NICE TIMING, DICK

Gephardt Falls Into Line (Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker, Steve Chaggaris, Clothilde Ewing, Nicola Corless, Smita Kalokhe and Joanna Schubert, July 22, 2003, CBS News)

: Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., who surprised a number of Democrats last fall by appearing in the Rose Garden with President Bush in support of his Iraq policy, is now slamming the Bush administration’s approach to foreign policy. In a broad-ranging speech in San Francisco on Tuesday, Gephhardt touches on the war against Iraq, the war on terror and the United States’ contentious relationship with some of its longtime allies. Gephardt’s comments are some of the harshest to date from the top-tier Democratic presidential candidates on the White House’s foreign policy.

In prepared remarks, Gephardt said the president "has left us less safe and less secure than we were four years ago." The Bush administration’s "bravado has left us isolated in the world – fracturing 50 years of alliances, calling into question our credibility, squandering the global goodwill that was showered on us after 9/11."

"No matter the surge of momentary machismo – gratifying as it may be for some – it’s short-sighted and wrong to simply go it alone," Gephardt said. He said the Bush administration’s lackof planning for post-war Iraq could mean U.S. troop spending “the next 50 years dodging bullets there."

"I submit to you today: we won the war in Iraq, but we’re in serious danger of losing the peace," he said.

Gephardt took a swipe at Mr. Bush’s appearance this spring aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier off the California coast where he declared the end of major hostilities in Iraq. "He chose the wrong backdrop for his photo-op. If you ask me, if he really wanted to show us the state of affairs in Iraq, he should have landed on a patch of quicksand," Gephardt said.

Saddam's Sons Confirmed Dead (Fox News, July 22, 2003)

Saddam Hussein's sons Odai and Qusai were killed Tuesday when U.S. soldiers stormed a house in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, U.S. military officials said Tuesday.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez of U.S. Central Command announced late Tuesday night in Baghdad that Odai and Qusai were two of the four people who died in a firefight between U.S. troops and Iraqis at the house earlier in the day.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 22, 2003 5:22 PM