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WAR UPDATE

August 6, 2008

President George W. Bush said he sees little distance between himself and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on how to approach troop reductions in Iraq, dismissing the suggestion al-Maliki had endorsed Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's plan to withdraw all U.S. combat brigades in 16 months. "I talk to him all the time, and that's not what I heard," Bush told The Washington Post Monday night aboard Air Force One headed to Asia. "I heard a man who wants to work with the United States to come up with a rational way to have the United States withdraw combat troops."

The Iraqi government could end this year with as much as a $79 billion cumulative budget surplus, based largely on ever-increasing oil revenues, congressional auditors say. A report by the Government Accountability Office made public yesterday prompted renewed calls from senators that Baghdad pay more for its own reconstruction, which has been heavily supported with U.S. funds. The projected Iraq surplus, including unspent money from 2005 through 2008, has been building due to rising oil prices, increasing Iraqi oil production, Iraq's inability to execute budgets to spend its money and persistent violence, the GAO said.

Army prosecutors said yesterday they plan to seek a murder charge against a Special Forces soldier accused of killing and mutilating the body of a civilian in southern Afghanistan. Officials at the U.S. Army Special Operations Command said prosecutors believe Master Sgt. Joseph D. Newell killed a resident of Hyderabad, a village in the country's Helmand province, on March 5. He is also accused of cutting off the man's ear, larceny and violating a lawful order. If charged and convicted, he faces life without parole.