I don't think we can deny it anymore...

We aren't winning the war. This story is about eight hours old, so no doubt, many of you have seen it. But that doesn't mean its not worth blogging about.

The Guardian Reports:

The British Army is to start pulling troops out of Iraq next month despite the deteriorating security situation in much of the country, The Observer has learnt.

The main British combat force in Iraq, about 5,000-strong, will be reduced by around a third by the end of October during a routine rotation of units....

The forthcoming 'drawdown' of British troops in Basra has not been made public and is likely to provoke consternation in both Washington and Baghdad. Many in Iraq argue that more, not fewer, troops are needed.

Even Republicans are starting to realize that we can't keep this up. This morning, on Face the Nation, Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) said, "We're in trouble, we're in deep trouble in Iraq." That's a startling show of honesty that I don't think we'll ever see from the White House.

In what now seems like a statement of terrible irony, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) told folks from CNN, "I think we're going to need more people over time."

Senator Graham had better expect to see a lot of boys from the Carolinas over there in the next year or two.

Perhaps the most candid comments from Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana). On the ABC program This Week, he was asked why only $1 billion of the $18 billion that Congress appropriated for reconstruction in Iraq had been spent. He replied, "Well, this is the incompetence in the administration."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

(Thanks to the International Herald Tribune for covering all the news shows)