Bush Declares Complete Success for Surge

from New York Times, May 30, 2007
(Washington, D.C.) -

President Bush declared today that the Iraqi surge strategy had succeeded completely, and again called on the Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress to send him a clean bill free of any restraints whatsoever on his authority to conduct the war as he sees fit. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney both expressed increasing impatience with an intractable Democratic leadership which insists on tying any further funding for the war to timelines and benchmarks.

"There's no reasons at all at these junctures to just go on with benchmarking and timelining," the President said to the press corps gathered in the Rose Garden. "Our troops is not a contingent which can be, or will, holding hostage as part of politics, and believe me, I know about politicking in this town, but wherever there's indications our strategies has leaped our mission forward, folks see these suiciders with their fabulous exploding cars and then sort of lose the vision."

In later comments at the Capitol rotunda following a meeting with Republican Congressional leaders, the Vice President summarized the Administration's position with typical concision: "These treasonous rats in the Democratic leadership need to hand over the dough pronto. The mission is a complete success."

Reports from Baghdad in fact have demonstrated a remarkable turnaround since the introduction of additional troops in the early part of this year. The numbers for sectarian fatalities caused by death squads and militias, deaths by exploding car bombs, overall Iraqi civilian deaths and the casualty figures for American troops are all significantly reduced. Indeed, the latest reports indicate the same metric for each category, namely, zero.

"We've really turned the corner," a jubilant General David Petraeus exulted in a press conference held in the Green Zone. "No one is dying here anymore, even from natural causes. The surge has brought what some had called a 'civil war' completely under control."

Congressman Henry Waxman (Dem., Los Angeles) pointed out that the rosy reports were in large part due to a change in recording fatalities and acts of violence in and around Baghdad. "The Bush Administration has instituted a policy of not counting any fatalities at all," a clearly exasperated Waxman complained at a hastily called conference outside his office. "It started by not counting deaths from car bombs, and then the Iraqi government stopped reporting civilian deaths, and when the press let them get away with that, they stopped counting all the bodies picked up on the street every morning, then anyone else found dead, and then Defense stopped reporting any American casualties. So of course it looks good, but it doesn't bear any resemblance to reality."

Congressman Waxman, a persistent administration critic, has often taken positions contrary to Bush policies, and it was not immediately clear whether his criticism represented the consensus view of the Democratic caucus. It was clear, however, that the strong improvement in conditions in Baghdad would increase pressure on the Democratic leadership to pass a funding bill with no strings attached.