Bush on New Iraq Plan: My dog ate it

President Bush emerged from his ranch in Crawford, Texas to give reporters an update on his new plan for Iraq. Bush, who plans to unveil his plan next month, gathered with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and national security adviser Stephen Hadley. Gates and Pace reported their findings from a trip last week to Iraq.

"We had a real good session late last evening. A lot of brainstorming. A lot of ideas. I wrote them all down on a legal pad. I was all set to give you people a summary of what we had come up with so far, but, when I woke-up I discovered Barney had eaten the report,"Bush admitted, citing the well-known White House dog as the culprit.

"It was either Barney, or Laura. I've narrowed it down to those two," Bush continued. "Laura usually doesn't eat paper products. I have a strong suspicion it was the dog."

Bush then vowed to return to deliberations and not emerge until the plan was hammered out, again. "Honestly, it probably wont be as good as that first plan. That was a real barn-burner, the one the dog ate. But, I think if we re-trace our steps we can come up with something close. Anyway, we're going to go back and try again."

As criticism mounts over his handling of the war, among the options Bush has been considering is a short-term "surge" in U.S. forces to help contain rampant violence. There are currently 134,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Democrats say November elections in which they took control of Congress from Bush's Republican Party reflected public discontent with the Iraq war and desire for change.

But Bush, who prides himself on sticking to decisions, has brushed aside a proposal from a bipartisan panel to ask U.S. foes Iran and Syria for help in stabilizing Iraq and is said to be looking closely at a temporary troop increase.

Sen. Joseph Biden, the Delaware Democrat who will be the next chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and other Democrats already have expressed opposition to a troop increase. Biden also lauded the president's recent remarks.

"The man just has no shame, does he?" Biden commented. "His dog ate it? Are we to believe that his dog ate the plan? That's messed up. However, even that wouldn't surprise me, if the plan even existed. What is even more likely is that he never had a plan to begin with."

Today Sen. John Edwards, who has entered the race for president, called his vote for war in Iraq a mistake. "You see, I voted for war in Iraq, but that was before we all discovered such a war would be completely misguided and mis-run. Factoring that in it was a mistake to give this president authority to go to war. And now I wonder, did Barney also eat the original war plans? Did Barney draw them up? What a joke, this interview is over."