By The Way, It’s Official …
Jules Crittenden

… we can win in Iraq, we are winning in Iraq, and George Bush’s surge strategy is responsible for it.  Not even the AP can ignore it* anymore:   

The US military has captured the leaders of a car-bombing ring blamed for killing hundreds of Iraqis.

The news came as the departing US ambassador said Americans are in ongoing talks with insurgent representatives to try to persuade them to turn against al-Qaeda.

* The AP here grudgingly leaves out the kind of helpful interpretive graphs that usually are added to explain how Sunni bombings threaten Shiites, who no longer feel safe because the Mahdi Army bolted, and all of this threatens the fragile surge, blah blah blah.  That stylistic habit would dictate a couple of graphs here to explain that by capturing the leaders and underlings of a major Sunni carbomb ring in Azamiyah, the Iraqi and US forces made be building confidence among the Shia, while the Sunni tribes and insurgents clearly are gaining confidence in the Shiite-dominated government as well as a high degree of comfort with an open-ended US presence.

But this is a difficult time for al-P as it is for the Dem Cong, so ...

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Red On Red In Iraq
Ed Morrissey

Iraqi Sunni insurgents have begun turning on their former friends in al-Qaeda, to the point of open combat in some areas, according to Sunni politicians and insurgent spokespeople. The development gives hope that the Iraqi factions will reject foreign terrorists and that the conflict can provide an opening for the end of the native insurgencies:

Insurgent leaders and Sunni Arab politicians say divisions between insurgent groups and Al Qaeda in Iraq have widened and have led to combat in some areas of the country, a schism that U.S. officials hope to exploit.

The Sunni Arab insurgent leaders said they disagreed with the leadership of Al Qaeda in Iraq over tactics, including attacks on civilians, as well as over command of the movement. ...

Potential hurdles still exist. The Sunni insurgents want to force the Iraqi government to recreate itself "from square one," according to a Shi'ite member of Nouri al-Maliki's party. The Shi'ites will resist that idea, and rightly so. The plans for the government came from an elected body of representatives, elected while the Sunnis boycotted the polls. Now they want a do-over, and it's too late for that. However, they can participate in elections now and offer amendments to their constitution to address their needs. The Shi'ites will have some desire to be flexible in exchange for an end to the factional fighting in Baghdad and the west.

The split between AQI and the natives could bring about a national reconciliation, if properly managed. Nothing unifies a people like a common enemy -- and AQI's brutal nature has made them an almost universal foe in Iraq.

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Bush to Issue Bonds to Buy Back Iraq Timeline Votes
by Scott Ott

(2007-03-27) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, struggled today to maintain the Democrat party’s courageous stance on a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq in the face of a new White House initiative designed to buy back Congressional votes that she purchased last week for about $20 billion. ...

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Misreading McConnell
Ed Morrissey

The Washington Post reports that Senate Republicans, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, appear to have retreated from defending the White House on the supplemental funding bill for the Iraq war. The decision to forego a cloture battle gets analyzed as am increasingly unhappy GOP caucus forcing Bush to fight the battle on mandatory timetables alone:

Unwilling to do the White House's heavy lifting on Iraq, Senate Republicans are prepared to step aside to allow language requiring troop withdrawals to reach President Bush, forcing him to face down Democratic adversaries with his veto pen. ...

No matter the outcome of the Senate vote, McConnell is looking ahead, assuming House Democrats will insist that withdrawal conditions be included when a final bill is sent to Bush. If so, McConnell said, Republicans would forgo the parliamentary tactics they used to block antiwar legislation that had forced Democrats to amass an insurmountable 60 votes to prevail.

As Inigo Montoya said in The Princess Bride, "I do not think it means what you think it means." Shailagh Murray and Jonathan Weisman leave two key items out of their analysis, which makes it clear that McConnell's strategy has little to do with capitulation to the Democrats.

First, time is an issue. A filibuster of the bill would undoubtedly stop it from passing, but that will eat up a lot of time -- and the funding of the troops runs out on April 15th. A spending bill has to get passed before then in order to ensure continuity of funding, including salaries, benefits, and so on. The Senate has to try to rewrite the bill so that it has no mandatory timetables for withdrawal, which Bush has made clear he will veto.

Second, the Republicans believe that they can prevail against the House version of the supplemental. Rather than go through the obstructionism of a filibuster, they would much rather beat the bill in a roll-call vote, if necessary. Thad Cochran and John Warner have worked on another version of the bill which would require more reporting from the White House on benchmarks, but would not use them to trigger mandatory withdrawal from Iraq. That has apparently convinced Ben Nelson (D-NE) to support the alternative -- which would also assuredly get Joe Lieberman's vote. ...

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Key Democratic Senator wants a,
um, secret timetable for Iraq withdrawal
Allahpundit

Remember what I said yesterday about Mark Pryor Day at Hot Air? Yeah, forget it.

The Arkansas Democrat is a key holdout on his party’s proposal to approve $122 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while setting a goal of March 31, 2008, for winding up military operations in Iraq. Unlike the plan’s Republican opponents, Pryor wants a withdrawal deadline of some kind. He just doesn’t want anyone outside the White House, Congress and the Iraqi government to know what it is…

“At least you’d have a plan.” This is the guy who’s going to decide if the bill passes or not.

A note about yesterday’s post. Captain Ed thinks a veto will, in fact, be quicker than a GOP filibuster, which is important given that time is of the essence right now in funding Iraq operations. A tipster e-mailed me this morning, though, to say that the preference for the veto probably has more to do with keeping responsibility for the funding with the Democrats. If the GOP filibusters, Reid and Pelosi will blame Republicans for having stalled the process by which money gets to the troops. If, on the other hand, the bill goes straight to Bush’s desk and is vetoed, the ball is back in the Dems’ court to come up with an alternative.

Ed points out that we’ve got a better than fair shot of killing the Senate bill on a straight up or down vote, which is the quickest and most humiliating (to the left), and therefore probably best, option.

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Michelle Malkin: Oinkoinkoinkoinkoink

*** Update and bump. Original timestamp 04:14

Senate Democrats Win Vote to Keep Iraq
Withdrawal Timetable in Emergency Spending Bill

WASHINGTON —  Senate Democrats defied President Bush's threat of a veto Tuesday and narrowly won a vote to keep in place a timetable that calls for the beginning of U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq within 120 days of passage of the measure.

An attempt to scuttle the timetable was offered as an amendment to the emergency spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 50-48 vote to defeat the amendment was a reversal of a vote earlier this month that rejected a similar timetable. Democrats this time were able to swing the votes of Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel and Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson, who previously voted against timetables. Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas also opposed the earlier version.

With Democrats holding a slim majority — 50-49-1 — Republicans had trouble finding one Democrat to pick up the loss of Hagel and Nelson to force a tie vote. Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman joined Republicans trying to pass the amendment to strike the timetable.

Before the vote, Nelson said he would reject the measure — offered up by Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss. — because it strikes several other "critical provisions, including language acknowledging that the situation in Iraq has become a civil war," as well as a call for diplomatic and political engagement by the Iraqi and American governments. The measure also called for suggested goals for the Iraqi government to provide for its own security, enhance democracy and distribute its oil wealth fairly.

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Reid Scores A Victory On Iraq By Backing Defeat
Ed Morrissey

Harry Reid won his most important victory as Senate Majority Leader today by unexpectedly passing the supplemental spending bill for Iraq with the mandatory timetables for withdrawal within 12 months. Two Senators, Ben Nelson and Chuck Hagel, reversed their stand on the automatic withdrawal from less than two weeks ago, when the Senate last considered it:

Senate Democrats scored a surprise victory yesterday in their bid to force President Bush to end the Iraq war, turning back a Republican amendment that would have struck a troop withdrawal plan from emergency military funding legislation.

The defection of a prominent Republican war critic, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, sealed the Democrats' win.  ...

What next? The President will definitely veto this bill, and the Democrats do not have anywhere near the votes needed to override. That means that Congress and the White House will have to reach some sort of compromise, or else theoretically allow the troops to remain in Iraq but without the funds to either fight or come home. If the President doesn't veto it, he has to start retreating in four months, to which he will not willingly assent. It will take weeks to unravel, and in that time I believe that Congress will work on a much smaller supplemental to keep funding going while the negotiations ensue. Reid, however, wants to wait until after the spring recess to start even on the conference committee talks, which will drag out the event even further. ...