On Wednesday that arch avoider of reality, Wuberry Bush, addressed the Naval academy on the state of the Iraqi war. A compliant, loyal audience of strictly military personnel, whipped up into an orgasmic frenzy of patriotism by another tub-thumping general punching the air in enthusiasm with one hand while the other manipulated something deep in his pockets.

It's noticeable that when it comes to Iraq, Wobblyu only addresses audiences gauranteed not to ask him awkward questions or point out the bleeding obvious - Iraq is a disaster. He dare not address a critical public, but this is not new for a president that only hears what he wants to hear and ignores the media, polls and hallowed American institutions who inconveniently contradict what he wants to believe, his fantasy based delusions.

And so we shouldn't have suspected anything new, and we were unpleaseantly unsruprise, when he indeed trotted out the same lines - stay the course. And of course he continued to mislead the public.

1. American troops were increasingly standing down in parts of Iraq, even in Baghdad.

True, you hardly see a US troop these days in Baghdad, just the odd patrol, the US has abandoned the streets to anarchy and militias.

2. Iraq security forces control major areas in the north and south.

True, but they are controlled by militias in Iraqi Army uniforms, and cheerfully roam around with death squads snatching, torturing and killing any Sunnis that look at them oddly.

3. That thousands of Iraqi battalions had been trained and were ready to go.

Okay, a little exaggeration there, but so what, lets play the same game as Bush. How does he explain that as late as this September, the top general in Iraq reported that only one Iraqi battalion was ready a the highest level, and a score or so of others below that? From one to 120 in two months?

It all depends on what you mean by training of course. A couple of months drilling and learning to shoot is a little less rigorous than the 3 year program that Saddam insisted the training that his army had to undergo. And those that are trained have few bullets and beans to rely upon; most have no barracks, no supplies, there is next to no Iraqi command structure and recently $1 billion has gone walkies from the defence department. Corruption is endemic, for example, an order of US made machine guns ended up with a delivery of cheap, useless Egyptian fakes. Iraqi troops drive around in the unprotected back of pick-up trucks, and most of the British and US army simply don't trust them.

Did Bush actually say anything worth listening to? Actually yes, for the first time he recognised the different factions that are fighting in Iraq, something that everyone except Bush and the US public has realised since the start of the insurgency. They are no longer all terrorists, but Saddamists, nationaists and so on. One step forward for this idiot at least.

Bush claimed that he would stay the (yawn) fucking course until total victory was achieved, even while the National Security Council predicted what everyone else knows, that Iraq will face deadly violence for many years to come.

But what should we expect from an administration that plants 'positive' news stories in the Iraqi press, seeks and bombs independent media outlets that disagree with the Bush administration and has on its payroll compliant Iraqi journalists. Nothing new there, it also paid respected columnists in the US to write everything's rosy in the garden as part of its re-election campaign.

The same adminstration that keeps claiming (Cheney, Rice et al) the insurgency is 'in its death throes' even while it strengthens. It's quite clear, the Bush administration is either continuing to mislead the US public or it still doesn't know what the bloody buggery is actually going on in Iraq.

Worringly, its probably both.

yechydda,