It Came From Planet Bush

"But the report said Iraq's army will be unable to take over internal security from U.S. forces in the next 12 to 18 months and 'cannot yet meaningfully contribute to denying terrorists safe haven.' It also described the 25,000-member national police force as riddled with sectarianism and corruption, and it recommended that it be disbanded."

Fred Kaplan writes for Slate: "President Bush's TV address tonight was the worst speech he's ever given on the war in Iraq, and that's saying a lot. Every premise, every proposal, nearly every substantive point was sheer fiction. The only question is whether he was being deceptive or delusional.

"The biggest fiction was that because of the 'success' of the surge, we can reduce U.S. troop levels in Iraq from 20 combat brigades to 15 by next July. Gen. David Petraeus has recommended this step, and President George W. Bush will order it so.

"Let's be clear one more time about this claim: The surge of five extra combat brigades (bringing the total from 15 to 20) started in January. Their 15-month tours of duty will begin to expire next April. The Army and Marines have no combat units ready to replace them. The service chiefs refuse to extend the tours any further. The president refuses to mobilize the reserves any further. And so, the surge will be over by next July. This has been understood from the outset. It is the result of simple arithmetic, not of anyone's decision, much less some putative success."

Dick Polman blogs for the Philadelphia Inquirer that Bush "came up with a few lines that would be downright comical if not for the fact that our soldiers are fighting and dying over there."

An Enduring Relationship?

Bush's most surprising announcement yesterday was of his intention to guarantee "U.S. political, economic, and security engagement [with Iraq] that extends beyond my presidency." Saying that Iraqi leaders "have asked for an enduring relationship with America," Bush said "we are ready to begin building that relationship -- in a way that protects our interests in the region and requires many fewer American troops."

Bush apparently elaborated on this idea at an on-background lunch with television anchors yesterday. As Brian Williams blogged for NBC News: "[T]he president is known to favor a presence modeled -- at far fewer numbers of troops -- on that of U.S. forces in South Korea."

For a summary of what's troubling about the South Korea analogy, see my May 31 column: 50 More Years in Iraq?

On CNN last night, Cooper asked correspondent Candy Crowley: "Candy, this long-term commitment was not what the American people were told would be needed during the buildup to the war."

Crowley: "Well, and -- and it's going to be a problem, I think. You know, when you talk to people on Capitol Hill, even critics of the president, all of them have known that U.S. troops could not come out quickly, that it would take a year or two years.

"But, when the president starts talking about troops staying there beyond my administration, a long-term stay there, I think this is something that will be the source of conversation, because it is not what people thought they were buying into."

Later, former presidential adviser David Gergen chimed in: "What we know is that the president met earlier today with a handful of journalists, and it's been reported out of that, that he talked about signing up an agreement with Iraq that would commit the United States to the security of Iraq, in much the same way we have been committed to Korea.

"We have been now in Korea for over half-a-century. That was a major, dramatic commitment by the United States that required the approval of the United States' Congress. If the president is seriously talking about such a commitment -- and he certainly hinted heavily at that tonight -- that would be a major new commitment, going well past his presidency, and will cause a storm on Capitol Hill."

Fiddling With the Language

David E. Sanger writes in the New York Times: "Mr. Bush's speech was the culmination of a monthlong, highly orchestrated game plan to change the political debate in Washington and the country. But in the end, the speech once again raised the question of what America's mission in Iraq really is -- and how long it will last.

"It also exemplified the balancing act likely to consume the last 16 months of Mr. Bush's presidency, as he tries to hold together wavering members of his party with promises of drawdowns as soon as conditions allow while still talking about a role in Iraq and the region modeled on America's five-decades-long presence on the Korean Peninsula.

"Many times in recent months, he has told visitors to the White House that he needs to get to the Korea model -- a politically sustainable American deployment to keep the lid on the Middle East.

"That, of course, is a goal very different from the 'victory' Mr. Bush was touting less than two years ago. But as strategies have come and gone, Mr. Bush's language has changed."

Doyle McManus writes in the Los Angeles Times: "For more than four years since the invasion of Iraq, President Bush most often has defined his objective there with a single, stirring word: 'Victory.'

"'Victory in Iraq is vital for the United States of America,' he told cadets at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in May. . . .

"But this week, the word 'victory' disappeared from the president's lexicon. It was replaced by a slightly more ambiguous goal: 'Success.'"

Backfire?

Massimo Calabresi writes for Time: "Bush's trumpeting of what he called a 'return on success' could end up backfiring. Bringing the war into America's living rooms is never a safe political bet. And if news of a slow drawdown may be popular, Bush himself still is not. Some key Hill Republicans, in fact, were upset that he returned front and center on the issue at a time when the White House had so carefully ceded the selling of the surge to Petraeus and Crocker. 'Why would he threaten the momentum we have?' says one frustrated Capitol Hill Republican strategist with ties to the GOP leadership. 'You have an unpopular President going onto prime time television, interrupting Americans' TV programs, to remind them of why they don't like him.'"

Hill Republicans, Calabresi writes, claim Bush is "'hitching his wagon' to the popular and respected Petraeus because he knows his place in history is at stake. 'He's more concerned about his legacy than he is about helping his Capitol Hill Republican colleagues,' says the Republican strategist."

Jonathan Weisman and Paul Kane write in The Washington Post: "If the prime targets of President Bush's appeal for patience last night were moderates in his own party, his speech may have fallen flat.

"Republican lawmakers, facing tough reelection bids in the midst of an ongoing war, reacted with grave concern to the president's call for only modest troop reductions and no dramatic change of mission in Iraq. And the lawmakers' tone could prove critical when the Senate takes up defense policy legislation next week, a step that will revive the debate over whether and how the legislative branch should seek to change the course of the war."

Opinion Watch

The New York Times editorial board writes: "Mr. Bush was clear last night -- as he was when he addressed the nation in January, September of last year, the December before that and in April 2004 -- that his only real plan is to confuse enough Americans and cow enough members of Congress to let him muddle along and saddle his successor with this war that should never have been started."

The San Francisco Chronicle editorial board writes: "President Bush last night once again tried to repackage a 'stay the course' policy that has been a four-year-disaster in Iraq.

"No one should be fooled by the president's attempt to portray the strategy he laid out in a nationally televised speech as a significant change or act of conciliation."

The USA Today editorial board writes: "When President Bush brought down the curtain on a week of extraordinary political stagecraft Thursday night, the audience was left to contemplate the course of the Iraq war in a new way: one stripped of benchmarks, and one that would commit some undefined number of U.S. forces to Iraq for many years to come. . . .

"After setting so many goals and being so consistently embarrassed by his failure to achieve them, Bush is trying to avoid more of the same, no matter his bluff assurance in Iraq last week and on TV Thursday night that everything is going great."

Paul Krugman writes in his New York Times opinion column (subscription required): "Mr. Bush's actions have not been those of a leader seriously trying to win a war. They have, however, been what you'd expect from a man whose plan is to keep up appearances for the next 16 months, never mind the cost in lives and money, then shift the blame for failure onto his successor."

Joseph L. Galloway writes in his McClatchy Newspapers opinion column: "It's a long journey from now to January 20, 2009, and the blood of many Americans and even more Iraqis will flow freely and stain the hands of those who allow this insane war to continue at the behest of a stubborn, unseeing, unthinking man from Crawford, Texas."

Dissension Within the Military

David S. Cloud writes in the New York Times that the Bush-Petraeus vision "remains deeply unpopular to some current and retired officers, who say the White House and its battlefield commander are continuing to strain the troops, with little prospect of long-term success.

"It is the second time in 10 months that Mr. Bush has opted for higher troop levels in Iraq than are favored by some of his senior military advisers. Among those who supported a smaller troop increase than the one Mr. Bush ordered last January were members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"Now, some of his advisers would prefer setting a faster timetable for drawing the force back down.

"Some even suggest that Mr. Bush's portrayal of the strategy as relying heavily on recommendations from General Petraeus has been more than a little disingenuous, given that it was unlikely that a battlefield commander would repudiate his own plans."

For instance: "Even before General Petraeus appeared before Congress this week, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, last week questioned the significance of what his colleague had achieved. . . .

"'I think a smaller force will cause Iraqis to do more faster,' General Casey [said] at a breakfast sponsored by Government Executive magazine."

The Pre-Briefing Spin

Here is the transcript of a briefing yesterday afternoon by two anonymous administration officials.

David S. Cloud writes in the New York Times: "Though President Bush said he would withdraw five Army combat brigades and several Marine units from Iraq by next summer, as the top commander in Iraq had recommended, the White House was careful on Thursday not to be pinned down on just how many soldiers would remain."

The Times's Sanger detected a change in attitude within Bush's top staffers: "'Guess what, this is Iraq,' one senior administration official told reporters on Thursday afternoon as they pressed him on whether Mr. Bush had abandoned hope of bringing about change in the time frames he had discussed in January. Another senior official argued that the White House had taken an overly America-centric approach. 'It turned out that we could get a lot done in the provinces without passing oil-revenue laws,' the official said."

One of the "senior administration officials "outed himself when pulling rank in a circular argument over how many troops would actually be coming home.

Senior Adminstration Official: "Okay, I used to be the J3."

That would be Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, the White House's new "war czar," whose bio says he served for "more than two years as Director of Operations (J-3) at US Central Command during which he oversaw combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as other operations in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Horn of Africa."

'It Doesn't Matter'

On his last day as press secretary, Tony Snow made the circuit of the morning shows. Here he is on CBS with Harry Smith, trying to counter the notion that Bush had no choice but to announce limited troop withdrawals.

Snow: "The fact is if we needed to keep troops in Iraq, we would have the troops -- we would do it."

Smith: "But you would have to increase the lengths of deployments, would you not?"

Snow: "You know, it doesn't matter, Harry, as a commander in chief you do what you have to do in a time of war."

Smith (sighing): "But everybody and their brother says if you want to break the Army, increase troop deployments."

Snow: "Actually no. I think David Petraeus knows a thing or two about it and that's not his view."

More From the Luncheon

Williams blogs for NBC News with more from the presidential luncheon: "[W]hen asked about Robert Draper's new book, 'Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush' -- a portion of which deals with the disbanding of the Iraqi Army -- the president (who indicated he has not read the book) insisted there was no Iraqi Army left to re-constitute back at that time, saying most of Saddam's former fighters had been driven to the north where they fled and dispersed. I pointed out that this seemed like a new response; for four and a half years, the disbanding of the Army has been seen as one of the chief failings of the Iraq war. The president seemed un-bothered by that perception."

In fact, the issue was whether to recall the army or disband it; Bush's position is disingenuous at best.

Williams also describes this intriguing statement: "He admitted to being out-smarted by the enemy at several stages of the Iraq war."

Petraeus Watch

Peter Baker and Karen DeYoung write in The Washington Post that in an interview yesterday, "Petraeus offered clues to secret planning that he did not mention during his congressional testimony. He described Iraq as a quilt in which secure 'patches' will be added gradually until they fill the country and can finally be stitched together by June 2009. 'Then you have a sustainable system,' he said. 'Then you have an Iraq.'

"A map prepared to illustrate the concept showed Iraq today as a blank space with several discrete 'patches' in Anbar and in the northern and southern parts of the country. On a second map labeled 'Intermediate Term. NLT [No Later Than] June 2009,' the entire country was covered with patches. An Iraqi national flag covered a third, undated map, signaling when Iraq would be entirely in charge of its own fate."

Here are audio excerpts of the interview.

Eugene Robinson writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "Gen. David Petraeus likes to describe the Iraq he envisions as a patchwork quilt. You establish security in a neighborhood over here, bring peace to a village over there, create more and more of these scraps of relative tranquility -- and then stitch the heterogeneous pieces together.

"The problem is with the seams. They have a tendency to unravel."

Bush's Sheik

Joshua Partlow, Ann Scott Tyson and Robin Wright write in The Washington Post: "A charismatic tribal leader who allied himself with the United States and rallied fractious Sunni groups against extremists who claim links to al-Qaeda was killed Thursday afternoon when a bomb exploded outside his house in Anbar province.

"The efforts of Abdul Sattar Abu Risha became the centerpiece of the Bush administration's campaign to prove its troop buildup in Iraq has been a success. President Bush, during a visit to Anbar last week, met with Abu Risha and said the province suggested 'what the future of Iraq can look like.'"

Who is this guy Bush shook hands with? "Abu Risha, who was in his mid-30s, had amassed many enemies. He was called a warlord and a highway bandit, an oil smuggler and an opportunist, who sold out the Sunni resistance for American military friendship. He often dismissed Iraq's government as dysfunctional and regularly demanded more money and guns from anyone who would listen.

"But in the first hours after Abu Risha's death, his legacy seemed to unite Iraqi leaders across the sectarian spectrum."

Today's News

Jennifer Loven writes for the Associated Press: "The White House told Congress Friday that Iraqi leaders gained little new ground on key military and political goals, a discouraging assessment a day after President Bush said progress justifies a large continued U.S. military presence there.

"The report underscored the difficulty of Bush's argument that a continuing American sacrifice was creating space for Iraqi leaders to make gains on tamping down the sectarian fighting that leaves Iraq persistently fractured and violent."

Here's the report.

Cartoon Watch

Stuart Carlson on riding in circles.