THE BUSH WHORE VS. THE GENERAL

Gen. Pace, Fredo's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently said that things in Iraq are "going well. I wouldn’t put a great big smiley face on it, but I would say they’re going very, very well from everything you look at.."

Here's the view from reality:


Expert on Iraq: 'We're In a Civil War'
U.S. Officials Deny Violence Has Risen to That Level,
but ABC News Analysts See a 'Serious Lack of Realism'

By JAKE TAPPER

BAGHDAD, March 5, 2006 — As Pentagon generals offered optimistic assessments that the sectarian violence in Iraq had dissipated this weekend, other military experts told ABC News that Sunni and Shiite groups in Iraq already are engaged in a civil war, and that the Iraqi government and U.S. military had better accept that fact and adapt accordingly.

"We're in a civil war now; it's just that not everybody's joined in," said retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash, a former military commander in Bosnia-Herzegovina. "The failure to understand that the civil war is already taking place, just not necessarily at the maximum level, means that our counter measures are inadequate and therefore dangerous to our long-term interest.

"It's our failure to understand reality that has caused us to be late throughout this experience of the last three years in Iraq," added Nash, who is an ABC News consultant.

Nash told ABC News, "The vast majority of the personnel in the army come from the Shiite and the Kurd population. And what we need to understand is that a political settlement — not brokered, but insisted upon by the U.S. — that gives equitable treatment to all factions is what we need."