So the president and the general say that things are starting to improve in Iraq, and what happens? The civilian security contractor Blackwater gets into a firefight and a bunch of Iraqi civilians are killed and Iraqis get so restive that all U.S. personnel are ordered not to venture out of the infamous Green Zone, which is heavily but not perfectly fortified. That's not exactly huge progress in the winning hearts and minds department.
I don't know more than what has been in the news about the incident, which means I don't know very much for sure. I have a book about Blackwater I've been meaning to get around to, but several other books have managed to get ahead of it in the queue.
I'm not saying the president and the general were necessarily lying, but they certainly put a more optimistic spin on things than was likely warranted. It's nice to hear that they didn't move opinion polls, but it's hard to see how the numbers in Congress are likely to create the possibility of doing anything other than what the Bushlet decides to do.
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