Analysis: "Fact checking Bush speech."

"In doses of rhetoric hard to square with facts in the region, Bush portrayed the ordinary people of the Middle East as being behind U.S. goals in Iraq, in his speech to the nation Wednesday night.

"And he declared the need to address Iran's and Syria's support for insurgents, without acknowledging his refusal to engage either country diplomatically, as many U.S. allies and the Iraq Study Group proposed."

"-Bush declared "al-Qaida is still active in Iraq" and a failed U.S. mission would give such terrorists a safe haven from which to plot attacks against Americans.

"Although few quarrel with that appraisal now, it is also the case that Iraq - contrary to assertions at the time - was not a magnet for al-Qaida before the U.S. invasion."

Etc.

It gets worse. Another fact-checking article.

"In his remarks, Mr. Bush compared the roles played by Iraqi forces in coalition-led assaults on a pair of insurgent strongholds. He noted that, when coalition forces swept into Fallujah last year, American forces did virtually all of the combat and used the Iraqis mainly as backup. During the recent battle in Tal Afar, by contrast, Iraqi forces outnumbered American ones and 'primarily led' the assault, Mr. Bush said.

"But experts warned against extrapolating too heavily from the Tal Afar assault. They noted that Iraqi forces used in the attack were battle-hardened Kurdish fighters, not new recruits trained by Americans. Iraqi forces played an active role, but the experts said American commanders planned the overall assault and sent U.S. forces into areas where the insurgent presence was believed strongest."

Arf