Things That Won't Happen For $600, Alex

Charlie Rangel, June 1:

WASHINGTON - President Bush will declare victory in Iraq and begin scaling back troop levels in the coming months because Republican lawmakers will repudiate him if he doesn't, Rep. Charles Rangel said yesterday.

"The President knows it's over," Rangel declared in an interview with the Daily News Editorial Board. "The Republicans know it's over."

"I think the President's going to come up with some compromise, and he's not going to admit failure. He'll probably say we've won, but it's going to happen ... and I don't know how many soldiers die while it's happening."

"Republicans are going to make it happen - no, Americans are going to make it happen," he said.

The political die was cast, Rangel said, when a delegation of GOP lawmakers visited the White House recently and put Bush on notice their support for the war is beginning to erode as the 2008 elections approach.