Neocons Put on a Surge-Stravaganza

[babylonsister]

Neocons Put on a Surge-Stravaganza
by Eli Clifton

WASHINGTON — With U.S. General David Petraeus’s eagerly anticipated final report on Iraq due on Sep. 15, supporters of the troop surge are busily trying to set the stage for the report that they believe will refute their opponents.

The media blitz in Washington is unfolding under the backdrop of dwindling domestic and international support for the ongoing U.S. presence in Iraq.

In a worldwide poll released Friday and conducted by the BBC World Service, GlobeScan and the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), 67 percent of international respondents and 61 percent of U.S. citizens think the U.S. should withdraw within a year.

Progress in the troop surge has been slow and Petraeus’s July interim report found mixed results, with only six of 18 congressional benchmarks for success in Iraq being met.

On Thursday, the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute (AEI) — which has generally supported the George W. Bush administration’s decisions in Iraq — put on a marathon three-and-a-half hour series of panel discussions to promote AEI resident scholar Frederick Kagan’s new report, “No Middle Way: The Challenge of Exit Strategies From Iraq”.


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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/08/3707/