Chuck Hagel has been making a lot of strong comments about the Iraq War, and in particular this article, citing his comments on NBC's Meet the Press, makes a case similar to what we've been arguing.

As long as the administration continues to make bizarre statements about the war -- such as suggesting the insurgency is "in it's last throes," -- they will continue to lose ground in Iraq.

Equally problematic is the comments the President made during his speech last week, that we're going to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here.  It may play well to a domestic audience, but Iraqis were also watching.  And they aren't too fond of the concept that we've turned their country into the battlefield of choice between Islamic jihadists and the U.S. military.

Hagel is correct, that if we're going to make any progress in Iraq, we need to come up with some serious and public measurements to explain when and how we are going to make progress and eventually leave.  Hardly anyone in the Washington political spin machine seems to be thinking about the things that matter on the ground in Iraq -- improving public services, capacity for the ministries, professionalism and capacity for law enforcement and the judiciary.