Compare and Contrast

In the same vein, the Dems in Congress have fairly successfully used their committe chairmanships to shape the debate. As the "mixed success" (yeah, right) report comes out on Iraq, Thomas Fingar, the DDNI and NIC chief, was on the Hill yesterday saying this,

Meanwhile, in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, senior intelligence officials said there has been no meaningful positive change in Iraq since January, when a starkly pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate warned that even if security improved, violent sectarian divisions threatened to destroy the government.....

"The analysis that the community made in January . . . appears to be borne out by events since then," he said. "That assessment focused on the imperative for reducing levels of violence in the country as a prerequisite for beginning to restore confidence among the competing, fractured body politic and the groups in the political system." While the increase in U.S. troops is "having an effect, it has not yet had a sufficient effect on the violence, in my judgment, to move the country to a place that the serious obstacles to reconciliation can be overcome," Fingar said.

I'll be very curious how credibly the media treats the claims of Iraq success in the administration's report.