6 to 8 Months

Tony Snow, 8 months ago:

MR. SNOW: I just don't know. I don't -- I'm saying that that is something that they'll have to consider. And I'm sure they are.

Q Tony, what's the earliest date on which it would be fair to gage whether the new way forward is working or has worked?

MR. SNOW: It's a tricky question and I can't give you an answer. I'll tell you why it's tricky. One of the reasons we have resisted strict timetables is because you do then create sort of an invitation for those who would undermine the government to kind of sit it out, to melt away to the periphery, to try to build strength and organization. That's something you have to be concerned about.

So -- but what we have said is that people are going to need to see progress. I won't give you an absolute timetable, but obviously the next six to eight months are going to be times when people expect to see something happening. But I would be very wary about trying to assign a specific date to it.

Q And what will the administration do if, after eight months, it's not working?

MR. SNOW: Well, again, you don't talk about "what if" -- what you're asking is, what happens if a program that hasn't even begun doesn't work? We spent a lot of time thinking through this program precisely because we thought it did work. And we hope we will never get to the point where we have to ask the follow-up.

Q Is six to eight months the timetable the administration is working with on when another look at it might have to be taken?

MR. SNOW: You take a look at it every day. This is not something where -- look, we want to see results, but the other thing that's going to happen is that there will be constant communications on the ground. How do you see it? What's going on with the Iraqi forces? What's going on inside the country? What does intel tell us about -- are people filtering out to the north, are they filtering to the south? It's a war-time situation. So real-time intelligence and nimble response on the basis of that intelligence is always going to be important.

Getting back to what Terry said, there may be the need -- part of what's built in here is the ability to respond to some of those shifts in the landscape so that you don't find yourself in a position of saying, oops, we need another thousand forces. At that point, you're not going to have the political capital to do it because the American people then will come back and say, why didn't you, and fill in the blank.

Q One way or the other, when people start voting roughly a year from now in the presidential primaries and caucuses, is Iraq going to look a lot different than it does today?

MR. SNOW: Sure hope so, but we don't know. I mean, the thing is what you're asking for -- General Petraeus and others have said, don't expect instant results. We're -- it's not something that changes overnight, but on the other hand, I think what we do hope that Americans will certainly see is much enhanced Iraqi capability -- we're talking about the Iraqis a year from now being in control of security operations in each and every one of the 18 provinces. That will be significant.

We are talking about significant economic development efforts; we're talking about significant political reconciliation. Those are the kinds of things that we would expect to see. There is no guaranteeing a complete and total end to violence, because, as we've seen, a small number of people who are determined to commit mass murder by packing themselves with dynamite, or loading up a car and driving by somebody -- that's almost impossible to stop. What you do have to do is create the conditions where the public is pushing back hard enough within Iraq, itself, that it decreases the ability of such people to organize themselves and to carry off missions, but also, that there's going to be a much stronger commitment to the success of the government because people are feeling a greater sense of security and also greater sense of economic security.

One of the big contributors to what's going on right now is high unemployment and a considerable amount of criminal activity that's made possible by the fact that people don't have other things to do. And therefore, you have to address all those. I know it's a long, sprawling answer, but that's -- those are the kinds of things that we take into account when we start assessing the situation in Iraq.

April.

Q Eight months from now would put us at October, and that would --

MR. SNOW: Okay, nine months -- then we get to November.

Q Wait a minute. But you're saying, between six and eight months we can kind of gage to see if it's working. And then in November, that's a month away -- do you have enough time to change -- to put the Iraqi security in total control within that small window?

MR. SNOW: No, no, no, what I'm saying is this is a time for -- between now and then, April, in the next few months we're going to see increasing numbers of provinces going over to Iraqi control. This is not something where everything gets stacked up with November 1st as sort of the beginning date. A lot of these transfers of authority are going to be taking place during the course of the year.