Hints of Progress, and Questions, in Iraq Data (written by Michael WMD Gordon from the NY Times)

[antiimperialist]

For months, proponents and critics of the Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq have pointed to conflicting indicators about whether it has produced progress. The figures that have emerged in recent government reports have seemingly provided something for everyone.

As a Report Draws Near, Democrats Ready a Stance (September 8, 2007)
The Time Has Come, the General’s Here: Petraeus Preps for Testimony on Iraq (September 8, 2007) The most comprehensive and up-to-date military statistics show that American forces have made some headway toward a crucial goal of protecting the Iraqi population. Data on car bombs, suicide attacks, civilian casualties and other measures of the bloodshed in Iraq indicate that violence has been on the decline, though the levels generally remain higher than in 2004 and 2005.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/08/world/middleeast/08military.html?hp

[PATRICK]

1. Sources the WH and Iraqi puppets

for accepting the report itself at face value. Oh yeah that is responsible journalism all right. Everyone is happy, that is all that counts. Don't question the actual report, you useless stooge Gordon.

How dumb do we have to pretend to be so that everyone has plausible cover?

[EFerrari]

3. That was funny. Backing up the Pentagram's fudging with

the puppetry's collaboration.

[EFerrari]

2. How bad must it be in Iraq if the best Gordon can do is

say the indicators are "conflicting". That's sobering, in itself.

[PATRICK]

4. The article, as read

by most Americans, gives Bush the benefit of any doubt. The surge "might" be working. The Dems have caved for much less than that. Hence the importance of Durbin's point that the info is cooked- which is characterized as the complaints of "critics" rather than as the fact. For liar Gordon the lying report alone is "fact". Spin is all.

[EFerrari]

5. I think this report was a mistake for the Bush team and I hope

the Democrats play it to the hilt. It's coming out just at the point where both right and left are irritated that the Democratically "controlled" Congress hasn't magically rectified all the chaos created by the Republican government in the last seven years.

This report gives the Dems an opportunity to hand the Iraq "war" right back to Bush.

The Left wants out of Iraq while the Centrists and the Right seem more concerned with domestic issues that they believe dovetail with the terror issue, namely illegal immigration and porous borders. Bush has to be careful about playing the terror card because he did nada about the borders, so that fig leaf for the sacking of Iraq isn't going to work for him very well.

I guess BushCo could resort to blaming the Iraqi central government although there is nothing but dollars holding Iraq together, unless you count hatred of the occupation, and the central government is in reality too weak to truly govern.

Meanwhile, BushCo idiots (who apparently have never opened a history book) are rearming the Iraqi army, the national police and the provincial police and they are probably now more powerful than the government. Good for the defense industry, bad for our national security or the future of peace in the region. A time bomb in a quagmire

Actual Republican politicians must be furious.

[PATRICK]

6. I don't think the WH

gives a damn about any party in Congress and will punish both or either to get its way. Hoping the Dems will take advantage of this murky slanted report, unchallenged by the media, rather than cave to its slight suggestion the surge is "working" may already be summed up for them by the scandal whipped GOP Congress as "off the table".