Four Years After 'Mission Accomplished'

Lowering the Goalposts

There are increased signs that the White House is shifting its timeline for -- and definition of -- success in Iraq.

David E. Sanger wrote in Friday's New York Times: "The Bush administration will not try to assess whether the troop increase in Iraq is producing signs of political progress or greater security until September, and many of Mr. Bush's top advisers now anticipate that any gains by then will be limited, according to senior administration officials.

"In interviews over the past week, the officials made clear that the White House is gradually scaling back its expectations for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The timelines they are now discussing suggest that the White House may maintain the increased numbers of American troops in Iraq well into next year."

My question: Is this the sign of a significant dawning of awareness at the White House? Or evidence that they knew all along things would take longer than they said publicly?

I wrote at some length about benchmarks in Thursday's column, and noted that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a January Senate hearing that without progress toward some key benchmarks within "one or two months . . . this plan is not going to work." It's now been four months, of course.

At yesterday's gaggle with Tony Snow, Olivier Knox of AFP asked about that, and was given a limp brush-off.

"Q [O]n January 11th, Secretary Rice said that the Iraqi government had two to three months to convince the population that it would apply security fairly, treat everyone fairly, whether -- regardless of their religious or ethnic background. Do you think it's met that timetable --

"MR. SNOW: I don't know, it's -- again, I would defer questions like that, at this juncture, to folks who are closer to the realities on the ground. It is clear that there has been some progress in some areas. But on the other hand, as General Petraeus has also said, it's going to take a while to continue not only deploying folks in support of the Baghdad security plan, these things do take time."

And Bush himself indicated last Tuesday, in an interview with PBS's Charlie Rose, that he was re-thinking what an "acceptable level of violence" for Iraq might be. "Even though all violence is to be abhorred, nevertheless, there is -- you know, there's certain violence -- levels of violence that people say, 'Well gosh, I can go about my life,'" Bush said.

Iraq Today

Sudarsan Raghavan and Karin Brulliard write in The Washington Post: "The deaths of more than 100 American troops in April made it the deadliest month so far this year for U.S. forces in Iraq, underscoring the growing exposure of Americans as thousands of reinforcements arrive for an 11-week-old offensive to tame sectarian violence."

Glenn Kessler writes in The Washington Post: "The number of terrorism incidents in Iraq -- and resulting deaths, injuries and kidnappings -- skyrocketed from 2005 to 2006, according to statistics released by U.S. counterterrorism officials yesterday.

"Of the 14,338 reported terrorist attacks worldwide last year, 45 percent took place in Iraq, and 65 percent of the global fatalities stemming from terrorism occurred in Iraq. In 2005, Iraq accounted for 30 percent of the worldwide terrorist attacks."