Surge Creep

Tom Engelhardt
When it comes to surging in Iraq, it's "encouraging" out there. So the President tells us ("Yet even at this early hour, there are some encouraging signs…"); so Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, the surge commander in Baghdad, tells us ("[It's] too early to discern significant trends, [but] there have been a few encouraging signs…"). No, they're not talking about what Juan Cole calls the "new spate of massive and deadly bombings [that] has spread insecurity and further compromised the Iraqi government… right in downtown Baghdad, within spitting distance of the Green Zone, where the U.S. and the Iraqi government planned out the new security arrangements"; they're referring to some weapons caches found, some under-strength Iraqi units deployed to the capital, a possible small drop in deaths from sectarian violence. LINK