Bush's Triumphalist Amnesia

"Year 5, the past year, has been one of troop escalation, or the 'surge.' (Calling the policy a 'surge' rather than an 'escalation' is emblematic of the administration's propaganda.) The big lie is that Iraq is now calm, that the surge has worked, and that victory is within reach."

Christopher Cerf and Victor S. Navasky write in a mocking Los Angeles Times op-ed: "With the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq upon us, it seems to be generally agreed by most experts that the 'surge' is working, that despite continuing casualties, we have at last reached a 'turning point.' This is certainly the view of George W. ('Mission accomplished!') Bush, Donald ('Stuff happens') Rumsfeld, Dick ('The streets of Baghdad are sure to erupt with joy') Cheney, Bill ('Military action will not last more than a week') O'Reilly and Condoleezza ('We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud') Rice."

They note that "there is ample precedent for the 'turning point' thesis mentioned above:

"* July 7, 2003: 'This month will be a political turning point for Iraq.' (Douglas J. Feith, then-undersecretary for Defense.)

"* June 16, 2004: 'A turning point will come two weeks from today.' (President Bush.)

"* Feb. 2, 2005: 'On Jan. 30 in Iraq, the world witnessed . . . a moment that historians might one day call a turning point.' (Donald Rumsfeld, then-U.S. secretary of Defense.)

"* June 14, 2006: 'I think -- tide turning -- see, as I remember -- I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of -- it's easy to see a tide turn -- did I say those words?' ( Bush.)"

Flashback

Peter Baker and Dan Balz wrote in The Washington Post almost three years ago: "When President Bush confidently predicts victory in Iraq and admits no mistakes, admirers see steely resolve and critics see exasperating stubbornness. But the president's full-speed-ahead message articulated in this week's prime-time address also reflects a purposeful strategy based on extensive study of public opinion about how to maintain support for a costly and problem-plagued military mission. . . .

"Behind the president's speech is a conviction among White House officials that the battle for public opinion on Iraq hinges on their success in convincing Americans that, whatever their views of going to war in the first place, the conflict there must and can be won."

The Cost of the War

David M. Herszenhorn writes in the New York Times: "At the outset of the Iraq war, the Bush administration predicted that it would cost $50 billion to $60 billion to oust Saddam Hussein, restore order and install a new government.

"Five years in, the Pentagon tags the cost of the Iraq war at roughly $600 billion and counting. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and critic of the war, pegs the long-term cost at more than $4 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office and other analysts say that $1 trillion to $2 trillion is more realistic, depending on troop levels and on how long the American occupation continues."

Zachary Coile writes in the San Francisco Chronicle: "The United States has poured more than $500 billion into Iraq, mostly for military operations. But that figure is just a small piece of the much larger bill that taxpayers will pay in the future.