Petraeus Declares Success in Iraq...

[Black&Tan]

...or rather the White House will. You see, the White House is writing General Petraeus' speech for him. I didn't see that one coming.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pullback15aug15,0,4840766.story?page=1&coll=la-home-center

This is from Page 2:

Administration and military officials acknowledge that the September report will not show any significant progress on the political benchmarks laid out by Congress. How to deal in the report with the lack of national reconciliation between Iraq's warring sects has created some tension within the White House.

Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

And though Petraeus and Crocker will present their recommendations on Capitol Hill, legislation passed by Congress leaves it to the president to decide how to interpret the report's data.

[leekohler]

Can we impeach yet?

[Aea]

Can we impeach yet?

Hilarious, writing the victory speeches (well, "not failure" speeches) for somebody who has been constantly reminding the administration that the war isn't going well. Excellent plan, too bad only 5% of Americans will even be bothered by this.

[mactastic]

Can we impeach yet?
Only if we chimpeach. :p

Really, did anyone think this WH would let the magical September report say anything other than that the splurge is working? That things are going well enough to justify keeping the splurge going, but not well enough that we can actually put fewer Americans in harms way?

And isn't this tantamount to Bush second-guessing his generals?

I know, I know... IOKIYAR.

[nbs2]

Excellent plan, too bad only 5% of Americans will even be bothered by this.

The only people that bother to listen to/read these speeches are that 5% that want to be bothered. The defenders don't follow the war and the rest of us are too tired of hearing the same line month after month.

Reports are available in almost real-time. Monthly feedback like this is irrelevant for public consumption purposes.

[Black&Tan]

Personally, I expected the September report to be a "stay the course" rah rah presentation, with some negative aspects. The President would then ignore all the bad stuff, and proclaim victory. Or completely disregard the report, similar to what happened with the much-heralded bipartisan focus group.

But this...I never thought they would stoop this low. And judging from the dire staffing report from General Clarke the other day, this will also signal the need for a draft.

[skunk]

I wonder if Petraeus' report will include an explanation of why he failed to account for 200,000-odd AK47s which are now presumably in the hands of those he is fighting?

[solvs]

I wonder if this has anything to do with him saying he wanted to start scaling back the troops. Maybe that was the plan all along, declare victory and leave, make it look like the Dems have nothing, while the GOP takes the credit. Nah, that's just too out there.

Petraeus will make his recommendations. If Bush doesn't like them, he'll spin it the other way and everyone will cry foul. If it supports what they've been saying, no one will believe him and he'll be just another partisan crony. Lose-lose for this admin. This was just a stalling tactic, and there will be another one after it. Dems better get off their butts and do something, or we'll continue to be pissed at them too. And yeah, if Bush was actually listening to his commanders, we would have been out long ago.

Keith O had a good comment tonight wondering why we're all so surprised when we really shouldn't be.