Kabuki at Camp Cupcake

Later on, in his Air Force One interview, Bush fessed up somewhat: "When Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker come to Washington they will essentially be telling Congress what they will have told me."

What Bush Saw

More than four years after declaring " Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, Bush still can't make an announced visit to the war-wracked country.

But his supposed "visit to Anbar Province" was in some ways even more cynical -- and accepted even more gullibly by the media -- than his June 2006 visit to Baghdad. There, at least, he actually set foot on Iraqi soil.

This time, Bush visited Al-Asad Air Base -- an enormous, heavily fortified American outpost for 10,000 troops that while technically in Anbar Province in fact has a 13-mile perimeter keeping Iraq -- and Iraqis -- at bay. Bush never left the confines of the base, known as " Camp Cupcake," for its relatively luxurious facilities, but nevertheless announced: "When you stand on the ground here in Anbar and hear from the people who live here, you can see what the future of Iraq can look like."

The Coverage

Michael A. Fletcher and Ann Scott Tyson write in The Washington Post: "President Bush, making an unannounced visit to this isolated and well-fortified air base in Anbar province, said Monday that continued gains in security in Iraq could allow for a reduction in U.S. troops and called on the Iraqi government to follow up with progress toward rebuilding and political reconciliation."

David S. Cloud and Steven Lee Myers write in the New York Times: "His visit, with his commanders and senior Iraqi officials, had a clear political goal: to try to head off opponents' pressure for a withdrawal by hailing what he called recent successes in Iraq and by contending that only making Iraq stable would allow American forces to pull back."

Cloud and Myers write that Bush's remarks "were the clearest indication yet that a reduction would begin sometime in the months ahead, answering the growing opposition in Washington to an unpopular war while at the same time trying to argue that any change in strategy was not a failure.

"'Those decisions will be based on a calm assessment by our military commanders on the conditions on the ground -- not a nervous reaction by Washington politicians to poll results in the media,' Mr. Bush told a gathering of American troops, who responded with a rousing cheer. . . .

"In Washington, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, said the president's visit and his assertions about progress would do little to persuade skeptics. 'Despite this massive P.R. operation, the American people are still demanding a new strategy,' the spokesman, Jim Manley, said in a telephone interview.

"Anthony H. Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the reversal in Anbar had less do with American strategy than with local frustration over the extremism of Al Qaeda fighters trying to impose their doctrine. Mr. Cordesman suggested it was more of an anomaly than a model that could be applied elsewhere in Iraq, where sectarian divisions and strife appear to be worsening.

"'We are spinning events that don't really reflect the reality on the ground,' he said."

William Douglas writes for McClatchy Newspapers: "Bush argues that enhanced security in Iraq is working to improve the political situation, at least at the local level, and that 'bottom-up' political improvements will lead to the national political reconciliation that's yet to occur. . . .