I think this will be as close as he gets to actually saying, “Okay, you know what…I screwed it up.”
First, he admits he wasn’t prepared for war…
Looking back on his eight years in the White House, President George W. Bush pinpointed incorrect intelligence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction as [...]

Amid the turkey and stuffing, I neglected to update everybody on this good news…
In a vote heralded by supporters as a momentous step toward restoring Iraqi sovereignty, lawmakers here passed a crucial bill Thursday, setting out a three-year timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi soil.
The bill passed after months of backroom negotiations [...]

Keep in mind that the following is coming from a critic of the Georgian administration, but he was an insider and he also went before his own government to give his assessment of the situation.
From BBC:
Erosi Kitsmarishvili, a former envoy to Russia, was testifying at a parliamentary commission hearing into the war the breakaway Georgian [...]

This had been the rumor for awhile. Now, it’s apparently close to being official. Robert Gates will stay on as Defense Secretary in Barack Obama’s administration. Reports are Gates will stay for at least a year.
Well, Obama promised to have some Republicans in his administration. This certainly counts. And it’s a good move because it [...]

According to current reports, this could be Barack Obama’s national security/foreign affairs team:
Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton
Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security: Janet Napolitano
National Security Advisor: Gen. Jim Jones, a retired 4-star Marine Corps general who actually supported John McCain but is considered pragmatic and very well-qualified.
Director of National Intelligence: [...]

With the current financial crisis, Iraq and Afghanistan haven’t been leading many news stories. But those conflicts are still going on and, just as importantly, the effects of those wars are still being felt by the soldiers who fought them.
Whatever you think of the policies behind our current wars, I think it’s always important to [...]

To those who made it home, and to those who didn’t: thank you for being there.

And no, it wasn’t a mistake.
From AP:
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) – U.S. military helicopters launched an extremely rare attack Sunday on Syrian territory close to the border with Iraq, killing eight people in a strike the government in Damascus condemned as “serious aggression.”
A U.S. military official said the raid by special forces targeted the foreign fighter [...]

I found this Hardball segment to be enlightening given the fact that Bush won a second term and the very likely possibility that a relatively unknown politician will be elected less than a month from now.

Thoughts?

Listen to McCain’s answer to Couric’s question about forgetting how many homes he owns…

Frankly, I don’t think McCain does himself any favors by continuing this POW talk. Because it makes it sounds like it was one of his life’s greatest achievements and that he hasn’t moved on since then.
And he is right when he says [...]

There is a reported deal on the table that would have U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2012 with troops out of cities and towns by June 30, 2009. Both nations still have to approve the deal and there will be written-in wiggle room to allow Americans to stay longer at Iraqi request, but it [...]

With a start date of June 30, 2009 no less!
From AP:
The negotiations over a withdrawal timetable follow long insistence by President Bush that setting any schedule for U.S. troops to leave would be dangerous. The draft agreement with Iraq would link troop reductions to achievement of certain security milestones, although the details have not been [...]

This from Telegraph…
Mr Saakashvilli may also have banked on support from his closest ally, US president George W Bush, whose administration is said to have given tacit support for a Georgian assault on South Ossetia in the believe that the territory could be recaptured within 48 hours.
Obviously this is unconfirmed, but it would make a [...]

Today he asked the following…
When the “civilized world” expostulated with Russia about Georgia in 1924, the Soviet regime was still weak. In Germany, Hitler was in jail. Only 16 years later, Britain stood virtually alone against a Nazi-Soviet axis. Is it not true today, as it was in the 1920s and ’30s, that delay and [...]

For those who, like me, are looking for a more comprehensive but still layman-oriented analysis of the Russian/Georgian military conflict, check out Charles King’s article in the Christian Science Monitor. Basically, we’re witnessing two nations making very poor decisions. I think King hits on the raw truth of this conflict when he writes:
Russia illegally attacked [...]

How’re you feeling?
If you’re a little down, you’re not alone. A new CNN/Opinion Research Corp Poll shows the nation’s outlook at an historical low. Only 24% have a positive outlook for the country.
Meanwhile, the percentage with a negative outlook has risen from 51% in April 2007 to 70% now.
Since 1974, the positive outlook [...]

And this time, just so there’s no confusion, they say it in English.

So…is this definitive enough for all of you who’ve been doubting that Maliki meant sooner rather than later? Is the word “timetable” specific enough?
Meanwhile, Obama is talking about a timetable that specifically states we would get out by 2010, and McCain has hinted [...]

Okay, now we have an official statement…
“Let’s be clear, the only reason that the conversation about reducing troop levels in Iraq is happening is because John McCain challenged the failed Rumsfield-strategy in Iraq and argued for the surge strategy that is responsible for the successes we’ve achieved and which Barack Obama opposed.
Unlike Barack Obama, [...]

I just posted about the new “time horizon” that the US and Iraq have agreed to, and in that post I mentioned that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki endorsed Obama’s 16 month timetable, calling it “closer to reality.”
Also, take note of the following statement from Maliki…
“The Americans have found it difficult to agree on a [...]

Is a time horizon a timeline? Well, not really. But a time horizon is what comes right before a timeline is set. So what the news finally represents is an acknowledgement that, at some point in the future, the US will have to leave.
From NY Times:
The agreement, announced in coordinated statements released Friday by the [...]