At last, a rosy day

摘要

President bush could tell something big had happened in Iraq, but he didn't know if it was good or bad. Last Wednesday afternoon, the president hosted a meeting at the White House with members of Congress who had recently returned from Baghdad. The congressmen told stories and gave Bush advice. Rep. Ray LaHood of Illinois pointedly told Bush that he should be trying to kill Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. The comment caused quiet snickering: try to kill Zarqawi—like no one had thought of that before. At one point, Bush's national-security adviser, Stephen Hadley, was called out of the room. When he returned a few minutes later, Bush gave him a searching stare, trying to suss out what Hadley had learned. Bush had been waiting for word that Iraq's government had finally succeeded in filling its last cabinet positions, an incremental step that the White House was eager to hold up as a sign of progress. But Hadley, gray-haired and sober, sat poker-faced, betraying nothing. Bush grimaced and waited out the end of the meeting.