Meanwhile, back at the war

WASHINGTON — A nearly completed high-level U.S. intelligence analysis warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the major security and political gains achieved over the last year.

Meaning we're not going to see any kind of 'victory' anytime soon.

U.S. officials familiar with the new National Intelligence Estimate said they were unsure when the top-secret report would be completed and whether it would be published before the Nov. 4 presidential election.

How very ... odd.

More than a half-dozen officials spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because NIE's, the most authoritative analyses produced by the U.S. intelligence community, are restricted to the president, his senior aides and members of Congress except in rare instances when just the key findings are made public.

Apparently Cheney still has the ability to have people and their families disappeared.

The new NIE, which reflects the consensus of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, has significant implications for Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, whose differences over the Iraq war are a major issue in the presidential campaign.

The findings seem to cast doubts on McCain's frequent assertions that the United States is "on a path to victory" in Iraq by underscoring the deep uncertainties of the situation despite the 30,000-strong U.S. troop surge for which he was the leading congressional advocate.

I still want a definition of what 'victory' is. To McCain it's apparently defined by not leaving. If we leave, it's defeat, like we were defeated in Vietnam... because we left. If we stay for a thousand years, no one can call it defeat because we haven't left.

It's aspirational!

Don't call it a plain ol' timeline! Cuz it's not! Even though it is! Not. Even though al-Maliki says it is. He's wrong. It's aspirational.

So we can change the date anytime we choose. So we can stay there for 100 years. 10,000 years. Something to kinda sorta aspire to when we want to kinda thing. Because leaving is defeat! And staying forever is victory! Aspirational.


Who did they lock in a cupboard until he came up with that term, anyway?

Define winning.

Describe how victory will be achieved:

ORLANDO — John McCain told the nation's largest veterans group Monday that both he and Barack Obama want to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq, but "the great difference is that I intend to win it first."

McCain assailed Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, for saying he still would have opposed the 2007 U.S. troop build-up in Iraq.

"Even in retrospect, he would choose the path of retreat and failure for America over the path of success and victory," McCain said.

This is still about leaving Vietnam, isn't it?

Excuse me, sir. Win what?

Define winning in Iraq. Anybody? General Petraeus?:

His pacification of Mosul proved short-lived. The rapid, $19-billion Iraqi force buildup produced, on his watch, battalions impressive for the numbers trained and the huge arsenal of weapons handed over by the Americans, but the Iraqi soldiers were often unreliable, and their units prone to infiltration by militias when deployed.

Now, in the face of a stubbornly brutal conflict and declining war support at home, General Petraeus has pulled back from the pulsating sense of self-confidence that fellow officers say has been his hallmark — that he can prevail against any odds.

He has become strikingly cautious, avoiding on-the-record comments on many politically contentious issues. Shunning generalizations on the war in interviews, he lays out colored charts and graphs that show falling numbers of suicide attacks, other bombings and civilian casualties, when comparing January’s figures with those in June and July. But he eludes anything that might signal what broader conclusions he will be carrying to Washington in September.

His caution extends to the most fundamental question: whether the war can still be won. “Obviously, what we’re going to try and do is win it,” he says. “What we’re trying to do right now is generate enough hope to give it a chance. But the problem is, it’s likely to muddle along for quite a long time.” A campaign plan the general and Ambassador Crocker recently sent to Washington envisages an American troop presence of some size here at least through 2009.

What does winning in Iraq mean? An undivided country? Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites all working together in harmony? No bombs? No al-Qaeda? A functional democracy? Hitting January 20, 2009? What? How do you define winning?

When, if ever, will our troops be able to come home?