THE PLANNER.(The Talk of the Town)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 22-JAN-07

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COPYRIGHT 2007 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

Watching George Bush's televised speech last week, when he revealed what he called "the main elements" of his plan to rescue Iraq, was like watching a slightly nervous lieutenant colonel read PowerPoint slides. There was an unmistakable presence of bullet points; the plan is not altogether clear, but it seems to involve two deputy Iraqi commanders in Baghdad, nine administrative districts, eighteen Iraqi brigades, a large number of neighborhood police stations, and, oh yes, the dispatch of twenty-one thousand five hundred additional American troops. In a sincere tone of voice, the President also announced a door-to-door campaign "to gain the trust of Baghdad residents."

Bush said that America's military commanders had assured him that "this plan can work"--an oddly hedged phrasing. It was one of several fudges in his text, which recalled some of the rhetorical tactics his Administration employed to build support for the disastrous invasion of Iraq, almost four years ago. The President implied, for example, that his escalation had been conceived to support "the new Iraqi plan" to bring security...

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