Political Skullduggery

The administration continues, despite evidence to the contrary, to insist that the ill-fated U.S. endeavor in Iraq will result in victory.

It all depends on the meaning of the word "victory."

The glass is looking more than half full to the true believers.

The administration could take heart this weekend from the relatively small antiwar protests around the country, compared with protests held on the previous anniversaries of the invasion. An estimated 7,000 people demonstrated in Chicago on Saturday and smaller protests were held over the weekend in Boston, San Francisco and other cities. In Times Square, the figure was about 1,000.

Now is not the time for Americans to go wobbly on the war, insisted Bush yesterday.

Bush, speaking on the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, assured Americans that his administration is pursuing a strategy "that will lead to victory in Iraq," an outcome about which polls show the public is increasingly skeptical.

The omniscient Vice President Cheney proved that he knows more about the situation on the ground in Iraq than people in that country who are not neo-cons.

Cheney, meanwhile, dismissed assertions made by former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi that the nation is in the throes of civil war. He said Iraq is holding together as a new constitutional democracy even as terrorists are desperately trying to cause its dissolution...

Cheney also dismissed a statement by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who said the war in Iraq should never have been fought: "I would not look to Ted Kennedy for guidance and leadership on how we ought to manage national security. . . . I think what Senator Kennedy reflects is sort of the pre-9/11 mentality about how we ought to deal with the world and that part of the world."

But CBS anchor Bob Schieffer bluntly challenged Cheney on his own string of prognostications, such as his pre-invasion assertion that U.S. troops would be welcomed in Iraq as liberators and, 10 months ago, that the insurgency was in its "last throes."

Cheney replied that those statements were "basically accurate and reflect reality," but that public perceptions of Iraq's progress are being skewed "because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad."

Again linking the war in Iraq to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Cheney called the conflict part of "an aggressive, forward-leaning" strategy that has since prevented terrorist incidents in the United States.

Only a psychopath would imagine that we haven't created more rather than less danger for Americans by our war of aggression against Iraq.

While not bothered by the opinions of the American public or Democratic lawmakers, the White House is growing concerned about increasing misgivings about the war on the part of their Republican allies in Washington.

As the administration offered optimistic appraisals of the war's progress, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a frequent administration critic who is weighing a run for president in 2008, echoed Allawi's assessment, saying that Iraq is already in the midst of a "low-grade civil war."

"I think it's important that we stop this talk about we're not going to leave until we achieve victory," Hagel said on ABC's "This Week." "Well, what is victory? We achieved victory: Saddam's gone, the Iraqis have a constitution, they had an election, it's now up to them."

The semantic challenge of defining down "victory" in Iraq may prove to be one of the most important battles, at least politically, that Republicans will face during the next several election cycles.