You're being rather naive if you think facts will matter to Old Media and their preferred story line. Although, maybe they will release a "clarifcation" at 6pm some Friday about it.

Since most of the new bombs reportedly are being manufactured and imported from Iran, maybe if the Iraqi military gets confident enough the U.S. can relocate a few troops towards Iraq's eastern border and give Ahmadinejad a few more reasons to be paranoid.

Wasn't Peters in the "we don't have enough boots on the ground so we are failing" camp a few months ago?

Have to agree with AOG - Still seeing civil war headlines in the news despite the facts. But I believe that if US troops are coming home by fall '06 that is something the MSM can't ignore/spin negatively.

Great news. Part of forging pride is what happens in the crucible and how it creates mutual myths. If the Iraqi army soldiers can feel that when the chips were down, they held the country together, it will go a long, long way - not just in providing order but in supporting legitimacy for the constitutional government.

I think W has made various dumb mistakes, but one of his strengths is not panicking. That was what was needed here. I don't think some of the more media minded politicians could have weathered it.

Chris, I'm trying to compile some data, what are the dumb mistakes, aside from Harriet Miers who I think was a good call, Bush has made?

erp;

Campaign Finance Reform.

Steel tarriffs (I know OJ will get on my case about that, but even if they didn't matter, they were still dumb).

Not executing a full rhetorical push on the Axis of Evil, particularly Iran.

CFR is popular, he was elected on signing it, and it hurts Democrats.

Steel tarrifs worked and then he got rid of them.

Iran had a Reformist government.

With all due respect guys, these are not mistakes, these are differences of opinion about policy matters among different people. According to Dictionary.com, a mistake is an unintentional error; not in accordance with the facts; a misconception, e.g., I made a mistake and put salt in my coffee.

Specifically in regards to Iraq:

1) The "I'm a uniter, not a divider" has not kept the country united. There are various reasons for it, but the buck stops with him. This is his job, and he's failed. I can't believe either an FDR or a Reagan would be in a similar situation.

2) He did not reform the intelligence services after 9/11 which contributed to the lousy intelligence he got in regards to WMD.

3) He relied mainly on the WMD argument to sell the war, and the lack of finding it gave credence to the anti-war views. He could have articulated a stronger basis for the war, but choose not to because WMD was a more expedient casus belli. I know that there was "fine print" type inclusion of these other reasons, but that's not leadership to tell the American people, "But I CMA! See!"

4) He failed in securing Turkish acceptance of a northern front. This is a diplomatic failure.

5) He choose to go the UN route and then failed to find the votes for the resolution. Made us look bad. Another failure of diplomacy.

6) The approved battle plan did not include enough troops to secure borders from Iranian/terrorist infiltration, or to keep the peace. This allowed the terrorist insurgency to become viable.

7) After the initial looting and lawlessness became apparent, he should have intervened decisively to stop it. The American occupation is justified only in being able to keep peace and order. If the foreign soldier with the gun can't keep the average Iraqi safe, what's the point to the average Iraqi? Again, this contributed to the insurgency later on. In the brief window we had to control this, Rumsfeld was excusing looting - crime - as "that's what freedom is." Bad move.

8) "Mission Accomplished." Just terrible. The war obviously was not over. In undermines his credibility on pronouncements on victory.

9) Repeated utterances that the terrorist insurgency was minor, small, or soon to be defeated. In the meantime, it continues. Now years later, it is still going on. While this does not mean that we are losing, these utterances did not convince the American people that the government was prepared. Instead, it's undermined morale and lessened support for the war. How many corners can be turned?

10) The disbanding of the Iraqi Baathist army could have been done better. It needed to be done, but not in a way that flushed disgruntled soldiers into the insurgents.

11) Operational constraints in Iraq is underminding our military credibility for operations against Iran. This has to do with larger issues of strategy and recruitment. It's not good our options are limited now in regards to a real WMD threat.

Some of them I'd be willing to excuse as normal mistakes that happen in war time. But I think there's consistent policy failures. Bush doesn't think ahead, and he is a terrible diplomat.

I know many people here would like to blame everything on the Democrats and liberals, but the GOP controls the executive, legislative, and judicial branches not to mention conservative control of talk radio and Fox news. If things aren't going as planned, it's not because John Kerry is a genius at guerilla politics. It's because Bush makes dumb mistakes that gives life to his opponents.

A lot of my friends are generally non-political. Most are actually centrist or conservative. After talking with them from several states across the country - they don't have much faith in the President.

Chris:

When FDR declared war his fiercest opponents on the Right got behind him. Democrats are simply not patriotic enough to be united with a Republican president in wartime. That's their problem, not his.

Bureaucracies don't get reformed they just grow and every intellignce service not only agreed about the WMD but Saddam had WMD, like the Scuds he fired into Kuwait.

WMD was not an argument he relied on but one thaty Powell and Blair asked him to let them use and he acquiesced--a sign of how accomodating he is to friends and allies. Read the UN speech.

The Turks were never going to accept a war that creates an independent kurdish nation. Holding out for them to join was just a way to avoid war.

the UN was never going to back the war but he let Blair and Powell give it a shot. He told them though that as soon as we had troops in position he was going with or without the UN and did. UN refusal to enforce its own resolutions makes them look bad, not us.

We sent too many troops ande stayed too long, which created a popular insurgency. He deserves criticism for that, but you have it backwards.

The Ocvcupation can not be justified. The Iraqis were an oppressed people and occupying them was an affront. We didn't occupy France.

Saddam is gone and Iraq's a democracy. The Mission was accmplished. The mistake was not withdrawing then.

Staying did indeed fuel the insurgency and was a great error.

Our options in Iran are happily constrained by the failure of occupation in Iraq. We're restricted to tactical strikes on facilities, which is what our strategy should be.

Things are going rather well and in five years all your friends will talk about how we came together as a united country to fight and defeat Islamicism, just as Democrats claim they helped Reagan defeat the USSR even though they fought him every step of the way. history always repeats itself, we just think it'sd new each time because we rewrite it to flatter ourselves.

We occupied Iraq to direct an outcome post Saddam. Not to have been there would have been self- defeating.

It is difficult to airmail a constitutional government

Except that we didn't matter to that outcome. Shi'ism and Sistani did. The occupation jus reflected a misunderstanding of, even a contempt for, the people we'd liberated. We'd never have done it to similarly situated Europeans.

No, their military now mirrors ours as well as, (in large part) their constitution.

They should follow turkey now, not Iran. Our guys died to halt religious theocracy.

We execited occupied Europeans, contempt enough for you?

Mostly though we killed jihadists there. They got dead and never came here

They ought to follow Turkey, but the Iran example gets them to liberal democracy eventually too.