This won't be a long diary, it doesn't need to be.
I hadn't realized that tomorrow was the anniversary of the so-called "handover" of sovereignty to the new Iraqi government (you remember, the handover they snuck in on June 28, 2004 -- two days early -- so everyone didn't get killed).
So I guess that's why Bush feels the need to speak. And I guess that's why it'll be in the form of a speech and not a press conference, or somebody might ask this:
"Mr. President, more U.S. servicepeople have been killed in Iraq since the handover of sovereignty to the new Iraqi government one year ago than were killed in the war prior to that celebrated event. If returning sovereignty over their country to the Iraqis hasn't reduced our casualties there, what reason is there to believe that anything short of our leaving will?"