Bush listens to military officers, right?
They're saying Iraq has a bleak future.

Despite U.S. claims that violence is down in the Iraqi capital, U.S. military officers are offering a bleak picture of Iraq’s future, saying they’ve yet to see any signs of reconciliation between Sunni and Shiite Muslims despite the drop in violence.

Without reconciliation, the military officers say, any decline in violence will be temporary and bloodshed could return to previous levels as soon as the U.S. military cuts back its campaign against insurgent attacks.

This is when we all say a collective "duh". Ready? All together now: 1...2...3...DUH.

Thank you.

That downbeat assessment comes despite a buildup of U.S. troops that began five months ago Wednesday and has seen U.S. casualties reach the highest sustained levels since the United States invaded Iraq nearly four and a half years ago.

Duh. Duhduhduhduhduh. Duuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

U.S. officials say the number of civilian casualties in the Iraqi capital is down 50 percent. But U.S. officials declined to provide specific numbers, and statistics gathered by McClatchy Newspapers don't support the claim.

I won't say it. So what else is the military saying? The ones who Vice President Bush relies on?

Military officers serving in Iraq say much of the difficulties they're encountering are owed to mistakes that U.S. officials made in the early years of the war when the Coalition Provisional Authority dissolved the Iraqi army and banned many members of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist party from serving in government.

The actions drove many of those affected into resistance groups against the new government and U.S. forces.

...No pattern of improvement is discernible for violence during the five months of the surge.

I'm gonna say it. I can't resist: D-f'ing-UH. Wait. There's a bright spot? There has been a reduction in the number of bodies found on the streets. Yayyy!

But the reason for that decline isn't clear. Some military officers believe that it may be an indication that ethnic cleansing has been completed in many neighborhoods and that there aren’t as many people to kill.

Disregard bright spot. Does not exist. No bright spot. We are bright spotless.

Lt. Col. Douglas Ollivant, a planner for the U.S. military command in Baghdad, described the current strategy as “emergency medicine.”

There's just one problem with that analogy. Nobody's insured any more.

UPDATE: The Los Angeles Times reports that Gen. David Petraeus’ upcoming Sept. 15 report on Iraq will be authored by the White House. Thom Hartmann reported the same thing. And this is the report that everyone's so giddy about. Come on, did we expect something different?