Bush approved more troops and we can all sit back and wait for the fireworks to begin. I think that Congress and the American people should be prepared for the fact that this war is going to go on for the foreseeable future. The troops will be there until 2008 and maybe beyond if we get a Republican president. Let’s stop talking about timetables because everyone knows that we aren’t going to make it.

President Bush approved 8,200 more U.S. troops for Iraq and Afghanistan on top of reinforcements already ordered to those two countries, the White House said Saturday, a move that comes amid a fiery debate in Washington over the Iraq war.

The president agreed to send 4,700 troops to Iraq in addition to the 21,500 he ordered to go in January, mainly to provide support for those combat forces and to handle more anticipated Iraqi prisoners. He also decided to send a 3,500-member brigade to Afghanistan to accelerate training of local forces, doubling his previous troop increase to fight a resurgent Taliban.

[…]

The $3.2 billion that Bush requested in his letter to Pelosi would pay for 2,400 combat support troops, 2,200 military police officers and 129 soldiers to man provincial reconstruction teams in Iraq. It would also fund additional military equipment and efforts to reopen Iraqi state factories.

For Afghanistan, it would fund Bush’s decision announced last month to extend a temporary increase of 3,200 U.S. troops there “for the foreseeable future.” It would also pay for an additional 3,500-member training brigade, a move that was not previously announced.

[…]

Petraeus seems inclined to extend the mission beyond the six-month time frame envisioned by his predecessor, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. Casey and other officials had said they hoped to see results from the troop increase by August, when more brigades could begin to withdraw. But Petraeus said this week that he thinks it will “need to be sustained, certainly for some time well beyond the summer.”

I bet the Democrats are frustrated that they aren’t able to stop this because they don’t have the votes to do it. And what is Pelosi going to do when Bush asks for more money? Say no? Of course not and yet that’s what her people want her to do. She really is between a rock and a hard place. It is not easy being in a position of power. They want her to end the funding but she knows that won’t have the support of Congress.