James Joyner on Petraeus

As he often is James Joyner is spot on.

A Who's Who of the US military sex scandal

A Who's Who of the US military sex scandal (via AFP)

The sex scandal that downed CIA chief David Petraeus has ensnared another top US general and is becoming ever more complex as it reverberates around the corridors of power in Washington. Here is a look at the main characters and the tangled web of intrigue that links them: GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS The…

General Petraeus affair raises deep personal and public questions

General Petraeus affair raises deep personal and public questions (via The Christian Science Monitor)

The news that shocked Washington this week – the resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus because of an extra-marital affair – leaves a string of unanswered questions. How and why was the FBI led to investigate suspicions that Gen. Petraeus’s personal e-mail account had been hacked? Did someone…

"Tell me how this ends."

Greg Mitchell:

What will end up being the most famous quote of the Iraq war? Remember, President Bush did not actually say "Mission Accomplished." Perhaps Vice President Cheney's "final throes" will take the prize. But increasingly, as the significance of Gen. David Petraeus grows (seemingly by the minute), it seems possible that it might end up being his once-obscure 2003 remark to a well-known newspaper reporter: "Tell me how this ends."

It's 2008 and General David Petraeus still couldn't answer that question when he testified before the Senate and House this week. Dana Milbank reminds us that it wasn't just the Democrats asking the question this time.
From the GOP, the General Gets Unfriendly Fire

"The people of the United States have paid an awful price," thundered Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "It's time for the Iraqis to pay that price for their own protection."

"I still have a hard time seeing the big picture and what constitutes success," complained Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). "That's not just one side of the aisle with those kind of concerns. Many on this side of the aisle have that as well."

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) demanded an explanation for President Bush's unmet promise that the Iraqi government would take over security for all provinces. "Of course, that has not happened," Tancredo complained. "I'm just wondering whether, General Petraeus, you have any idea of why he made that statement?"

By the end of the day, the general and his sidekick, Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, had become accomplished in the art of gulping.

When he appeared before Congress seven months ago, the general was greeted as a returning war hero. But missiles are again raining on the Green Zone in Baghdad, and sadder but wiser lawmakers tempered their enthusiasm.

For the newly skeptical, Petraeus gave the not-entirely-successful defense that he could not define success in Iraq, but that he would know it when he sees it -- much like the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's view of pornography.

I have no doubt that David Petraeus is a smart man and as such he has to know the game clock will run out in January, 2009 even if John McCain is elected. So how many Americans will die between now and then because he allows George W. Bush to kick the can down to the next President.

Stay the course (Until Jan, 2009)

I've been absent the last couple of days - in part because I'm really busy but probably really because I didn't have anything to say. While I have been pounding away at my keyboard I did listen to General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker's pep talk to congress. Shaun Mullen does a good job of summing up the entire testimony:

We have no long-term strategy.

We have no end-game plan.

We just need more Friedman Units, pretty please.

As well as:

The president would like you to help him kick the can down the road to 2009.

In spite of the fact that that's what I heard as well I was encouraged because I think that no matter who is elected in November the war will be winding down next year. There seemed to be more bipartisan understanding that it simply can't go on any longer. The occupation is damaging the military, damaging the economy and hurting us from a security point of view. The irony of the president of Iran being greeted with parades, kisses and yes, flowers while the Pt of the United States has to sneak in was not lost on our lawmakers - including many Republicans. What we got from Petraeus and Crocker was the same old bull shit we've been getting from the Bush administration for the last five years but there were far fewer lawmakers buying it. If there is one thing that made me sad it was to see a smart and dedicated soldier helping George W. Bush kick the can that is is foolish and failed war to the next President.

Cheney's Man in Iraq?

Now I thought General Petraeus was a pretty sharp fellow but this is absurd:
Iran joined militias in battle for Basra

IRANIAN forces were involved in the recent battle for Basra, General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, is expected to tell Congress this week.

Military and intelligence sources believe Iranians were operating at a tactical command level with the Shi’ite militias fighting Iraqi security forces; some were directing operations on the ground, they think.

Petraeus intends to use the evidence of Iranian involvement to argue against any reductions in US forces.

Dr Daniel Goure, a defence analyst at the Lexington Institute in Virginia, said: “There is no question that Petraeus will be tough on Iran. It is one thing to withdraw troops when there is purely sectarian fighting but it is another thing if it leaves the Iranians to move in.”

Anyone who seriously thinks the Iranians would take the side of the Iraqi nationalist Sadr forces against the pro-Iranian Badr Brigade and a government supported by the pro-Iranian Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq is either lying or incompetently delusional. The Iranians don't want al-Sadr in charge of Iraq anymore than the Americans do. I don't really think that the Iranians brokered a ceasefire but that both sides were called to Qom and told to stop. The Iranians already control Iraq through the ISC of Iraq and it's militia the Badr Brigade. So what is Petraeus up to here by attempting to blame the Iranians. Some think he's trying to make a case for Cheney to attack Iran. Here again I really thought he was smarter than that. An overt attack on Iran would result in all hell breaking lose in Iraq. If Petraeus has any grasp of reality he must know that. An attack on Iran is the one thing that might bring JAM and the Badr Brigade together. This should be a major line of questioning when Petraeus speaks to congress.

Now we know!

McClatchy gives us a good run down of the events in the hours before al-Sadr's cease fire offer.
Sadr rebuffs Iraq government envoy as offensive sputters

BAGHDAD - After failing to break the resistance of Shiite militias in the five-day siege of oil rich Basra, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki sent a top general to hold talks with his Shiite rival, Muqtada al Sadr, Saturday night only to be rebuffed by the firebrand cleric, an Iraqi official close to the negotiations said.

Maliki denounced Shia militants in Basra as the equivalent of Al Qaida, and Sadr told his supporters not to hand over their arms to a puppet state of the United States.

The diplomatic initiative and the harsh rebuff further eroded expectations for a successful outcome to the offensive, which Maliki is personally directing from the presidential palace in the southern port city. It was not the only sign of problems.

Maliki issued orders Friday to enlist volunteers for the battle against the Shiite militias, and his Dawa party sought to enlist fighters. The U.S. military raised its profile in Basra still further, providing protection for installations including the palace where Maliki is housed, Iraqi Interior Ministry officials said.

There were more U.S. air strikes in the Sadrist stronghold of Sadr City, and local officials said U.S. forces joined Iraqi security forces in clashes against Sadrists lasting hours south of Hilla, which lies south of Baghdad. Meanwhile, Sadr's Mahdi Army militia went door to door in Sadr City with a list of those employed by government security services, demanding that they not report to their jobs, local residents said.

The circumstances in which the negotiations with Sadr took place suggested the government is no longer able to dictate the terms of an agreement with Sadr but now must seek a deal. General Hussein al Assadi, a Baghdad-based commander, traveled to Najaf to call on the head of Sadr's political bureau there, Lewaa Smaisam. From his office, the two men telephoned Sadr, who is believed to be in Iran, where he is studying religion. But they could not reach agreement, an official close to the negotiations said. He would not give his name due to the sensitivity of the subject.

Of course shortly after this al-Sadr offered his conditions for a cease fire which had to be very unpalatable to al-Malaki but which he accepted. So what does this tell us? It tells us who is calling the shots in Iraq and it's not the Bush administration or General Petraeus - it's the Mullahs in Tehran. It was Tehran who told al-Sadr to make the offer and Tehran who told al-Malaki to accept. The US may have 150,000 troops on the ground but it's Tehran that is running the show. The war is over and the winner is Iran.

But Why?

The right wingers are beside themselves this morning because of this editorial from a fellow right winger Fred Hiatt.
Better Numbers
The evidence of a drop in violence in Iraq is becoming hard to dispute

NEWS COVERAGE and debate about Iraq during the past couple of weeks have centered on the alleged abuses of private security firms like Blackwater USA. Getting such firms into a legal regime is vital, as we've said. But meanwhile, some seemingly important facts about the main subject of discussion last month -- whether there has been a decrease in violence in Iraq -- have gotten relatively little attention. A congressional study and several news stories in September questioned reports by the U.S. military that casualties were down. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), challenging the testimony of Gen. David H. Petraeus, asserted that "civilian deaths have risen" during this year's surge of American forces.

A month later, there isn't much room for such debate, at least about the latest figures. In September, Iraqi civilian deaths were down 52 percent from August and 77 percent from September 2006, according to the Web site icasualties.org. The Iraqi Health Ministry and the Associated Press reported similar results. U.S. soldiers killed in action numbered 43 -- down 43 percent from August and 64 percent from May, which had the highest monthly figure so far this year. The American combat death total was the lowest since July 2006 and was one of the five lowest monthly counts since the insurgency in Iraq took off in April 2004.

During the first 12 days of October the death rates of Iraqis and Americans fell still further. So far during the Muslim month of Ramadan, which began Sept. 13 and ends this weekend, 36 U.S. soldiers have been reported as killed in hostile actions. That is remarkable given that the surge has deployed more American troops in more dangerous places and that in the past al-Qaeda has staged major offensives during Ramadan. Last year, at least 97 American troops died in combat during Ramadan. Al-Qaeda tried to step up attacks this year, U.S. commanders say -- so far, with stunningly little success.

This decline in Iraqis killing each other has indeed put the spotlight on the psychopathic cowboys of Blackwater and other private security firms who have been doing most of the killing recently but why are the other deaths down. With more US troops temporarily on patrol one would expect deaths to decrease. The key word here is "temporarily". It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with logistics - current troop levels simply can't be maintained. So what happens when the US starts drawing down it's troops?

More important may be that the ethnic cleansing in Baghdad is nearly complete. Most of the Sunnis have either been driven out of Baghdad or killed already. That has nothing to do with the Petraeus surge.

Hiatt concludes with this:

This doesn't necessarily mean the war is being won. U.S. military commanders have said that no reduction in violence will be sustainable unless Iraqis reach political solutions -- and there has been little progress on that front. Nevertheless, it's looking more and more as though those in and outside of Congress who last month were assailing Gen. Petraeus's credibility and insisting that there was no letup in Iraq's bloodshed were -- to put it simply -- wrong.

I was not surprised that there was a decline in deaths but I think we can still be justified to question Gen. Petraeus's credibility. If you go here and see that when Petraeus talked about reduced Ethno Sectarian violence in Baghdad he failed to mention that most of the Sunnis were gone.

13 Months!

Those Republicans who plan to seek reelection in November of 2008 and still support George W. Bush's failed policy in Iraq in hopes that some miracle will occur before the election should read today's post by our friend Cernig at NewsHoggers:
Diyala "Awakening" In Danger Of Collapse
In brief the Diyala Awakening that was given by the sycophant General Petraeus as a sign of success is about to collapse because of the corrupt Iraqi central government. Go read the entire thing.

The only thing the Republican, and Democratic, supporters of the occupation of Iraq will find is that November, 2008 cliff.

The Political Hack With Ribbons Hour

Well of course this should come as no surprise from the Bush/Cheney cabal's own Pravda but here it is:


Fox News To Air One-Hour Petraeus Special On Saturday Night

At 9 pm ET on Saturday, Fox News will air a one hour special about the top commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, who recently argued in Congressional testimony that President Bush’s “surge” in Iraq is working. The program, titled “American Commander: Gen. David Petraeus” and hosted by Jon Scott, will look at Petraeus’ “life and times”:

Today’s conflicts require that a modern American General be a student of history. In this one hour FOX News special, join veteran correspondent and anchor Jon Scott as we take an in-depth look at the life and times of General David Petraeus from his childhood in Cornwall, New York to his historic mission in Iraq.

Well good luck with this one. Pravda in the old Soviet Union was considered to be short of the truth by it's readers. Judging from the post Petraeus dog and pony show polls the FOX show would meet with the same reaction - that is if anyone but the Bush cultists watched. But of course they won't.

Un-spinning the Anbar Spin

The spin from General Petraeus was all about his great success in Iraq's Anbar Province. Of course spin is all it was. Well Pepe Escobar does a good job of un-spinning the spin.
Behind the Anbar myth

Petraeus' key argument this week to prove his steering of the Bush-devised "surge" was a "success" was to spin the close collaboration between the occupation and the Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi government in Baghdad on the one side with Sunni tribal leaders in al-Anbar province on the other. Petraeus framed it as if this "sustainable" solution was a huge counterinsurgency success of his own making. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The success story in Anbar is not due to the general's wily ways, but to an Iraqi sheikh: Abdul Satter Abu Risha, the leader of a coalition of tribes, including 200 sheikhs, formed in the autumn of 2006 under the name Anbar Sovereignty Council (now it's called Iraq Awakening).

Asia Times Online talked to Abu Risha this past spring in Iraq. He explained, crucially, that he had set up the council after his father and two brothers were killed by al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers. Yes, it was personal. Petraeus then joined the bandwagon. Abu Risha is not, and never was, a Salafi-jihadi. He considers himself an Iraqi nationalist. He's not in favor of a caliphate. But he's definitely in favor of restored power to Sunni Iraqis.

Petraeus was indeed smart enough to marvel at the possibilities of a marriage of convenience between the occupation and Sunni tribes. Al-Qaeda for its part was clumsy enough to force "Talibanization" down Anbar people's throats. But this does not mean that Abu Risha and his 200 tribal leaders are pro-occupation, or even pro-Iraqi government. Eighty percent of these tribes are sub-clans of the very powerful Dulaimi tribe. Al-Qaeda's close relationship is with the Mashadani tribe, which used to be very close to Saddam Hussein. What matters is that with varying degrees of disgust, both big tribes detest the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad.

Way beyond any "success" claimed by Petraeus, what's happening in Anbar is once again a replay of what happened in eastern Afghanistan in 2001. Local tribes profit from US largesse - and weapons - and then proceed with their own tribal and/or nationalist agenda. What matters for all these players, most of all, is restoration of Sunni power. The Dulaimi tribe and sub-clans, armed by the Americans, as soon as they have a chance, will try to topple the US-sponsored puppet government in Baghdad.

As I reported here Anbar is no success story.

Withdrawal timetable aside, every Anbar respondent in our survey opposed the presence of American forces in Iraq — 69 percent “strongly” so. Every Anbar respondent called attacks on coalition forces “acceptable,” far more than anywhere else in the country. All called the United States-led invasion wrong, including 68 percent who called it “absolutely wrong.”

But it's even worse than that. I heard Tom Ricks, the military reporter from the Washington Post on NPR the other day who said it simply isn't so. The "bottom up" - "local solutions' are nothing more than the US undermining the central government and arming both sides of an enhanced civil war. The General Petraeus and Bush administration's "success" is only fueling a civil war.

Victory for who?

The wingnuts are all excited about the victory - the success of General Petraeus' spinning snowball of a testimony last week. But who was it a victory for? This from Digby.

Surprisingly, not everyone was so easily diverted:

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: What he did is helped President Bush in his strategy of keeping the Republican firewall in place. Basically, the whole intention here was to make sure Republicans don't waiver, that they stand with the president on this policy.

And the most amazing story of the summer is that Republicans, not just in the Senate, but rank and file Republican voters, have continued to support this policy. And I think the Petraeus testimony, Crocker, the president's speech, were all meant at bolstering that base because as long as the Republicans in the Senate stand fast, the Democrats cannot force the president to change.

So I think that was where General Petraeus really had some impact. Not among Democrats, not among independents and not among the public at large.

BLITZER: And, Candy, you're out in Iowa, watching all these politicians as they deal with this. There's some suggestion from Republicans I've spoken to that have put forward this notion, be careful what you wish for, because continuing the military operations in Iraq, continuing, presumably, to see American casualties, a lot of expenditures, billions and billions of dollars, that could hurt Republican candidates whether presidential candidates or congressional candidates, in November of next year.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, absolutely. I mean, the problem is, the war is already a drag on Republicans. They're looking, as of this moment, at a very bad 2008. When you look at some of the districts that are currently Republican, the races there, very early on, but look close, there are a lot of Senate seats that appear in jeopardy, including some retirements as well as those Republicans that are just in Democratic-leaning states.

So if these Republicans hang on until July, they almost have run out of time to split themselves from George Bush. And that's really the problem for some of these rank and file Republicans, because the idea -- and many thought that come this next year, they would begin to try to put some distance between themselves and president who, obviously, is quite unpopular.

But with the war, which is the overriding issue of this campaign, if it's difficult for them to break away in July, it's going to be difficult for them, at that point, to go forward with the election and have any chance, a minimal chance, of hanging on to their seats.

BLITZER: Even before he uttered a word, Bill Schneider, there was the full page ad in The New York Times last Monday morning, "General Petraeus or General Betray Us? Cooking the Books for the White House." a serious charge against this four-star general. But did that ad, when all the dust settled this week, come back to haunt the Democrats, hurt them more than help them?

SCHNEIDER: I don't think in any lasting way. It was really a distraction from the main issue, which is the testimony about the war. It was an unnecessary distraction. Republicans found a talking point there, a good rallying point.

It probably contributed to the affect that I described earlier, which is that Republicans were expected to rally behind the president. This probably gave them a little more fire.

And as you indicated and as Candy said, that could be very damaging to Republicans in the long run because they feel like they're forced to stick with this president and this policy and the political damage could be catastrophic.

That's right, the long term impact will be to keep the Republican lemmings running towards the cliff known as November, 2008. The Democrats have the opportunity to give them a push by making them vote against legislation that a majority of the voters support.

It could backfire of course if things suddenly turn around in Iraq. Oh, never mind!

"Tell me how this ends."

"Tell me how this ends."
As David Ignatius tells us that is a question that none other than General David Petraeus asked in March of 2003. Since then we have had a number of reasons for the war and alleged happy endings. The first of course was the elimination of the threat of Saddam's WMD. Of course as it turned out that was the easiest one - he didn't have any. Then of course there was the promise of a Jeffersonian Democracy in Iraq. A strange promise from an administration that seems opposed to a Jeffersonian Democracy here at home but then that one really didn't work out anyway. The happy endings have continually become a little less happy with each move of the goal posts. The Jeffersonian Democracy morphed into a stable and centralized Iraq - kind of like what we had when we invaded. Well the stabilized and centralized part hasn't worked out either so we are at plan A3 or is it A4. As a loyal member of the DC cocktail weeny circuit Ignatius is praising the new plan A.

This bottom-up style of Petraeus and his group represents a decisive break with the cocksure, top-down ethos of Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon -- and with a military leadership that bought into Rumsfeld's idea that technology had transformed the nature of warfare itself. Nonsense, said the colonels who advised Petraeus, many of whom, like him, are on their third tours in Iraq. They have learned the hard way to be skeptical of big ideas.

Petraeus and his team understand, too, that this war is about people -- and helping them one by one to break the cycle of intimidation. When I asked Col. H.R. McMaster, a key Petraeus adviser, to name a turning point in Anbar, he cited the day in February when al-Qaeda deposited at a Ramadi hospital an ice chest containing the severed heads of the children of several sheiks who had been cooperating with the United States. Rather than submitting to this barbarous act, the enraged sheiks deepened their alliance with the U.S. military.

We need to be honest about what's happening now in Iraq: Local solutions are better than no solutions; tribal power is better than terrorist intimidation; pop-ups can be better than the preplanned models. But Petraeus's ad hoc, ground-up security framework is not the same thing as stabilizing the country. In the time remaining, he has to pull things together as best he can -- connect local successes to provincial and national institutions; extend the Sunni rebellion against extremists into the Shiite regions; break the control that Shiite militias exert over the Interior Ministry and the police.

"Local solutions are better than no solutions"; I heard Tom Ricks, the military reporter from Ignatius' own paper on NPR today who said it simply isn't so. The "bottom up" - "local solutions' are nothing more than the US undermining the central government and arming both sides of an enhanced civil war. This is not success but an admission of failure and an attempt to stall. All part of Bush's plan to make the next administration clean up the mess he has made.

Support the Troops - Be critical of Petraeus

The right wingers are enraged that anyone would dare question General Petraeus - they call it "character assassination" and that it proves that critics don't support the troops.
Is it "character assassination" when you point out that General Petraeus wrote what certainly appears to be a very political editorial a few weeks before the election in 2004? Is it "character assassination" to point out that nearly all of the claims he made in that editorial turned out to be wrong? Is it "character assassination" to point out that nearly all of the claims that General Petraeus made about the situation in Iraq now are contradicted by other sources? I don't think so and I think those who question the general are the ones who are supporting the troops.

As I said below I think that the MoveOn ad was on the money although the closing paragraph was a mistake.

Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.

At the same time as a Vietnam era veteran I have to wonder how many of the troops on the ground would agree with the General Betray Us characterization. I certainly know how we felt about General Westmorland forty years ago.

Ohman cartoon from the Comics Page.

Petraeus' problems with the truth

We have seen that General Petraeus sees improvement in Iraq where few other do. He says that the report he has given was done by himself alone although it sounds a lot like White House spin. During his questioning by the house he stated that he and Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon were on the same page. It turns out that may not be true either.
The General as Salesman
Not surprisingly, Petraeus performed smoothly in his testimony to Congress. But an internal Pentagon report is expected to 'differ substantially' from his recommendations on withdrawal from Iraq, NEWSWEEK has learned.

NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared by a Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’s recommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoing discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity. An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.” The strategy will involve unwinding the still large U.S. presence in big forward operation bases and putting smaller teams in outposts. “There is interest at senior levels [of the Pentagon] in getting alternative views” to Petraeus, the official said. Among others, Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon is known to want to draw down faster than Petraeus.

This is being driven in part by a question Petraeus said he couldn't answer:

WARNER: I hope in the recesses of your heart that you know that strategy will continue the casualties, stress on our forces, stress on military families, stress on all Americans. Are you able to say at this time, if we continue what you have laid before the Congress, this strategy, that if you continue, you are making America safer?
PETRAEUS: Sir, I believe that this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objections in Iraq.

WARNER: Does that make America safer?

PETRAEUS: Sir, I don't know actually. I have not sat down and sorted out in my own mind. What I have focused on and been riveted on is how to accomplish the mission of the Multinational Force in Iraq.

The answer to that question in no and the Pentagon knows it. The Army and the Marine Corps are being destroyed by the war in Iraq. The US becomes more incapable every day of responding to another external threat.

Ohman on Petraeus

Comics Page

That was no General

The testimony of General Petraeus yesterday was not to rally Americans, it's too late for that. Petraeus was there to throw red meat to the base. He may have been wearing a uniform with lots of medals but he was not there as a general but as a PR hack. George Will saw through the smoke and mirrors.

Before Gen. David Petraeus' report, and to give it a context of optimism, the president visited Iraq's Anbar province to underscore the success of the surge in making some hitherto anarchic areas less so. More significant, however, was the fact that the president did not visit Baghdad. This underscored the fact that the surge has failed, as measured by the president's and Petraeus' standards of success.

Those who today stridently insist that the surge has succeeded also say they are especially supportive of the president, Petraeus and the military generally. But at the beginning of the surge, both Petraeus and the president defined success in a way that took the achievement of success out of America's hands.


The purpose of the surge, they said, is to buy time -- "breathing space," the president says -- for Iraqi political reconciliation. Because progress toward that has been negligible, there is no satisfactory answer to this question: What is the U.S. military mission in Iraq?

Many of those who insist that the surge is a harbinger of U.S. victory in Iraq are making the same mistake they made in 1991 when they urged an advance on Baghdad, and in 2003 when they underestimated the challenge of building democracy there. The mistake is exaggerating the relevance of U.S. military power to achieve political progress in a society riven by ethnic and sectarian hatreds. America's military leaders, who are professional realists, do not make this mistake.

Of course as we all know by now the purpose of the Petraeus PR blitz was to postpone the inevitable until Bush leaves office.

WASHINGTON -- -- The talk in Washington on Monday was all about troop reductions, yet it also brought into sharp focus President Bush's plans to end his term with a strong U.S. military presence in Iraq, and to leave tough decisions about ending the unpopular war to his successor.

The plans outlined by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, would retain a large force in the country -- perhaps more than 100,000 troops -- when the time comes for Bush to move out of the White House in January 2009.

The plans also would allow Bush to live up to his pledge to the defining mission of his presidency, and perhaps to improve his chances for a decent legacy. He can say he left office pursuing a strategy that was having at least some success in suppressing violence, a claim that some historians may view sympathetically.

"Bush has found his exit strategy," said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former government Mideast specialist now at the Brookings Institution. As Petraeus met with lawmakers and unveiled chart upon chart showing declining troop levels, the U.S. commander seemed to have opened a new discussion about how the United States would wind up its commitment to Iraq. Yet viewed more closely, his presentation, and that of U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, were better suited to the defense of an earlier strategy: "stay the course."

Of course leaving a mess for someone else to clean up is the story of George W. Bush's life. I hope that General Pretaeus doesn't realize the part he is playing here. If he does the MoveOn ad was way to kind.

Hillary's Big Day?

Steve Soto wonders if -
Tomorrow May Be "Make Or Break" For Hillary

Sometimes a congressional hearing can have large consequences on a presidential race.

As I said in the previous post, the action moves to the Senate Armed Services Committee tomorrow. Petraeus’ testimony will already have been picked apart and fact-checked for 24 hours before he utters his first words or puts up his first chart full of misleading and inaccurate statistics. Will the Democratic senators on the committee go to school on his testimony today and come ready to challenge Petraeus?

Yes Hillary, we will be watching you.

MoveOn Ad

I think the MoveOn ad was a mistake. Well actually I think the final paragraph was a mistake.

Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.

Up to that point it was pretty accurate.

General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was “tangible progress” in Iraq and that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.” And last week Petraeus, the architect of the escalation of troops in Iraq, said, “We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress.”
Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed. Yet the General claims a reduction in violence. That’s because, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, deaths by car bombs don’t count. The Washington Post reported that assassinations only count if you’re shot in the back of the head — not the front. According to the Associated
Press, there have been more civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the past three months than in any other summer we’ve been there. We’ll hear of neighborhoods where violence has decreased. But we won’t hear that those neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed.

Most importantly, General Petraeus will not admit what everyone knows: Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war. We may hear of a plan to withdraw a few thousand American troops. But we won’t hear what Americans are desperate to hear: a timetable for withdrawing all our troops. General Petraeus has actually said American troops will need to stay in Iraq for as long as ten years.

The problem with the final paragraph is it sounds like the sort of character assassination we have seen from the wingnuts for four years. It's ironic that they are outraged. This headline from Powerline:
MOVEON.ORG HITS BOTTOM
This of course from a site that should know where the bottom is - they found it years ago building a reputation by calling everyone who didn't agree with Der Leeder a traitor.

That said the final paragraph was still a mistake giving the wingnuts all sorts of ammunition for their big guns.

As for the Petraeus presentation - just what we expected - stay the course for another Friedman Unit.

Update
As usual Digby gets in right:

All this hand-wringing sanctimony about Petraeus today as if he's some sort of godlike figure who is beyond criticism is ridiculous. He's selling his war and that's his right. But when he spins and obfuscates and lies like a politician, he should expect to be treated like one.

Iraq - What the Democrats should do....

....but probably won't.
Paul Krugman didn't hold out much hope that the Democrats will do anything about the war in Iraq. But there are people telling them what they should do anyway. Fred Kaplan has some advice.

Stephen Biddle, a military analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, is a key proponent of the patchwork-quilt strategy. But even he emphasizes that the idea would be a political nonstarter if it resulted in a lot more American deaths. The American public, he said in a phone interview, will support overseas deployments of troops—even for many years—as long as not many get killed. For instance, 64,000 U.S. troops are still in Germany, 60 years after the end of World War II and 16 years after the end of the Cold War. American soldiers have been keeping the peace in Bosnia now for more than a decade since the defeat of Slobodan Milosevic. In both operations, virtually no American soldiers have died as a result of hostile fire. (Biddle is a member of Petraeus' advisory panel, but he emphasized that his views here are entirely his own.)

Biddle also said (again, expressing his personal view) that the strategy in Iraq would require the presence of roughly 100,000 American troops for 20 years—and that, even so, it would be a "long-shot gamble."

Do Petraeus and Crocker agree with this assessment? Do they agree with each other? Petraeus is a military strategist; Crocker is an Arabist diplomat; they might calculate the risks and prospects differently.

These are some of the questions Congress should ask them next week. If we're going to stay in Iraq for months and years to come—at a cost of hundreds of billions of additional dollars and hundreds, if not thousands, of additional lives—we at least ought to know why.

Steve Soto thinks it's time for Karl Levin to grow a pair and has some advice.

But we also find out this morning that Petraeus now won't be presenting an actual report next week. ThinkProgress and the Washington Times note that Petraeus plans an opening statement and some charts and graphs of his discredited statistics, but that's it. This is consistent with the legislation passed by Congress and signed by Bush, which actually requires Bush to make a second report to Congress by September 15th. Carl Levin needs to find out immediately from Petraeus at the outset of the testimony if the president will be meeting the deadline for a report to Congress by the 15th. If there is no report, after being told for months to wait for the report, then Levin needs to:

1. Cut Petraeus off and demand to know why the testimony should continue;

2. Ask Petraeus why the White House isn't complying with what it committed to and what Congress expected;

3. Ask Petraeus why the White House isn't coming forward at this late date with a comprehensive plan as Cordesman recommended, (and Levin should look directly at McCain as he is asking this question);

4. Ask Petraeus why he approved statistical analyses that knowingly undercount Iraqi violence;

5. Tell Petraeus that there is no way Congress can be expected to shovel another $50 billion in supplemental funds to Iraq if the White House can't back it up with a comprehensive plan and strategy; and

6. If there is no report, tell General Petraeus that he and the president have misled Congress since the surge began, while Americans have died under false pretenses and while Osama Bin Laden gets to make new videos.

This is not a time for weak-kneed committee chairmen. If Levin cannot confront Petraeus next week, then he should go. It's that simple.

Wouldn't it be nice if any of this happened? I'm not going to hold my breath!

Update

John Cole explains what will really happen.