[jyl]

Getting back to the original topic, I think we'll just have to wait and see how Bush approaches this.

It has been proven that what Bush says he thinks frequently bears no relationship to what he actually does.

For example, when he declares his absolute committment to a member of his government, that's often a sign that said person is just days away from being discarded. From Mike Brown to Harriet Miers to Donald Rumsfeld.

And he spent the mid-term elections bashing Democrats as "cut and run" defeatists for proposing alternatives to the current Iraq policy, while it turns out that he secretly had his staff and Defense Secretary studying alternatives to that same policy.

In other words, what Bush says is often simply posturing - a sort of public negotiation process, where Bush declares that he is absolutely committed to X and then eventually settles for Y.

So it may be that his statements so far are along the same lines. Just more posturing and manuevering.