Apologies for my absence.

I've been making a lot of arrangements for a project I have at the moment.

Meantime, Melanie Phillips is spot on in her analysis of the ISG report and aftermath:

"Bush is now surrounded by vultures sharpening their murderous claws. Does he have the inner resources to rise above them? To do so, he would have to not merely acknowledge the strategic errors he has made but transform the way he has run his office. This is a President who, until now, has operated through consensus. He has required his administration to present him not with a series of alternative options but with a settled view to which they all agree. This has been nothing short of disastrous, since his administration has been constantly at war within itself, with the State Department, Defence, the CIA, the generals in the field and sub-groups within those groups and others all fighting each other. Bush’s failure to choose between these warring perspectives and instead to operate on the basis of a ‘consensus’ which amounts merely to the lowest common denominator is in itself a major cause of the difficulties in Iraq."