This is odd.

Esteemed military strategist and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced this evening that the Iraq campaign in the War on Terror "is a failure," adding that President Bush’s troop surge "has not produced the desired effect."

"The purpose of the surge was to create a secure time for the government of Iraq to make the political change to bring reconciliation to Iraq," Pelosi told anchor Wolf Blitzer on CNN's Late Edition. "They have not done that."

Who hasn't, precisely? "The troops have succeeded!" crowed Pelosi. "G-d bless them."

Well, that's a relief. The troops are off the hook; Pelosi made it plain a minute or so later that it was actually President Bush who had failed to do their job.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military today released exerpts from captured letters, including one written by Abu-Tariq, emir of al-Qaeda's al-Layin and al-Mashahdah sectors in Anbar province, a focal point of the recent troop surge.

Of the loss of Anbar province, Abu-Tariq wrote: "This created weakness and psychological defeat. This also created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight. The morale of the fighters went down.... There was a total collapse in the security structure of the organisation."

The emir complained that the supply of foreign fighters had dwindled and that they found it increasingly hard to operate inside Iraq because they could not blend in. Foreign suicide bombers, determined to kill "not less than 20 or 30 infidels," grew disillusioned because they were kept hanging about and only given small operations. Some gave up and went home.

One can only guess that communication difficulties must have prevented Abu-Tariq from receiving Nancy Pelosi's memo regarding his success in containing the U.S. troop surge. Just imagine the frustration in the leadership caves along the Pakistani border as Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants come to grips with the realities of managing high-echelon intelligence assets in far-away Washington!

Of course, if the Democrats take the White House in November, OBL and his cronies will really be in for a shock. It should take about five minutes for the Clibama administration to wrest open the jaws of defeat, declare victory in Iraq, and pull chocks for home.

Unless al-Qaeda doesn't get that memo, either...