Is the situation in Iraq an "Iraqi Tet"?

Memories ... The TET Offensive 37 or so years ago ...

To Mr. Bush's credit, he acknowledged in the positive when asked by ABC News whether the situation in Iraq in recent weeks appeared to be an Iraqi equivalent to the Vietnamese Tet Offensive. His response was that "could be right!"

[For those of you who are too young to remember, the Tet offensive was a major offensive by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese that began during the Tet holidays and lasted more than a year, ending in June 1969 -- ending only a few months before I began my tour there, as a matter of fact.]

As the seriousness of the situation is acknowledged by the President, I believe that we can expect increasing candor from the uniformed officers and enlisted men on the ground.

And as for those of us 10,000 miles from the carnage ... the percent of Americans who think the "war" is going badly went up a full 10% (from 48% to 58%) in only a month -- from early September to October 5 -- and this was before Mr. Bush made his surprisingly honest assessment of the situation in Iraq.

Only day before yesterday, Mr. Cheney still said that things were going "reasonably well."

The dozens of Iraqi bodies found each morning and the eleven American military deaths yesterday (Wednesday) make it clear that whatever we might compare Iraq with, the situation is going from bad to worse.

The honesty that I heard on and off during a couple of his (GWB's) interviews (see yesterday's posts) in recent days leads me to believe that a rift of sorts is developing between GWB and his (previous, I hope) minders, the neocon clique.

Go, rift go!!