Strobel & Youssef in McClatchy's, here
"There is no empirical evidence that the Iraqi forces can stand up" on their own, a senior U.S. military official in Washington said, reflecting the frustration of some at the Pentagon. He and other military officials requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak for the record....
Questions remain about how much Bush and his top aides knew in advance about the offensive and whether they encouraged Maliki to confront radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr......
"My instinct is that we knew but did not anticipate" that American forces would be called on to help, said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Biden stressed that he's still seeking information from the Bush administration on the matter....
Biden said that the Iraqi offensive may indeed have been "a defining moment," but not in the way Bush intended. "The president may be half-right,"
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