Bush, Advisers Visit Iraq's Anbar Province

NPR | By Don Gonyea,

Published September 3, 2007 at 4:00 PM EDT

During an unannounced visit to Iraq on Monday, President Bush said that he'll make his decision on United States combat force levels in the country based on his commanders' assessments, not on pressure from, in his words, "Washington politicians."

The president was accompanied by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a U.S. air base in al-Anbar province, about 120 miles from Baghdad.

The President met with U.S. military commanders and Iraqi leaders. He told troops that Iraq's Anbar province shows that U.S. military efforts in Iraq are working.

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.

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