WASHINGTON (CNN) — A Republican senator says he warned top White House aide Karl Rove that President Bush quickly needs to craft a workable plan to withdraw U.S. troops fom Iraq in order to salvage his legacy.
White House spokesman Tony Snow insisted last week that Bush’s GOP allies in Congress are not breaking with Bush over the war. But Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, told CNN that he warned Rove last week that “The president is a young man and should think about his legacy.”
He should know history will not be kind unless he can come up with a plan that protects the troops and stabilizes the region,” Voinovich said he told Karl Rove, whom Bush dubbed “the architect” of his 2004 re-election.
Voinovich added that other Republicans are close to speaking out against the President’s current strategy.
“I won’t mention anyone’s name. But I have every reason to believe that the fur is going to start to fly, perhaps sooner than what they may have wanted.”
In private, Voinovich is more blunt, using a profanity to describe the White House’s handling of Iraq by charging the administration “f—ed up” the war.
Voinovich stressed he expressed his views to Rove as a positive “opportunity” for the president to come together with Democrats and Republicans on an exit strategy that will be good for the country.
A White House spokeswoman confirmed to CNN that Rove, who speaks with Voinovich frequently, had the phone conversation with the senator last week and they did discuss the President’s legacy. But the spokeswoman declined to provide further details, citing Rove’s desire to keep phone conversations with senators private.
“I got into this to get them to move, and they’re moving,” said Voinovich, who is pushing for the president to put together a workable plan for withdrawing U.S. troops that will be ready in time for a September progress report on the military surge from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
“I really think that they understand,” said Voinovich. “We’ll see by September what they put together. But the main thing is were running out of time — we should take advantage of this time.”
And while Voinovich is giving the White House some breathing space until September to receive the progress report from Gen. Petraeus, the senator is privately warning if there’s not a dramatic new strategy ready to be unveiled in the fall, he will endorse a Democratic plan mandating a timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq within 120 days.
In June, Voinovich urged Bush to take a new tack in Iraq — one he dubbed “Plan E,” for exit. Voinovich called for a decrease in U.S. military engagement, coupled with a “surge” in diplomatic engagement.
His break with the White House came one day after another senior Republican, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, delivered a dramatic Senate floor speech declaring the president’s current strategy was not working.
Since then, Voinovich said he has spoken to both Rove and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and is expressing some satisfaction that in the short term, the White House has heard his concerns.
– CNN’s Ed Henry and Dana Bash
Looks like the Republican congressmen are getting tired of playing political suicide, doesn't it. Sad fact is, while they are toying with political suicide, all their foot dragging party loyalty has young American soldiers doing more than just toying with death in Iraq.
Here's my favorite question for a party line Republican: Why did we invade Iraq?
I already know Bushs' answer to that. "We fight them there so that we won't have to fight them here."
Lately if you ask a politician that question he will side step it by saying that it doesn't matter why we went into Iraq, what we need to be concerned about now, is how we withdraw satisfactorily.
Well, excuse me, but it does matter why we went into Iraq because the honest answer to that is what will determine Bushs' legacy, That is the key issue -- not how he acts and reacts from now until the end of his term.
There is no doubt, as Voinovich says privately "the administration f---ed up the war".
But the gnawing question to me still is WHY DID WE INVADE IRAQ? If you want to get a Republican columnist hot, tell him we went in after the oil. Oh, that pisses them off! Okay then, if that's not the reason, what is?
Tell him we invaded to establish more American bases in an attempt to influence not only Iraqi politics, but Iranian as well. That gets their undies in a bundle also. Okay, if that's not the reason, what is?
Will someone help convince me that my country, the country that I love, has not become the world gangsta -- the international thug.
I am reading Studs Terkel's The Good War and one of the stories really hit me. A foreign woman said that when all the bombing was going on during late WWII, she didn't know how she managed to survive, but she did. Then she said that America has been very lucky in that they have never been bombed. But, she said, if they continue to make war, they inevitably will be bombed. I believe that. It's called karma .
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