Progress and deception

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Many of you may have seen the story already -- it appeared in yesterday's L.A. Times. It seems that Gen. David Petraeus, the golden boy who may yet become one in a long line of scapegoats, may recommend in his much-ballyhooed September report on the "progress" of the Surge that U.S. forces be withdrawn from parts of Iraq "where commanders believe [note the use of this word, and others like it, even in the media -- this is all about faith, not fact] security has improved," such as Anbar. This does not mean that the number of troops on the ground in Iraq would go down, let alone that withdrawal (or redeployment) is on the table. All it means is that credit will be taken, justified or not, responsibility will be transferred to the Iraqis, who may or may not be in a position to assume it, and the war will go on.

There's your progress. It's not so much in the eye of the beholder as in the mind of the spinner.

And that's been true of this entire disaster of a war. Deception has been the name of the game.

And, again, that is true here. The spin all along has been that Petraeus is a different sort of general, an independent one who would do his best and report the truth, good or bad. But with what will we be presented next month? Here's the key passage in the Times story:

Administration and military officials acknowledge that the September report will not show any significant progress on the political benchmarks laid out by Congress. How to deal in the report with the lack of national reconciliation between Iraq's warring sects has created some tension within the White House.

Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

And there you go. Petraeus and Crocker will testify before Congress, but "progress" will be defined by the White House, the report will be written by the White House, and further analysis and planning in response to the report will be conducted by the White House. That is, by Bush, the guy who has fingerprints all over this disaster of a war. It's like allowing the defendent in a criminal case to determine what evidence may be used against him. Bush will pick and choose, just as he has done all along -- and that will be that. This is Bush's war, and he is not about to see it for what it is, let alone to admit that it has gone horribly wrong.

The war will continue. The deception will continue. There is not the one without the other.