First a plan, then a plan, then another plan plan.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 — President Bush began 2006 assuring the country that he had a “strategy for victory in Iraq.” He ended the year closeted with his war cabinet on his ranch trying to devise a new strategy, because the existing one had collapsed.,,,

In interviews in Washington and Baghdad, senior officials said the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department...failed to take seriously warnings, including some from its own ambassador in Baghdad, that sectarian violence could rip the country apart and turn Mr. Bush’s promise to “clear, hold and build” Iraqi neighborhoods and towns into an empty slogan.

Whatever form the new strategy takes, it seems almost certain to include a “surge” in forces, something that General Casey insisted earlier this year he did not need and which might even be counterproductive....

“What I want to hear from you is how we’re going to win,” [Gen. James T. Conway, the Marine commandant] quoted the president as warning his commanders, “not how we’re going to leave.”

"In one of its most sobering conclusions, the Iraq Study Group found that a "surge" of 15,000 more U.S. soldiers in Baghdad during the summer did little good, because the operations did not change the conditions that encourage sectarian warfare," writes the San Jose Mercury News' Frank Davies in the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel.