by James Glaser
June 29, 2005

I keep hearing different stories about what is going on in Iraq. This morning there was a General on television saying that things were going much better now, than last year at this time. President Bush was on television this last week telling the nation that things are going better and then there was the statement by Dick Cheney saying that the insurgency in Iraq was in its "last throes."

Because of falling public support for Bush's war, the White House has pulled out all stops in trying to sound upbeat and positive, while ignoring the rising American death totals and the over one thousand dead Iraqi civilians, who have died since the new Iraqi Government was formed at the end of April.

On Sunday, our Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld told the nation that the Iraqi insurgency might take another dozen years to defeat. Then there was the testimony of General John P. Abizaid, before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday and he said that the insurgency was every bit as strong as it was six months ago and that foreign fighters were still crossing into Iraq to fight Americans.

All of these people are leaders of our nation and should know what the heck is going on in our war in Iraq. I know last month was close to being the deadliest month for both American troops and Iraqi civilians since the war started. Sounding upbeat might hold Bush's base together, but as more and more American troops come home in a box or a wheel chair, support will continue to fall and the mixed message coming out of Washington does nothing to instill confidence in the war effort or our government.

What the American people want is honesty out of Washington, and even the staunchest of Right Wingers can see that some of the people from our government who are expressing views on the war this week were wrong. Either the insurgency is still strong and may take more than a decade to defeat, or everything is looking good and we should be sending troops home in the near future, George and Dick have the rosy picture and Rumsfeld and General Abizaid are pessimistic, both can't be right. Pick a side, you have a 50% chance of being right.