Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid
speaks to the press in Washington, April 18, 2007. (Xinhua/Reuters
Photo)
WASHINGTON,
April 19 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Thursday
that the Iraq war was "lost" and that he had conveyed the message to President
George W. Bush during a meeting at the White House on Wednesday.
"Now I believe ... this war is lost, and that the
surge (U.S. troop increase in Iraq) is not accomplishing anything, as indicated
by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday," Reid said at a press conference.
He said that was the message he took to Bush at
Wednesday meeting.
"I know I was like the odd guy out yesterday at the
White House, but at least I told him what he needed to hear, not what he wanted
to hear," he said.
Bush met with Democratic leaders of Congress as well
Republican lawmakers at the White House on Wednesday on an emergency war funding
bill, but the two sides failed to settle their differences to avoid an looming
showdown over the legislation.
Both the Senate and the House passed bills last month
that would provide money for this year's U.S. military operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan and set a timetable for the Bush administration to pull combat
troops out of Iraq next year.
Democrats said after meeting with Bush that they
would send him the bill and hoped the president would sign it into law, despite
the president's repeated threat to veto it.
Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, said on Thursday that
the Iraq war could only be won "diplomatically, politically and economically,"
and the president needed to come to that realization.
In a speech in Ohio on Thursday, Bush defended his
war policy and said it was "the most solemn duty of our country, is to protect
our country from harm."
He repeated his assertion that in order to protect
the American people, the Untied States "must aggressively pursue the enemy and
defeat them elsewhere so that we do not have to face them here."
A latest CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, taken
on April 10-12, showed that 69 percent of Americans now said things were going
badly for the United States in Iraq, and only 29 percent believed that sending
additional troops to Iraq would make it more likely the United States would
achieve its goals there.
A news USA Today/Gallup poll, published on Thursday,
found that57 percent of the respondents now felt the Iraq war was a mistake, and
41 percent said it was not.
U.S. President George W. Bush is seen
with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid in the
Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington April 18,
2007. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
WASHINGTON, April 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President George W. Bush and Democratic
leaders of Congress met at the White House on Wednesday on an emergency war
funding bill, but the two sides failed to reach agreement to avoid a looming
showdown over the legislation.
"It appears that they are determined to send a bill to the
president that he won't accept," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said,
referring to legislation that would provide funding to this year's U.S. military
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and would set a timetable for American
pullout from Iraq. Full story
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