July report and Iraq

The Bush administration, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, has stressed a September time frame for a wide-ranging assessment of operational strategy after about 4 1/2 years of battle, and has said such a review would be more appropriate then. But concern about continued U.S. troop losses, indications of drift within the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad and declining public support in this country for the war have driven some key Republicans closer to the position of Democrats demanding withdrawal. The new report will be released later this week, perhaps Thursday or Friday, at about the same time as the Senate takes up a $649 billion defense policy bill and votes on a Democratic amendment ordering troop withdrawals to begin in 120 days.

The July report would push the administration to consider its next move. But, Bush and his advisers had already decided no change in policy was justified as yet because there was not enough evidence from Iraq. Whether conditions merited a course shift, such as troop reductions or other scaling back of U.S. operations, would be decided after the September report.