No evidence of improvement in Iraq

If you read between the lines, it's clear that there's no reportable progress coming out of "the surge."

The Bush administration will not try to assess whether the troop increase in Iraq is producing signs of political progress or greater security until September, and many of Mr. Bush’s top advisers now anticipate that any gains by then will be limited, according to senior administration officials.....

The timelines they are now discussing suggest that the White House may maintain the increased numbers of American troops in Iraq well into next year.

If they had anything positive to report, they would be shouting it on the front pages. The "benchmarks" appear to be dead once again, and the political vector, if headed anywhere, is headed towards either an irrelevant or collapsing central government.

This is an attempt to stall judgement at the price of US soldiers' lives. 90 so far this month, and Petraeus is assuring us it's going to get worse before it might get better. (Update: It's 99 now.)

Remember just a few weeks ago there were "promising signs." Now, they don't want to talk about it at all.

And, is this new? George Bush personally threatening to depose Iraq's democratically elected leader?

In January, Mr. Bush characterized Mr. Maliki as an architect of the troop increase plan, even while telling visiting Congressional leaders that “I said to Maliki this has to work or you’re out,” according to two officials who were in the room.

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