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CBS' White House correspondent Jim Axelrod focused on Bush's speech in South Carolina. The "rationale is clearly shifting from policing sectarian violence to targeting al-Qaeda," Axelrod asserted, noting that the President "barely mentioned" the Sunni-Shiite conflict, counting only two uses of the phrase "sectarian violence" in his half-hour speech. NBC's White House correspondent David Gregory noted that the President's "renewed" focus on al-Qaeda "appears designed to overcome bipartisan anger over the lack of political progress in Iraq."
Jack Keane, the wearer of two hats, apparently has not received the memo. Keane, a retired general, is both ABC News' in-house military consultant and a White House advisor who helped develop its misnamed surge in January. Keane told ABC's Jonathan Karl (subscription required) what the goals of the troop build-up had been supposed to be before this latest al-Qaeda-focused change: "This is about securing the population. It is not about seizing a military objective. This is about changing attitudes and behavior."
ABC's Karl was reporting on the classified Joint Campaign Plan, drawn up by Amb Ryan Crocker and Gen David Petraeus, the top men from the State Department and the Pentagon in Baghdad. Karl's anonymous military source told him that the JCP envisions an "eventual withdrawal of US forces beginning some time next spring" and "a substantial US role in Iraq" for at least the next two years.
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