Bush sees bloody Iraqi summer

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Pastor Dale Morgan

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May 24, 2007, 11:12:18 PM5/24/07
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*Perilous Times*

Friday May 25, 10:11 AM Reuters
*
Bush sees bloody Iraqi summer*

By Steve Holland and Richard Cowan


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Thursday predicted a
bloody summer in Iraq for U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians as insurgents
step up attacks, while a divided U.S. Congress approved funds for the
unpopular war.

Bush is expected to promptly sign a $100 billion bill passed on Thursday
night by Congress to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The
measure, unlike a bill vetoed by Bush earlier this month, contained no
withdrawal deadlines for U.S. troops.

The legislation's passage capped a four-month struggle between the
Republican president and the Democrats who control Congress. They
pledged to resurrect attempts to force him to begin withdrawing troops
from Iraq.

Despite the deployment of tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops in
a major U.S.-led security crackdown, attacks have continued unabated.

On Thursday, a suicide car bomber killed 27 mourners at a funeral in
Falluja, west of Baghdad. In Baghdad, gunmen shot to death all 11
passengers in a minibus in the mainly Shi'ite Husseiniya district.

Bush said he expected "heavy fighting in the weeks and months" ahead.
"What they're going to try to do is kill as many innocent people as they
can to try to influence the debate here at home," he said.

Asked at a Rose Garden news conference how long he believed he could
sustain his strategy without significant progress, Bush noted the U.S.
commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, was to report back on the
effects of the new strategy at the end of the summer.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates said later he also anticipated more
violence this summer from what he called "a smart, agile, thinking enemy."

"They know what's going on in this country and I think we should be
prepared for them to make a very strong effort to increase the level of
violence in July and August. My hope is that anticipating it will allow
us to thwart it."

The predictions of more bloodshed came at a time when Americans'
assessment of the war has never been worse, according to a CBS News/New
York Times poll that said 76 percent of Americans believed the war was
going somewhat or very badly for the United States.

Only 20 percent said the recent troop increase was making a positive
difference, and just 23 percent approved Bush's handling of the war. His
overall job approval was 30 percent.

PAYING FOR THE WAR, MORE CASUALTIES

Both chambers of Congress passed the funding bill on Thursday night.
House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio, his voice cracking with
emotion, praised the bill with no withdrawal deadlines.

"When are we going to stand up and take them on? When are we going to
defeat them? If we don't do it now, if we don't have the courage to
defeat this enemy, we will long long regret it," he said.

Democrats voted against the war-funding portion of the bill in droves
because it did not contain timetables for troop withdrawal. But the bill
does for the first time tie Bush's certification on progress in Iraq to
U.S. reconstruction aid for the country.

Three Democratic senators running for president -- Hillary Rodham
Clinton of New York, Barack Obama of Illinois and Christopher Dodd of
Connecticut -- opposed providing money with no withdrawal deadlines.
Joseph Biden of Delaware voted yes.

The total cost of the war since 2001 exceeds half a trillion dollars.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in
Falluja, 30 miles (50 km) west of Baghdad in restive Anbar province. A
doctor at a local hospital, Ahmed al-Ani, said 27 were killed and more
than 30 wounded. Another hospital source put the death toll at 30.

Police said the suicide car bomber drove into a crowd of mourners as
they walked down a Falluja street holding aloft the coffin of Allawi
al-Isawi, a local businessman opposed to Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.

Thousands of U.S. troop reinforcements have been sent to Anbar as part
of a stepped-up military initiative seen as a late effort to avert
all-out civil war.

Tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops have been deployed in a major
security crackdown focused on Baghdad, the epicentre of sectarian
violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunnis.

The U.S. military confirmed a body pulled from the Euphrates River south
of Baghdad on Wednesday was one of three U.S. soldiers missing since
their patrol was ambushed on May 12.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan in Washington)

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