The ‘Surge’ Bait and Switch (by Eugene Robinson for Truthdig)

[marmar]

The ‘Surge’ Bait and Switch


Posted on Jun 15, 2007


By Eugene Robinson

WASHINGTON—Here’s a surprise: Remember how we were told that if we just waited until the fall, we’d see that George W. Bush’s “surge” was working in Iraq? Well, now it turns out that we shouldn’t expect answers in September after all.

White House spokesman Tony Snow was purposeful on Wednesday in stomping, trampling, tap-dancing upon and otherwise giving a definitive beat-down to any expectations of a serious, fact-based reassessment of Iraq policy in the fall. Never mind that the White House raised those expectations in the first place.

The September scenario has been a rhetorical mainstay for the administration and its supporters, a major argument for ignoring all the bad news from Iraq and giving Bush’s troop escalation a chance to work. Let’s wait for Gen. David H. Petraeus, the man who’s now running the war, to submit his progress report. At that point, went the White House argument, the “way forward” would become clear.

The fog of war seems to have closed back in. “I have warned from the very beginning about expecting some sort of magical thing to happen in September,” Snow told the White House press corps, whose collective recollection was somewhat different. “No, I’m not. What I’m saying is in September you’ll have an opportunity to have metrics.”

Actually, there are plenty of “metrics” already. A Pentagon report, released Wednesday, finds that since the U.S. troop escalation began, the overall level of violence in Iraq has not decreased and civilian casualties have actually risen slightly. There has been a decline in violence in Baghdad and Anbar province—the areas where most of the 28,700 extra “surge” troops are deployed—but an increase in other parts of the country.

The rest of the report holds few surprises for anyone who has been paying attention. The Iraqi government is no closer to a political agreement that Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds can all live with (assuming such an agreement is even theoretically possible). Militias, not government forces, continue to rule much of Baghdad and the rest of the country. “Sectarian friction” is the euphemism du jour for civil war. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070615_the_surge_bait_and_switch/