Since the surge started earlier this year, the Assministration, when they're not asking for more time, are pointing to reductions in violence. But remember the whole purpose of the surge was to give the Iraqi government "breathing space" to work out political and economic problems. That hasn't been done. Sunni tribes in Anbar province have decided to work with our military and receive arms and supplies in return; the Mahdi Army has infiltrated Iraqi security forces and are in a self-imposed ceasefire. The civil war has just gone into a dormant stage, it hasn't gone away.
Meanwhile, 54 percent of the public want us out of Iraq, a level unchanged from last February. The question, as former Rethug Representative Vin Weber says in the article, is not whether we're "winning or losing", but whether it was worth it. And, as Weber says, the public decided that question some time ago.
