Bush To Tout Iraqi Troop Preparedness. Too Bad It's Not True

President Bush plans to give a major speech next week in which he is expected to herald the improved readiness of Iraqi troops, which he has identified as the key condition for pulling out U.S. forces.

The scheduled Nov. 30 speech in Annapolis, Md., comes on the heels of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice applauding the rapid training of Iraqi soldiers, and claiming that the current number of U.S. troops in Iraq probably would not be needed much longer.

Do you smell a spin campaign?

Let's start with the basics. There is no statistical evidence to back up the claims. As recently as late September, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., who oversees U.S. forces in Iraq, said very few Iraqi troops had "Level 1" readinees. Senators were not happy to hear that just one of Iraq's 86 army battalions is ready to fight on its own.

When asked when U.S. troops might be able to withdraw, Casey said, "It's not going to be like throwing a switch where all of a sudden, one day, the Iraqis are in charge."

But is it possible that Iraqi troops could have improved by leaps and bounds over the past two months? Don't buy that spin. Although some Iraqi units have sharply improved their capabilities, Gary J. Schmitt, a director at the conservative-friendly American Enterprise Institute, told the Los Angeles Times that "to get a force that is really effective requires a lot more experience than this army is likely to have for years."

So what are we left with? The administration misled us into this war by favoring a political strategy over questionable "intelligence," and now it wants to mislead us out of Iraq by ... favoring a political strategy over questionable "intelligence."

***

The question now is which force is more powerful -- the desire among Americans to win the war, or the desire among Americans to bring home the troops.

With the U.S. death toll recently crossing 2,000, and with new questions about what the administration knew about the credibility of pre-war "intelligence, an increasing percentage of Americans believe that Bush misled the nation into war.

This administration will never admit that it cares about polls. But the reality is that the 2006 mid-term elections are rapidly approaching, and the longer that Bush's overall popularity -- and more specifically, the popularity of his Iraq policy -- remains low, the harder it will be for Republicans to maintain control of the House and the Senate.

The Bush Administration and the conservative noise machine can keep false claiming that the Democrats believe in a "cut and run" Iraq policy. They can keep saying that the Democrats are treasonous. The polls suggest the American people know better.

The truth is that mainstream Democrats -- Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, recent presidential nominee John Kerry and Sen. Joseph Biden, the senior party representative on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- have called for a gradual withdrawal, predicated on increased international responsibility and increased training of Iraqi security.

The Bush plan doesn't want additional international help. But everyone agrees that Iraqi troops have to be self-sufficient.

***

It may be up to the Democrats -- and consciencious Republicans like Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- to straddle the difficult political line between supporting a popular strategy to start bringing troops home next year and demanding evidence of Iraqi self-sufficiency before troop withdrawals begin.

What happens if our troops start withdrawing before the Democrat-led coalition believes the Iraqis are self-sufficient?

The irony is that the same conservative pundits who have long claimed Democrats favor "cut and run" would suddenly be advocating such a policy, and spinning that the Democrats are obstacles to a successful Bush war.

***

This item first appeared at Journalists Against Bush's B.S.

For what it's worth.