The Generals Report Everything's Really OK

I carefully watched Generals Abizaid and Casey on the Sunday talk shows. All the interviewers asked how it was possible that, as the Pentagon informed us this week, the number of battle-ready Iraqi battalions has gone down from 3 to only 1.I was certainly interested in how things could be going backwards, especially when the Vice President has told us the insurgency was in its "last throes." This is a question worth asking, because a takeover by Iraqis seems to be the total administration plan to "end" their war. Both Generals sidestepped this actual question by noting how we are doing well on a security time table.Casey drew in George Stephanopoulos as if he were really going to tell him the facts, then told him how he wasn't worried, that the Iraqis were doing well on a lesser, secondary level. What a waste of my time.