Dems seize on draft of Iraq report

Lawmakers will return from the monthlong congressional recess this week to a Washington consumed by debate over the Iraq war. Front and center over the next two weeks will be a series of status reports on the conflict.

And upping the ante, President Bush arrived in Iraq Monday, having secretly left the White House Sunday for the overnight trip to confer with top U.S. military commaders and Iraqi leaders. Afterward, he plans to head on the Australia, where he will attend, as planned,the annual summit of Asia-Pacific leaders.

“The nonpartisan report makes it abundantly clear that the Bush administration’s strategy for stabilizing Iraq has failed and that a new course of direction is urgently needed,” said House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.). “In order to prevent the conditions in Iraq from reaching an irrevocably disastrous state, it is absolutely imperative that the President and his advisors closely heed and value the assessments made in the GAO report.”

Despite the charged partisan environment surrounding the Iraq debate, there were rumblings of coming bipartisanship.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told The Washington Post that he would be open to compromise with Republicans in September. Congressional Democrats have so far failed to attract more than a handful of Republicans to their efforts to withdraw troops from Iraq.

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