Didn’t fly into Baghdad. Bypassing Baghdad in a symbolic expression of impatience. How about a symbolic expression of fear of getting his ass shot at it Baghdad. He only likes death when it’s someone else doing the dying. And has anyone noticed the headlines regarding the British withdrawal from Basra? It doesn’t read British Withdraw from Basra, Turning Over Security to Iraqis. Nooooooo. It reads Brits QUIT Basra. Those dirty rotten quitters!!!! How dare they! Why the U.S. won’t be a quitter! No sireee. One news agency comes up with the headline/story, and they all follow suit. Fucking American press……. useless.

AL-ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq - President Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq on Monday, using the war zone as a backdrop to argue his case that the buildup of U.S. troops is helping stabilizing the nation.

The president secretly flew 11 hours to Iraq as a showdown nears with Congress over whether his decision in January to order 30,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq is working.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived ahead of Bush, and convened a meeting with the country’s top political leaders to highlight Bush administration hopes for prodding Iraq into a “bottom-up” approach to national reconciliation.

Gates conferred with senior U.S. officials, including Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, before opening a session with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani, and other top Iraqi officials from Baghdad.

Bush and his national security team flew directly to this air base in a remote part of Anbar province, bypassing Baghdad in a symbolic expression of impatience with political paralysis in the nation’s capital. The gesture underscored the U.S. belief that the spark for progress may come at the local level.

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