Urg. I think you might have missed a couple of things. From http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2007/08/27/afx4055546.html. "The Iraq tragedy cannot leave us indifferent. France was, thanks to Jacques Chirac, and remains hostile to this war" "It also includes a clear horizon concerning the retreat of foreign troops,' he added. 'It is then and only then the international community, starting with the countries in the region, will be able to act most usefully. France, for its part, will be prepared to help." He's not going to do anything until we stop or radically change direction, and/or start moving people out. My guess is this is from a mix of asserting France as a true world leader, and making sure the USA is taken down a peg. Maybe begging for help would be enough. "A little help with the whole nation-building thing would be greatly appreciated and if Germany wanted to throw in that wouldn't hurt either. We could let that whole Old Europe thing go." You know, it could go the other way as well - we could let the Old Europe thing go, and we might get some nation-building help.

"There has been some talk in the press and on the blogs that suggests the White House intends to tamper with -- or simply write -- General Petraeus' assessment to Congress. " President Bush has made a half dozen references to General Petraeus' report over the past months, not at all saying "My report in September". And he did this because he has lost credibility with many people, while the General has not. In addition to this - I see no part of the law that specifies that General Petraeus will give anything more than open and closed testimony to Congress - which has the potential to be far from an unvarnished assessment. "There are no political games here: the US military is simply complying with the law as passed by Congress." There are no political games by the military - that doesn't mean there are none going on.