The White House Scales Back Talk of Iraq Progress

But, I thought there was progress being made:

The Bush administration will not try to assess whether the troop increase in Iraq is producing signs of political progress or greater security until September, and many of Mr. Bush’s top advisers now anticipate that any gains by then will be limited, according to senior administration officials.

This president has said that he intends on leaving the Iraq mess to the next administration. Therefore, all King George wants to do is run out the clock. It is possible he has given up his dream of attacking Iran. Although, there is still some time left for that:

“He is trying to fight fires coming from every direction,” Ryan C. Crocker, the newly arrived American ambassador to Iraq, said of Mr. Maliki this week, speaking by telephone. “We have to be clear to him on where our priorities are, so that we can buy him the time he needs. And we have to buy the time now because he is going to need it in the future.”