A rhetorical caveat

By Creature

Did Bush blink?

Apart from any increase in Iraq, Bush said the military's overall size should be increased to relieve the heavy strain on U.S. troops, reversing the previous position of his administration during Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon tenure. Bush also said a troop surge in Iraq would have to be for a specific mission.

His remarks appeared intended to address doubts voiced by prominent military officials who worry that sending more troops to Iraq would be ineffective and put more demands on an already-stretched U.S. military.

"There's got to be a specific mission that can be accomplished with the addition of more troops before, you know, I agree on that strategy," the president said. [emphasis me]

So we have a caveat. The same caveat we have heard from the Pentagon brass. Does this mean Bush has turned away from the idea of a "surge" in troops? On last night's Hardball, Chris Matthews seemed to think so. He latched onto Bush's caveat as clear proof that the president is backing down from the surge idea. So, now we are all supposed to take a deep breath and sit back, secure in the knowledge that the president has stepped away from the neo-con cliff. If only we could trust what the president says. How long before the president announces that he has looked into the eyes of his new defense secretary and has been assured that there is a "specific mission that can be accomplished" and he is ready to agree on the new escalation strategy? It's only a matter of time, but in the meantime we'll be fed a steady diet of the "reasonable president" rhetorical spin.

The WaPo has more.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)