For the Bush administration’s PR push on Iraq, this is the storm before next week’s calm. Next Monday and Tuesday, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker testify before Congress on the surge, where they’ll make an argument for continuing the war instead of giving an independent assessment of how the war is going. That’s the relatively favorable part for the White House. But before Petraeus and Crocker arrive in Washington, the administration will have to deal with two less pleasant spectacles: a Government Accountability Office report concluding that the war has met only three of 18 benchmarks for progress; and an independent commission’s finding that the Iraqi police need a radical overhaul.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=180011