International

Bush Concedes 2006 Was a Tough Year in Iraq

By Madeleine Brand, Don Gonyea

Published December 20, 2006 at 10:00 AM PST

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

President George W. Bush appeared before reporters today for what's expected to be his last press conference of 2006. He conceded that Iraq insurgents have made things difficult for U.S. troops in 2006, and also said that he's considering adding more troops to Iraq.

Most of the press conference questions were about Iraq, and the president said that he's deciding whether to order a temporary surge in troop levels to help stabilize the situation in Iraq.

"We can be smarter about how we deploy our manpower and resources," the president said. "We can ask more of our Iraqi partners and we will."

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Madeleine Brand speaks to White House Correspondent Don Gonyea who attended the press conference, about the president's remarks.

International

Madeleine Brand

Madeleine Brand is the host of NPRs newest and fastest-growing daily show, Day to Day. She conducts interviews with newsmakers (Iraqi politicians, US senators), entertainment figures (Bernardo Bertolluci, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ricky Gervais), and the everyday people affected by the news (an autoworker laid off at GM, a mother whose son was killed in Iraq).

Don Gonyea

You're most likely to find NPR's Don Gonyea on the road, in some battleground state looking for voters to sit with him at the local lunch spot, the VFW or union hall, at a campaign rally, or at their kitchen tables to tell him what's on their minds. Through countless such conversations over the course of the year, he gets a ground-level view of American elections. Gonyea is NPR's National Political Correspondent, a position he has held since 2010. His reports can be heard on all NPR News programs and at NPR.org. To hear his sound-rich stories is akin to riding in the passenger seat of his rental car, traveling through Iowa or South Carolina or Michigan or wherever, right along with him.