Congress looks for change in Iraq

We'll just have to wait and see. Personally I think they're giving ol' George too much credit. He's not reading any writing on the walls unless its in the men's room.

Expectations are mounting in Congress, including among the White House's Republican backers, that President George W. Bush will later this year have little option but to change course in Iraq.

Despite Bush's victory over anti-war Democrats in securing a new US$100 billion budget to fund the war through September, attention on Capitol Hill is already shifting to the bitter political fights to come.

Lawmakers left Washington for a week-long recess as a report said huge cuts in the current 147,000-strong US garrison in Iraq could be in the offing.

"I feel a direction change in the air," Democratic congressman John Murtha, a gruff former Marine and Vietnam veteran said last week, as he intensified his emotional quest to end the war.

Significantly, the top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, who has largely kept his party in step with the president, despite deep scepticism among some Senators, is also predicting a sea-change in Iraq policy.

"I think the handwriting is on the wall that we are going in a different direction in the fall, and I expect the president himself to lead it," McConnell said on Friday.

Yes, Congress can change the direction in Iraq, but seem reluctant to do so. Bush will never admit he's been wrong. Its not in his nature. He only understands force and force is exactly what Congress will have to use on him.

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