is the fact that over the years, and thanks largely to the gentleman sitting next to me, that the level of violence has continued to come down, and the iraqi forces have continued to step up and that is really the difference today. when there are terrorist attacks, people don t blame the military or don t blame the police. they see that these terrorist attacks are being conducted by terrorist cells and they blame them. and the security forces do their best to deal with them. that is, no one ais excusing the security forces of being on one side or the other. these are hopeful trends. whether iraq is able to consolidate its democracy, certainly the election was a very good sign. they will have to go through a tough government formation period. i think they know what they are in for. i think we know what they are in for. it will take weeks, and as the president said, maybe perhaps months to get through this. but at the end of that, the united states looks to have a very long-term and succ