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Bush's Double Talk on IraqA close reading of the president's latest speech.

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Thursday, April 10, 2008, at 3:58 PM ET
George W. Bush. Click image to expand.

President George W. Bush delivered his latest statement on Iraq today, and the main question at this point is whether he instructed the speechwriters to be mendacious or merely shallow.

It was a short speech, so let's take it from the top.

As a result of the surge, Bush said, "a major strategic shift has occurred. Fifteen months ago, America and the Iraqi government were on the defensive; today we have the initiative."

This isn't really true. Yes, "progress"—tactical progress—has been made. But U.S. and especially Iraqi forces are still, by and large, responding to crises when and where they occur. The recent (and unusual) attempt at taking the initiative—the offensive in Basra, which Bush last week called "a defining moment"—played out badly, as Gen. David Petraeus admitted at his Senate hearing on Tuesday. The operation revealed that the Iraqi army is nowhere close to being capable of leading a major fight, and it confirmed that the Iraqi police are nearly hopeless.

"Fifteen months ago," Bush said today, "extremists were sowing sectarian violence; today, many mainstream Sunni and Shia are actively confronting the extremists."

Here's where the mendacity comes in. Take a close look at those two sentences. They are not necessarily contrasts. Last year, extremists "were sowing violence." That doesn't mean they're not sowing violence now. Today, mainstream Muslims are "actively confronting the extremists." That doesn't mean they're defeating them. Nor does Bush define mainstream or extremist. Militias of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq fought alongside Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's army against the rival Shiite militia of Muqtada Sadr. ISCI and Sadr both have close ties to Iran. ISCI is allied with Maliki; Sadr is much more popular among the Shiite population, especially in southern Iraq. In this context, mainstream and extremist are loaded, if meaningless, terms. And how about our new friends in the Sunni Awakening? A year ago, they were "extremists" (because they were shooting at Americans). Now are they "mainstream" (because they're not)? Maybe they're mainstream to us, but not to many Shiites.

"Gen. Petraeus has reported," Bush said today, "that security conditions have improved enough to withdraw all five surge brigades by the end of July."

I hope a few people on the speechwriting team blushed when they penned this passage. Those five surge brigades were going to pull out this July no matter what the situation in Iraq happened to be. Their 15-month tours of deployment will be up by then; they will go home; the Army has no combat brigades ready to replace them. This was always the calculation. It's the product of arithmetic, not policy.

Accepting Petraeus' recommendation to assess conditions before making any further withdrawals, Bush said, "Some have suggested that this period of evaluation will be a 'pause.' That's misleading, because none of our operations in Iraq will be on hold."

No, that's misleading because nobody has suggested that this will be a "pause" in operations—only in further withdrawals. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who was in the audience today (and who I hope blushed when he heard this line), has himself used the word pause.

"Prime Minister Maliki's government," Bush said today, "has launched operations in Basra that make clear a free Iraq will no longer tolerate the lawlessness by Iranian-backed militias."

That's one interpretation—though if that's his story, it's too bad, because under those terms, the Basra militias have won. Maliki went into the offensive, demanding that militias surrender their arms. A few days later, he agreed to a cease-fire (negotiated with the assistance of the Iranians) that let the militias keep their weapons. Another interpretation is that Maliki and ISCI went into Basra to destroy Sadr's base of support before the upcoming provincial elections. He failed on that score as well. And, as noted earlier, both ISCI and Sadr's Mahdi Army are "Iranian-backed."

"As Iraqis assume the primary role in providing security," Bush assured us, "American forces will increasingly focus on targeted raids against the terrorists and extremists."

The key word here is the first word in the sentence: as. As the Iraqis take on "the primary role," we'll reduce our role. The Iraqis are not close to doing this now. So we won't be shifting down for the foreseeable future, either.

On their way back to Iraq, Bush announced, Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will visit Saudi Arabia, while senior U.S. diplomats will brief "the leaders in Jordan, the UAE, and Qatar, and Kuwait and Egypt."

That's good, but the elephants in the room are Iran and Syria—the border states whose involvement will be key to any settlement in Iraq. No Bush official is visiting those countries. (It might be a good idea to stop by in Turkey as well.) This means the consultations with the others will come to naught.

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Fred Kaplan is Slate's "War Stories" columnist and the author of Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power. He can be reached at .
Photograph of George W. Bush by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images.
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