The Independent

President Bush's State of the Union speech last week had its ups and downs. Mostly downs.

The President left the war in Iraq for last, and said little if anything new.

He said the troops (those 21,000 extra ones, if you remember) are on the way. Give us a chance to show that now this (really, really, really) will make a difference. Unspoken was the fact that the president is “barreling them out the door” so that they'll arrive in Iraq before Congress has a chance to vote on funding to support them.

Well, maybe. The one chance the president has is Dave Petraeus, scheduled to be promoted to four star general. I'm a West Pointer from ’61 and I know something about Dave Petraeus, ’74.  He's the best we've got. But stated, as he arrived in Iraq the first time around, "Tell me how this ends.”

Well, Dave, you’ve now got your chance to tell us "how this ends."

General Petraeus has the deck stacked against him. Part way through his assignment to train the Iraqi Army, after his earlier, noteworthy assignment with the Kurds in the north, he was jerked out and made commanding general of Ft. Leavenworth, home of the Command and General Staff College, breeding ground for future U.S. Army generals. He was replaced by another West Pointer, who again was replaced by someone else—the former grumbling after his retirement.

No way, José. Please, Dave, and no one knows it better than you, prove me wrong.

Bob Liebman