Sen. Barack Obama is unveiling a new plan for Iraq in Iowa today. Huffington Post has received an advance copy of his speech and posted excerpts.

This one is curious.

"Let me be clear: there is no military solution in Iraq, and there never was. The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year - now. We should enter into talks with the Iraqi government to discuss the process of our drawdown. We must get out strategically and carefully, removing troops from secure areas first, and keeping troops in more volatile areas until later. But our drawdown should proceed at a steady pace of one or two brigades each month. If we start now, all of our combat brigades should be out of Iraq by the end of next year." (my emphasis.)

Didn't Obama, just two months ago , call for all troops to be out of Iraq by April 30, 2008?

“It’s time to set a hard date to signal a new mission in Iraq and to begin to bring our troops home. It’s time to ensure that we complete the change in mission and the drawdown of our forces, by the end of April 2008 – a date that is consistent with the date in my plan back in January.”

Why is he now extending that to the end of 2008?

Via Brandon Friedman at Daily Kos:

Two of the seven soldiers who wrote the New York Times op-ed piece criticizing U.S. counterinsurgency strategy 3 ½ weeks ago have been killed in Iraq.  Yance T. Gray and Omar Mora died Monday in a vehicle accident in Baghdad.   The AP has reported on Yance Gray here, and KHOU, a Houston-area TV station has reported on Omar Mora here.  Their families have been notified.

Here's the August 19 NY Times op-ed, The War as We Saw It. Some snippets:

The Wall St. Journal continues its reporting of Norman Hsu's financial dealings. The latest installment (free link): A New York capital venture firm, headed by Joel Rosenman, one of the three original Woodstock creators, has asked the District Attorney's office to investigate a $40 million investment in Hsu's firm, Components Limited.

Rosenman's partner introduced him to Hsu. Both invested personally with him and made a 40% return on their money. They then pitched the idea to Rosenman's firms' clients.

The investment pool would "lend to U.S. private label designers that needed interim financing to fill orders for a select group of well-known, high-end U.S. apparel retailers." Since 2001, [Rosenman] writes, "the return of these short-term (typically 4½ months) loans has been no less than 40%."

Here's how the deal worked:

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After two days of Senate testimony by General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, Republicans are worried.

By Tuesday, it was clear that although such a drawdown would remove the nearly 30,000 reinforcements by next summer, it would leave 130,000 troops in Iraq, a force size that troubled both Republicans and Democrats.

Especially concerned were GOP senators who face reelection next year. They seemed worried by the increasing likelihood that there would be little political progress in Iraq and high levels of U.S. troops there come election day 2008.

House leader Nancy Pelosi expressed her concern this way:

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A new a new L.A.Times/Bloomberg poll shows Rudy Giuliani trailing among Republicans in three critical states with early primaries, while Hillary Clinton maintains her substantial lead among the Democratic contendders.

Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, trails Mitt Romney in Iowa and New Hampshire among Republican voters, and he lags behind Fred Thompson in South Carolina. But Giuliani is only a few points behind the leader in New Hampshire and South Carolina--within the poll's margin of error--suggesting that the race in those two states is too tight for anyone to be declared a clear front-runner.

The poll also found that Republicans are only lightly committed to their favorite candidates. For example,

a sizable 72% of Iowa Republicans who favored a candidate said they might decide to back someone else.

It's a different story with the Democrats.

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I'm not one to pick a fight (you can stop laughing now), but I do have a bone to pick with Matt Stoller's critique of critiques of Move On's ill advised "BetrayUs" ad. Matt writes:

[This] tut-tut message from a liberal wonk, an email by Rachel Kleinfeld of the Truman Project that actually encourages progressive veterans to write to military journals and denounce Moveon (thank God wonks can't organize). . . . MORE

Joe Lieberman is not to be believed. Via Spencer Ackerman at TPM again:

"Can't we attack Iran pleeeeeeaze?" sez Joe. "No," sez Petraeus. Watch the disappointment in Lieberman's face. Priceless.

Chris Matthews is hammering this question, from Senator John Warner, and answer, from General Petraeus.

Warner asked Petraeus point blank, will the policy you are recommending make the United States safer. And General Petraeus, in my opinion, to his credit, said he did not know, that he was focused on accomplishing the mission given to him.

And you know what? It is not Petraeus' call to decide what the mission is. It is the job of the Commander in Chief, the President of the United States to argue for his own policy. But it is the job of the Congress to decide whether it will fund the policy the President recommends.

Joe Biden was on with Matthews. And he was saying we should leave Iraq. But this same Joe Biden says he will vote to fund Bush's Debacle. That is an indefensible position.

I'm off to drive to this lovely prison on the other side of the state, away from the mountains, towards Kansas.

Here's an open thread for you.

In the diary rescue department, check out this new one on the Move-On ad by veteran Michael Gass, and Scribe's on Larry Craig's motion to withdraw his plea.

I'll be back tonight.

Blogger Beldar just got off the phone with the Hennepin, County Court Clerk. He was trying to find out if there was a Form 11 in the file showing Craig had been advised of and waived his right to counsel.

The Clerk said she didn't see one and told Beldar a hearing has been set for September 26th at 1:30 pm on Craig's motion to withdraw the plea.

Good work, Beldar. For anyone who hasn't read the motion yet, here it is (pdf), with exhibits. There's also a lively discussion by several lawyers in the comments here.

Phil Spector's five month jury trial is coming to a close. The jury began deliberating the murder case yesterday. In the afternoon, they asked to see the gun.

It's been a rocky trial. One of his chief lawyers, New York's Bruce Cutler, missed weeks of the trial to do a tv show and then withdrew before closing arguments over differences in who should preent the closing.

Linda Kenney Baden, who is married to forensic expert Michael Baden, a witness in the trial, gave the closings. She, too, missed some weeks of the trial due to illness. The prosecutor criticized the Kenney-Baden relationship at trial:

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Meet Sargent Binkley, an army vet currently facing twenty-plus years in Santa Clara, CA. His high school buddies are trying to publicize his plight and have set up a website. Here's his sad story.

Sargent Binkley is a high school classmate of ours and West Point graduate who is currently facing twenty-odd years in prison for robbing a Walgreens under California's minimum sentencing laws. He used a gun (unloaded) and robbed the drugstores of only Percocet - no money, harming nobody.

Here's the kicker -- he was addicted to the opiates after smashing his hip while serving abroad in the Army -- the military medical system
kept misdiagnosing him, and feeding him more of the painkillers. Add in some serious PTSD (he guarded mass graves in Bosnia from
desecration at one point) and he spiraled down.

Sargent turned himself in, has been in a rehab program in county jail for over a year and a half while he awaits sentencing, and by all accounts is
doing well. The Santa Clara DA wants to chuck the book at him, and he'll be gone.

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