Every American should pay attention and analyze General Petraeus's words as to the situation in Iraq:

...18 months after entering Iraq, I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up... ...And Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously in the face of an enemy that has shown a willingness to do anything to disrupt the establishment of the new Iraq... ...Equipment is being delivered. Training is on track and increasing in capacity. Infrastructure is being repaired. Command and control structures and institutions are being reestablished... ...Progress has also been made in police training. In the past week alone, some 1,100 graduated from the basic policing course and five specialty courses... ...Considerable progress is also being made in the reconstruction and refurbishing of infrastructure for Iraq's security forces... ...Iraq's security forces are, however, developing steadily and they are in the fight. Momentum has gathered in recent months...

No, these words are not part of the report that Petraeus will deliver to Congress this week. They were all taken from an Op-Ed he wrote for the Washington Post on September 26, 2004. Petraeus was dead wrong in his assessment of the situation then, so what makes us think that he'll be doing any better this time around? The police force is corrupt and virtually useless. Sectarian militias rule the street. The Iraqi army is still not ready to take over its own security. A drop in sectarian killings in one area of the country is wiped out by rises in another. Most damning of all, there's still no political progress among the Iraqi's themselves.

But nobody's fooled anymore. An significant majority of the American people seem to already know what we'll be hearing this week is nothing more than spin.