In a development that should not surprise any conscious and cynical observers of how Bu$hCo does business, GEN Petraeus revealed in an interview with Jane Arraf of IraqSlogger that we won’t really know by September how things are going, despite his rosy predictions of just two weeks ago.

Baghdad – Three months into the job, General David Petraeus says it is difficult to predict how well the surge of troops in Baghdad will succeed before the full number of troops arrive and that he would not have a definitive answer about prospects for stability by September, when he is to report back to Congress.

“I think generally is is still early days. We are literally still just setting the footprint if you will to do what we intend to achieve but until we get all those forces in and have really worked with them for a while I think it’s difficult to see what’s going to happen,” he told me in an interview Tuesday evening.

Jeepers, was it only a week ago that I wrote

GEN Petraeus has said that he will know by September whether or not the surge escalation is working, and he will report back to Congress at that time. Minority Leader Boehner is on record as saying we have to allow 60 to 90 days give the plan a chance, and then it may be time to fold up our tents and start withdrawing.

I am so surprised that GEN Petraeus has changed his mind in a week’s time.

Petraeus said there was wide recognition that patience in Washington was wearing thin and while the coalition could produce some improvements in security, stability would depend on serious political reconciliation between Iraq’s Shiite-led government and the Sunni minority.

It looks like the Bu$h malAdministration has realized that the Iraqi parliamentarians fully intend to take their two month vacation, and that they’re not all that crazy about the idea of signing away all their oil for the next 30 years.

The obvious solution, naturally, is to keep the bloodletting going, so as to punish Iraqis for their politicians’ lack of basic concern for the citizenry Big Oil. If only Iraq was a real democracy, like the US, where politicians don’t give a Chinese fart what the people want!

He believes though there is "incremental progress being made on the ground in Baghdad,” as evidenced by the lack of car bombs in major markets that have seen large attacks in the past, and a dramatic improvement in security in Haifa Street, previously a haven for al-Qaeda.

He said he and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker are in the the process of refining the campaign plan for Iraq, including some recommendations from a strategic assessment team which brought together security and diplomatic advisors to review current strategy.

“There will be some changes in the new campaign plan and others that just make sense but it’s not a dramatic change,” he said.

But…but…but… I thought Fred Kagan’s plan was perfect! It’s a cruel twist of fate to learn that renowned military expert’s plan was flawed, if it now has to be modified.

I think we’re going to see a teaching laboratory example of the Kronsteen Defense * from Mr Kagan in about one Friedman Unit.

* Kronsteen defense – In From Russia With Love Kronsteen the chess master devises a foolproof plan to catch James Bond in a honeypot trap, and thereby embarrass the SIS. Being Bond, he foils the plan (he is the hero, after all) and Rosa Klebb is punished for failing to implement the plan properly