President PeeWee sez,

"I mean't to do that!"

The problem with being an All Wise and Infallible Dear Leader who never admits error is that you must therefore have meant every single thing that has happened on your watch, and as the result of your orders, to happen. If you have made no mistakes in Iraq...then Iraq must be unfolding in exactly the way you had always intended that it should.

And when that’s the position from which you and your whole, lying Chickenhawk Army Ant swarm refuse to budge, Reality has a way of making you look like awful buffoons.

(Exactly the same reason, by the way, I have made it my life’s work to track down every prom picture of me in Christendom and destroy them.)

So for Big Time Fun, let’s hop into the WayBack Machine and look at what was happening waaay long ago last year.

You remember last year, right? There was this election? And about half the country was really pissed off and furious not only about how they’d been deceived by the Bush Administration into a war, but that the war (herewith dubbed Dubya Dubya Dubya -- or WWIII -- for the one man who has the distinction of managing to fuck up the Run-up, the Execution and the Aftermath of a war he was so hysterical to wage that he was willing to lie to trick us into it) was also now getting steadily worse.

A Bush two-fer.

The other half of the country, if I remember, had their heads snuggled so far and happily up their asses that the loud truth crashing to the ground all around them sounded like distant whispers swaddled in cotton. The President was Wise and Strong. Liberals were Liars. And the Bush answer to every clusterfuck that made it past the filters and into the headlines was a confident, Peewee Hermanesque, “We meant to do that.”

The Bush Administration – who had been so adamant and categorical and detailed-to-the-point-of-profligacy when it came to telling baldfaced lies in order to get us into Iraq – had suddenly gone completely Cone of Silence and Cloak of Invisibility when it came to sharing with the public (for whom they work ) any scrap of information about how the fuck we were going to get out of Iraq.

The best they could offer was a reassurance that, as the Iraqi Army became capable of defending itself and taking on the insurgents (who were in that post-"Dead Ender" but pre-"Last Throes" phase that so many insurgencies find so awkward), we’d be heading for the door with all deliberate speed.

So Pre-Election – almost one year ago to the day -- let’s see what we were being told about the troop strength of the Iraqi Army by no less than David H. Petraeus, the Army lieutenant general who commanded the Multinational Security Transition Command in Iraq (emphasis added.)

Battling for Iraq
By David H. Petraeus

Sunday, September 26, 2004; Page B07
BAGHDAD -- Helping organize, train and equip nearly a quarter-million of Iraq's security forces is a daunting task. Doing so in the middle of a tough insurgency increases the challenge enormously, making the mission akin to repairing an aircraft while in flight -- and while being shot at. Now, however, 18 months after entering Iraq, I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up.

...
In recent months, I have observed thousands of Iraqis in training and then watched as they have conducted numerous operations. Although there have been reverses -- not to mention horrific terrorist attacks -- there has been progress in the effort to enable Iraqis to shoulder more of the load for their own security, something they are keen to do.

...
Nonetheless, there are reasons for optimism. Today approximately 164,000 Iraqi police and soldiers (of which about 100,000 are trained and equipped) and an additional 74,000 facility protection forces are performing a wide variety of security missions. Equipment is being delivered. Training is on track and increasing in capacity. Infrastructure is being repaired. Command and control structures and institutions are being reestablished.

Most important, Iraqi security forces are in the fight -- so much so that they are suffering substantial casualties as they take on more and more of the burdens to achieve security in their country. Since Jan. 1 more than 700 Iraqi security force members have been killed, and hundreds of Iraqis seeking to volunteer for the police and military have been killed as well.

Six battalions of the Iraqi regular army and the Iraqi Intervention Force are now conducting operations. Two of these battalions, along with the Iraqi commando battalion, the counterterrorist force, two Iraqi National Guard battalions and thousands of policemen recently contributed to successful operations in Najaf. Their readiness to enter and clear the Imam Ali shrine was undoubtedly a key factor in enabling Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to persuade members of the Mahdi militia to lay down their arms and leave the shrine.

...
Within the next 60 days, six more regular army and six additional Intervention Force battalions will become operational. Nine more regular army battalions will complete training in January, in time to help with security missions during the Iraqi elections at the end of that month.

Iraqi National Guard battalions have also been active in recent months. Some 40 of the 45 existing battalions -- generally all except those in the Fallujah-Ramadi area -- are conducting operations on a daily basis, most alongside coalition forces, but many independently.

...
Momentum has gathered in recent months. With strong Iraqi leaders out front and with continued coalition -- and now NATO -- support, this trend will continue.

Now lets move the dial just a tick and see what George W. Bush himself swore was the truth on national teevee. During a certain televise debate you may have seen...over a year ago.

LEHRER: New question, Mr. President. Two minutes.
What criteria would you use to determine when to start bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq?

BUSH: Let me first tell you that the best way for Iraq to be safe and secure is for Iraqi citizens to be trained to do the job.

BUSH: And that's what we're doing. We've got 100,000 trained now, 125,000 by the end of this year, 200,000 by the end of next year. That is the best way. We'll never succeed in Iraq if the Iraqi citizens do not want to take matters into their own hands to protect themselves. I believe they want to. Prime Minister Allawi believes they want to.

And so the best indication about when we can bring our troops home -- which I really want to do, but I don't want to do so for the sake of bringing them home; I want to do so because we've achieved an objective -- is to see the Iraqis perform and to see the Iraqis step up and take responsibility.

Well the election has passed into ignoble history, and the budget to pay for world-class smoke and mirrors had to be cut to pay for the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska, so now that The Day has come, the day all drunks fear and hate -- the day your markers come due and you have to make good on all your wild promises -- what's the news?

Well, since you asked...

U.S. general: Single Iraqi unit is combat ready
New estimate of Iraq military capability calls U.S. pullout plan into question

The Associated Press
Updated: 2:47 p.m. ET Sept. 29, 2005

WASHINGTON - The number of Iraqi battalions capable of combat without U.S. support has dropped from three to one, the top American commander in Iraq told Congress Thursday, prompting Republicans to question whether U.S. troops will be able to withdraw next year.

Gen. George Casey, softening his previous comments that a “fairly substantial” pullout could begin next spring and summer, told lawmakers that troops might begin coming home from Iraq next year depending on conditions during and after the upcoming elections there.

“The next 75 days are going to be critical for what happens,” Casey told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Bush administration says training Iraqi security forces to defend their own country is the key to bringing home U.S. troops. But Republicans pressed Casey on whether the United States was backsliding in its efforts to train Iraqis.

In June, the Pentagon told lawmakers that three Iraqi battalions were fully trained, equipped and capable of operating independently. On Thursday, Casey said only one battalion is ready.

“It doesn’t feel like progress,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Despite the drop, Casey hailed significant progress in training Iraqi security forces and noted that U.S. troops are embedded with more Iraqi units in mentoring roles than before. “Have we lost ground? Absolutely not,” Casey said.

...

Ok, someone needs to kick the record player, ‘cause the needle’s stuck.

Either that or we are in stranded in the middle of the Groundhog Day War, where...

...it will always be a few months from now that we’ll begin to see progress.

...the insurgents are always ramping up for a specific, political deadline, but will die down after that.

... sure, to the untutored eye it might look like we are all a bunch of lying, murderous bastards who act as if y’all are too dumb to tell the different a yummy soufflé and a burning cat, but we’re always turning the corner, or right on the very tippy-tippy verge of turning the corner.

...it's always “a period of uncertainly” and too soon to tell if we’re making great progress, despite that fact that the current “period of uncertainty” was last month’s date by which we will definitely be able to judge whether or not we’ve turned that ever-receding-as-in-a-nightmare corner.

It’s like being a fucking Cubs fan...except for all the people getting killed and the nation being bankrupted before our eyes because of the lies and criminal incompetence of George W. Bush.

So as was pathetically obvious in the run-up to this debacle, so is true in the aftermath:

1. The more detailed, concrete and absolutely certain Administration Spokesminions come off, the more you know they are lying their asses off, and...

2. Somehow, some way, the GOP and their fucktard rank-and-file will invent a reason to explain to themselves why this is all Bill Clinton’s fault.


You're doin’ a heckuva job, Bushie!