Surging

The other day, we reported here that the Pentagon had classified the number of Iraqi attacks on us during the months of September, October and November of this year even though the number of attacks had never been considered secret information before. Last night at around 5:00 pm the Pentagon reversed itself and released the information (probably because of the howl that went up when the data were classified). And ....... as we all suspected:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 — A Pentagon assessment of security conditions in Iraq concluded Monday that attacks against American and Iraqi targets had surged this summer and autumn to their highest level, and called violence by Shiite militants the most significant threat in Baghdad.

Notice the word "surge." It's suddenly become the most popular word in the language. I suppose this is the same kind of "surge" that Bush is about to announce -- the kind that doesn't un-surge. If he puts another 50,000 troops in Iraq, they'll mostly still be there when he leaves office (net of the ones killed and wounded, of course).