Progress is just another word for things are out of control

As Atrios pointed on on Saturday:

President Bush on Saturday painted a rosy picture of the situation in Iraq, claiming significant progress in the U.S. military’s battle in an insurgent stronghold.

In his weekly radio address, Bush applauded the assault on Fallujah, west of Baghdad. About 80 percent of the city was said to be under U.S. control, with insurgents pushed into a narrow corner. But the battle has claimed 22 American lives and wounded about 170 U.S. troops and violence has now spread to other Sunni Muslim areas of Iraq.

“Our forces have made significant progress in the last several days. They are taking back the city, clearing mosques of weapons and explosives stockpiled by insurgents and restoring order for law-abiding citizens,” Bush said.

But, as ancient why-the-hell-is-he-still-on-the-air? Paul Harvey might say, here’s the rest of the story:

The fighting started in Mosul two days after U.S. tanks entered Fallujah. Armed men appeared in a sudden tide on a main street in Iraq’s third-largest city, a wide avenue where so many American convoys had been ambushed that locals nicknamed it “Death Street.”

At 11 a.m. Thursday, the target was an armored SUV. Witnesses said that after its Western passengers were chased into a police station, the driver was burned alive atop the vehicle as the attackers shouted “Jew!” The city of 1.8 million people then devolved into chaos. Thousands of police officers abandoned their precinct houses. The governor’s house was set alight. Insurgents took the police chief’s brother, himself a senior officer, into his front yard and shot him dead.

Looks like Mission Accomplished, We’ve Turned the Corner, and The Light At the End Of the Tunnel all wrapped up in one, except for the fact that the light at the end of the tunnel is being generated by flames from a burning governor’s house.