Progress

Yeah, things are going great in Iraq. So great that this trip, like every other trip a member of the Bush regime has made to Iraq in the last five years, was a secret.

Vice President Dick Cheney landed in Baghdad today on an unannounced trip for meetings with U.S. military commanders and Iraqi officials before a progress report on the war set for delivery to Congress next month.

Cheney, arriving just before the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion, scheduled meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as well as Army General David Petraeus, Ambassador Ryan Crocker and other leaders. Petraeus and Crocker are scheduled to brief Congress on progress in Iraq since President George W. Bush ordered the deployment of 30,000 extra U.S. soldiers a year ago.

Cheney flew by helicopter from Baghdad International Airport to the fortified Green Zone for talks. He told reporters it was “especially significant” that he was in Iraq five years after the March 20, 2003, invasion that toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and ended “Saddam’s tyranny.”

Bullshit. What is really significant is that, five years later, he still can't announce his visits to Iraq in advance. I wonder if that fact will be included in the “progress” report.

It takes a lot of balls to sneak into a country unannounced and then declare from a heavily guarded “green zone” how much progress is being made there. But ignore Cheney’s empty words. Judge the situation in Iraq by his actions. Members of the Bush administration have a well-documented ability to ignore facts when it suits their ends. But when it comes to their personal safety, suddenly they’re not so dismissive of the truth. Bushies may have an enormous capacity to deny reality, but it ain’t that big.

By the way, John McCain’s visit to Iraq was unannounced, too. Kind of makes you wonder if he believes his own rhetoric about the success of the surge.

UPDATE: More signs of progress.

A female suicide bomber attacked a group of Shiite worshippers near a mosque in Karbala on Monday, killing at least 39 people and wounding 54, officials said.