Pentagon to Review Its Strategy in Iraq

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 -- The Pentagon’s top general said today that military leaders are taking a hard look at its successes and failures in Iraq. But the White House said its definition of success in Iraq has not changed.

“We have to give ourselves a good honest scrub about what is working and what is not working, what are the impediments to progress and what should we change about the way we are doing it to make sure that we get to the objective that we set for ourselves,” Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview on the CBS “Early Show.”

He said Gen. George Casey, the top commander in Iraq, and Gen. John Abizaid, head of the United States Central Command, were working on the review.

General Pace said the impending departure of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, announced a day after Congressional elections that have been widely viewed as a repudiation of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, will not have a direct bearing on changes.

Asked in another interview, on MSNBC, if the United States was winning in Iraq, the general replied: “You have to define winning. I don’t mean to be glib about that. Winning to me is simply having each of the nations that we’re trying to help have a secure environment inside of which their government and their people can function.”

General Pace likened the fight against terrorism to fighting crime. “Example: Here in Washington, D.C., there’s crime, but there’s a police force,” he said. “And the police force keeps the level of crime below the level at which the government can function. That’s really what winning in the war on terrorism is.”

But when he was asked about the general’s remarks, the chief White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said the administration is still committed to victory in Iraq, and that its definition of victory has not changed. Mr. Snow defined victory as “an Iraq that can sustain, defend and govern itself,” words virtually identical to those used recently by President Bush and his surrogates.

Read the rest at the NY Times

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