‘‘My fellow Americans, our troops in Iraq have performed heroically and have done everything that has been asked of them. Under my presidency I will seek to bring our brave men and women home. But there will be no precipitate withdrawal from Iraq. We will secure our vital national interests.

“Our nation faces awesome challenges in Iraq and in the struggle against global jihadism. But I take inspiration from the ‘greatest generation’, which won the second world war, and from the statesmen who led us to victory in the cold war – men like George C. Marshall and Harry Truman.

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I am sitting in a hotel room in Washington. The television is on in the background, because I’m hoping to catch more Congressional testimony from General David Petraeus. But even the mainstream news channels seem to be losing interest. They keep cutting away to other stuff – commemoration services for 9/11, Osama’s new video. All the news channels carried Petraeus live yesterday, when he testified before the House Foreign Affairs committees. Today, he and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which should be even more interesting – since his inquisitors include Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But Petraeus fatigue has set in already.

It’s been a while since I watched hours of Congresssional testimony at a stretch. Yesterday was interesting, partly because it reminded me of the massive self-importance of Congress – neither Petraeus or Crocker got to say anything for almost an hour, while the committee members droned away. Their attitude seemed to be – "I’m really glad you’ve come all the way from Iraq, because there are a few things I’d like to get off my chest."

Petraeus says that the surge is working, which infuriates the anti-war crowd. But the people at Moveon.org scored an own goal, even before the general appeared before Congress, by publishing a full-page ad in the New York Times calling him "General Betray Us". This was so over-the-top that it was a gift to the Republicans.

Mind you, sotto voce, even some senior Republicans are not totally convinced by the general.

The symbolism of getting General David Petraeus to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the anniversary of 9/11 appealed to the White House. It should not have. It is crass. General Petraeus’s struggle to salvage the Iraq war merely underlines the fact that invading Iraq was a crazy way to respond to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

Six years after 9/11, the US needs to re-think. It is now clear that Iraq was the biggest blunder of the Bush years. It is also becoming evident that counter-terrorism should no longer be the centrepiece of American foreign policy. As the official 9/11 commission demonstrated, Saddam Hussein played no role in the terrorist attacks. He also had no nuclear weapons and no significant relationship with al-Qaeda.

But the Iraq invasion was not simply the wrong response to 9/11. It has actually made the terrorism problem worse in five significant ways.

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This week marks the start of the fifth year that the US has been involved in a war in Iraq. Every stock-taking on the TV and in the papers seems to have the same stats: 3,210 American dead; 65,000 Iraqi dead (although nobody really knows); $300 billion spent. In Congress, the Democrats are trying to pass a bill that would ensure that all American troops are out of Iraq by autumn 2008.

In his fourth anniversary message yesterday, President Bush said he would veto any bill containing an arbitrary deadline. Bush’s tone was appropriately solemn and dour. He has finally learnt to avoid "mission accomplished" boastfulness. The new tone coming out of the administration is epitomised by Bob Gates – the defence secretary. He has completely eschewed Rumsfeldian cockiness and the "stuff happens" approach. On television over the weekend he made a point of saying that he writes to the family of every American killed in Iraq.

People I know at the State Department say that the internal Washington war between the Pentagon, State and the National Security Council has effectively ended now that Rumsfeld and his coterie are out of power. Gates is also deliberately not prematurely claiming success for "the surge" of American troops into Iraq.

But behind the scenes the Bush people are actually more bullish than I have seen them for a while.