that is what the surge was supposed to do get most of the fighting out of bagdad then secure the city and then remove it from another city one at a time

so tell me again how isn't the surge working

by the way this is what we should have done in the first place

take a strong hold and deny them access to it again

it is the congress that provides the funding

it is the congress that passes the laws

it is the president that decides military stratigies

it is the president that decides if a law is just

why do you think we have a president and not a prime minister

our president answers to the people at voting time

a prime minister answers to the congressional body at any time

all countries that have a leader king, president, whatever and a prime minister

the leader has no real power think i am lieing look at england, look at japan, look at iran

it is the congress that passes the laws

This is incorrect. I refer you to the link in reply #15. All congress can do is put a hopeful law in front of the president and hope he signs it. The final power lies with him.

Apparently you've never heard of a veto override? Sorry, drmiler, but as you and I know the president generally has the final say because an override is difficult to pass. But it CAN be done.

Gideon

A 2/3 majority in both houses is hard to obtain on any bill. However, if Congress continues to pass funding legislation with the dates to withdraw from Iraq and Bush continues to veto those bills, he will be forced to bring the troops home when he no longer has the authorization to expend money in Iraq! Just wait for the debate for the 2008 Budget!

Some more PROOF the Iraq war is not being won:

UN: Iraqi Gov't Held Casualty Figures
April 25, 2007 7:12 AM EDT
BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government withheld recent casualty figures from the United Nations, fearing they would be used to present a grim picture of Iraq that would undermine the coalition's security efforts, U.N. officials said Wednesday.

Working with its own figures, the U.N. released a new human rights report Wednesday saying that sectarian violence continued to claim the lives of a large number of Iraqi civilians in Sunni Arab and Shiite neighborhoods of Iraq's capital, despite the coalition's new Baghdad security plan. Begun Feb. 14, it has increased U.S. and Iraqi troops levels in the capital.

The Iraqi government quickly responded by calling the U.N. report "inaccurate" and "unbalanced."

The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq report said civilian casualties in the daily violence between Jan. 1 and March 31 remained high, concentrated in and around Baghdad.

The agency also expressed concern about the treatment of detainees under the U.S.-Iraqi operation to pacify the capital, saying that families and other people often were randomly taken into custody, with more than 3,000 people in detention by the end of March.

For the first time, UNAMI said, its assessment of the human rights situation in Iraq did not contain overall death figures from the Iraqi government because it refused to release them, omitting what many had viewed as a rare, reliable indicator of suffering in Iraq.

The Iraqi government announced in a statement its deep reservations about the report that is "inaccurate in presenting information" and that "lacks credibility in many of its points. Also, it lacks balance in presenting the situation of the human rights situation in Iraq."

"The publication of this unbalanced report ... puts the credibility of the U.N. office in Iraq on stake and it aggravates the humanitarian crisis in Iraq instead of solving it," the statement said.

U.N. human rights officer Ivana Vuco said the government did not officially given a reason for refusing to release the numbers but it apparently "was becoming increasingly concerned about the figures being used to portray the situation as very grim."

"Inofficially, however, in a number of follow up meetings to their decision we were told that there were concerns that the people would construe the figures to portray the situation negatively and that would further undermine their efforts to establish some kind of security and stability in the country," she said at a news conference at the mission's heavily fortified compound in Baghdad.

"We found the decision to be rather unfortunate because the figures were helping us ... to understand the scope of the problem," she said. "In our view it is the government's responsibility and they are probably the only one with the real capacity to gather the figures in a systematic manner."

Mission spokesman Said Arikat said the reason appeared to be that after the publication of its last human rights report on Jan. 16, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office told UNAMI its mortality figures were exaggerated, "but our figures were taken credibly they are probably among the most carefully screened figures."

He urged the government to reconsider its decision, saying the figures it could provide could "actually show what is going on in Iraq. Otherwise there will be a great deal of speculation."

Numbers for Iraqi civilians killed since the U.S.-led invasion began in March 2003 vary widely and are believed to be vastly underreported, in part because of political pressure.

The last U.N. report was issued in January found that 34,452 civilians were killed last year, including 6,376 in November and December, based on information from the Iraqi Health Ministry, hospitals across the country and the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad. Iraqi officials have complained that the numbers were too high.

The current report cited many examples of deadly attacks by insurgents and militias across Iraq during Jan. 1-March 31, but it often relied on media accounts of such killings and does not provide overall numbers for the period.

On Feb. 14, U.S. troops began stepping up their presence in outposts and police stations in Baghdad and areas surrounding the city, as part of the security crackdown to which President Bush has committed an extra 30,000 troops. Thousands of Iraqi soldiers also are being deployed in the streets of the capital in an attempt to pacify it.

"While government officials claimed an initial drop in the number of killings in the latter half of February following the launch of the Baghdad security plan, the number of reported casualties rose again in March," the UNAMI study said.

danielost

"it is the president that decides if a law is just " Where in the Constitution does it say that?

VETO

Apparently you've never heard of a veto override? Sorry, drmiler, but as you and I know the president generally has the final say because an override is difficult to pass. But it CAN be done.

Quite the contrary! I know very well what it is. It "requires" a 2/3 majority vote. Think that's gonna happen any time soon?

This is incorrect. I refer you to the link in reply #15. All congress can do is put a hopeful law in front of the president and hope he signs it. The final power lies with him. Apparently you've never heard of a veto override? Sorry, drmiler, but as you and I know the president generally has the final say because an override is difficult to pass. But it CAN be done.

And Gideon....congress "still" doesn't pass laws.

The use of a presidential VETO only shows what the president opposes It does NOT say a law is just. The Courts fill that task!

The use of a presidential VETO only shows what the president opposes It does NOT say a law is just. The Courts fill that task!

We weren't talking about whether or not a law is just. Just who makes them...and it AIN'T the courts! And even THEY can't say if it's just or not. Only if it's constitutional or not. Which is not the same thing.

the courts were never given this power in the constitution

but if the courts won't inforce a law how effective is the law

This is good, cause we are not there to fight a CIVIL WAR! You are arguing that we are fighting something we are not fighing. Good argument on your part. Not very bright but that is just like you.



Once again you prove you are less than bright. The three branches of our government works like this. The legislative branch makes a law. The President signs the document to make the law valid and legal. The Judicial branch is called in only as a last resort to declare if the law is constitutional or not. What is just in this country is what passes through the two branches of government. And if necessary the judiciary is called in if a bad law is signed but the president. If the president veto’s a bill and the Congress does not have the constitutional two thirds majority to override the veto then the law was not just. You would know this if you graduated 6th grade.

“This is good, cause we are not there to fight a CIVIL WAR! You are arguing that we are fighting something we are not fighting.”

Iraq is a Civil War that is being aggravated by al Qaeda and Iran. It is however a Civil War. That is the denial that Bush and Cheney live in and it looks as if many on this Blog site also live in denial. ALL the senior military acknowledged the VAST majority of the attacks are by sectarian groups and each wants to CONTROL Iraq! The government we enabled to come into power is controlled by the Shea but that government CAN NOT control Iraq at this time. Whenever we leave there will be a more intensive fight to see WHO will control Iraq or even if Iraq remains a single country!

IT IS TIME FOR US TO GET OUT!!!!!!!!!! LET THE IRAQI POPOLE SETTLE THIS ISSUE!

You seem to read only the current events that make us look like we are losing. How about the current events that you seem to miss, like the captured Iranian generals, or the facts like Iran is funding both sides of the “civil war” or that AQ is also working on both sides of the “civil war” does not sound like a civil war when the people who want to kill us are fighting on both sides of the conflict. It is hard to call it anything other than the war on terrorism. We have a nation state supporting the destabilization of a fledgling nation and add to that AQ who is sworn to destroy us is fighting on both sides of the conflict as well as their own attacks. Take them both out of the mix and your “civil war” dies a quick death.



They settled this issue with the elections. Things were getting quiet and then Iran and AQ kicked in and all this because for months prior to that the democrats were screaming that we had to leave because there was a civil war and we can’t fight in a civil war. We told the enemy how to get us out of the country without having force us out. The democrats seem to be working with the terrorist here. What do you think?