This is awesome. They’re deserting him (took long enough). Why isn’t this being reported like this domestically? Snip from Times Online:
President Bush was put on notice yesterday that he has until October to announce a withdrawal plan from Iraq before the bulk of the Republican Party deserts him.
Two of the party’s most respected and influential figures, Senators John Warner and Richard Lugar, said that Iraq’s divided Government was unlikely to make any political progress this year and that Mr Bush had to start planning a change of course now. The senators, the party’s leading authorities on military issues, have proposed legislation requiring Mr Bush to give a plan to Congress by October 16 that would seek a withdrawal of combat troops starting as early as January 1.
Their amendment, which does not set a firm deadline, is likely to become the main Republican alternative to Democrat demands for a complete and timetabled withdrawal.
If the report to Congress in September by General David Petraeus, the US ground commander, fails to show that Mr Bush’s surge strategy is making significant progress, the Warner-Lugar option will give political cover to a potentially critical number of Republican senators to desert Mr Bush.
Link.