Bush's National Strategy for Victory in Iraq: An Excellent Read

President Bush and the National Security Council released a document called the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" to counter claims from the opposition that the President has failed to communicate his war aims in the Iraq War.

Not surprisingly, the anti-war movement instantly attacked the document as being a PR ploy rather than a strategy.

In fact, they attacked it so quickly that one wonders if they even bothered to read the entire document, or if they had a Cliff's Notes version. It's more likely that the anti-war crowd already had their minds made up and it didn't matter what the document said...even if the document HAD set a date for a complete U.S. military pull-out.

In any case, the document itself is worthy of a look.

The first section of the Executive Summary is titled "Victory in Iraq is Defined in Stages." It's this section that is the MOST important part of the document. It outlines short, medium and long-term benchmarks for victory. In a nutshell:

• Short term--Iraq makes progress toward fighting the terrorists on their own and moves toward democracy.
• Medium term--Iraq takes the lead in fighting the terrorists and has a stable government.
• Long term--Iraq is at peace with itself and it's neighbors and is a partner in the war on terror.

In terms of pulling our troops out, this is very good news. See the medium term benchmark? THAT'S when the U.S. military will leave Iraq in large numbers. As more Iraqi battalions stand up, our forces will stand down. So there's no need to publicize a date for withdrawing our brave soldiers; if the Administration follows this strategy, everyone will have a pretty good idea of when the U.S. military will be on the move out of Iraq.

The anti-war movement should be cheering by this point.

Victory for the U.S. in Iraq means leaving when Iraq begins to kick some tail on it's own and NOT when all terrorist acts end, as some in the anti-war movement are claiming. When U.S. and coalition forces leave, there will undoubtably be insurgents and terrorists and jihaddis shooting at them on their way out. Hopefully not, but that's the reality.

Only the Iraqis can bring peace back to their country, and this plan recognizes that.

Download the document from the White House web site and read the ENTIRE thing (Bush haters). It's very revealing. More to follow.