Define "Secure"

That was the word Gen. Raymond Odierno, the second-ranking U.S. officer in Iraq behind Gen. David Petraeus, used to define 40 percent of the city of Baghdad recently.

That was noted in (among other places) Trudy Rubin’s column today in the Philadelphia Inquirer in which we learned “in contrast to U.S. politicians, no one here talks of ‘victory’” (maybe, then, Kathleen Parker should go over to Iraq and tell the Army to “shape up” per my earlier post).

Oh, and by the way, we also learned that the “surge” will probably last until next March, as well as this…

Many Iraqis are skeptical; four years of shifting U.S. policies have left their country a shambles. Shiite and Kurdish officials argue the real threat to Iraq's future is not al-Qaeda, but Saddamists who use equally vicious tactics to pursue a Baathist restoration. These officials fear naïve Americans may arm Sunni militias that claim to have turned against al-Qaeda but will use the weapons against the Iraqi government.

Indeed, Americans may arm some of the wrong forces. U.S. commanders grasp that, but feel they must take the risk. If al-Qaeda is checked, they believe, Saddamists will also be weakened, leaving a less-violent insurgency that can be contained.

It is a strategy based on grim realism. The widespread assumption among senior U.S. military commanders is that a U.S. military drawdown will begin by early 2008 - both because American politics will demand it and because the military is overstretched.

Gosh, you don’t think the “drawdown” has anything whatsoever to do with the presidential election in November, do you (you know, the contest where, as of now, all the Dem candidates lead all the Repug candidates, as noted here...h/t The Daily Kos)?

Well, with all due respect to Rubin, this column is full of hopeful, rose-colored speculation.

Here, however, is the hideous reality (h/t Atrios).