International

Bush Meets with U.S., Iraqi Officials in Basra

By Don Gonyea, Alex Chadwick

Published September 3, 2007 at 10:00 AM PDT

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

On his way to a meeting in Australia, President Bush made an unexpected side trip to Iraq.

There, he met with Army Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, along with senior Iraqi politicians, to get a firsthand report on the region ahead of the debate in Congress.

Also traveling with the president were Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

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International

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.

Alex Chadwick

For more than 30 years, Alex Chadwick has been bringing the world to NPR listeners as an NPR News producer, program host and currently senior correspondent. He's reported from every continent except Antarctica.