Evidently there’s a debate going on in the Bush Administration concerning their prosecution of the War in Iraq. Progress has been looking pretty good as far as action against Al Qaeda in Iraq [AQI] is concerned, or so they believe. So it’s come full circle. The Bush policy created a powerful terrorist group that previously didn’t exist, and has now, supposedly, brought that group under control. They are so much under control that some of the generals want to declare victory. Yeah, sounds like a photo op on an aircraft carrier, doesn’t it? From the WaPo:

The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.

But as the White House and its military commanders plan the next phase of the war, other officials have cautioned against taking what they see as a premature step that could create strategic and political difficulties for the United States. Such a declaration could fuel criticism that the Iraq conflict has become a civil war in which U.S. combat forces should not be involved. At the same time, the intelligence community, and some in the military itself, worry about underestimating an enemy that has shown great resilience in the past.

[. . . ]

Recent suicide bombings in northern Iraq have convinced some officials that AQI has moved its operations in that direction. But the officials said they do not know whether AQI militants have permanently decamped from Baghdad and Anbar province, or whether they are merely lying low in anticipation of a U.S. departure or the failure of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to end the sectarian divisions that AQI fostered and now feeds upon.

While a victory declaration might have the “psychological aspect” of discouraging recruitment to a perceived lost cause, the White House official said, advantages overall would be minimal. “I recognize that there are pros to saying, ‘Hey, listen, the bad guys are on the run.’ ” But if AQI were later able to demonstrate residual capabilities with a series of bombings, “even though it was temporary,” he said, “the question becomes: How does this play out in terms of public opinion?”

You gotta love that last part, the Bush Administration staying true to form and contemplating political implications and political use when waging war should be their first interest. (Heck, the first interest should have been identifying the proper enemy, Osama bin Laden, and taken him down, but that stupid mistake is long, long ago, isn’t it?) They’ve got more to be concerned about than another premature mission accomplished sensation here, don’t you think? It isn’t just Al Qaeda in Iraq that the Bush Administration created in Iraq when it invaded, after all. There’s a couple dozen sectarian factions in Iraq raising havoc daily, at least according to the news. There’s little political reconciliation in the country between those sectarian factions, unless someone created a miracle over the last couple months and didn’t decide to tell us. Believe me, the PR Presidency would have said something.

Of course, none of this mentions the Iraq infrastructure the Bush Administration policies have destroyed, the 100,000+ Iraqi civilian dead, the hundreds of thousands of wounded, the destroyed economy. . . to declare victory in Iraq is to stand arm in arm with the Grim Reaper and to pat him on his back. Still, I wouldn’t put it past the Bushies.