There are a couple of very optimistic articles on the situation in Iraq in Tuesday's papers. In the first, The New York Times' Eric Schmitt reports that for some reason the Secretary of Defense thinks we'll be out of Iraq by the end of Bush's term. Doubtful if you ask me.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld indicated Monday that he expected American troops to withdraw from Iraq within four years, but he cautioned that any final decision hinged on the progress that Iraq's civilian government and security forces made by then.

Asked by reporters traveling with him whether United States forces would be out of Iraq by the end of his second four-year term, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "I would certainly expect that to be the case and hope that to be the case."

If that isn't rosy enough for you, how about reading Bradley Graham's front page article in The Washington Post:

Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region, raised the possibility Monday that U.S. forces in Iraq could start to be reshaped as early as next year to reduce the number of combat troops and concentrate on the development of Iraqi security forces.

Abizaid declined in an interview to set a timetable for the shift, saying it would depend on the outcome of national elections in January and evidence that Iraqi forces could assume a greater share of combat operations against the country's entrenched insurgency. Other senior U.S. officers who elaborated on the plan said the change would not necessarily lead initially to an overall decrease in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq but could eventually facilitate a lower troop level.

This outlook comes in the face of a series of brazen attacks by insurgents intent on disrupting the elections and terrorizing Iraq's fledgling security services. The violence, together with a campaign of intimidation aimed at those associated with the new governing structures or with the Americans, has deepened perceptions of insecurity, particularly in areas heavily populated by Sunni Arabs. It also contributed to a Pentagon decision last week to boost the U.S. force to 150,000 troops.

After listening to General Eric Shinseki for nearly 3 hours today, I'd say I'm not nearly as optimistic as Rummy or Abizaid. I do hope they're right, but they've been pretty consistently wrong when it comes to predicting what would happen in Iraq so I'm not sure how good their credibility is at this juncture.