Incoming Army chief faces uphill battle - "We've got a good strategy, a good approach, and I believe that we will continue to make progress and ultimately achieve our goal of a stable Iraq," he said. "I don't try to guess about a time horizon. ... We've got a tough fight on our hands."
"You cannot fight an extended war without public support, but public support changes," he said. "You can look at any war in our history, and there were times when it was divisive and deeply unpopular."
"The Iraq situation will require a long-term commitment," Mr. Geren agreed two days later in a far-reaching hourlong interview. "What that's going to look like, I don't think anybody could tell you today, and I wouldn't try to predict how popular that would be."
Mr. Geren was seated in a wingback chair at his Pentagon office – on the side rebuilt after a hijacked plane slammed into it on Sept. 11, 2001. He'd started work just one week earlier as an aide to Donald Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary. -