Rep. Roy Blunt, the Republican whip in the House of Representatives, said the weekend controversy over the Der Spiegel interview was itself a sign of progressin the war in Iraq.
At press conferences and in an interview, he declined to answer numerous questions about the progress of the investigation and the suspect, Jared Lee Loughner.
He also suggested, in an interview with The House magazine, that Tory ministers were being disingenuous to quote progress towards the target as an example of the government getting to grips with immigration.