Symbolic Resolution Watch…
Sens. Biden (D-DE), Hagel (R-NE), Levin (D-MI), Collins (R-ME) and Nelson (D-NE) jump onto Sen. John Warner’s (R-VA) bandwagon. But Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) won’t get on.
Update: And here’s Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) with a big, fat no.
Later Update: A spokesperson for Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) tells us he’s “inclined to support it.”
Regarding when the bombs might start falling in Iran, a few different pieces of evidence point to a time frame in early March. More on this later this evening.
Late Update: I don’t make a practice of pulling posts. But this one, in its first writing, sounded a lot more definitive than I meant it to. What I’m talking about is an overlap between the naval deployments in the Gulf and the nuclear developments in Iran. I’ll provide more details later.
The new Iraq NIE won’t be public? Spencer Ackerman brings us the latest.
In one of our editorial meetings today we were speculating about how the networks would spin the compromise surge resolution. Here’s how ABC is casting it on their website: “A compromise resolution opposing the president’s Iraq troop buildup is gathering steam. But it preserves funding for the troops, so it may not mean much.”
Today’s Must Read: McClatchy on how the U.S. is fighting a militia trained and equipped by the U.S.
I was just looking at the lede to the AP story on the president’s new war budget request and it says “the Bush administration will ask for another $100 billion for military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year and seek $145 billion for 2008.”
Can we assume the number of billions of dollars for “diplomatic operations” is a pretty small part of the pie? And what “diplomatic operations” are they talking about exactly?