So what do we believe?

On the one hand, we have Rowan Scarbourgh in the Washington Examiner telling us that the general concensus is that al Qaeda is losing ground in Iraq;

U.S. intelligence officers in Iraq believe 2007 will be looked on someday as “the beginning of the defeat of al Qaeda,” an adviser to the command in Baghdad said Monday.

Retired Army Gen. John Keane offered the assessment after being briefed by a senior intelligence official who is an expert on the insurgency. The upbeat view marked a shift from 2006 intelligence reports that al Qaeda in Iraq was growing stronger.

[…]

First, Sunni sheiks are breaking alliances with al Qaeda and joining the coalition. “They are fed up with this barbarism and four years of war,” Keane said during a talk at the American Enterprise Institute.

Second, the U.S. counteroffensive of more than 155,000 troops is simultaneously attacking al Qaeda safe havens around the country — a tactic not used before.

But then you turn to the Associated Press’ Anne Flaherty (whose name turns up on nearly every anti-Bush story byline) and you get crap like this – a whole story pegged to an anonymous source, no back-up research, just quoting some guy like there’s no tomorrow (or no Google); 

 A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reforms, speeding up the Bush administration’s reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday.

The “pivot point” for addressing the matter will no longer be Sept. 15, as initially envisioned, when a full report on Bush’s so-called “surge” plan is due, but instead will come this week when the interim mid-July assessment is released, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the draft is still under discussion.

So the military is winning (barely a month into the “surge”) and AP calls it a failure. Sound like Vietnam even a little bit? And for some reason, the Washington Post thinks that a couple of spineless GOP RINOs has the administration running scared;

President Bush, facing a growing Republican revolt against his Iraq policy, has rejected calls to change course but will launch a campaign emphasizing his intent to draw down U.S. forces next year and move toward a more limited mission if security conditions improve, senior officials said yesterday.

Top administration officials have begun talking with key Senate Republicans to walk them through his view of the next phase in the war, beyond the troop increase he announced six months ago today. Bush plans to lay out what an aide called “his vision for the post-surge” starting in Cleveland today to assure the nation that he, too, wants to begin bringing troops home eventually.

The President isn’t explaining it to regular people because he’s afraid of a few pussies in the Senate – he’s explaining it to regular people because he has to talk above the caucaphony of idiots and morons in the press like Anne Flaherty.

Yeah, I know, she probably thinks she’s being patriotic by publishing every bit of contrary information she can dredge up. Apparently dissent is back in vogue – no matter what kind of damage they do to our worldwide reputation or to our national security. But, you’d think every once in a while she’d try to publish the absolute truth just to balance out her prejudices.

Category: Foreign Policy, Media, Politics, Terror War