An assassination that blows apart Bush's hopes of pacifying Iraq

Bush has found a new way to sell failure as success, which has been roughly the way this conflict has been sold from the beginning. He and Blair used to say that the nearer they came to success the more the violence would increase. In other words, the more it looks like chaos, the more it signifies how successful we are. This really was a fabulous piece of chutzpah.

Bush has now taken this same fractured logic and applied it to any future withdrawal.

"The principle guiding my decisions on troop levels in Iraq is 'return on success'," Mr Bush stipulated, in advance excerpts of the speech released by the White House. "The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home."

So, any future withdrawal will simply be further evidence of the "success" of the Iraqi campaign, even though full withdrawal will not be carried out during Bush's administration. He prefers to leave the "success" of that withdrawal to the next - probably Democrat - administration.

Until then the US will have what Bush euphemistically referred to as an "enduring relationship" with Iraq. That almost makes them sound like two buddies or some long married couple.

Now, of course Bush's plans - he has announced (Yippy, dippy, doo!) that some 5,700 troops will be home by Christmas - fly in the face of all US public opinion where a majority of Americans now want all troops withdrawn from Iraq.

Bush addressed these points with more of the empty rhetoric that has kept his support dwindling for the past few years now:

"Some say the gains we are making in Iraq come too late. They are mistaken. It is never too late to deal a blow to al-Qaida. It is never too late to advance freedom. And it is never too late to support our troops in a fight they can win."

The fact is that the US are fighting a tiny amount of al Qaeda's men in Iraq, but Bush brings this up in order to make the same tenuous link between Iraq and al Qaeda which he used to lie his way into this war in the first place. And the notion that he is "advancing freedom" is simply too ludicrous to even warrant a rebuttal.

However, in the middle of the "retreat is victory" banter an unwelcome piece of reality arrived:

Ten days after President George Bush clasped his hand as a symbol of America's hopes in Iraq, the man who led the US-supported revolt of Sunni sheikhs against al-Qa'ida in Iraq was assassinated.

Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha and two of his bodyguards were killed either by a roadside bomb or by explosives placed in his car by a guard, near to his home in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, the Iraqi province held up by the American political and military leadership as a model for the rest of Iraq.

His killing is a serious blow to President Bush and the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who have both portrayed the US success in Anbar, once the heart of the Sunni rebellion against US forces, as a sign that victory was attainable across Iraq.

But yesterday's assassination underlines that Iraqis in Anbar and elsewhere who closely ally themselves with the US are in danger of being killed. "It shows al-Qa'ida in Iraq remains a very dangerous and barbaric enemy," General Petraeus said in reaction to the killing. But Abu Risha might equally have been killed by the many non al-Qa'ida insurgent groups in Anbar who saw him as betraying them.

The assassination comes at a particularly embarrassing juncture for President Bush, who was scheduled to address the American people on television last night to sell the claim made by General Petraeus that the military "surge" was proving successful in Iraq and citing the improved security situation in Anbar to prove it.

Just as Bush is attempting to sell this war as winnable - thanks to his enlistment as allies of the very people who have probably killed US soldiers over the past few years - one of the most prominent of those new allies is wiped out.

But how did al Qaeda get to Abu Risha? Surely someone as important as that has security around him at all times?

And therein lies the rub:

Surprisingly, he is said to have recently reduced the number of his bodyguards because of improved security situation in Anbar.

His death is hardly a good selling point for the recently "improved security situation in Anbar".

Abu Risha's death underlines the degree to which the White House and General Petraeus have cherry-picked evidence to prove that it is possible to turn the tide in Iraq. They have, for instance, given the impression that some Sunni tribal leaders turning against al-Qa'ida in Anbar and parts of Diyala and Baghdad is a turning point in the war.

In reality al-Qa'ida is only a small part of the insurgency, with its fighters numbering only 1,300 as against 103,000 in the other insurgent organisations according to one specialist on the insurgency.

Bush is now selling this as a war against al Qaeda, having dispensed with his original reason for the horrendous violence in Iraq as down to Saddam remnants or loyalists. Now, he's laying the blame - or certainly asking Americans to focus - on the tiny amount of fighters loyal to al Qaeda and somehow making out that it is these fighters who are responsible for the horror show that is modern Iraq.

Meanwhile, he and Petraeus continue to cherrypick the facts and statistics to make out that Iraq is a safer place since the surge began.

The truest indicator of the level of violence is the number of people fleeing their homes. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees the number of refugees has risen from 50,000 to 60,000 a month, and none are returning.

Iraqi society is breaking down. It is no longer possible to get medical treatment for many ailments because 75 per cent of doctors and pharmacists have left. Most have joined the 2.2 million Iraqis who have fled abroad.

The food rationing system on which five million Iraqis rely to stay alive is also breaking down, with two million people no longer being fed because food cannot be distributed in dangerous areas. Rice and beans are of poor quality and flour, tea and baby milk formula are short. Unemployment is at 68 per cent, so without the ration, more and more Iraqis are living on the edge of starvation.

No wonder then that what Iraqis believe is happening to them and their country is wholly contrary to the myths pumped out by the White House. The opinion poll commissioned by ABC news, the BBC and Japanese Television NHK and published yesterday shows that 70 per cent of people say their security has got worse during the surge.

Against these facts the death of one US ally is simply small fry. However, it is yet another indication of the chasm that exists between Bush's rhetoric and the reality on the ground.

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