Bush plans to 'create' Iraq progress with new reports Adam Doster

Published: Saturday June 23, 2007 Print This Email This With the situation in Iraq deteriorating and General David Petraeus commissioned to discuss the military's progress before more a vote on additional funding for the war in September, President Bush is busy finding ways to build political capital while abdicating himself from responsibility for any failures in the recent troop 'surge.' According to Sunday's New York Times, "the administration is commissioning other assessments that could dilute [Petreaus'] conclusions about the impact of the current troop increase. The intent appears to be to give Mr. Bush, who publicly puts great emphasis on listening to his field commanders, a wide range of options." The Bush-influenced reports will likely find that while the troop surge was a sound proposal, the Iraqi government "failed to use the troop increase for the purpose the president intended, to strike the political accommodations that he said would stabilize the country." This posturing could allow Bush to begin withdrawing troops slowly, both a political advantage given American's disapproval of the boondoggle and a logistical answer to the military's shortage of soldiers. It will also allow him to maintain his rhetoric about staying in the fight through an American "victory." Some administration and intelligence officials also expect American intelligence agencies to submit their own assessment of Iraq's progress around the time of Petraeus' anticipated report. As the Times writes,the papers are "expected to include a judgment about whether Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is willing or capable of striking the kind of Shiite-Sunni political balance Mr. Bush said was the ultimate objective of the American strategy, and whether the passage of political compromises, none of which have yet cleared Parliament, have any hope of reducing the violence." While Congressional Democrats were anxious for Petraeus' report, which they feel could fuel enough Republican dissent to build a veto-proof majority, the abundance of assessments may create too many contradictions. "That is exactly what the White House sought to create last December," the Times writes, "when it ordered other studies to offset the findings of the Iraq Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Representative Lee H. Hamilton." Read the full Times article here.



