Ted Kennedy

(Best Syndication) Although many media outlets are reporting that General David Petraeus will present to Congress the “Petraeus Report” this week, the actual report will be prepared by the Whitehouse. General Petraeus and US Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, will be testifying in Congress this week and it is expected that they will warn against major changes in the war strategy.

The President is expected to recommend a “stay the course” approach to the Iraq War. There will probably be a mixed bag assessment of the situation, with a positive report from Anbar province and a negative report on political reconciliation. Many Senators and Representatives complain that the US is spinning its wheels in Iraq without Iraqi political action on wealth sharing and de-Baathification.

On the CBS program “Face the Nation”, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts said "We have chaos today, and I think an open-ended commitment [in Iraq], which is this administration's policy, is going to mean chaos tomorrow and into the future."

The US is on the right course according to South Carolina Lindsey Graham. "I think it is undeniably working... Security is better in Iraq than it has been before. Anbar has been retaken from the enemy. Al-Qaida is on the run. So, yes, I am very pleased with the results of the surge. There is local political reconciliation. The people in Iraq are war-weary.”

No matter what the Whitehouse reports this week, many American minds are made up. There is a sense of skepticism in the Bush Administration. Some are weary of previous rosy assessments that did not pan-out.

Many Americans have lost confidence in the President and his neo-conservative colleagues. Even before the wa,r the American people and most members of Congress were only given a Whitepaper outlining the possible threat from Saddam.

The Whitepaper left out crucial information about the estimates of reliability concerning the yellowcake uranium, the meeting in Prague between the Iraqi government and Al Qaeda, the mobile weapons laboratories and the attempted importation of aluminum tubes.

Only the Senate Intelligence Committee saw the complete report. Another crucial detail hidden from the rest of the Senate and the American people had to do with the threat posed by the Iraqi leader. The original National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) stated that Saddam was not likely to be a threat unless military action was taken against him. This was left out of the Whitepaper presented to the public and Congress.

None of the information the Whitehouse drudged up from unverified reports turned out to be accurate. Later the Bush Administration admitted they could not find any Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Is it any wonder that Americans have lost confidence in this Whitehouse?

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By Dan Wilson
Best Syndication News Writer