Statues, as well as living politicians, often have a short life in Iraq.

The assassination of Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha is a sad asterisk to last night's Bush speech about our next several years in Iraq. The leader of the Anbar Awakening Council, was on a mission to unite all the Arab peoples of the world. A rather lofty if not completely unattainable goal, but it sure made for good "trust the surge" PR.

Abu Risha's death underlines the degree to which the White House and General Petraeus have cherry-picked evidence to prove that it is possible to turn the tide in Iraq. They have, for instance, given the impression that some Sunni tribal leaders turning against al-Qa'ida in Anbar and parts of Diyala and Baghdad is a turning point in the war.

In reality al-Qa'ida is only a small part of the insurgency, with its fighters numbering only 1,300 as against 103,000 in the other insurgent organisations according to one specialist on the insurgency. Al-Qa'ida has largely concentrated on horrific and cruel bomb attacks on Shia civilians and policemen and has targeted the US military only as secondary target.

The mass of the insurgents belong to groups that are nationalist and Islamic militants who have primarily fought the US occupation. They were never likely to sit back while the US declared victory in their main bastion in Anbar province.

But just who was this Sheik? Two filmmakers seeking the truth about Anbar progress interviewed him recently in Jordon. This fascinating story, which aired on Al Jazeera English and Democracy Now, once again proves that what you're getting from the mainstream media and their overlords in the Administration is not a particularly accurate picture.