Friedman's not alone

I read two pieces of official admiration for the alleged cooperation of the Sunni tribes in the fight against AQI. I commented yesterday that Friedman's op-ed in the NYT contradicts the NEI version of the cooperation between Sunnis and US foces in the fight against AQI. Today, White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino, when commenting about the damning GAO report on the Iraq progress becnhmark, said: "On the other hand, one of the things it does not take into account, which is not on the benchmark list, is the cooperation of the Sunni tribes, who have decided to fight back against al-Qaida."

Huh? Where is the truth here? either the NEI is wrong, and faulty intelligence is what got us part of the way into this shithole in th first place. It seems the White House and Friedman are not the only neo-cons spouting off about how the Sunni's are our best friends in Iraq now. From National Review editorial:

"The fact is that the surge is President Bush's policy, and one that he implemented over the vociferous opposition of Democrats who thought the best strategy against al Qaeda in Iraq was to begin to leave. Now the surge has helped turn Sunni tribes against al Qaeda, advancing the goal that nearly everyone in the U.S. notionally shares of routing the terror group from Iraq."

You can read into this either some kind of cognitive dissonance on the part of these neo-cons, another failure of intelligence by the Intelligence Community or maybe they are right. I would go for a bit of cognitive dissonance, but this muddiness show how hard it is to get any truth out of the debacle in the Gulf.