih the rise of a battle-hardened Iraqi army -- one that is loyal to the new government. Should we want to put pressure on the Iraqi government to stand up, we can withdraw our troops to a rear-base, but not leave country.

As for "a reconciliation government": good luck. I'm not sure at all how divergent the views of those sections or Iraq's population are, or how willing they will be to be flexible with their enemies in order to "get along." That may be something that comes about only after a civil war in Iraq, but I don't think a true and lasting peaceful compromise is something that can be forced on the parties involved -- either by the U.S. or by the new Iraqi government. It is up to the factions to decide when they have had enough violence, war, and death to make them willing to compromise.