I wrote and posted this a while back but with a slow news day and nothing changing since I posted it I felt it was due again.

Iraq Intelligence report

The bleak future in Iraq is very un-settling and we are still lacking the fundamental truth from this Administration leaving many to wonder if they talk to each other. Last week on Meet the Press, Vice President Cheney rejected the outrageous suggestions of the dangerous state of affairs in Iraq. He said “The reality on the ground is, we've made major progress.”

He said this despite President Bush's acknowledging only last month that his strategy had failed so far. Failed indeed, has this President finally admitted a mistake? Mark that one for the history books before they re-write them.

Yesterday the Administration publicly released three and a half pages of a ninety page report, I repeat three and a half pages of a ninety page report from a National Intelligence Council report that both Democrats and many Republicans say is evidence that President Bush's Iraq policy is failing. Failing would be an understatement since the only policy so far seems to be for the troops to ride around waiting to draw fire.

The report clearly says that Iraq is spiraling downward and likely to get worse over the next eighteen months. This is of course no recent revelation to most Americans and the rest of the world. Even Republicans such as Michigan's Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the leading Republican on the House Intelligence Committee firmly said, “The estimate makes clear that we cannot continue the same stubborn strategy that has brought us to this point.” It should be pointed out that this strategy comes from President Bush.

Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada said, “I do not see anything so far in the report that suggests the president's new plan is a winning strategy that protects America's national interest.”

I have long called the drastic situation in Iraq a civil war but the comprehensive report states that calling it a civil war was hardly sufficient. It does not adequately capture the complexity of the existing conflict in Iraq. John E. McLaughlin who as acting director of the central intelligence in 2004 said, “Civil war is checkers, this is chess,”

A man of even limited intelligence will bail water out of a sinking boat. Is this what President Bush seems to be doing? With the cost already topping three hundred and sixty billion dollars and Bush wanting another two hundred and forty five billion plus 21,500 more troops just to secure Baghdad and this does not even take into consideration the over three thousand and eighty already dead which is rising daily at an alarming rate, the many thousands wounded so badly they cannot return to service or the unknown number of civilian losses. It makes one wonder…isn’t it time to start bail out the boat before it sinks.