Michael Abramowitz, Robin Wright and Thomas E. Ricks in WaPo report that, in his speech tonight, Bush will be overtly contradicting his own longstanding claims to let military commanders determine Iraq strategy. And that "some staff members on the National Security Council became enamored of the idea of sending more troops to Iraq in part because it was not a key feature of Baker-Hamilton" (the Iraq Study Group report). And that the whole point of the "surge" escalation is merely for public relations purposes rather than an actual attempt to accomplish any substantive goals. In the end, the White House favored the idea of more troops as one visible and dramatic step the administration could take. Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker and Chris at AMERICAblog comment on the story.
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