Did George Bush provoke the Tal Afar attack?

At and surrounding Bush's press conference, he made the point that the insurgents in Iraq are media saavy, and they know that killing large numbers of people will get them press coverage, thus affecting US opinion, thus impacting the war effort. So, although he said he admittedly understood why the media did this, he rather carefully tried to draw a connection between their reporting and deaths in Iraq. It was their fault.

Okay, you want to play that game of loose affiliation causal blame?

At and surrounding that same press conference, Bush touted the great success that was taking place in Tal Afar. There have been several reports from several media sources disputing this rosy scenario, but for the sake of our "which American is impeding US efforts" game, let's just say it's true.

Okay, so Bush points to Tal Afar as a success story, the media saavy insurgents see this, and within a couple days send a suicide bomber into an army recruitment center outside Tal Afar "killing at least 40 people and wounding at least 30 others, an official at the Interior Ministry said." Connection?

Probably not, quite frankly. I think this type of causal argument is weak, and I thought I'd use this illustration to point that out.