Prometheus 6

It's Bush's War because he refuses to let anyone else have responsibility. It's Bush's War because he claimed it.

Bush Defies Lawmakers To Solve Iraq
Gates Says Doubts Bolster Enemy
By Michael Abramowitz and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 27, 2007; A01

Declaring "I'm the decision maker," President Bush yesterday challenged congressional efforts to formally condemn his Iraq plan, while Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned that a proposed Senate resolution criticizing the deployment of additional troops would embolden the enemy.

"Any indication of flagging will in the United States gives encouragement to those folks," Gates told reporters at the Pentagon. "I'm sure that that's not the intent behind the resolutions, but I think it may be the effect."

Bush consulted with Gates and Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who will head U.S. forces in Iraq, at an early-morning meeting at the White House. Speaking with reporters afterward, the president complained that lawmakers "are condemning a plan before it's even had a chance to work. And they have an obligation and a serious responsibility, therefore, to put up their own plan as to what would work."

Bush later met with House Republicans at a retreat on Maryland's Eastern Shore and, according to two Republicans present, mocked the Senate by telling the House members that he found it "ironic" that senators would oppose his plan to dispatch 21,500 more troops to Iraq but praise and unanimously confirm Petraeus, who helped design it.