The 100 Years War With Iraq is Almost Over!

I was in New York over the weekend, so I missed the big Rumsfeld-Russert meeting of the minds on the Sunday gabfest. After reading the transcript, it's not surprising to me that, of the three, Bono came off with the most credibility. And apparently, I missed the introduction, possibly in conjunction with "the New Europe," of "the New Math" when talking about Iraq. Look how astounding these particular exchanges are side-by side. First, the "throes" question:

RUSSERT: For the sake of clarity for the American people, what about this insurgency? Is it in its last throes or is it alive and well and vibrant and strong as it was six months ago?

SEC'Y RUMSFELD: Well, there are various ways to measure it. If you measure the number of incidents, it's gone up during the election period and now it's back down. If you look at lethality of those instances, it's up. Now, what does that mean? Does it mean that the insurgency's stronger? Is it in its last throes? The last throes could be violence, as you well know from a dictionary standpoint. I think the way to think of it is that the insurgents are foreigners in some significant number. They are attacking Iraqis and killing them. They are opposing an elected Iraqi government. They know they have a great deal to lose. If they lose this and if Iraq becomes a constitutional representative system in the middle of the Middle East, the effect on the terrorists will be devastating. So they are going to fight very hard. And you saw that when the elections--they wanted to disrupt those elections on January 30th and so the peak went way up in violence. They're going to feel the same way about the constitution and the elections coming up in December. So I would anticipate you're going to see an escalation of violence between now and the December elections.

MR. RUSSERT: But you wouldn't say the insurgency is on its last legs?

SEC'Y RUMSFELD: Well, if you are successful in having a constitution and having another election under the new constitution, that will have an effect on the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people will see that the people opposing that don't have the interest of Iraq in mind. They have the interests of the violent extremists. And will that hurt the insurgency? I believe it will. I think there's no question but that if we get through this period we will see that the Iraqi security forces will be stronger. They're very well respected today by the population in Iraq, and we will have more and more of an Iraqi face on this, less of an occupation face, which is a good thing. And over time--I mean, foreign troops are not going to beat the insurgency. It's going be the Iraqi people that are going to beat the insurgency and Iraqi security forces. That's just the nature of an insurgency and it may take time, but our task is to get the Iraqi security forces sufficiently capable that that process of defeating the insurgency by the Iraqi people can take place.

Kind of a noncommital answer (also fascinating in the sense that he allows the US military to be rendered blameless for the insurgency itself, by saying that the Iraqi people have to beat it), but certainly more along the party line that the insurgency is, indeed, in its last throes. Then there's this from Fox News Sunday:

WASHINGTON -Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday that it could take as long as 12 years to defeat the insurgency in Iraq, but he said it will be up to Iraqi forces to do the job.

"We're not going to win against the insurgency. The Iraqi people are going to win against the insurgency," Rumsfeld told Fox News Sunday. "That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years."

So the insurgency is on its last legs, but we're as many as 12 years out from victory. Considering we began the war back in 1902, I'd say that's consistent. Otherwise, we've got a math problem.