Unfortunately for Cheney, the impact of his Bushspeakwas minimal, because he was contradicted — coincidentally on June 23 — by the top American commander in the Persian Gulf, Gen. John Abizaid.
Abizaid, testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee, indicated the insurgency was not weakening.
"I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago," he said, adding the overall strength of the insurgency was "about the same" as six months ago. "We are not trying to paint a rosy picture."
Told by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee's senior Democrat, that his assessment directly contradicted Cheney, Abizaid said: "I don't know that I would make any comment about that other than to say there's a lot of work to be done ... I gave you my opinion."
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Whatever you make of Cheney's "last throes" comment — and feel free to accept it as "it will soon be over" or "they can only keep up this intense violence for a little longer" or any number of other things-- recently published statistics suggest otherwise.
An April 27 Washington Post story, based on statistics provided to Congressional aides, found terrorist incidents in Iraq had increased,from 22 attacks in 2003 to 198 last year, a 900% increase. That contradicts the Bush administration's assertion that the situation there had stabilized significantly after the U.S. handover of political authority to an interim Iraqi government last summer.
Why is the Post report based on information from aides, and not from some published State Department report? Because the State Department said in April that it was breaking with tradition in withholding the statistics on terrorist attacks from its congressionally mandated annual report.
Although the State Department said the data would still be made public by the new National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which prepares the information, officials at the center said no decision to publish the statistics has been made.
"Last year was bad. This year is worse. They are deliberately trying to withhold data because it shows that as far as the war on terrorism internationally, we're losing," said Larry C. Johnson, a former senior State Department counterterrorism official in the first Bush administration, who first revealed the decision not to publish the data.
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As you might expect, Blitzer didn't ask Cheney about the statistics. Better to let him provide Bushspeak on the "last throes" in Iraq — whatever that means.
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This article first appeared on Journalists Against Bush's B.S. (JABBS)
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