The NYT headline sounds like vaguely encouraging news: “Bush, in Iraq, Says Troop Reduction Is Possible.” Of course, given the circumstances, it’s not nearly as important a breakthrough as the headline suggests.
President Bush made a surprise eight-hour visit to Iraq on Monday, emphasizing security gains, sectarian reconciliation and the possibility of a troop withdrawal, thus embracing and pre-empting this month’s crucial Congressional hearings on his Iraq strategy.
His visit, with his commanders and senior Iraqi officials, had a clear political goal: to try to head off opponents’ pressure for a withdrawal by hailing what he called recent successes in Iraq and by contending that only making Iraq stable would allow American forces to pull back. […]
After talks with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, and Ryan C. Crocker, the ambassador to Iraq, Mr. Bush said that they “tell me that if the kind of success we are now seeing here continues it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces.”
How big a withdrawal is possible? Bush wouldn’t say. When might the withdrawal begin? Bush wouldn’t say. Exactly kind of conditions are needed to spur a withdrawal? Bush wouldn’t say. The president would only say that he’s now willing to “speculate on the hypothetical.”
Allow me to take a moment to translate Bush-speak into English: “There’s no reason to listen to Congress; I’ll get around to bringing some troops home one of these days, when I’m good and ready.”
Bush added, “[W]hen we begin to draw down troops from Iraq, it will be from a position of strength and success, not from a position of fear and failure.” If we send this one through the translator, too, we get, “We’re running out of troops, which will force me to end the surge in 2008 anyway. But, by laying the rhetorical groundwork now, when I’m forced to start withdrawing troops, I’ll say it’s a success story instead of conceding that I’ve pushed the Armed Forces to the breaking point.”
For that matter, Bush visited Anbar to emphasize a point that didn’t make a lot of sense.
“In Anbar you’re seeing firsthand the dramatic differences that can come when the Iraqis are more secure. In other words, you’re seeing success.
“You see Sunnis who once fought side by side with al Qaeda against coalition troops now fighting side by side with coalition troops against al Qaeda. Anbar is a huge province. It was once written off as lost. It is now one of the safest places in Iraq.”
Anbar may be a success, but not of the Bush strategy. As the AP explained, “In truth, the progress in Anbar was initiated by the Iraqis themselves, a point Gates himself made, saying the Sunni tribes decided to fight and retake control from al-Qaida many months before Bush decided to send an extra 4,000 Marines to Anbar as part of his troop buildup.”
Anthony H. Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, added, “We are spinning events that don’t really reflect the reality on the ground.”
Bush? Falsely spinning events? Disconnected from reality? Never.