Officials said he did attend two National Security Council meetings last week — the first to discuss the troop issue, and the second to discuss the broader policy for South Asia.
Republican senators played down the troop issue, and noted that American forces were taking the fight to Baath Party loyalists, foreign fighters and criminals.
A6 Troop Issue Ignored in Tokyo Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan focused in a meeting on Japan's financial contributions to a stabilization effort in Iraq.
Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d, who met in Moscow this morning with President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze of the Soviet Union, said that the two countries decided to "take the troop issue off the table" because the issue has been overtaken by recent events in central Europe.
Still, the rebels have offered their own far-fetched claims, like mass rapes by loyalist troops issued tablets of Viagra.
This troops issue, though, is more complicated than it seems -- because it's not just about numbers.
Anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Iraqi militia once fought U.S. troops, issued a veiled warning to that effect last week.
That was the 2002 class where Deena Shanker, a student he does not recall, says he threatened her with ejection after she asked him if Israeli troops issued warnings before bombing civilian areas, a claim the report found credible.
The President revealed that he had already had 'discussions' with Brown on the troops issue and was 'appreciative' that Brown was in frequent touch with the Americans about 'what he and his military are thinking'.
In his guidance to troops issued on Aug. 1, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander here, urged his troops to "fight the information war aggressively". Last month, Taliban leader Mohammad Omar issued a statement that heralded the imminent defeat of NATO forces in Afghanistan and outlined how the Taliban would govern when it returned to power.
