This week Gen. George Casey, the top American commander in Iraq, announced U.S. troop reductions in Iraq by the end of 2007. On when those troops will be withdrawn, the New York Times reports:

If executed, the plan could have considerable political significance. The first reductions would take place before this falls Congressional elections, while even bigger cuts might come before the 2008 presidential election.

Today on Fox News Sunday, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) reiterated that the timing of the troop withdrawals is politically motivated:

[Troop withdrawals] shouldn’t be a political decision, but it is going to be with this administration. … It’s as clear as your face, which is mighty clear, that before this election, this November, there’s going to be troop reductions in Iraq and the President will then claim some kind of progress or victory.

Watch it:

Conservatives have criticized progressives for suggesting a redeployment of troops in Iraq, saying they wanted to “cut and run.” But it looks like conservatives are willing to adopt redeployment when it will help them get re-elected in the fall, instead of now, when it is good policy.

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The New York Times reported on Friday that the Bush administration has “examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States” allegedly linked to terrorist networks.

This morning, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) argued that the NYT reporters, editors, and publishers responsible for that story should be charged under the Espionage Act, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

[N]o one elected the New York Times to do anything. And the New York Times is putting its own arrogant elitest left wing agenda before the interests of the American people, and I’m calling on the Attorney General to begin a criminal investigation and prosecution of the New York Times — its reporters, the editors who worked on this, and the publisher. We’re in a time of war, Chris, and what they’ve done has violated the Espionage Act, the COMINT act.

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Moments later, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) called King’s proposal “premature” and paraphrased Thomas Jefferson: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

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Number of Iraqis “have died violently since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to statistics from the Baghdad morgue, the Iraqi Health Ministry and other agencies “” a toll 20,000 higher than previously acknowledged by the Bush administration.”