It appears that after we pull back troops, we are still going to have more troops in Iraq than before we starting the "surge".

Shouldn't we call the troop buildup an escalation rather than a "surge".  Even more accurately shouldn't we call it a surged escalation?

Is Petraeus Quote the Most Revealing of Entire War?
From Editor and Publisher

What will end up being the most famous quote of the Iraq war? Remember, President Bush did not actually say "Mission Accomplished." Perhaps Vice President Cheney's "final throes" will take the prize. But increasingly, as the significance of Gen. David Petraeus grows (seemingly by the minute), it seems possible that it might end up being his once-obscure 2003 remark to a well-known newspaper reporter: "Tell me how this ends." It was cited again on Tuesday by Andrew Bacevich in his New York Times Op-Ed contribution.

Petraeus said that line when he was a Major General directing the 101st Airborne during the U.S. invasion but, for some, his testimony today before Congress suggested that he still did not have an answer to it.

Who did he say the five words to? The lucky recipient was Rick Atkinson, the Pulitzer Prize- winning reporter for The Washington Post and military historian. It shows up in in Atkinson's book about the attack on Iraq, "In the Company of Soldiers." which featured Maj. Gen. Petraeus as a key character.

When I interviewed Atkinson about it in 2004, he said he considered the Petraeus quote a "private joke" at the time, but it soon became the general's "mantra."

I don't think this was the case of speaking truth to power.  I think Petraeus genuinely meant it, but it was also him making himself look good to the press, showing that he was smarter than Bush and Rumsfeld.  He doesn't pass up too many chances to make himself look good.  He's a fitness fanatic and likes to conduct interviews on his daily run, so that the story becomes what a great athlete he is.