David Shorr and Michael Schiffer, of the National Security Network's Iowa Chapter, help guide foreign policy debate in lead-up to Iowa Caucuses.

WASHINGTON - The war strategy President Bush laid out to the American people Thursday night ensures that Iraq will remain the defining issue of the 2008 presidential race, with risks for Democrats as well as Republican candidates, political and national security analysts said yesterday.

The Bush administration's top two officials in Iraq answered questions from Congress for more than six hours Monday, but their testimony may have been as important for what they didn't say as for what they did.

AP - As President Bush and Gen. David Petraeus struggle to make the case that yet more time is needed for victory in Iraq, the goal for success no longer resembles the high hopes the architects of the 2003 invasion had in mind.

Christian Science Monitor - It was hardly happenstance that President Bush chose to visit Iraq's Anbar Province on Monday - and not Baghdad - to set the stage for crucial congressional deliberations on US Iraq policy.

Rand Beers, President of the National Security Network, appears on MSNBC to discuss the August GAO Report with Tucker Carlson.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2007 (IPS/GIN) -- President George W. Bush began a new campaign to gain support for his "surge" strategy in Iraq on Wednesday, during a speech at the hawkish Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Missouri.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2007 (IPS/GIN) -- President George W. Bush began a new campaign to gain support for his "surge" strategy in Iraq on Wednesday, during a speech at the hawkish Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Missouri.

"The president's surge was supposed to create the political space for national reconciliation. Instead the politics have reached total gridlock, while the security situation remains essentially unchanged. By the President's own meas-ures the surge has failed." Ilan Goldenberg, policy director of National Security Network in Washington.

Rand Beers' final White House assignment after working for four presidents was to figure out whether attacking Iraq would leave the back door open to another al-Qaida strike on the homeland.