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GUEST: Robert Parry, Investigative journalist with Consortium News, author of several books including “Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W Bush”

In his latest weekly radio address, President Bush characterized his troop surge plan in Iraq as a strategy that is “delivering good results.” Ahead of next month’s congressional progress report on the surge, recent polls indicate an increase of public support for the strategy. The slight shift in American opinion follows an increase in positive media assessments of the surge. In one example, two Brookings Institution analysts and self-described “harsh critics” of Bush’s handling of the Iraq war recently authored an op-ed piece in the New York Times where they argued for the extension of the surge. In addition to shifting polls numbers and positive media reports about the surge, the Bush administration has also tried to capitalize on the decrease in the number of U.S. troop combat deaths in July compared to previous months. But a British Commons Foreign Affairs Committee recently concluded that the surge is not likely to succeed. Also, in contrast to the lauded decline in U.S. troop deaths, British Journalist Patrick Cockburn recently noted that the surge ought to be judged, in part, by the continually rising numbers of internally and externally displaced Iraqis.

Read Robert Parry’s article about the Iraq Troop Surge here: www.consortiumnews.com/2007/080907.html