After almost 8 years, you still don't get it do you? Bush knows Iraq is a disaster, but it's all about the blame game, and the president is using all the tools at his dispodal--demagoguery, bluster, and delay tactics--to ward off a rational discussion about what to do next in Mesopotamia and saddle others with the responsibility of his own failure. Sure, nobody in a position of power is really advocating an immediate pullout. Sure the withdrawal is inevitable. But Bush and his thugs convinced Americans that John Kerry was a wishy-washy draft dodger. Wasn't he? They claimed John McCain fathered an illegitimate (black) child. Didn't he? Do you think he has any problem blaming Congress, Maliki, the French et al for what happened in Iraq? Bush's unwillingness to grasp reality is less a function of his stupidity or stubborness than his unparalelled instinct for self-preservation. It's the same game he's been playing his whole presidency--never accept blame OR responsibility when things go wrong (that's for losers); never change course (that shows weakness); always take credit for what goes right (the perogative of the privileged). Bush has played out his hand so now he's got to bluff his way through the next 6 months. As he sees it, that's his only choice-- because the ONLY thing that matters to him is retaining the tattered remains of his "legacy."

The fact is, Bush and his Commanders, along with the Secretary of Defense Gates who once served on the Baker-Hamilton Commission, are all fully aware since they contributed in some way to the Baker Report that 1st Quarter 2008 is the general time frame to begin withdrawing combat troops, conditions on the ground permitting. President Bush announced yesterday from the ground in Iraq that if conditions on the ground continue to improve as they have under the Surge that troops would soon be leaving Iraq. Its no secret that we'd enter a new phase in the war with the Surge having had a positive impact on paving the way for political reconciliation and other needed change in Iraq. The Baker Report does state however that a significant number of forces will remain in Iraq and in the region for training purposes, and to continue the fight with alQaida elements. There isn't a magic date but the Commanders on the ground have a general idea and hopefully won't publish exact dates of those withdrawls. Some British troops were withdrawn recently in the dead of night without press notification for obvious reasons, operational security.

So all this posturing and political spin on the left is to pretend there is no strategy in place for entering the next phase and for troop withdrawls, when in fact there is.

Read the Baker Report. Read what one of the authors of the Surge has stated publicly, General Keane, and listen to the upcoming testimony of the Commanders on the Ground in Iraq on September 11th. First Quarter 2008 isn't for a few more months yet and they'll be asking for more time from those demanding troops withdraw before the Surge mission is complete - - not to be confused with troop rotations which some will also try to exploit to show deviation between the 1st Quarter 2008 time frame and troop rotation execution. The spin is going to be wild, especially from the left as they try to diminish the success of the troops and paint their homecoming as a failed war.