"I'm sure you'll forgive me from criticizing the vice president"

Yeah, general, that does tend to get one's career shit-canned with this crew, now doesn't it?

But Gen. John Abizaid's reluctance to cross Dick Cheney's "last throes" thesis on the Iraq insurgency does not bode well. The basic problem goes all the way back to Rummy's metrics memo of October 2003. If the U.S. is not, in fact, killing more insurgents than are being created, the whole operation is treading water.

Abizaid said he thinks infiltration into Iraq has increased in the last six months. This does not sound like a "last throes" situation no matter what the vice president might say.