We KNOW this is going to happen. Now we just get to sit back and watch.

"September could be key deadline in war. Lawmakers call for proof of progress by this fall."

"Congressional leaders from both political parties are giving President Bush a matter of months to prove that the Iraq war effort has turned a corner, with September looking increasingly like a decisive deadline."

Now, we all know that in September the propaganda machine will be running at 110%. The statistics will be jiggered, by leaving out things like car bombs, man-portable bombs, people who died in aid stations ("poor treatment", not the insurgency the cause of death), and so on. Since the average life expectancy in Iraq must have dropped to about 41, anyone over that will be deemed to have died of "old age", not bullets, or drill bits through the head, or 500# bombs, rockets or artillery.

Except that some of those will have been militants, unsurgents. Those bastards even enlist pregnant women and 2 year old children in their ranks so killing them is a measure of the effectiveness of the new strategy.

And 360,000, or 10,000,000 or whatever figure crosses their minds, that many new Iraqi police, really, really good policemen, no women, will have been ALMOST trained, really, really well trained as only 2 to 3 years of training can train, and ready to come on line, be operationally independent, and have promised to shoot at the bad guys, not US or each other. Sincerely promised, crossed their hearts and hope to die promise.

The situation will be painted as it always has, progress, steady progress, we're "five minutes from the miracle" kind of progress. And slowing this progress would lead to catastrophe. Just wait until the Iraqis stand up.

The same old "GOOD NEWS" nonsense with which we've always been flooded, with GWB thinking if he says it over and over and over and over someone has to believe him.

Kinda comical, really, if one disregards the human misery these folks have inflicted upon the Middle East AND their own country.

Arf