Secure Baghdad? Who the hell is he fooling, other than himself and a few fawning in denial worshippers? No one. Absolutely no one. As Patrick Coburn explained in stark terms in the Independent Online on 11/05/06 Bush will be be lucky to have US control of anything beyond a few hundred yards outside the Green Zone:

The picture of what is happening in Iraq put out by Messrs Bush and Blair no longer touches reality at any point.
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In the first year of the occupation it could be argued that Bush and Blair were simply incompetent: they did not understand Iraq, were misinformed by Iraqi exiles, or were simply ignorant and arrogant. But they must know that for two-and-a-half years they have controlled only islands of territory in Iraq. "The Americans haven't even been able to take over Haifa Street [a Sunni insurgent stronghold] though it's only 400 yards from the Green Zone," a senior Iraqi security official exclaimed to me last week.

Bush is speaking tonight from fantasyland... nothing has changed, or will, till he is gone.

Haidar al-Abadi, Shia MP in the Dawa party and 'close associate' of Maliki, says "The government believes there is no need for extra troops from the American side," and that "The existing troops can do the job."

NYT has the article this morning: Promising Troops Where They Aren't Really Wanted.

They were right.

In 2003 some said that twice as many soldiers are need to pacify the country. In theory it was correct, send one million soldiers might have done it. The US doesn't have this number.

LBJ, Jan. 10, 1967: We have chosen to fight a limited war in Vietnam in an attempt to prevent a larger war--a war almost certain to follow, I believe, if the Communists succeed in overrunning and taking over South Vietnam by aggression and by force. I believe, and I am supported by some authority, that if they are not checked now the world can expect to pay a greater price to check them later.

GWB, Jan. 10, 2007: Tonight in Iraq, the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged in a struggle that will determine the direction of the global war on terror - and our safety here at home. The new strategy I outline tonight will change America's course in Iraq, and help us succeed in the fight against terror.

There's more.Attytood

Will Bunch adds:

Two things, though. First of all, only 7,917 American troop had died in Vietnam through the end of 1966, or ten days before Johnson's speech. From the beginning of 1967 though the end of the war, an addition 50,285 -- more than six times as many -- Americans would lose their lives.

Also, and we're not endorsing this action by any means, then or now, but it is interesting to note that in that 1967 SOTU, LBJ also called for a 6 percent surcharge on personal and corporate income taxes to pay for the cost of the war. That's a level of responsibility -- and yes, sacrifice -- for war that our current president is unwilling to take.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Tim Johnson's condition has been upgraded from critical to fair, four weeks after he was hospitalized for a brain hemorrhage, and he no longer needs a ventilator to help him breathe.
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Doctors have said he is steadily improving and has been responsive to his family and physicians, following commands, squeezing his wife's hand and understanding speech.
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In cases like Johnson's, doctors often depend on the patient's ability to answer questions to assess any cognitive damage caused by the hemorrhage.

Via Crooks and Liars this morning:

Nothing like having your own Generals disprove your actions. Gen Petraeus is the author of the  counter-insurgency manual and supplies yet another reason why sending over 20,000 troops into Iraq is a joke.

So it doesn't look like Iraq is really Bushs' main focus anyway.

But then, Petraeus is reporting to Admiral Fallon who has just taken over CentCom from Abizaid:

Fallon served as vice chief of naval operations before becoming the head of Pacom in 2005. All this means that he is primed to oversee an air, missile and naval attack on Iran, should the President give the green light for such an assault--and the fact that Fallon has been moved from Pacom to Centcom means that such a move is very much on Bush's mind.
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Bush appears to be planning for a wider war--with much higher risk of catastrophic failure--not a gradual and dignified withdrawal from the region.

On account of a conflict, I couldn't watch the President's address this evening; for any self-respecting contrarian it's difficult to watch any national leader's wind-bagging, but in the  second-term Big Brother atmosphere we face I had a date with bourbon after work.  Imperialism is much easier to deal with when you're scanning over post-speech notes and catching clips on the tee-vee a couple of drinks into the night.

I mean, it's better to fight Islamofascism when you're tipsy now than fight an imperial empire when you're sober later, right?

Remember post-"surge" Vietnam?  I don't.  I'm too darned young, but I hear it was pretty terrible; the death-scalation from 3,000 to 60,000, now statistics in the history books and chiseled into walls; down the memory hole for most of us.  We could prevent it again if the weak-kneed Democratic patsy Congresscritters could stand up against our führer, but it clearly wasn't in their best interests to prevent the invasion in the first place, and I assume it'll be another year or so before the backlash of inaction stings them enough to do a thing about it.  After all, it's the tradition of government to throw more money, effort, and lives at failing projects in might of salvation.  Why stop now?

I suggest that we, in our morning headaches, call for the return of every last troop who wants to come back, or give them the option to stay where they are on their own dollar.  From all 135 countries we have them planted in.  For the interim, keep screaming and celebrate your own Two Minutes Hate.

When over the last 3 1/2 years did it finally occur to Bush that he might be wrong about troop levels?

One frequent criticism of Bush and his supporters was that the news media was showing an inaccurate picture of Iraq because their reports were too pessimistic.  Now that Bush has admitted that he was wrong, weren't these news reports much more accurate than Bush's description of the situation?

The man is a moron, an idiot who has dragged this country down in the depths of moral depravity so base and low that we may never recover as a nation.

George W. Bush is a criminal who fabricated a war, and then lost that war, the only thing more contemptible and abhorrent than he is We The People of the United States who allowed this man to become our leader.  

At present those who are paying the heaviest price for our inability to identify this traitorous fool, are the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.  But make no mistake, the people of the United States will be made to pay and pay dearly.  The death we've got coming our way will make the sacrifice of a few thousand soldiers seem like an insect bite by comparison.

It's called Karma baby, and there ain't no escaping it.  In all likelihood it will be the children of our country who will reap what George W. Bush and this White House of thieves and murderers has wrought.  A fantastic legacy of death and destruction to come.

Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.

The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country.
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Bush may really have pushed the escalation pedal more than any of us realize.
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UPDATE: This exchange today in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee between Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden and Senator Chuck Hagel with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is full of non-denial denials and evasive answers to Biden's query about the President's ability to authorize military operations against forces within Iran and Syria:

SEN. BIDEN: Last night, the president said, and I quote, "Succeeding in Iraq requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges, and that begins with addressing Iran and Syria." He went on to say, "We will interrupt the flow of support for Iran and Syria, and we will seek out and destroy networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."

Does that mean the president has plans to cross the Syrian and/or Iranian border to pursue those persons or individuals or governments providing that help?

SEC. RICE: Mr. Chairman, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs was just asked this question, and I think he perhaps said it best. He talked about what we're really trying to do here which is to protect our forces and that we are doing that by seeking out these networks that we know are operating in Iraq. We are doing it through intelligence. We are then able, as we did on the 21st of December, to go after these groups where we find them.

Attacking Shiite Iran seems now to be within the comfort zone of Rice, as well, of course, as Cheney and probably Bush.
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Does Cheney think that, despite his intention to attack Iran, propping up the Shiites in Iraq will win points with the Persian public? Perhaps he's swallowed whole the Neocon tenet which holds that, post-bombing, Iran's citizens seize the day (after). They overthrow President Ahmadinejad for double-daring the US to attack and cast out the mullahs for suffocating their culture. Sure, just like our path to Baghdad was strewn with rose petals.
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Cheney may be ready to begin the launch sequence with Iran, but first he needs to keep Congress from voting for a binding resolution* to stay his hand. We got a sneak preview of how he intends to manage this when the administration ordered the deployment of an aircraft carrier, the Dwight D. Eisenhower, with its strike group, to the Middle East.

Though it's been diverted to Somalia, two more aircraft carriers, the USS John C. Stennis and the USS Ronald Reagan, with their strike groups, have been since sent to the Persian Gulf. Thus do we see Cheney's plan unfold. Ostensibly intended to warn off Iran's own naval exercises, the deployment's actual purpose is less likely to respond to a provocation than to provoke a response.

Not much imagination is required to envision a skittish Iran spooked into launching one of their state-of-the-art Shahib 4 missiles at one of our ships. Nor would anything more be required to make the obstacle of Congressional approval for a US attack magically disappear.
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Watch what happens when the first whiff of public outrage over an Iranian strike, should it occur, wafts past the Democrats' nostrils. The spine the Democrats are finally starting to grow about Iraq notwithstanding, stand clear of the door to the Senate chambers lest you be trampled by Democrats rushing to vote yea to retaliate.

In the U.S. House today, Republican Rep. Walter Jones (NC) introduced a resolution requiring the President "to receive congressional authorization to use military force against Iran,"