Body counts

As Atrios says, this certainly gives us some idea of the direction Bush is headed in:

In late October, Bush told a group of conservative journalists that the administration had made a decision not to report the number of Iraqis killed by the U.S. military. The publication of those figures was widely seen as a counter-productive strategy during the Vietnam War. Byron York reported for the National Review:

“We have made a conscious effort not to be a body-count team,” Bush said, in a clear reference to the tabulations of enemy killed that became a hallmark of the Vietnam War. And that, in turn, “gives you the impression that [U.S. troops] are just there — kind of moving around, directing traffic, and somebody takes a shot at them and they’re down.”

Today, Tony Snow announced that the administration had reversed course and would be publicizing body counts to disabuse people of the notion that “our people aren’t doing anything” in Iraq.

You wouldn't start publishing the body count of the "enemy" if you were planning to start a withdrawal. We're going in with 20,000 to 30,000 more troops. We'll kill a lot of people (mostly innocent civilians). We'll get killed a lot. We'll eventually leave with our tail between our legs, and things will be much worse than if we'd just left in the first place.

If there's a way to screw it up even more, Bush will find it.