Some brief analysis follows - see if you can find any of these observations, none of them requiring any special knowledge, in tomorrow's commentary. Listening tonight to CNN and Hardball, I didn't hear any of them:

Bush: Iraq...sponsored terror, possessed and used weapons of mass destruction. No evidence has been presented that Iraq sponsored terror. They definitely did possess biological and chemical weapons (dubiously called weapons of mass destruction - see below); in many cases the components of these were supplied by U.S. companies, and at the time they were used, Iraq was backed by the U.S.

Bush: For 12 years [Iraq] defied the clear demands of the United Nations Security Council. It now appears to be incontrovertible that Iraq has been completely disarmed since 1998, in compliance with the Security Council resolution.

Bush: Our coalition enforced these international demands in one of the swiftest and most humane military campaigns in history. Swift, yes. Humane? 6-8000 Iraqi civilians and tens of thousands of equally innocent Iraqi soldiers killed, and untold numbers wounded. Iraqis still being "blown away" on a daily basis by American troops (see item below). And a complete and total disregard for even counting these people, as if they are less than human. Humane? We report, you decide.

Bush: For a generation leading up to September the 11th, 2001, terrorists and their radical allies attacked innocent people in the Middle East and beyond, without facing a sustained and serious response. And this is related to the invasion of Iraq how exactly?

Bush: We are staying on the offensive, with a series of precise strikes against enemy targets increasingly guided by intelligence given to us by Iraqi citizens. I wonder if Farah Fadhil (see item below) is one of those?

Bush: So far, of the 55 most wanted former Iraqi leaders, 42 are dead or in custody. We are sending a clear message: anyone who seeks to harm our soldiers can know that our soldiers are hunting for them. Actually, there is no evidence that any of those 42 people had anything to do with "harming our soldiers." We are still holding in custody, totally incommunicado and essentially dead to the world, people like Gen. Amir al-Saadi and Tariq Aziz. When is the U.S. going to let these people go?

Bush: Our military commanders in Iraq advise me that the current number of American troops -- nearly 130,000 -- is appropriate to their mission...our commanders have requested a third multinational division to serve in Iraq. Surely the question is how many "troops" the military commanders want, not how many "American troops." If they have requested another division, then they need another division. Whether that division is an American division or a multinational division is a political question, not a military one (of course, Left I believes that all divisions should be removed, not reinforced).

Bush: This budget request [$19 billion] will...support our commitment to helping the Iraqi and Afghan people rebuild their own nations, after decades of oppression and mismanagement...We will help them to restore basic services, such as electricity and water, and to build new schools, roads, and medical clinics. "Oppression and mismanagement"? Is that what destroyed the electricity, water, schools, roads, and medical clinics in Iraq? Or could two brutal wars and a decade of harsh economic sanctions have something to do with it?

Bush: We mourn every American who has died so bravely, so far from home. Perhaps, but when we count them, we do our best to exclude those who didn't die in "combat." So evidently we don't mourn those Americans quite as much.

And finally, it's critical to not just look at what someone says, but at what they don't say. And of course, the #1 thing not said in this Bush speech - the "search" for weapons of mass destruction. Not only aren't there any actual weapons in Iraq, there isn't even any evidence of ongoing programs to make such weapons. The new line is that key scientists were "retained" (as opposed to what? execution?). Bush's comment on this, the key public justification for the invasion, and the sole basis on which the British government, at least, joined in the invasion? Not a word.

From Left I on the News