Originally Posted by Lord Londonderry

Bush must be looking at ways of minimizing the long term political damage.

She seems to have done what others have failed to do: she has forced President Bush to directly address the number of US casualties in the war.

Breaking a holiday at his Texas ranch, Mr Bush travelled to Utah to address a meeting of veterans from previous wars to try to turn the Sheehan argument on its head. He said that to withdraw from Iraq would not honour the Americans who had died.

In a departure from previous speeches on the Iraq war, he mentioned the number of casualties America had suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan.