It's not a plan for Iraq; it's political propaganda for consumption by the American electorate. We instinctively knew this, of course. Now we have the proof.
Bush's Speech on Iraq War Echoes Voice of an Analyst
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: December 4, 2005
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President Bush used the word victory 15 times in a speech about Iraq at the United States Naval Academy, reflecting public opinion research.
Although White House officials said many federal departments had contributed to the document, its relentless focus on the theme of victory strongly reflected a new voice in the administration: Peter D. Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who joined the N.S.C. staff as a special adviser in June and has closely studied public opinion on the war.
Despite the president's oft-stated aversion to polls, Dr. Feaver was recruited after he and Duke colleagues presented the administration with an analysis of polls about the Iraq war in 2003 and 2004. They concluded that Americans would support a war with mounting casualties on one condition: that they believed it would ultimately succeed.
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The role of Dr. Feaver in preparing the strategy document came to light through a quirk of technology. In a portion of the document usually hidden from public view but accessible with a few keystrokes, the plan posted on the White House Web site showed the document's originator, or "author" in the software's designation, to be "feaver-p."
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"This is not really a strategy document from the Pentagon about fighting the insurgency," said Christopher F. Gelpi, Dr. Feaver's colleague at Duke and co-author of the research on American tolerance for casualties. "The Pentagon doesn't need the president to give a speech and post a document on the White House Web site to know how to fight the insurgents. The document is clearly targeted at American public opinion.
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Dr. Gelpi added, however, that the speech and the strategy document "hit exactly on the themes our research said they should."
http://nytimes.com/2005/12/04/politics/04strategy.html?ei=5094&en=eded032aae63bdcc&hp=&ex=1133758800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1133715651-RxwDrBfDSD2tNV2CCtp/Gg