ROGER SIMON COLUMN
OCTOBER 31, 2005
WASHINGTON - - Five Things I Keep Hearing That Are Probably Not True:
1. The perjury case against Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, is a case of "he said/they said." Libby says reporters told him that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA; the reporters say they did not. A jury will decide whether to believe Libby or NBC's Tim Russert, Time's Matt Cooper and the New York Times' Judith Miller.
Response: Libby wishes it were that easy. In fact, there will be two sets of witnesses arrayed against Libby before the prosecutor even gets to the reporters. First, there are the three people who have testified that they told Libby about Plame before the three reporters allegedly did. This group is made up of a CIA official, a State Department official and the vice president of the United States.
Second, there are the people whom Libby told about Plame before Libby spoke to reporters. Libby told former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer about Plame on Monday, July 7, yet Libby did not speak to Russert, who Libby says told him about Plame, until Thursday, July 10.
As Ryan Lizza of The New Republic wrote recently: "A lot will hang on the testimony of Fleischer….As (Special Prosecutor) Fitzgerald pointed out (in his press conference), 'What's important about that is that Mr. Libby, the indictment alleges, was telling Mr. Fleischer something on Monday that he claims to have learned on Thursday.' "
Yes, the reporters will play a part in the trial. But the case does not hinge on them alone.
2. All Libby has to do is claim that he made an honest mistake when he spoke to FBI agents and the grand jury. Libby is a busy man, he's only human, and he could have been genuinely confused about all these dates.
Response: Libby was genuinely confused at least four times? Over a period of time? Under oath? And after he had time to review documents, e-mails, notes, etc. that could have refreshed his recollection?
Yes, it is possible. But presumably the prosecution will introduce evidence that Scooter Libby is not scatterbrained. The prosecution might find people to testify that Scooter Libby did not rise as high as he did by forgetting things and confusing by dates. It might find people to testify that Scooter Libby succeeded because he is a very smart, very hard-working operator who pays close attention to detail.
3. None of this matters. There is never going to be a trial. Libby will plea bargain.
Response: Don't count on it. Libby - - if he is guilty - - might jump at a plea bargain if he could escape prison time. But Fitzgerald does not strike me as the kind of prosecutor who would go along with a plea bargain that allows Libby to do 200 hours of public service lecturing high school kids on clean living.
If the Justice Department offered Libby anything other than prison time, there might be a huge public outcry. People might believe that the department was offering him a sweetheart deal to avoid a trial and keep facts secrets that might incriminate higher-ups in the White House.
And if Libby is offered no better than a prison term as a plea bargain, he might figure he is better off throwing the dice, pleading not guilty and hoping for a sympathetic jury.
4. Even if Libby is found guilty and gets a prison sentence, he will be paroled after a few months.
Response: There is no parole for federal crimes. If you are a federal prisoner and don't stab anybody in the shower, you are eligible for up to 54 days of "good time" per year, which reduces your sentence. In other words, a prisoner still must serve 85 percent of the sentence. And for sentences of one year or less, the entire sentence must be served.
5. Libby will never serve a day. President Bush will pardon him.
Response: George W. Bush wants to make his legacy to the nation the Iraq war and the presidential pardon of a man who allegedly damaged the nation's security?
I don't think so. I think President Bush is feeling a little humiliated, betrayed and lied-to about now. And I think he might want to make it known around the White House that if you do the crime, you are going to do the time.
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
OCTOBER 26, 2005
WASHINGTON - - On the day the U.S. military death toll in Iraq reached 2,000, the president made a speech.
I watched it on TV, and then I read the transcript. The same thought occurred to me both times: It may be time for a White House correspondent to ask the Question That None Dare Ask.
Some bloggers have asked it. But, as far as I know, no White House reporter has ever asked it of the president.
It is a sensitive question and one that may make the president angry.
But after his speech Tuesday to the Joint Armed Forces Officers' Wives' Luncheon, I think the president has begged the Question.
The speech was not extraordinary. It was yet another well-written, well-delivered repetition of why we are in Iraq and why we are going to stay there. (CNN got
so bored, it broke away before the president was finished.)
But two parts of the speech caught my attention:
Bush attacks Osama Bin Laden for deluding his followers into becoming suicide bombers. "He assures them that this is the road to paradise," Bush says,
"though he never offers to go along for the ride."
The audience laughed and, you have to admit, it is a pretty nifty line.
The rest of the speech is very serious. Bush thanks the officers' wives for the sacrifices they and their "loved ones in uniform" have made in the war effort.
"All of you understand that sacrifice is essential to winning war," Bush says, "and this war will require more sacrifice, more time, and more resolve."
So these are the two points: That leaders should not ask followers to do that which they themselves are not willing to do, and that sacrifice is "essential" to winning the war in Iraq.
So what is the Question That None Dare Ask?
Cindy Sheehan put it this way when she was camped outside Bush's Texas ranch in August, trying unsuccessfully to get a meeting with him: "(I)f the cause is so noble, when are you going to send your daughters over there and let somebody else's son come home?"
Given the president's speech this week, I think that question is worth asking, though not quite the way Sheehan put it. The Bush twins are adults (they are 23), military service is voluntary in this country and it is not the place of the president to "send" his daughters to Iraq.
And even though the two made themselves public, political figures by actively campaigning for their father's reelection in 2004 (you may remember their little talk at the Republican Convention), I think they should be allowed a degree of privacy that the president is not entitled to.
Whether they want to serve in the military is their business. But the question is: Has the president ever discussed with them the idea of enlisting and making the "sacrifice" that he asks others to make?
If so, what did he say? And, if not, why not?
I think those are fair questions because they involve only the actions of the president and not his children.
Normally, what a president discusses with the members of his family should be private.
But when on the one hand Bush attacks hypocrisy and on the other he urges others to sacrifice, then that discussion - - or the lack of it - - should be public.
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
OCTOBER 24, 2005
When, if ever, George Bush gets to wondering when the bottom fell out of his presidency, he need look no further than his attempt to reform Social Security.
Privatizing Social Security was going to be the jewel in the crown of Bush's second term. It, and not the quagmire of Iraq, would be his legacy to the nation. It would be what historians would remember him for.
By revamping the most popular federal program in American history, he would put an end to the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt and pound the final nail in the coffin of Big Government.
But Bush couldn't sell it. He could not sell his claim that Social Security was in imminent danger. He could not sell the notion that his plan would save it.
We had heard that imminent danger argument before. The nation was in imminent danger from Saddam Hussein, and his weapons of mass destruction and the invasion and occupation of Iraq was the only thing that could save us.
When it sunk in to the public at large that the excuse for the Iraq war was untrue, the "political capital" that Bush bragged about possessing after his reelection disappeared.
In attempting to sell the Social Security plan, his spinmasters used their ace-in-the-hole, their ultimate weapon: a nationwide speaking tour by the president himself. The president's face and voice would fill TV screens night after night preaching the need for this reform, even threatening that without it, taxes would have to go up.
Nobody bought it. The privatization plan simply had no constituency - - not with seniors, not with Baby Boomers, not with the young, not with academics, not with Congress.
Its only backers were the tiny group of conservatives who flutter around Bush like moths around a flame. They had told Bush that he could sell his plan to the nation, because he had the charm, the political savvy and the public support to sell anything.
But he didn't. Neither the public nor the Congress was going to allow itself to be "Iraqified" a second time.
Enter Harriet Miers. The nomination of Harriet Miers comes from the same hubris that Social Security privatization came from. Bush acolytes in the White House took the wrong lesson from the nomination of John Roberts. They decided they were the geniuses and not Roberts.
But with Miers, Bush may have gone a nomination too far. The howls from conservative critics have been vocal. George Will said of George Bush: "He has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution."
Which is a fancy way of saying the George Will doesn't think George Bush is too darn bright.
Harriet Miers disagrees. She once told David Frum, a conservative columnist and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, that Bush "was the most brilliant man she had ever met."
I doubt that even Bush's wife, mother or father would make that statement. They certainly might say he is the most decent or the most sincere or the most good-hearted. But the most brilliant man they have ever met?
Either Miers is just another moth around the flame or she really hasn't met that many people.
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
OCTOBER 19, 20005
WASHINGTON - - As the war grinds on in Iraq and more and more Americans are looking for a way out, they are not finding much leadership from their leaders.
As Democrats learned in 2004, the rank and file of the party may have been against the war, but they had no real peace candidate in the presidential race.
In the primaries (and he didn't last long), Howard Dean attacked other Democrats (John Kerry, John Edwards, and especially Dick Gephardt) for voting for the Iraq war resolution in Congress. It was easy for Dean to do this since, as a governor, he was never in the position of having to vote for or against the war.
We can assume that those who did vote for it were either genuinely in favor of armed intervention in Iraq or were scared to death of being smeared as weak and unpatriotic by the White House.
In reality, however, none of the major Democratic candidates really differed on the war, nor, in fact, did they differ very much from Bush.
All were for continuing the war, including Howard Dean. On that issue, voters were offered very little choice.
But what about 2008? Will we see real peace candidates for president in that race?
It might depend on state of the war, of course, though it takes a real optimist to imagine the United State will be out of Iraq by the start of the race.
Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., keeps flirting with being a peace candidate - - he favors a non-binding, adjustable deadline of getting out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 20006 - - but he is still hedging.
Both Kerry and Edwards will probably run again; they may be joined by Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Hillary Clinton is a sure bet to run. All voted for the war resolution.
Dick Gephardt, now in private life, will not be running again. Which may be why he is speaking so candidly about his vote in favor of the war.
"It was a mistake….I was wrong," Gephardt was quoted as saying recently in Seattle.
According to the blog The Next Hurrah, Gephardt also said: "We never comprehended the complexity of the undertaking. I didn't. None of us did….The President has never been honest about the sacrifices required ... the lives lost, the eyes blown out. Bush fails the first test of leadership: 'Can you be honest with the people you lead?' "
Asked if he thought the United States would withdraw its troops, Gephardt said:
"Until very recently, I thought we [Bush] would pull out in time for the 2006 elections. Now it doesn't look like we will."
According to the Gallup Tuesday Briefing analysis released yesterday, 54 percent of Americans do not believe the United States will win the war in Iraq.
And if we are not going to win it, what on earth are we doing there?
But Democrats are not the only hope for those who seek a peace candidate in 2008.
Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said recently of Iraq: "We should start figuring out how we get out of there."
Speaking on ABC's "This Week", he said that "stay the course" is not a policy and "we're not winning."
Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran who is thinking about running for president in 2008, said "we are locked into a bogged-down problem not unsimilar, dissimilar to where we were in Vietnam. The longer we stay, the more problems we're going to have."
In order to avoid the confusion of 2004, we should keep in mind that the issue is not whether the war was wrong or right when we invaded.
Nor is the issue whether it was good or bad to vote for going to war.
Today, the issue is simply this: How do we get out? How fast? And which candidate is willing to speak the truth about it.
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
OCTOBER 17, 2005
WASHINGTON - - Reporter: Could you loosen the electrodes, please?
Special Prosecutor: No. Just answer the questions.
Reporter: But I don't know anything! That's why I'm a reporter!
Special Prosecutor: Do you know Karl Rove?
Reporter: Not really. YEOWWW!
Special Prosecutor: That was a three. The generator go up to 10. Do you want me to turn it higher?
Reporter: No, no! I'll talk!
Special Prosecutor: I show you a picture. Is that you in the picture?
Reporter: Yes. It must have been taken at the last White House Christmas party. That's the only time I wear my blue suit.
Special Prosecutor: And who is that man 10 feet behind you eating baby lamb chops?
Reporter: I…I'm not sure. YEOWWW!!
Special Prosecutor: That was a four. Now, I ask you again, who is the man behind you eating baby lamp chops?
Reporter: It's Rove! Karl Rove!
Special Prosecutor: So you do know him.
Reporter: I know him. Everybody knows him. But he doesn't return my phone calls.
Special Prosecutor: Does he use a mail drop? Or a podcast? Does he ever IM you? Does he use the screen name UnindictedBoyGenius?
Reporter: No, I swear.
Special Prosecutor: Do you know Valerie Flame a.k.a Victoria Wilson a.k.a Woodrow Wilson a.k.a. Queen Victoria?
Reporter: Those people don't exist. YEOOWWW! I mean they are the names that Judy Miller, the New York Times reporter, wrote in her notebook! But when she wrote Valerie Flame, she really meant Valerie Plame. And when she wrote Victoria Wilson, she really meant Valerie Wilson.
Special Prosecutor: Yes, it was a code. A clever code that took my team of code breakers 22 months and $17 million to break. I show you a second picture. Do you recognize the man standing next to Karl Rove at the White House Christmas party?
Reporter: The man cutting up his baby lamb chops for him? That's Scooter Libby.
Special Prosecutor: Our code breakers, supplemented by a special team from Halliburton, have cracked that code, too. "Scooter" Libby is really Lewis Libby.
Reporter: Everybody knows that. YEOWWW! I mean: Good work.
Special Prosecutor: On June 23, 2003, Judy Miller met with Lewis a.k.a. Scooter a.k.a. Skateboard a.k.a Rollerblade Libby in the Old Executive Office Building. At that meeting, Libby might have told her that the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson IV might work at the CIA. Miller wrote "Wife works at bureau?" in her notebook. Do you deny that?
Reporter: No, except that the CIA is an agency and not a bureau.
Special Prosecutor: Why do reporters get things so wrong in their notes?
Reporter: It makes it easier to make things up later.
Special Prosecutor: Who is "Miss Run Amok"?
Reporter: That is what Judy Miller calls herself.
Special Prosecutor: Did you know that Miss Run Amok spelled backwards is "Koma Nurs Sim?"
Reporter: What does that mean?
Special Prosecutor: We think it's more code. Bob Novak spelled backwards is Kav On Bob. There's a pattern there. Given several more years and a billion more dollars, we might be able to crack it.
Reporter: Why are you keeping me here?
Special Prosecutor: We want to know who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame a.k.a. Victoria Wilson a.k.a Victoria's Secret to Bob Novak.
Reporter: Why don't you just ask Bob Novak?
Special Prosecutor: That would be too easy. Okay, you can go now.
Reporter: How long have I been here?
Special Prosecutor: Two months.
Reporter: Hey, how about keeping me another 30 days? I need it for my book deal. YEOWWW!
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
OCTOBER 12, 2005
WASHINGTON - - A large table full of journalists. Chit-chat. Small talk. Issues of the day.
"So," the person next to me asks, "what do you make of the Crazy Woman?"
I am baffled. Any number of candidates swirl through my head.
"Judy Miller," the person says. "What do you think?"
One would think that Miller, the New York Times reporter who went to jail for 85 days rather than reveal her source, would be a hero among her fellow journalists.
Not in this town.
A few days after the "Crazy Woman" incident, I bumped into a very respectable, very well-known reporter in the green room of a TV station and he, too, brought up Miller.
"I hear she went to jail because she needed it for her book," he said.
A few days later, there would be a report that Miller had negotiated a seven-figure book deal and a rumor (denied) that while in jail, she had committed to a speaking tour that lasted through 2007.
I don't know Judy Miller, but I doubt any journalist would spend 85 days in jail for money, even a lot of money.
Why exactly Miller did what she did - - she ended up revealing the source she was protecting - - is something we don't yet know.
But to say there are bigger targets in this case is to put it mildly.
The special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has been investigating who leaked the name of a CIA agent to the press for two years now. The leaker, most assume, worked in the White House.
This week, Karl Rove, the president's closest adviser, was called back before the grand jury for a fourth time. Getting called before a grand jury four times officially falls into the category of "not a good sign."
One possible scenario for such a repeat appearance goes like this:
Prosecutor: "Sir, in March you said (fill in the blank.) But we have testimony that the truth is to the contrary. Would you care to change your testimony?"
At which point the witness can:
A: Change his story and open himself up to a perjury charge.
B: Refuse to change his story and open himself up to a perjury charge.
C: Take the Fifth Amendment.
Rove may be innocent of any wrongdoing and may not even be a target of the probe. But it is hard to believe after all this time that the White House is going to skate on this.
If you are a young, ambitious prosecutor, you don't spend two years and millions of tax dollars, and come up empty.
And I have the feeling that when this story is over, Judy Miller is going to be one of the smaller fish to be fried.
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
OCTOBER 10, 2005
WASHINGTON - - A cornerstone of President Bush's policy in Iraq is that democracy will bring an end to the violence there.
As Vice President Cheney told CNN in June, "I think...we will, in fact, succeed in getting democracy established in Iraq, and I think when we do, that will be the end of the insurgency."
I am skeptical of this and have said so.
A number of countries - - most notably Northern Ireland - - have been democracies and have seen terror attacks continue for decades.
As Brian Jenkins, a terrorism specialist for the Rand Corp., said in an important and well-sourced article in the Los Angeles Times Sunday, history shows "there is no guarantee that political progress diminishes political violence."
Got that? Just because the good people in Iraq vote and proudly display their ink-stained fingers, does not mean the bad guys are going to diminish their bombing attacks on either Iraqi civilians or on the Iraqi and U.S. military.
It is also fundamental to Bush policy that providing people with good jobs, good homes, and a good education will end violence.
But, as I said when I was on a panel at the Harvard Club of Boston a few months ago, this is not necessarily true. No link has been found between poverty and terrorism in the Middle East. On the contrary, Osama bin Laden is a billionaire and many suicide bombers come from solidly middle-class homes.
If you believe that God has instructed you to kill people, or that God will reward you if you do, it hardly matters whether you have a good job, a good home, or can vote. These simply are factors in your actions.
One does not actually get booed at the Harvard Club of Boston, but the icy looks I got from the crowd when I said these things were the equivalent. It is not just that we want a solution to the quagmire in Iraq, we want to believe that democracy does cure all ills and that it does so not just in the United States, but everywhere.
Yet, as Los Angeles Times reporters Tyler Marshall, reporting from Washington, and Louise Roug, reporting from Baghdad, state in their lead paragraph: "Senior U.S. officials have begun to question a key presumption of American strategy in Iraq: that establishing democracy there can erode and ultimately eradicate the insurgency gripping the country."
U.S. analysts with access to classified intelligence have noted a "significant and disturbing disconnect" between democratic advances in Iraq thus far and a reduction in insurgent attacks.
But wait. It gets worse: "Now, with Saturday's constitutional referendum appearing more likely to divide than unify the country, some within the administration have concluded that the quest for democracy in Iraq, at least in its current form, could actually strengthen the insurgency."
Nor is that just the conclusion of a couple of L.A. Times reporters. In a column in the Washington Post, Jackson Diehl quotes Kanan Mikaya, a liberal Iraqi intellectual who was "among the most persuasive advocates for a U.S. invasion of Iraq" as now saying the new constitution "is a fundamentally destabilizing document."
"To the extent that it is made to work, it will work toward fratricide," he said.
I can find few who are optimistic about the new constitution. And, of course, it is America that is getting blamed, especially for forcing a vote on the constitution so quickly.
"It's the fault of the Americans," says Kurdish politician Mahmoud Othman. "They are always insisting on short deadlines. It's as if they're [making] hamburgers and fast food."
The American people do like things fast. And are increasingly in favor of
withdrawing from Iraq.
Call it a McDrawal. To go.
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
OCTOBER 5, 2005
WASHINGTON - - George Bush, who promised to be a uniter and not a divider, has unified the left and right in this country with his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
Both sides are dismayed.
Aside from people being unsure of her ideology, the chief complaint seems to be that she is not excellent. She is not distinguished. She is no genius.
But so what? What have the "genius" choices that Bush has made for his administration gotten us besides enormous deficits and a quagmire in Iraq?
Miers is ordinary (a more kind word than mediocre) and I think Bush wanted ordinary.
The Democratic leader of the Senate, Harry Reid (D-Nev.), is considered just ordinary by some, and he likes Miers and recommended her for the job.
Shouldn't ordinary people have a representative on the Supreme Court?
"I picked the best person I could find," Bush said of Miers.
He did not say he picked the best person that America has to offer, or the best legal mind in the nation. No, she merely is the best he could find. (How hard did he look? Well, that is another question.)
I saw an interview on CNN with one of Miers' friends, Rena Pederson, who is an author. When asked about Miers' qualities, Pederson said: "She holds Christmas dinners in her home. And she has a big family!" And when Miers' mother was ill, Miers would fly to Texas on weekends to care for her and then fly back to Washington. Also, Pederson said, Miers played tennis in college and was on her law firm's softball team. She also reads when she can, "a variety of novels and non-fiction."
Is this ordinary or what?
Some sticklers may think holding family dinners, being nice to your mom, playing sports and reading is not enough to be a Supreme Court justice. Even those who have never been accused of greatness themselves, are demanding it from Miers.
U.S. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said of Miers on MSNBC: "Is she qualified by her experience? Is she the most qualified person? Clearly the answer to that is 'no.' There are a lot more people, men, women and minorities, that are more qualified in my opinion by their experience than she is."
So why did Bush pick her? Well, maybe he sees some of himself in her.
Take his reply at a press conference this week to a question about Hurricane Katrina.
"Is there anything that you, yourself, personally, could have done, or would have done differently now?" a reporter asked.
Bush replied in part: "And there was some bureaucracy, some rules that prevented the debris from getting removed right off the bat….Because they didn't want to be moving federally-paid dozers on private property. Imagine cleaning up the debris and a person shows up, and says, where's my valuable china? Or, where's my valuable art? So we had to work through all this."
Is that a terrible answer? No. Just mediocre. Just ordinary. Some presidents might worry about really large issues after a devastating hurricane like whether America is prepared for a truly national disaster.
But George Bush worries about china and Hummel figures.
In a Gallup poll this week, Americans were asked what they thought of Miers being nominated to the Supreme Court.
Some 44 percent think she is an excellent or good choice and 41 percent think she is a fair or poor choice.
Which is a pretty ordinary result.
But is being ordinary so bad? It may be like what Lincoln said of common-looking people: They are the best in the world. That is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
OCTOBER 3, 2005
WASHINGTON - - Though it did not make big headlines, a very ominous exchange took place recently between members of the Senate Armed Services committee and the generals commanding our troops in Iraq.
Fundamental to our goal of leaving Iraq some day is the ability of the Iraqi army to fight on its own.
So the Bush administration has been following a policy of "Iraqification" of the war. (Nobody wants to call it Iraqification, however, because of the echoes of "Vietnamization," which never quite worked out as we had planned.)
So just how many Iraqi troops are currently ready to stand up and fight on their own after two years of U.S. military occupation?
One battalion, which is about 750 men.
If the matter were not so serious, it would be a joke.
How on earth are we going to get our 149,000 troops out of Iraq if the Iraqis can only field about 750 men after all this time?
The Washington Post reported that senators "bristled" at the disclosure that only one battalion is ready to fight on its own and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, who retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last week, that "things have not gone as we had planned or expected nor as we were told by you, General Myers."
Myers replied: "I don't think this committee or the American public has ever heard me say that things are going very well in Iraq."
No kidding.
"The public is going south," Sen. Lindsay Graham, (R-S.C.), said. "That worries me greatly."
It should. When the public goes south, politicians go south, too.
At this juncture, I think more and more members of the public are looking for ways out of Iraq, not for ways to pour more troops in.
One would expect the Democrats to propose an alternative to current policy on Iraq, but the party isn't there yet. Most Democratic leaders are where the party was in the 2004 election: "Gee, it's a terrible war and we never should have gotten into it, but we can't back out now."
And the official administration policy is that we will stay in Iraq "for as long as it takes."
But if you were a young Iraqi, why would you stand up and fight for your country if you knew young Americans were going to do it for you?
Our military planners are now pinning their hopes on the new Iraqi constitution, which will be voted on Oct. 15. They believe if the Iraqi people rally to the democratic process, it will lead to a stronger nation with a stronger and more willing army and that U.S. troops could begin coming home by next year.
McCain did not sound entirely convinced. "You're taking a very big gamble here," he said to Gen. Gen. George W. Casey, the commander of multinational forces in Iraq. "I hope you're correct. I don't see the indicators yet that we are ready to plan or begin troop withdrawals, given the overall security situation."
But who knows how far south the public will be by next year?