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WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday phoned President Bush to air her complaints over Vice President Dick Cheney's comments that the Congressional Democrats' plan for Iraq would "validate the Al Qaeda strategy." Pelosi, who said she could not reach the president, said Cheney's comments wrongly questioned critics' patriotism and ignored Bush's call for openness on Iraq strategy. "You cannot say as the president of the United States, 'I welcome disagreement in a time of war,' and then have the vice president of the United States go out of the country and mischaracterize a position of the speaker of...

US President George W Bush intends to reveal a new Iraq strategy within days, the BBC has learnt. The speech will reveal a plan to send more US troops to Iraq to focus on ways of bringing greater security, rather than training Iraqi forces. The move comes with figures from Iraqi ministries suggesting that deaths among civilians are at record highs. The US president arrived back in Washington on Monday after a week-long holiday at his ranch in Texas. The BBC has been told by a senior administration source that the speech setting out changes in Mr Bush's Iraq...

The president outlined his strategy for victory in Iraq at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He met with VFW Commander-in-Chief Jim Mueller and Secretary of Vetrens Affairs Jim Nicholson in the Oval. Laura Bush gave the media a tour of the holiday decor at the White House. Welcome to Sanity Island!

The Military We Need The Defense Requirements of the Bush Doctrine By Thomas Donnelly Posted: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 One of the largest chunks—if not the single largest—of these additional defense costs is devoted to paying the salaries and benefits of Army National Guard personnel and reservists called to active duty... The most likely explanation is narrowly political: under government budget rules, supplemental appropriations do not count when calculating the federal deficit. With annual deficits at about $500 billion, the cry for governmental fiscal discipline has returned and with it an expectation that the Pentagon should contribute its “fair share”...

<p>Carol Moseley Braun Less than 1 percent.</p> <p>Fourteen percent were undecided.</p> <p>Wesley Clark, in Jackson to court Mississippi voters on his Southern "True Grits Tour," vowed to reach out to millions of Americans without health insurance and took aim at President Bush's Iraq strategy.</p>

Jakarta takes cue from Iraq warGovernment will attempt to win hearts and minds of Acehnese by providing aid, in addition to trying to wipe out rebelsBy Robert Go JAKARTA - Indonesia's war in Aceh will feature both military and humanitarian components, senior officials pledged on the first day of the government's offensive against separatist rebels. Indonesian troops on motorcycles patrol Banda Aceh Jakarta's plan for Aceh - which includes rebuilding homes ravaged by conflict and providing food aid - sounds similar to the United States' 'hearts-and-minds' approach in its recent invasion of Iraq.During the Iraq war, a key priority of...