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So much for the decision to drop Stay The Course as the slogan for fighting the Iraq War. For the third day this week, all three networks led with Iraq, this time their Pentagon correspondents covered the appearance of Gen John Abizaid at Senate Armed Service Committee hearings. As ABC's Jonathan Karl (subscription required) put it: "Abizaid rejected almost every major proposal for changing course in Iraq."

CBS' David Martin led with Abizaid's admission that even if the US wanted a military buildup, there are not enough troops available for permanent reinforcements. He quoted Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY): "Hope is not a strategy." Replied Abizaid: "Despair is not a method." And NBC's Jim Miklaszewski's report countered Abizaid's reassurances with the Defense Intelligence Agency finding that violence in Iraq is increasing in "scope, complexity and lethality." NBC's Andrea Mitchell's profile of the so-called wise heads of the Iraq Study Group featured this quip from former Presidential aide David Gergen: "It is as if the White House is outsourcing its foreign policy."

Andrew Tyndall 11/17/06 12:50:01 am

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