ANOTHER HUGH HEWITT INTERVIEWEE GOES INCONVENIENTLY OFF MESSAGE

Oh, this was supposed to be a good one: Right-wing radio apparatchik Hugh Hewitt scored an interview with John Burns, who reports from Iraq for The New York Times, knowing that Burns thinks there's been a real improvement in Baghdad and worries that a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq soon could lead to serious bloodshed. Hewitt posted a transcript under the title "New York Times Pulitzer Prize Winner John Burns on Iraq, Iran and How the Surge Is Working."

Right-wing bloggers declared that this was yet another propaganda coup for the pro-surge forces.

Hot Air said Burns would likely replace Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack as "nutroots public enemy number one."

Blackfive said Burns had rebuked "the would be losers" by saying that "things have definitely changed for the better and the prospects for peace are higher than they have ever been."

Prairie Pundit included Burns among "all the members of the mainstream media who are now coming to the conclusion that the surge is working" and added, "It is interesting to see how events have swallowed the Democrat message of defeat and retreat."

Alas for the right-wingers, none of this is borne out by Burns's actual words.

If you actually read the transcript, you see that, once you get a few exchanges in, just about every anti-withdrawal statement Burns makes is balanced by a statement that favors withdrawal.

Violence? Burns says things are better.

I think there's no doubt that those extra 30,000 American troops are making a difference. They're definitely making a difference in Baghdad.

Political situation? Burns says things are worse.

I think it's probably fair to say that the Iraqi political leaders, Sunni, Shiia, Kurd in the main, are somewhat further apart now than they were six months ago.... Indeed, the gulf between the Shiite and Sunni leaders in the government is probably wider than it has ever been. There's a great deal of recrimination. There's hardly a day when the Sunnis do not, as they did again today, threaten to withdraw from the government altogether. There's virtually no progress on the key benchmarks....

Effect of withdrawal talk in Washington? Political paralysis in Iraq.

...the more that the Democrats in the Congress lead the push for an early withdrawal, the more Iraqi political leaders, particularly the Shiite political leaders, but the Sunnis as well, and the Kurds, are inclined to think that this is going to be settled, eventually, in an outright civil war, in consequence of which they are very, very unlikely or reluctant, at present, to make major concessions.

Effect of staying the course? Possibly the same kind of political paralysis.

Now I think the last thing that you need is an Iraqi leadership which is already inclined to passivity on the matters, the questions that seem to matter most in terms of a national reconciliation here, the last thing they need is to be told, in effect, the deadline has been moved back three years.

Would drawing down troops lead to all-out civil war? Quite possibly.

... I think the result of that would, in effect, be a rapid, a rapid progress towards an all-out civil war. And the people who are urging that kind of a drawdown, I think, have to take that into account.

Would staying the course prevent all-out civil war? Quite possibly it wouldn't.

That's not to say, I have to say, that that should be enough to inhibit those politicians who make that argument, because they could very well ask if that's true, can those who argue for a continued high level of American military involvement here assure us that we wouldn't come to the same point three or four years, and perhaps four or five thousand American soldiers killed later? In other words, we might only be putting off the evil day. It seems to me that's where this discussion really has to focus. Can those who argue for staying here, can they offer any reasonable hope that three, two, three, four years out, the risk of a decline into cataclysmic civil war would be any less? If the answer is no they can't, then it seems to me that strengthens the argument of those who say well, we might as well withdraw fairly quickly now.

Are we kicking the ass of Al Qaeda in Iraq? Yes.

I think they've had some success, and they've probably taken off the streets several dozen senior al Qaeda in Iraq linked terrorists. And that has to be significant.

Does it matter? Maybe not.

The problem is, as General Rick Lynch of the 3rd Infantry Division, who is presently in charge of the surge operations on the southern approaches to Baghdad has said, al Qaeda in Iraq is a hydra. It is a many headed monster which seems to be able to regenerate its heads when they're cut off. And that's been the case for a very long time, as General Lynch knows. He was the command spokesman in his previous assignment here. And many was the time wherein I attended briefings by General Lynch in that role, where he produced charts indicating how many first, second and third tier al Qaeda operatives had been killed or captured. And that was three years ago. So you know, it seems that no matter how many are killed or captured, this thing managed to regenerate.

Do the troops resent talk of withdrawal? Somewhat.

They certainly do not like the idea of, to put it in the pejorative, cutting and running. They think that they can still make a crucial difference, they think it's worth persisting here, they would just like a little bit more time.

Are they with the program? Er, not so much.

And I can tell you one thing, they're not fighting for any grand mission. The days of that are gone.... when you ask them what you’re fighting for, they'll tell you they’re fighting for the man to the left of them, the man to the right of them, they're fighting to get home safely. They're fighting for the unit, they're fighting to protect and save themselves.

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So this interview wasn't a home run for the White House like the O'Hanlon/Pollack op-ed, though it is cherry-pickable. It certainly shows how much effort the surge fans are putting into the White House propaganda campaign. (And maybe all that matters is that it can be promoted as unambiguously pro-surge, even if it isn't.)

I have to wonder how we managed to get these two items back to back -- coincidence? Or did the White House coordinate the timing of O'Hanlon and Pollack's trip (for which the government would have had to supply visas) and Hewitt's interview (which he would surely have been more than happy to conduct whenever Rove's or Cheney's office wanted him to)?

I really don't know how these things work. But I half-suspect it's all on a chart on a laptop we bought with our tax dollars.