Fact-Checking the President

The San Francisco Chronicle nicely boils down some of Woodward's findings. For instance:

"Bush: 'When you're risking your life to accomplish a mission, the last thing you want to hear is that mission being questioned in our nation's capital. I want you to know that, while there may be a lot of heated rhetoric in Washington, D.C., one thing is not in dispute: The American people stand behind you.'

"Assessment: An AP-Ipsos poll taken in November show 62 percent of those surveyed disapproved of Bush's Iraq policy, and a majority believe the nation was led falsely into war."

Original Documents

Here is the text of Bush's speech and the White House document titled: "Victory in Iraq."

Insta-Poll Watch

CNN reports: "As President Bush launched a new effort Wednesday to gain public support for the Iraq war, a new poll found most Americans do not believe he has a plan that will achieve victory.

"But the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Wednesday night also found nearly six in 10 Americans said U.S. troops should not be withdrawn from Iraq until certain goals are achieved.

"Just 35 percent wanted to set a specific timetable for their exit, as some critics of the war have suggested."

Here are the results.

Asked how they rate the job Bush has done handling the situation in Iraq, 15 percent said very good; 29 percent said good; 25 percent said poor; 29 percent said very poor.

A Step Closer to Reality?

John F. Burns and Dexter Filkins write in the New York Times from Iraq: "For anyone who has spent time in the field with American officers here, President Bush's speech on Wednesday was a watershed: for the first time in the two years since the conflict here turned brutal, the war Mr. Bush described sounded much like the one his generals grapple with every day.

"The president acknowledged problems that have hobbled the American enterprise since the 2003 invasion: An American effort to build up Iraqi forces that went through a top-to-bottom makeover after early deployments of Iraqi troops saw them 'running from the fight.' Iraqi units that are 'still uneven,' despite the new American effort to train and equip them that has cost more than $10 billion. A Sunni Arab community that remains largely unyielding, despite months of efforts by Americans seeking to draw them back into the corridors of power. . . .

"These generals contend the war is winnable, though they do not says so with the tone of certainty that Mr. Bush mustered Wednesday at Annapolis. But they recognize, privately, that for winning to be an achievable goal within the time frame that American politics is likely to allow, things that have rarely gone America's way so far will have to improve steadily over the next 6 to 12 months."