Yesterday we looked at two opposing predictions. Fred Kaplan predicted that in today’s speech President Bush would at least move in the direction of a withdrawal timetable for Iraq, if not announce a timetable. And that was a smart prediction, for myriad reasons that Kaplan presented. It’s the smart move to make politically, and in the long run would prove to be the smart move to make strategically.

But Kaplan was wrong about Bush. The one who called it right was Seymour Hersh, who said on Hardball last night (transcript not yet available) that Bush believes God told him to invade Iraq, and he’s not going to leave until he has something that looks like a victory. He is still unclear about what that something will be, although he did acknowledge that it won’t look like the end of World War II, with a surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship.

Most Americans want two things in Iraq: They want to see our troops win, and they want to see our troops come home as soon as possible. And those are my goals as well. I will settle for nothing less than complete victory. In World War II, victory came when the Empire of Japan surrendered on the deck of the USS Missouri. In Iraq, there will not be a signing ceremony on the deck of a battleship. Victory will come when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq’s democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot new attacks on our nation.

Bush made statements in the speech today that seem to rule out significant withdrawal of U.S. troops while there is still violence in Iraq, no matter how capable the Iraqi defense force might be. Example: “To all who wear the uniform, I make you this pledge: America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your Commander-in-Chief.”

It is true that most of today’s speech was given over to Bush’s assessment that the Iraqi security forces are much better than they were last year, and he says U.S. troops will be withdrawn as the Iraqis become better able to fight on their own.

As we make progress toward victory, Iraqis will take more responsibility for their security, and fewer U.S. forces will be needed to complete the mission. America will not abandon Iraq. We will not turn that country over to the terrorists and put the American people at risk. Iraq will be a free nation and a strong ally in the Middle East — and this will add to the security of the American people.

There needed to be a “but” or “however” or something after “complete the mission,” but let’s go on … he is giving himself some wiggle room for a partial withdrawal, but he’s not leaving himself any room to make substantial reductions in troop strength as long as there is an active al Qaeda (or similar) presence in Iraq.

And he’s still claiming that, somehow, the war in Iraq is going to prevent another September 11.

The terrorists in Iraq share the same ideology as the terrorists who struck the United States on September the 11th. Those terrorists share the same ideology with those who blew up commuters in London and Madrid, murdered tourists in Bali, workers in Riyadh, and guests at a wedding in Amman, Jordan. Just last week, they massacred Iraqi children and their parents at a toy give-away outside an Iraqi hospital.

This is an enemy without conscience — and they cannot be appeased. If we were not fighting and destroying this enemy in Iraq, they would not be idle. They would be plotting and killing Americans across the world and within our own borders. By fighting these terrorists in Iraq, Americans in uniform are defeating a direct threat to the American people. Against this adversary, there is only one effective response: We will never back down. We will never give in. And we will never accept anything less than complete victory. (Applause.)

To keep terrorists from our shores it would have been cheaper and easier, and about as effective, to just hand out lots of rabbits’ feet. See Peter Daou for the antidote to “we’re fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here” and “cutting and runnng sends the wrong message,” two points Bush made, once again, today.

In this speech there was no acknowledgment of the strain Iraq is putting on our military resources. As Kaplan wrote yesterday, “Top U.S. military officers have been privately warning for some time that current troop levels in Iraq cannot be sustained for another year or two without straining the Army to the breaking point.” I expect to hear more about this later today when John Murtha appears on Hardball.

Bush also did not acknowledge that the Iraqis themselves want us to go away. Seems to me that if the Iraqi government passes a resolution giving us, say, six months to get our butts out of their country, we have to comply. It’s their country. Bush doesn’t seem to have considered that possibility. I guess he figures God won’t let that happen.

Bottom line, Bush really isn’t listening to anybody except the voices in his head he thinks are Jesus, and he sees “staying the course” as something noble and heroic. So no graceful or dignified exit for us. Instead, we can look forward to continued waste of lives and resources until it finally winds down to some messy, inconclusive end.

HOO-yah, and amen.

Think Progress provides a deconstruction of the “Strategy for Victory” document.

Oliver Willis provides a summary:

There’s really no concrete definition of victory here, still. But it seems that they’re saying we don’t leave until Iraq is a full western style democracy… with ponies. Of course, Iraq is currently a hotbed of violence with 150,000 U.S. troops holding down the fort, and shows no interest in western style democracy, preferring to enshrine religious Sharia law than anything resemble the U.S. constitution.

So when do we leave Iraq? According to this document, apparently when candy canes and unicorns take command.

John Kerry gives a rebuttal (my live transcript; quotes approximate):

This morning we saw the full power of the presidency, to have the Naval Academy serve as a backdrop for a presidential speech. Reminds you of an aircraft carrier — mission accomplished.

None of us wants to leave a failed state in Iraq, but the strategy for exit is part of the stretegy for success.

Russ Feingold on MSNBC — The problem here is that the president put out the wrong document. It should be strategy for victory against al Qaeda. Iraq is not the be-all and end-all of our national security. This situation in Iraq is sapping our military’s strength and encouraging our enemies.

The key question is how we get re-focused on the fight against terrorism. We need a flexible timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Bush’s policies are weakening our military and weakening America.

What needs to be fact-checked are Bush’s claims about the readiness of Iraqi security forces to operate independently of the U.S.

Live blog of this morning’s speech at the Naval Academy — (note — quotes may not be accurate; check against transcripts)

[Update: Executive summary — “stay the course.” See major points on White House web site.]

Wow — he worked 9/11 into the intro. All of the students joined the academy after 9/11, he says.

He’s going through the thank yous — sounds like an Academy Award speech.

This is from yesterday’s Dan Froomkin —

What does it say about the president of the United States that he won’t go anywhere near ordinary citizens any more? And that he’ll only speak to captive audiences?

President Bush’s safety zone these days doesn’t appear to extend very far beyond military bases, other federal installations and Republican fundraisers.

Bush says:

In the past year, Iraqi forces have made real progress. Now over 120 combat and police batalions are prepared.

Now he’s arguing that Iraqi battalions are conducting operations on their own and are not just supporting U.S. troops.

He’s quoting an Iraqi soldiers who said that all he wants to do is kill terrorists.

He’s describing the territory under the control of Iraqi security forces. Lots of numbers that will be fact checked, I assume.

As Iraqi forces take control of their own territory, coalition forces can concentrate on training and going after high-value targets.

Descriptions of the training follow.

Hersh wins, looks like.

Some critics dismiss this progress, and point to the fact that only one battalion has achieved complete independence from coalition supervision. But that doesn’t mean more battalions are not ready to take the fight against the enemy. The facts are that Iraqi units are becoming more independent and capable. They will be in the fight for freedom today and tomorrow.

Lordy, he said we’ve turned a corner. He said that.

So basically he’s arguing that the Iraqi security forces are way improved and are going to be able to take on more and tougher missions, etc. He’s working up to saying “as they stand up, coalition forces can stand down.”

Bush said, “When our mission of defeating the terrorists is complete, our troops will come home to a proud nation.” Yep, Hersh called it. It’s “stay the course.”

Bush said: “We will stay as long as necessary to complete the mission.” Says he’s willing to send more U.S. troops, if the commanders ask for them.

No artificial timetables set by politicians in Washington, he says.

He’s not leaving himself any wiggle room. He wants victory. He’s quoting Joe Lieberman. We need to do something about Lieberman. He says that withdrawal will send a message that America is weak.

Bush said, “America will not run from car bombers or assassins as long as I am your commander in chief.” Big applause line.

Some critics say I have no plan except to “stay the course,” he says. Yep, that’s it.

I will settle for nothing less than complete victory. Victory will come when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq, and when terrorists cannot plot nasty plots.

He’s preaching the Neocon gospel. Our own security is best preserved by spreading democracy. Germany and Japan are democracies now. Freedom defeated the ideology of communism and freed eastern Europe and all.

I’m telling you, Hersh nailed him.

Advancing the ideal of democracy and self-government created our nation. We will meet the challenge of our time and answer histories call. Freedom is the destiny of every man, woman, and child on this earth.

He thinks he is Democracy Jesus, in other words.

There’s only one way to honor the lives lost, which is to complete the mission.

He’s done. They’re playing “Stars and Stripes Forever.”

Bottom line, he may have established some markers to enable some drawdown of troops, on the basis of improved Iraqi security forces, but he’s clearly planning on staying until the “terrorists” are defeated and Iraq is an established and stable democracy. He’s trying to remarket the war as it is without actually changing policy.

David Gregory on MSNBC is saying the document released this morning contains nothing of substance that’s new; it’s just a sales job. The one new thing is calling the Sunni die-hards “rejectionists.”

Once we’ve got a transcript we can fact-check the specific claims he made about the security forces.

Hardball note: Jack Murtha will be on Hardball tonight. Could be interesting.

Dana Priest of the Washington Post on MSNBC is saying that there was nothing new militarily in the speech.

Will this and future speeches have any impact on public opinion? Some of the major polling organizations will probably manage to find a bit of a bump, but I can’t see how this speech will make a big difference.

I plan to live blog the President’s speech, but here’s a preview from CBS News.

“No war has ever been won on a timetable,” according to a new White House strategy document (pdf file) released just hours before the speech. …

… The 35-page plan, titled “Our National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” raises expectations for troop withdrawals, reports CBS News White House correspondent Peter Maer. The administration expects but cannot guarantee that troop levels will change over the next year, but any reductions will hinge on the political process, starting with Iraqi elections next month.

In the sidebar:

“It is not realistic to expect a fully functioning democracy … to be in place less than three years after Saddam was finally removed from power.”

Sounds like “stay the course” to me.

Tomorrow (I assume) we’re going to find out who’s right about Bush’s plans for Iraq–Seymour Hersh or Fred Kaplan.

Yesterday Kaplan posted an article on Slate predicting that Bush’s speech at the Naval Academy tomorrow will set the agenda for withdrawal from Iraq.

Brace yourself for a mind-bog of sheer cynicism. The discombobulation begins Wednesday, when President George W. Bush is expected to proclaim, in a major speech at the U.S. Naval Academy, that the Iraqi security forces—which only a few months ago were said to have just one battalion capable of fighting on its own—have suddenly made uncanny progress in combat readiness. Expect soon after (if not during the speech itself) the thing that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have, just this month, denounced as near-treason—a timetable for withdrawal of American troops.

Kaplan presents a case — a very strong case — showing that the administration is already planning to begin a withdrawal of troops from Iraq. It does seem to me that politicians from both parties are moving toward a consensus on withdrawal even as they accuse each other of treason and/or misleading. All the signs and portents say it’s time to talk exit strategy.

However, what about Bush himself? Does he see what everyone else sees? And Seymour Hersh says no.

On Hardball this evening, Hersh said Bush is not going to withdraw. Bush is committed to what he’s doing, Hersh said. Is he even listening to advice from others? Hersh said it’s hard to say, but he thinks most of what Bush learns about what’s going on in Iraq comes to him through a big filter named Dick Cheney. Hersh said Bush thinks God is talking to him. He doesn’t care how many body bags come back. He’s not interested in contrary opinions. There is an underlying fear that Bush is a utopian without realistic information or ability to change with shifting circumtances.

Who do you think is right, Kaplan or Hersh?

Today Bush said he rejected plans for a quick withdrawal, and said that the pace of withdrawal will be determined by military commanders. Bloomberg reports:

Americans “don’t want me making decisions based upon politics,” Bush told reporters in El Paso, Texas, where he was inspecting border patrol facilities. “They want me to make decisions based on recommendations from our generals on the ground.” …

… “We will make decisions about troop levels based upon the capacity of the Iraqis to take the fight to the enemy,” the president said in Texas.

He gave no indication he will offer a timetable for a troop pullout and said his speech will outline the progress being made on training Iraqis to take over the defense of their country against insurgents who have been targeting the Iraqi government as well as the U.S. military.

“I know there are a lot of voices in Washington we’ve heard people say pull them out. That’s a huge mistake,” Bush said. “I want the troops to come home, but I don’t want them to come home without achieving victory and we have got a strategy for victory.”

But Hersh says the top generals in the Pentagon — the four-star guys — are afraid to speak the truth to Rumsfeld and Bush. He said this on Hardball and in his recent New Yorker article —

Many of the military’s most senior generals are deeply frustrated, but they say nothing in public, because they don’t want to jeopardize their careers. The Administration has “so terrified the generals that they know they won’t go public,” a former defense official said. A retired senior C.I.A. officer with knowledge of Iraq told me that one of his colleagues recently participated in a congressional tour there. The legislators were repeatedly told, in meetings with enlisted men, junior officers, and generals that “things were fucked up.” But in a subsequent teleconference with Rumsfeld, he said, the generals kept those criticisms to themselves.

Most likely, Hersh says, the military will pull out boots on the ground and substitute air power, which has a whole lot of new risks, as he explains in The New Yorker. But the war will continue, with us in it.

I believe tomorrow’s speech is scheduled for mid-morning. I plan on live-blogging, so drop by if you don’t watch it yourself. I’ll look at the Chimp’s face so you don’t have to.

But what’s it gonna be, do you think? Will he make noises to lay the groundwork for troop withdrawal, or will he want to stay the course?

Here are a couple of articles that ought to be read together … one is today’s Dan Froomkin, who gives us an exit strategy roundup.

President Bush does have a plan for withdrawing troops in Iraq — and pretty much everyone agrees with it, the White House insisted yesterday.

It’s just that they won’t say exactly what that plan is.

The White House’s latest positioning on this issue came in response to an op-ed in The Washington Post on Saturday by Sen. Joseph R. Biden , the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, headlined “Time for An Iraq Timetable.” …

Biden still blows, btw.

The White House’s new rapid-response team quickly fired out a press release in which Scott McClellan asserted that “There is a strong consensus building in Washington in favor of President Bush’s strategy for victory in Iraq.”

In fact, McClellan insisted that Biden had just “described a plan remarkably similar to the Administration’s plan to fight and win the war on terror.”

But the White House press release neglected to even address Biden’s central point about timetables and provided no new details, not to mention a blueprint. Up until now, the president hasn’t done much more than repeat: ” As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down .”

Froomkin describes exit-plan noises coming from the State Department and the Pentagon, all of which amount to turning domestic security over to Iraqis, one way or another, in order to reduce troop levels to under 100,000 in time for the November 2006 mid-term elections. One plan involves switching to an air war, for example.

At the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh also discusses the air war plan. But this is the part I found most riveting (see especially the last paragraph):

Current and former military and intelligence officials have told me that the President remains convinced that it is his personal mission to bring democracy to Iraq, and that he is impervious to political pressure, even from fellow Republicans. They also say that he disparages any information that conflicts with his view of how the war is proceeding.

Bush’s closest advisers have long been aware of the religious nature of his policy commitments. In recent interviews, one former senior official, who served in Bush’s first term, spoke extensively about the connection between the President’s religious faith and his view of the war in Iraq. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the former official said, he was told that Bush felt that “God put me here” to deal with the war on terror. The President’s belief was fortified by the Republican sweep in the 2002 congressional elections; Bush saw the victory as a purposeful message from God that “he’s the man,” the former official said. Publicly, Bush depicted his reëlection as a referendum on the war; privately, he spoke of it as another manifestation of divine purpose.

The former senior official said that after the election he made a lengthy inspection visit to Iraq and reported his findings to Bush in the White House: “I said to the President, ‘We’re not winning the war.’ And he asked, ‘Are we losing?’ I said, ‘Not yet.’ ” The President, he said, “appeared displeased” with that answer.

“I tried to tell him,” the former senior official said. “And he couldn’t hear it.” …

… Speaking at the Osan Air Force base, in South Korea, two days after Murtha’s speech, Bush said, “The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. . . . If they’re not stopped, the terrorists will be able to advance their agenda to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, and to break our will and blackmail our government into isolation. I’m going to make you this commitment: this is not going to happen on my watch.”

“The President is more determined than ever to stay the course,” the former defense official said. “He doesn’t feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage ‘People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.’ ” He said that the President had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney. “They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,” the former defense official said. Bush’s public appearances, for example, are generally scheduled in front of friendly audiences, most often at military bases. Four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson, who was also confronted with an increasingly unpopular war, was limited to similar public forums. “Johnson knew he was a prisoner in the White House,” the former official said, “but Bush has no idea.”

Cheney and Bush both are living in their own fantasy lands. No good will come from this. I trimmed a lot of really juicy stuff from the Hersh article, btw, so be sure to read the whole thing.

This Wednesday Bush is scheduled to give the first of a series of speeches on Iraq in an attempt to re-market the war to the public. I’m curious if he will be able to change his language and offer something tangible, as opposed to the empty rhetoric of “victory” and “resolve.” If Bush can’t adjust his act now, he never will.