What if Bush and Cheney ARE delusional?

[Art]

Bush's wishful thinking heralds yet another false dawn.

Now this is delusional!

Bush upbeat on Iraq security plan

US President George W Bush has said early indications suggest a security operation begun in Iraq more than two months ago was "meeting expectations".
Mr Bush said that, while there were still horrific attacks such as Wednesday's bombings, the direction of the fight was "beginning to shift".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6577689.stm

The reality;

MNF deaths

Period US UK Other* Total Avg Days

• 4-2007 69 10 0 79 3.76 21
• 3-2007 81 1 0 82 2.65 31
• 2-2007 80 3 1 84 3 28
• 1-2007 83 3 0 86 2.77 31

Iraqi Security Forces and Civilian Deaths
Period Total
Apr-07 1065 (21 days)
Mar-07 1889
Feb-07 1531
Jan-07 1802

Note: Iraqi deaths based on news reports . This is not a definitive count. Actual totals for Iraqi deaths are higher than the numbers recorded on this site.

http://www.icasualties.org/oif/ I doubt the MNF or the Iraqis can take much more of this success.

 

[BobG]

Now this is delusional!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6577689.stm

The reality;
http://www.icasualties.org/oif/ I doubt the MNF or the Iraqis can take much more of this success.

Well, in one sense, the direction of the fight is beginning to shift: Sunni rebels battling al-Qaida

Of course, a report that the civil war is going well is dropping the definition of optimism pretty low when your goal is to avoid a civil war.

 

[Astronuc]

Well, in one sense, the direction of the fight is beginning to shift: Sunni rebels battling al-Qaida

Of course, a report that the civil war is going well is dropping the definition of optimism pretty low when your goal is to avoid a civil war.

If one is in the middle of a civil war, and the goal was to avoid a civil war, then that would seem to indicate failure.

On the other hand, if the goal of the Bush administration is to depopulate Iraq, they are certainly succeeding in that.

 

[Art]

More on Bush's current illusion that his surge plan is working;

Despair stalks Baghdad as plan falters
By Andrew North
BBC News, Baghdad

Trying to get into the centre of Baghdad earlier this week offered one view of how far away the Americans and Iraqi authorities are from gaining control here.
We were at the airport. Just before we were due to leave, the entrance car park was hit by a car bomb.

US troops and private security forces who guard the perimeter locked the whole area down for the next four hours. No traffic was allowed in or out.

While we waited with scores of other vehicles, mortars were fired at the airport. Fortunately for us they landed on the other side of the runway, plumes of smoke shooting into the air.

You won't have heard about any of this because at the same time a series of other far more serious attacks was taking place.

One was at the Sadriya market in the city centre, where a massive car bomb killed more than 140 people.

It was placed at the entrance to a set of barriers put up around another part of the market where a previous single bomb, in February, claimed more than 130 lives.
The market blast "did not penetrate the emplaced barriers" a later US military press release helpfully pointed out, ignoring the fact that the bombers had yet again adapted their tactics with vicious perfection - setting off their device at the point where crowds congregated outside and at the very moment when they were busiest.

The Sunni extremist surge seems to be having more effect than the American one.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6575717.stm

US troops die in new Iraq attack
Nine US soldiers have been killed in a suicide bomb attack on a base north of Baghdad, military officials have said.
Some 20 troops and an Iraqi civilian were injured in the attack, which happened in the volatile province of Diyala, to the north-east of Baghdad.

There has been fierce fighting in Diyala recently, pitting US and Iraqi forces against Sunni and Shia militias.

It is thought to be the worst single US loss on the ground since late 2005, when 10 marines died near Falluja.

In January 2007, 12 US soldiers died when a Black Hawk military helicopter crashed near Baghdad.

More than 3,300 US troops have been killed and some 24,300 have been injured in Iraq since the conflict began.

In Baghdad, meanwhile, two car bombs exploded on Tuesday morning near the Iranian embassy, police and witnesses said. At least four people were reported hurt in the blasts.

Two blasts in the same area on Monday left one person dead.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6586501.stm