Return on success in Iraq

NY Times:

President Bush offered an upbeat assessment on Friday of progress in Iraq, saying that while corruption remained a problem and unemployment was high, the economy was growing, violence was down and, “slowly but surely, the people of Iraq are reclaiming a normal society.”

Speaking to 1,300 graduates of the Army’s basic training camp here, Mr. Bush gave his first progress report on Iraq since September, when he announced that his troop buildup would come to an end by next spring, with reductions beginning at the end of this year.

In the September speech, the president called the new strategy “return on success,” a phrase he reiterated in his remarks here on Friday.

To make his case that the strategy is working, Mr. Bush ticked off a litany of statistics. Since the buildup was completed in June, he said, the number of attacks each week involving I.E.D.’s, or improvised explosive devices had dropped by half. The number of American military deaths, he said, had fallen to its lowest level in 19 months.

With Karbala Province moving to Iraqi control this week, Mr. Bush said Iraqis were now responsible for security in 8 of Iraq’s 18 provinces.

“The Iraqis are becoming more capable, and our military commander tells me that these gains are making possible what I call ‘return on success,’” Mr. Bush said. “That means we’re slowly bringing some of our troops home — and now we’re doing it from a position of strength.”

Mr. Bush typically finds friendly audiences at military bases, and Friday was no exception; the graduates and their relatives and friends applauded wildly as he arrived on the grassy parade field here, and they interrupted his remarks several times with foot stomping and cheers.

The speech came as Mr. Bush was pressing the Democratic-controlled Congress to approve an emergency spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Debate on the spending bill may not take place until early next year, but some are already predicting that the Democrats may make another attempt to force Mr. Bush to shift strategy in Iraq, in order to bring the troops home more quickly than he had planned.

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I am sure that many on the left are disappointed the troops don't hate the President the way the left does. That the troops would actually cheer and stomp their feet in approval of the commander in chiefs remarks must really bother them.

I find it interesting that the first MBA President would use a term like return on success. It is also clear that the strategy is working which makes the Democrats attempts to change it all the more ridiculous. They have been wrong about the effects of the strategy for a year now and they seem determined to stay wrong. At some point the public is going to notice just how disastrously wrong they have been and what a disaster would have been to follow their policy which would have guaranteed defeat rather than the victory we are now having.