Perspective: A New Phrase Enters Washington’s War of Words Over Iraq

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 — First there was the “mission accomplished” banner. Then, last year, there was a “plan for victory” and, just this past October, the presidential assertion, “Absolutely, we’re winning.” Now that President Bush is seeking “a new way forward” in Iraq, he is embracing a new verbal construction to describe progress there: “We’re not winning. We’re not losing.”

The latest shift in the official language of the war is begging the question: Well, which is it? A tie? A draw? Something else?

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