[snowrip]

The Bush administration is going to "cut & run" in Iraq because it will never accommodate Group #1 no matter what it does, and it simply doesn't have the will (or the resources) to execute the war in a manner that will satisfy Group #2.

The Bush admin should stop trying to accomodate Group 1... it's what got them into trouble in the first place, and is the reason people think Bush doesn't have the will to prosecute this war like a war.

The reason the public doesn't like the war is because of the MSM's portrayal... If they were getting accurate reporting, the opinion of the general public would be vastly different.

[Alberta's Child]

The reason the public doesn't like the war is because of the MSM's portrayal... If they were getting accurate reporting, the opinion of the general public would be vastly different.

With all due respect, that's a lot of baloney -- and we had better get off this "inaccurate MSM portrayal of Iraq" horse right now if we have any intention of being credible force in national politics for the foreseeable future. The MSM doesn't have to slant the coverage of Iraq at all when you've got dozens of U.S. military personnel killed and hundreds wounded every month -- more than three freaking years after the President declared an end to "major combat operations."

Ironically, the one guy in the larger scheme of things who comes out of this whole thing looking very shrewd is Muqtada al-Sadr. He knows damn well -- and has known all along -- that the U.S. was going to cut and run from Iraq at some point (due to political pressure in the U.S.) and leave the place in disarray, and he cobbled together his Mehdi Army to prepare for exactly this (so as to prevent a repeat of the 1991 debacle when the first Bush administration left the Shi'ites dangling).