Today’s Must Read

General Petraeus will go before Congress this afternoon to argue that the surge is working — that sectarian killings and attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces are substantially down. The military’s secret numbers will serve as support for those conclusions, even as numbers from within the government (e.g. those collected by the Defense Intelligence Agency) dispute them.

We’ll have more on the numbers game a little later. But from Petraeus’ perspective, the question appears closed. We’re making progress — just how much is a secondary question. As he wrote in a recent letter to U.S. forces, we’re “a long way from the goal line, but we do have the ball and we are driving down the field.” We have the ball!

Accordingly, Petraeus’ counsel to the president, The New York Times reports this morning, is to make March the new September. As a concession to those who worry about military preparedness and are calling for a draw down, one Army brigade, a unit that was in place before the surge, would depart in December. The full force minus that reduction of 4,000 would stay in place through March of next year. Then, and only then, would Petraeus make a decision about bringing the number to pre-surge levels — possibly by next summer. Anything sooner, a military official tells the Times, would be “premature.”

But there are no guarantees:

Even as American commanders plan to reduce the overall force, they have stressed that the troop reductions could be adjusted or delayed if violence increases. Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the second-ranking American commander in Iraq, has said one important factor being weighed is whether attacks increase during the approaching Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as has happened in the past.

“Ramadan is big,” General Odierno said last week. “So far in the 30 days before Ramadan, violence has been going down.”

“If we can continue to do what we are doing, we’ll get to such a level where we think we can do it with less troops,” he added.

Presumably next Ramadan will be the true test of whether the strategy is working?