Bush adviser: Headway made in war effort

The White House believes it has made significant progress over the last month in swaying public and political opinion toward supporting a continued U.S. military effort in Iraq, one of President Bush’s closest advisers said in an interview.

“The end of the August feels a lot better than the beginning of August when it comes to where we are relative to perceptions of our Iraq policy and what is working,” said Ed Gillespie, counselor to the president.

Congress returns Tuesday from a month-long recess that did not go according to plan for Democratic leaders and critics of the war, who were looking to September as a time to force Mr. Bush into changing course in Iraq.

That moment may still come. But August did not bring the bad news from Iraq that would lend weight to calls for a troop withdrawal.

Instead, numerous reports from various sources brought news of significant military and security progress in Iraq, a result of Mr. Bush’s surge of 30,000 additional troops, which began in January and culminated in July.

Political reconciliation among Iraqi Shi’ites, Sunnis and Kurds remains elusive, but even there, a still-nebulous power-sharing agreement was reached by all three factions last weekend, which Mr. Gillespie cited as an improvement.

“Even [the lack of political reconciliation] has changed since last week. We are seeing progress now,” Mr. Gillespie said. “I do think there is a general view that the surge is having its desired effect.”

However, a report from the congressionally-controlled Government Accountability Office, to be delivered next week, will say that there is little progress on both military and political fronts, The Washington Post reported today.

And Sen. John Warner, Virginia Republican, one of the most influential GOP senators, returned from Iraq last week and said that Mr. Bush should begin pulling troops out of Iraq this fall.

The White House has responded to these negative reports by pointing to a progress report that they will issue next month, in conjunction with testimony from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker.

Mr. Gillespie also said that Mr. Warner”s comments last week “didn”t feel like a break” with the White House policy.

“It felt like he was saying, ‘This is what I think is doable. But I’m not calling for a timeline, I’m not for imposing that on the commander in chief,’” Mr. Gillespie said. “I don’t know if it’s a break because I don’t know where we’re going to be after Petraeus and Crocker report. It could be that we end up in the same place. It could be that we don’t. I don’t know yet.”

Gen. Petraeus and Mr. Crocker will testify before Congress on Sept. 11 and Sept. 12, and will answer questions on the current situation in Iraq militarily and politically.

Mr. Gillespie repeatedly stressed that he does not know what the general and ambassador will say.