A salvo at the White House

US MILITARY BREAKS RANKS, Part 1
By Mark Perry
Asia Times

For military officers in the Pentagon's E-Ring (where the most important defense issues are decided), the shift in the public mood has been nearly miraculous: last September, on the eve of General David Petraeus' Congressional testimony on the George W Bush administration's 'surge' strategy, the American electorate was consumed by the war in Iraq.

Now, just four months later, that same electorate has shifted its attention to the 2008 elections. Public polls reflect the shift. Iraq no longer tops the list of issues of concern to Americans - its place having been usurped over worries about the economy - and is competing for attention with healthcare and immigration. (The "war on terror" is a poor seventh - a stunning turnabout from the two years following September 11, 2001.) But the perceptible fall-off in public attention from foreign policy to domestic issues is hardly a palliative for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or America's highest-ranking combatant commanders, all of whom continue to deal with the continuing uncertain military situation Iraq.

The fact that the Iraq war has been pushed off the front pages of America's newspapers has given the US military a seeming respite from the almost endless spate of disastrous stories coming out of the Middle East, as well as the almost endless round of embarrassing questions from the press about what they intend to do about it.

(Continued here.)