Bush, benchmarks and badgers

The NSC interim report on the new way forward in Iraq , the surge, the war that ended four years and two months ago and what have you was released today (25 pages PDF), and the President held a speech on Iraq(full transcript). Who could have foreseen that this news would be overshadowed by an army of ugly big fellows that seems to terrorize Basra these days.. And surprise surprise, it´s not the Mahdi Army!

On a whole a hellish period for the administration with important Republican senators like Richard Lugar et al leaving the sinking ship. The House of Representatives voting for troop withdrawal by April 2008, more American soldiers killed and several major car bombs during the last week, not much to be happy about.....

But there was actually a good piece of news, the amount of Iraqi casualties has been going down, and if that´s a continuing trend, then that might actually be the best news yet.....

I´m tired and on my way to bed, just wanted to post the interim report and the speech, and then you can judge for yourself.

Alan Johnston free

BBC journalist Alan Johnston was released earlier today. He was kidnapped in Gaza City on March 12th , by a group called Army of Islam. During the last days preassure has been stepped up, and just two days ago several arrests of people close to the Army of Islam was made. It seems the de facto Hamas takeover of Gaza has changed the security dynamics and that might have made the difference in this case.

I´m truly happy about Alan´s release, he´s one of the best reporters ever to have reported from the region, and he was the only western journalist to live there permanently at this point in time, to kidnap him was to rob the Gazans from getting the true story out of how bad the situation really is there in the most eloquent way possible. He´s reporting really has substantial impact.

More than 200 000 people have signed the petition to release him, and i thank everyone who has helped in whatever way during these almost four months. This is a big day for Alan, his family and the BBC.

An update will follow!

This will be cross posted on Fustat.