Bush over Basra

There's Georgie on TV, tumbling down the stairs of a plane ... no flight suit this time... onto the relatively solid ground of Basra in Al-Basrah Province (not Anbar -- Bush is visiting Anbar province later)*, Iraq. What's Georgie doing there? Maybe it's got something to do with the Brits extricating themselves from this clusterfuckapalooza once and for all:

"US President George Bush has made an unannounced visit to Iraq on the day British troops completed their pull out of Basra.

Iraqis are celebrating the move as a defeat, but Gordon Brown insisted Britain could still intervene in Basra when necessary.

The American response to the pull out has so far been muted, despite its crucial timing.

Bush administration officials were reportedly furious that the operation was launched at a time when the president is begging for more time for his "surge" strategy to turn the tide of the war - though no official comment has yet been made."

"Furious" -- ooh. That doesn't sound good! But how furious are they, really? The lack of British troops in Basra gives Georgie an excuse for ordering US troops to stick around. And that progress report from Petraeus is due out in a couple of weeks, no? So they can say, "Look. Shiny thing. Anbar province, Brits went home." For some reason, Bush didn't want to land in Baghdad and make the trip to Basra with the Iraqi Prime Minister, but never mind that!

*Thanks GDK!