YOU can have too much of a good thing. All those debates, all those ordinary citizens actively participating in the democratic process: who couldn’t have be energised by the hard fought US Presidential battle? I’m fast becoming disillusioned.

US President George Bush is set to ask the US for more time to let success bloom in Iraq even as the assassination of a Sunni sheikh who revolted against al-Qaida sent a chilling reminder of the pervasive instability there.

The US military commander in one of the more troubled areas of Iraq said attempting a leading Republican senator’s idea for troop withdrawals now would mean “a giant step backward” in his region.

Senate Republicans today scuttled a Democratic proposal ordering US troop withdrawals from Iraq in a showdown that capped an all-night debate on the war.

Senate Democrats refused to flinch today as the chamber moved towards a rare, all-night session of debate on legislation to bring US troops home later this year.

Two top Republicans dismissed President George Bush’s pleas for patience on Iraq and proposed legislation demanding a new strategy by mid-October to restrict the mission of US troops.

The head of the US European command today said inadequate defence budgets of Western European countries continue to hamper Nato’s operations.

Admiral William Fallon, who is poised to become the top American commander in the Middle East, says the United States miscalculated the ability of Iraqi forces to take control and underestimated the enemy’s persistence.

Robert Gates, picked by President George Bush to take over from US secretary of state Donald Rumsfeld, received initial endorsements from Republican and Democratic Senate leaders after a meeting on Capitol Hill.

US President George Bush today met with a bipartisan group seeking consensus on a new approach for the war in Iraq amid widespread agreement that the administration's current efforts have not worked well enough or fast enough.

US President George Bush is reportedly “open to ideas” as he meets a panel studying the war on Iraq today.

A rebellious Senate committee is defying President George Bush with its approval of terror-detainee legislation that the US president has vowed to block.

A top Pentagon official said today that a North Korean missile launch would be “a provocation and a dangerous action” that would lead to the United States imposing “some cost” on North Korea.

A Republican Congressman wants to build a fence along the entire 2,000-mile US-Mexico border, a plan that could cost billions of dollars and one that critics say would do little to stop illegal immigration.

Thirty-nine prisoners have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since the autumn of 2001 and there have been 94 cases of proven or suspected abuse, the Army said in a broad new report giving a more precise and higher estimate of the scale of the abuse.

NORTH KOREA has agreed to allow a US delegation to visit its main nuclear complex next week, the first such inspection since the isolated communist country expelled UN monitors more than a year ago.

US CONGRESSIONAL Democrats’ support for President Bush’s $87 billion request comes with a price: they want him to spell out details of his overall Iraq strategy.

THE leader of Nigeria headed for Liberia yesterday to offer embattled President Charles Taylor asylum in his country, as a US military team prepared to begin a mission to study whether American troops should be sent to Liberia

US officials in Iraq have solid evidence of weapons of mass destruction programmes and details probably will be released soon, two leading Senate Republicans said today after returning from the country.

AS the Bush administration was pushing last autumn for a war against Iraq because of alleged weapons of mass destruction, a defence department report said it did not have enough “reliable information” Iraq was amassing chemical weapons, a defence official said yesterday.

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair was last night under severe pressure to make a statement to the House of Commons to answer claims that the Government exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

A powerful US Senate committee is to hold hearings this month about why banned weapons have not been found yet in Iraq, it was reported today.