Daily Scold: Bush on Iraq being "worth it"

Earlier this week, our illustrious president told the country that the war in Iraq has been worth it, saying that "the world is better, and the United States of America is safer."

Sadly, The Scold's previous coverage of post-surge Iraq has been pretty shallow, missing one hell of a big picture:

· No weapons of mass destruction, the finding and dismantling of which was the war's most important goal
· Massive mismanagement of the initial reconstruction effort by anti-intelligent U.S. officials like Paul "Retardito McDumbsalot" Bremer.
· A complete, utter, gaspingly incorrect assumption of what would happen after "shock and awe," courtesy of His Excellency Donald "Cocky McBastardson" Rumsfeld and the unforgettable Paul "Ratty Teeth McGreasealot" Wolfowitz.
· An absolutely mind-boggling, eye-popping level of military unpreparedness in terms of logistics for long-term occupation, counter-insurgency tactics and cultural sensitivity training.
· A lack of high-level responsibility and competence so extreme, that to give a full and complete accounting of the number of American soldiers lost as a result, would kill most patriotic adults by creating excess buildup of disgust and indignant bile in their throats.

Did I miss anything? Oh right, April looms:

· A staggering TAXPAYER price tag of $500 billion and counting that didn't pay for up-armored Humvees or bulletproof vests fast enough for many American soldiers who died too young; and if the patriots reading this post aren't choking on bile yet, this is a $500 billion war that's rubbed deserts of scalding hot salt into the wounds of American veterans, who must suffer not only problems like PTSD, but also disgraces like Walter Reed and shameful behavior by Army and Veterans Affairs personnel.

What else could $500 billion have done? Say for victims of genocide in Darfur? Or for AIDS research? Or for renewable, green energy research to wean us off of fossil fuels? Or for my prize collection of old, obscure Playstation games?


Ah, the Iraq surge. The addition of 30,000 U.S. troops has dropped violence by 60% in places like Baghdad, which was the site of daily suicide bombings prior to the surge. In Sunni strongholds like Anbar province (a place preceded by the adjective "volatile" in most news reports before the surge), that figure is even higher.

But while Bush tried to paint the surge as a single, master stroke that represents a fundamental, permanent turning of the tide, the surge is anything but.

It's not just 30,000 more troops, it's the addition of Gen. David Petraeus, who proved himself the right man for the job five long years ago, when he led the 101st Airborne to great effect in northern Iraq even as the rest of the country was knee-deep in blood and bombs.

Petraeus wrote the book on modern counter-insurgency, urging his soldiers to leave their ultra-safe bases to mingle with the Iraqi people. "The objective, he repeats over and over, is no longer to take a hill or storm a citadel, but to win over the people," according to Newsweek's latest story on the "Petraeus generation" of young officers who know how to run a counter-insurgency.

Many U.S. soldiers on the ground are now seasoned veterans who know how things work after repeated tours of duty; the level of experience, particularly among mid-level officers. Many former Sunni insurgents are now being paid to work with U.S. and coalition forces, though they still complain about being marginalized by the Iraqi central government, especially when they must work with the Shiite-dominated Iraqi police and Army forces.

Oh, and remember the Iraqi government's passage of three laws that my colleagues Jeff Hartline and Horace Johnson hailed as "groundbreaking?"

We're one-for-three. The Iraqis did pass a law granting amnesty to Sunnis that were languishing in jails for little reason other than being Sunnis. But an absolutely critical law concerning how the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds would share Iraq's oil wealth is stalled. And a much-touted law that calls for provincial elections by October was passed by Parliament, only to be vetoed by Iraq's Presidency Council. It took an in-person visit from none other than vice president Dick "Darth Vader McShotgunsPeopleALot" Cheney to convince Iraqi legislators to reconsider the law.

So much for progress. Remember when John McCain said Iraq could well be a conflict that would require U.S. involvement for 100 years? Well, let's just say he was being honest until he was forced to be political.