Michael A. Fletcher (Extracted from "President Gives Both Reassurance, Warnings on Iraq", Washington Post, 19 December 2005)

"President Bush last night hailed Thursday's Iraqi elections as a vital step toward stabilizing that nation, but warned that despite the political progress more violence lies ahead as Iraq struggles to establish a democracy amid a raging insurgency."

[Ed: On the very day that President Bush gives a "victorious" speech to the American nation albeit with an entirely new humble tone carefully crafted within it, Vice-president Cheney turns up in Iraq for his first visit since the invasion in March 2003. "A pure coincidence," a spokesman said. "Tell that to my marines," Queen Victoria once said when told an unlikely story. So how do we interpret Cheney's visit? I think we have to bear in mind that the threat of legal prosecution is getting closer day by day to Karl Rove and perhaps even to Richard Cheney himself. There have already been rumours that Cheney will resign before Bush gives his State of the Union speech in January. I interpret Cheney's visit to Iraq as giving him some context in which he can justify the invasion in his resignation statement. If Bush then pardons him for any illegality that prosecutor Fitzgerald is now investigating then he will hope that a veil can be drawn over the whole episode. He can claim that the elections have been wonderfully successful and start withdrawing the bulk of his troops far more quickly than he is presently suggesting. However, the ultimate fate of a ravaged Iraq still lies very far down the line.]