Refugees

"There are now an estimated 2.4 million Iraqi refugees - mostly in Syria and Jordan - and 2.7 million more Iraqis displaced within their own country. The United States bears direct responsibility, and it needs to do a lot more to help these people survive and find safe refuge, back in Iraq or in other countries. It also needs to - humbly and urgently - ask its allies in Europe, Asia and the region for help. Beyond the intolerable human suffering, huge flows of refugees could spread Iraq's conflict far beyond its own borders. This is not a problem that can continue to be ignored.
 
An Honest Assessment of Iraq's Army

"This White House has been spinning on Iraq for so long that we suppose we should thank Mr. Maliki for his recent reality check: his decision to send Iraqi forces into Basra to oust militias loyal to the radical cleric Moqtda al-Sadr.
 
"It was not a pretty sight. One thousand Iraqi soldiers and police officers refused to fight or deserted their posts. The battle ended with no winner and only after the Iranians helped broker a cease-fire. President Bush and General Petraeus owe the country a rigorous and honest assessment of the American training program, starting with what went wrong in Basra. What needs to be changed now to increase the chances that the Iraqi Army will eventually be able to fight its own battles? How long, realistically, will it take for that to happen? [Maliki has since dismissed the deserters while Al-Sadr says that they should not be]
 
Failure of the Surge;

"The surge was supposed to give Iraqi politicians breathing room to make necessary political reforms. They still have not agreed on a law to equitably divide the country's oil wealth, or rules for this fall's provincial elections.-- The performances in Washington last week merely confirmed what the Iraqis knew: the president is just playing out his string.
 
"--Mr. Bush's capacity for denial is limitless. Perhaps he believes that the next president will continue this misadventure without any end in mind, let alone in sight –"
 
Bush Approval Hits Another Low

Two recent polls put Bush's job approval at all-time lows, with Gallup finding that Bush has dropped below his father's all-time low, has tied Jimmy Carter's all-time low, and looks good only by comparison to Richard Nixon and Harry Truman at their nadirs. Reported Gallup: "President George W. Bush's job approval rating has dropped to 28%, the lowest of his administration. . . .
 
"Bush's low rating in the current poll is the result of an extraordinarily low average approval rating from Democrats, a low level of support from independents, and support from just two-thirds of his base of Republicans. . .
 .
"Bush's current 28% job approval rating is at the very low end of the spectrum of approval ratings Gallup has recorded across the 11 presidents in office since World War II."

It is quite clear that the 'Surge 'was only an excuse for not taking a decision on not planning a withdrawal. David Fiderer noted in Huffington Post , The surge is playing out exactly as the Baker-Hamilton Commission said it would. The "progress" in Iraq is ephemeral, if not cosmetic. As the Commission, also known as the Iraq Study Group (ISG) said last year:
 
"Sustained increases in U.S. troop levels would not solve the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq, which is the absence of national reconciliation. A senior American general told us that adding U.S. troops might temporarily help limit violence in a highly localized area. However, past experience indicates that the violence would simply rekindle as soon as U.S. forces are moved to another area. As another American general told us, if the Iraqi government does not make political progress, not ‘all the troops in the world will provide security.' Meanwhile, America's military capacity is stretched thin: we do not have the troops or equipment to make a substantial, sustained increase in our troop presence. Increased deployments to Iraq would also necessarily hamper our ability to provide adequate resources for our efforts in Afghanistan or respond to crises around the world."
 
The Republican contender for the US presidency Sen. John McCain, who had rejected the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group in favor of Bush's surge, continues to conflate the different warring factions into a single "enemy" acting on behalf of Iran. His mouthpiece, Lindsay Graham, told Fox News recently
 
"I applaud the Maliki government for taking on Iranian-backed militia... The Iranians are killing Americans. They've aligned themselves with the Shiia Mahdi army. The Badr Brigade is not the problem."
 
ISG had said, "The Badr Brigade is affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which is led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. The Badr Brigade has long-standing ties with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Many Badr members have become integrated into the Iraqi police, and others play policing roles in southern Iraqi cities. While wearing the uniform of the security services, Badr fighters have targeted Sunni Arab civilians. Badr fighters have also clashed with the Mahdi Army, particularly in southern Iraq." {So what is new .Bush did not know the difference between Shiias and Sunnis until a month before the March 2003 invasion}