Hey, did you all know that the Benghazi hearings were still a thing?

Courtesy of ABC News:

Former CIA Director David Petraeus faced questions on Wednesday from a House committee investigating the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, as the inquiry entered its third calendar year — and a presidential election year. 

Petraeus was the first of four former Obama administration officials scheduled to appear before the Republican-led committee in the next week. The committee will question former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Friday. 

All four interviews were set to be conducted behind closed doors. 

The panel's chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., told reporters that about a dozen interviews remain, including sessions with national security adviser Susan Rice and Obama administration adviser Ben Rhodes. The Benghazi committee hopes to release a report "within the next few months," said spokesman Matt Wolking.

Okay so I guess the strategy is to first attack Hillary's feminist credentials by accusing her of enabling Bill's affairs, second is to keep kicking the dead Benghazi horse in the hopes that it will finally fart out something useful, and then if that does not work I assume that somebody will heave a kitchen sink at her at some point.

If the GOP keeps scraping the bottom of the barrel like this they are likely to dig themselves all the way to China.

General Petraeus accepts plea deal to avoid jail time.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

General David Petraeus, the pre-eminent wartime military officer of his generation, will plead guilty in a deal reached with the Justice Department to one count of passing classified information to a lover while he was director of the CIA. 

The Justice Department announced the plea deal in a statement on Tuesday. The deal calls for two years’ probation and a $40,000 fine, with no prison time. 

The FBI recommended that felony charges be brought against Petraeus in January, following an investigation of his relationship with Paula Broadwell, a member of the army reserve and Petraeus’s biographer. 

The plea agreement was filed in the US district court for the western district of North Carolina’s Charlotte division. Broadwell and her family live in Charlotte.

Do you all remember when Roger Ailes attempted to recruit General Petraeus to run against President Obama in 2012?

Speaking of conservative icons General Petraeus may face felony charges.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

 The F.B.I. and Justice Department prosecutors have recommended bringing felony charges against David H. Petraeus, contending that he provided classified information to a lover while he was director of the C.I.A., officials said, and leaving Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to decide whether to seek an indictment that could send the pre-eminent military officer of his generation to prison. 

The Justice Department investigation stems from an affair Mr. Petraeus had with Paula Broadwell, an Army Reserve officer who was writing his biography, and focuses on whether he gave her access to his C.I.A. email account and other highly classified information. 

F.B.I. agents discovered classified documents on her computer after Mr. Petraeus resigned from the C.I.A. in 2012 when the affair became public.

General Petraeus was actually well respected by both sides of the aisle. However it was the conservatives who started promoting the idea that he should run for President.

Of course that was before he kinda endorsed Hillary Clinton for the job.

Personally I have never been a huge Petrraeus fan, still it is unfortunate to see a man with such a sterling reputation end his career in disgrace.

New book claims that General Petraeus believes that Hillary Clinton would make a "tremendous" President partially because of, wait for it, Benghazi. I know right?

Courtesy of the National Memo: 

General David Petraeus — the man whom Fox News’ Roger Ailes tried to persuade to run for president as a Republican in 2012 — thinks Hillary Clinton would make “a tremendous president,” according to the new book HRC by authors Jonathan Allen and Aimee Parnes. 

And the reasoning from the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency is the exact opposite of Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), who has been suggesting for months that the Benghazi terrorist attacks, which claimed four American lives, including that of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, should disqualify the former first lady from higher office. 

“Like a lot of great leaders, her most impressive qualities were most visible during tough times,” Petraeus said. “In the wake of the Benghazi attacks, for example, she was extraordinarily resolute, determined, and controlled.”

So to be clear here, the guy that the Right Wing tried desperately to recruit as a presidential candidate, thinks that the person they believe should be disqualified from running due to Benghazi, would actually make a "tremendous" President because of her handling of Benghazi.

You know I often suggest that certain things will cause Right Wing heads to explode, but if such a detonation were possible, THIS would certainly cause it.

Carl Bernstein reminds us of a huge scandal which has not yet received true media scrutiny, and wonders why?

Courtesy of Carl Bernstein:  

So now we have it: what appears to be hard, irrefutable evidence of Rupert Murdoch's ultimate and most audacious attempt – thwarted, thankfully, by circumstance – to hijack America's democratic institutions on a scale equal to his success in kidnapping and corrupting the essential democratic institutions of Great Britain through money, influence and wholesale abuse of the privileges of a free press. 

In the American instance, Murdoch's goal seems to have been nothing less than using his media empire – notably Fox News – to stealthily recruit, bankroll and support the presidential candidacy of General David Petraeus in the 2012 election. 

Thus in the spring of 2011 – less than 10 weeks before Murdoch's centrality to the hacking and politician-buying scandal enveloping his British newspapers was definitively revealed – Fox News' inventor and president, Roger Ailes, dispatched an emissary to Afghanistan to urge Petraeus to turn down President Obama's expected offer to become CIA director and, instead, run for the Republican nomination for president, with promises of being bankrolled by Murdoch. Ailes himself would resign as president of Fox News and run the campaign, according to the conversation between Petraeus and the emissary, K T McFarland, a Fox News on-air defense "analyst" and former spear carrier for national security principals in three Republican administrations. 

All this was revealed in a tape recording of Petraeus's meeting with McFarland obtained by Bob Woodward, whose account of their discussion, accompanied online by audio of the tape, was published in the Washington Post – distressingly, in its style section, and not on page one, where it belonged – and, under the style logo, online on December 3. 

Indeed, almost as dismaying as Ailes' and Murdoch's disdain for an independent and truly free and honest press, and as remarkable as the obsequious eagerness of their messenger to convey their extraordinary presidential draft and promise of on-air Fox support to Petraeus, has been the ho-hum response to the story by the American press and the country's political establishment, whether out of fear of Murdoch, Ailes and Fox – or, perhaps, lack of surprise at Murdoch's, Ailes' and Fox's contempt for decent journalistic values or a transparent electoral process. 

The tone of the media's reaction was set from the beginning by the Post's own tin-eared treatment of this huge story: relegating it, like any other juicy tidbit of inside-the-beltway media gossip, to the section of the newspaper and its website that focuses on entertainment, gossip, cultural and personality-driven news, instead of the front page.

Bernstein makes some very good points, WHY hasn't this story blown up the way other, far less explosive, stories have?

Here's more:

And here let us posit the following: were an emissary of the president of NBC News, or of the editor of the New York Times or the Washington Post ever caught on tape promising what Ailes and Murdoch had apparently suggested and offered here, the hue and cry, especially from Fox News and Republican/Tea Party America, from the Congress to the US Chamber of Commerce to the Heritage Foundation, would be deafening and not be subdued until there was a congressional investigation, and the resignations were in hand of the editor and publisher of the network or newspaper. Or until there had been plausible and convincing evidence that the most important elements of the story were false. And, of course, the story would continue day after day on page one and remain near the top of the evening news for weeks, until every ounce of (justifiable) piety about freedom of the press and unfettered presidential elections had been exhausted. 

You know Fox New pimped the Benghazi story every single day, like a dog worrying a meatless bone, until there was an investigation, and afterward they STILL remain unsatisfied and continue to beat the drums as if they are on the trail of the next Watergate.

But THIS story which appears to be an ACTUAL scandal, and even features audio tape to back it up, receives hardly a mention, And when it does get mentioned it is treated with nothing approaching the kind of scrutiny that an attempt by a media giant to purchase a Presidential candidate and use their empire to get them elected SHOULD have received!

Why IS that exactly? Are we that cynical? Do we simply expect News Corp and Fox News to always break the rules? Or is Rupert Murdoch so powerful now that our media is simply too intimidated to take him, and Fox News, on in any substantive way?

Personally I think this should discredit Fox News for all time, and be used to shut them down. And that an investigation should be launched that saw Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, and General Petraeus answering serious questions before Congress.

Oh, I almost forgot, Congress WORKS for Fox News.

Wife of General Petraeus threatens divorce and demands to know how many women there have been. Uh oh!

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:

David Petraeus' wife of 38 years has threatened him with divorce after she was left 'humiliated' by his affair with his biographer, it was claimed today. 

Holly Petraeus is reportedly 'furious' about the affair, which forced her husband to resign from the top of the CIA ten days ago, and is demanding to know how many other women he has shared trysts with throughout their marriage. 

'She can't turn on a television, go online or open a newspaper without being bombarded by the latest revelations about his cheating,' a source told the National Enquirer. 'No wonder she's angry. 

'David has been falling all over himself, apologising and begging Holly to forgive him, but she isn't listening. After all his lies, she doesn't believe anything he says anymore, and she's thinking about consulting a divorce attorney.' 

The source claimed Holly has suspicions that her husband had an affair with Jill Kelley, the Florida socialite who sparked his downfall after tipping off the FBI about threatening emails from Broadwell. 

While Petraeus denies they have ever been involved, Holly is uncertain and keeps demanding to know how many other women he has cheated on her with, the source said. 

Wow, and I bet that General Petraeus thought his troubles were almost over after testifying about the Benghazi thing.  I imagine after his wife gets finished with him he will wish he were standing before Congress spilling his guts, or perhaps even on the front line dodging bullets.

You know I am a guy and should probably show solidarity with my gender, but I just have to say that from what I know about guys in general, and guys in power specifically, if there was one affair there were probably more. In other words Holly Petraeus has every right to be suspicious and to not take her husband at his word.

I will probably lose my Men's Club super masculine decoder ring for saying that, but there you have it.

By the way I have a feeling that this story is far, far from over, and have to wonder just what new revelations will be coming down the pike.

General "Betray-Us" unmasked. Update!

"Would you believe it's actually this big?"

Courtesy of Buzzfeed:  

But the warning signs about Petraeus’ core dishonesty have been around for years. Here's a brief summary: We can start with the persistent questions critics have raised about his Bronze Star for Valor. Or that, in 2004, during the middle of a presidential election, Petraeus wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post supporting President Bush and saying that the Iraq policy was working. The policy wasn’t working, but Bush repaid the general’s political advocacy by giving him the top job in the war three years later. 

There’s his war record in Iraq, starting when he headed up the Iraqi security force training program in 2004. He’s more or less skated on that, including all the weapons he lost, the insane corruption, and the fact that he essentially armed and trained what later became known as “Iraqi death squads.” On his final Iraq tour, during the so-called "surge," he pulled off what is perhaps the most impressive con job in recent American history. He convinced the entire Washington establishment that we won the war. 

He did it by papering over what the surge actually was: We took the Shiites' side in a civil war, armed them to the teeth, and suckered the Sunnis into thinking we’d help them out too. It was a brutal enterprise — over 800 Americans died during the surge, while hundreds of thousands of Iraqis lost their lives during a sectarian conflict that Petraeus’ policies fueled. Then he popped smoke and left the members of the Sunni Awakening to fend for themselves. A journalist friend told me a story of an Awakening member, exiled in Amman, whom Petraeus personally assured he would never abandon. The former insurgent had a picture of Petraeus on his wall, but was a little hurt that the general no longer returned his calls. 

MoveOn may have been ill-advised to attack the general as "Betray Us" in Washington, but there was little doubt that many in the Awakening felt betrayed. 

Petraeus was so convincing on Baghdad that he manipulated President Obama into trying the same thing in Kabul. In Afghanistan, he first underhandedly pushed the White House into escalating the war in September 2009 (calling up columnists to “box” the president in) and waged a full-on leak campaign to undermine the White House policy process. Petraeus famously warned his staff that the White House was “fucking” with the wrong guy.

"Fucking with the wrong guy" huh? Well fortunately for America is looks more likely that Petraeus was in reality "fucking with the wrong girl."

You know it looks as if the country may actually owe Paula Broadwell a huge debt of gratitude. She effectively ended the threat of this shit bag ever running for office, or from having ANY real influence on our politics, with only a few well placed e-mails.

There is much more at the link, but I warn you it might make you a little nauseous.

Update: The hero deconstruction continues here:  

The genius of General Petraeus was to recognize early on that the war he had been sent to fight in Iraq wasn’t a real war at all. This is what the public and the news media — lamenting the fall of the brilliant hero undone by a tawdry affair — have failed to see. He wasn’t the military magician portrayed in the press; he was a self-constructed hologram, emitting an aura of preening heroism for the ever eager cameras.

General Petraeus is very, very clever, which is quite different from stating that he is the brilliant tactician he has been described as. He figured if he hadn’t actually been given the mission to “win” the “war” he found himself in, he could at least look good in the meantime. And the truth is he did a lot of good things, like conceiving of the idea of basically buying the loyalties of various factions in Iraq. But they weren’t the kinds of things that win wars. In fact, they were the kinds of things that prolong wars, which for the general had the useful side effect of putting him on ever grander stages so he could be seen doing ever grander things, culminating in his appointment last year as the director of the C.I.A.

Jesus, no WONDER the Republicans like him so much.

Republican hypocrisy.

But you know, despite the skeletons overcrowding their closets, the Right Wing will NEVER be able to let this pass without using it to attack Obama in the hopes of diminishing him in the eyes of his constituents.

Good luck with that assholes!

Denver ABC News affiliate learns the perils of pulling images off of the internet.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

 An ABC News affiliate in Denver says that while attempting to report on the resignation of former CIA Director David Petraeus, the station mistakenly aired a photoshopped version of his mistress’ book with the raunchy title “All Up In My Snatch.” 

KMGH-TV producer Deb Stanley told Raw Story that the wrong book cover had been “mistakenly picked up off the Internet” and aired during their 5 p.m. broadcast on Monday. Instead of displaying the actual book cover of Paula Broadwell’s Petraeus biography, “All In,” KMGH-TV aired the parody cover, “All Up In My Snatch.” 

Oooh, now that is an unfortunate mistake to broadcast into people's homes.

That reminds of me of the problems that I have run into as a blogger assuming that an image or link is what it claims to be, and then later having to go back and fix or remove it. Of course MY excuse is that I work alone, along with my real job, and often do not have a lot of time to spare for research.

Having said that the photoshop is so obvious that you would have thought that SOMEBODY working at the news station would have picked up on it before broadcast. But nope.

I can tell you that it certainly did not escape the notice of some of the viewers, such as this gentleman.

" “Not sure at all where you got your picture of Broadwell’s book for your 5pm news cast,” one viewer wrote. “I AM sure the title is NOT ‘ALL up IN my snatch’ ‘the education of General David Patraeus’ as you showed. I believe it is simply titled “All In”. Clever photoshopping by someone – - not so clever use of sources for a news cast!” 

You just know that somewhere out there is a guy with a photoshop program who is simply doubled over with laughter right now, and who has probably spent much the day emailing his friends about his sudden notoriety.

The ever more convoluted story of the Generals and the homewreckers. "Oh, what tangled web we weave...

General Petraeus and General Allen.

...when first we practice to deceive."

Okay I have been trying to sit down and write about the Petraeus situation since early in the morning yesterday. But I swear that every single time I start to get a few words typed out the damn thing mutates even more, and there are even more twists and turns.

So this morning I watched Alex Wagner, and thought that, as of this post, she had the best take on the story as it stands.

By the way if you are worried about missing your daily soaps, don't bother. THIS thing is MUCH more convoluted and entertaining than those EVER were!

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If that was not enough intrigue for you there is even more over at Politico, Salon, and the Daily Beast.

I feel I should add my opinion here, but literally I am not sure exactly WHAT to think right now. However I will say that I am pretty certain that, believe it or not, we have not seen the final shocking twist revealed in this unfolding story.

Petraeus affair revealed after lover sent threatening e-mails to other woman.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:

Jill Kelley, 37, of Tampa, Florida, is a State Department military liaison officer who appears to have a longstanding friendship with Petraeus, who quit as CIA director in disgrace last week. 

She told agents that Paula Broadwell, the 40-year-old biographer who has been identified as the ex-CIA boss' mistress, sent her harassing emails telling her to 'back off' Petraeus. 

Ms Kelley works in the Joint Special Operations Command, a section of the U.S. Armed Forces that deals mostly with counter-terrorism. 

The Joint Special Ops Command was directly involved in the mission that took out Osama bin Laden and the drone strike that killed radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. 

Details of the affair between Petraeus and Broadwell reportedly came to light during a FBI probe of the emails that she allegedly sent to Ms Kelley. 

The new revelation raises the possibility that Broadwell was growing increasingly jealous of a government employee whose job it was to keep in contact with Petraeus. 

Holly Petraeus, wife of the General, with Jill Kelley and her husband

Ms Kelley, who feared for her safety, contacted the FBI. 

A government official told the New York Post that the emails contained such language as: 'I know what you did,' 'back off' and 'stay away from my guy.' 

The official added: '[Broadwell] clearly thought something was going on' and thought she was in a 'lovers triangle.' 

The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Broadwell had shown up on the CIA radar before over working over concerns about what she was putting on her Facebook page. 

The Tribune reported that there had been concerns about whether Broadwell was giving away sensitive security information in her posts. 

Broadwell, who is married with two young sons, has not responded to multiple emails and phone messages. 

She had planned to celebrate her 40th birthday in Washington this weekend, with many reporters invited. Her husband Scott emailed guests to cancel the party. 

It is also claimed that Broadwell used Petraeus' own Gmail account to send the emails, and when the FBI began to investigate an obvious national security issue instead uncovered explicit messages between the two sent from the decorated war hero's own account - indicating an affair. 

Wow this thing is all kinds of tangled up.

However it is pretty clear after reading this, that while it is a very unfortunate situation damaging a number of promising careers, it is certainly NOT an attempt to create some false story to keep Petraeus from testifying before Congress about the Benghazi incident, like the Right Wing has recently been  all up in arms about.

I think if they keep heading down that conspiracy road they are going to look even more foolish than they did after predicting a Mitt Romney landslide.

Breaking News: General Petraeus resigns as CIA Director, after admitting to extramarital affair. Update!

Courtesy of Politico:

David Petraeus resigned his post as director of the Central Intelligence Agency on Friday, citing an extramarital affair. 

Petraeus visited the White House on Thursday to ask President Barack Obama to accept his resignation “for personal reasons,” he said in a statement to CIA staff. “After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours.” 

This is a real shame.

In my opinion General Petraeus was a very professional man who did his job to the best of his ability. However like all of us he is only human, and subject to lapses in judgment.

I feel no need to pile on as the General was never one of those who stood in judgement over others, he was not a hypocrite, and in fact was one of the FIRST highly placed military leaders to call for an end to "Don't Ask Don't Tell,"

He was one of the good ones and I feel quite badly for he and his family.

Update: Apparently the woman that the FBI is investigating is Petraeus biographer Paula Broadwell. There are many conflicting reports, ranging from her attempting to access classified e-mails, to the discovery of e-mails between the two of them that talked openly of their affair. Hard to tell where the truth lies right now.

There is a lot of Right Wing misinformation going around, some of it accusing the Obama administration of orchestrating this in order to keep Petraeus from having to testify about Benghazi before Congress.  so let's try to be careful about what we accept at face value until the REAL reporters have a chance to examine the evidence.

Update 2: More information coming out from credible sources. This from the Wall Street Journal:

Multiple officials familiar with the investigation identified the woman with whom Mr. Petraeus had the affair as Paula Broadwell, who wrote a biography of him called "All In: The Education of Gen. David Petraeus.'' Efforts to reach Ms. Broadwell on Friday weren't successful. A spokeswoman for her publisher didn't immediately comment.

The computer probe began this spring, according to a person familiar with the investigation. Mr. Petraeus, however, was not interviewed by the FBI until recently. 

While Mr. Petraeus was still a general, he had email exchanges with the woman, but there were no physical transgressions, the person said. The affair began only after Mr. Petraeus retired from the military in August 2011, and ended months ago, the person said. 

An extramarital affair has significant implications for an official in a highly sensitive post, because it can open the official to blackmail and compromise of his security clearance.

So there is still some question as to whether there is really ANY evidence that  Ms. Broadwell actually saw any classified e-mails, or whether there is only a suspicion she MIGHT have had access to confidential e-mails.

Bush appoints butt monkey General Petraeus to Centcom to replace retiring Admiral Fallon who discovered that he had integrity.

Reaffirming his status as his generation's most respected general officer, David H. Petraeus was nominated today to head U.S. Central Command (Centcom), the command responsible for all U.S. military operations in the Middle East. The move puts the U.S. military's premier advocate, theorist and practitioner of counterinsurgency operations -- once shunned by a Vietnam-stung military -- at the helm of the military's most important regional command.

Petraeus has shown that there is no task that George Bush can ask him that is too unethical for this man to take on.

Lie about our progress in Iraq? Done.

Lie about Iran's involvement in insurgent attacks? Done.

Take over Centcom so that we can finally invade Iran? Done, done, done.

The interview that I want to read is the one form ex-Centcom commander Admiral fallon. Now that should be a very enlightening piece of journalism.

SNL takes on the Petraeus hearings. Very funny!

The Bush administrations pet general is going to resurrect the possibility of war with Iran.

British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed Baghdad government.

A strong statement from General David Petraeus about Iran's intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian military facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment. In closely watched testimony in Washington next week, Gen Petraeus will state that the Iranian threat has risen as Tehran has supplied and directed attacks by militia fighters against the Iraqi state and its US allies.

It seems almost like a joke that this administration would consider the idea of starting another conflict while we are mired in two losing wars. And if it does not seem like a joke then it simply seems insane.

America has had warmongers running the country before, but these guys seem dedicated to destroying our military before leaving office.

My question is, what does somebody offer a lifelong military man to sell out his country and the military that he supposedly loves?

Sunday comics.

Senators from both sides of the aisle unimpressed with Petraeus report.

Frustrated senators called on Gen David Petraeus and the ambassador, Ryan Crocker, to take off their "rosy glasses" after they reported that the troop surge in Iraq had been successful.

After a relatively smooth ride before two House of Representatives committees on Monday, the visitors from Baghdad faced the full wrath of senators from both parties who want US forces brought home immediately.

Into the mix was thrown the 2008 White House campaign as several candidates took the opportunity to lambast the soldier and the diplomat for what they viewed as an excessively optimistic picture of events in Iraq.

Mr Obama, who unlike his rival Hillary Clinton opposed the war even before the 2003 invasion, was among the most withering in his response to Gen Petraeus's verdict that the surge of an extra 30,000 troops was working and force levels should not be brought down to 130,000 until next year.

"We have now set the bar so low that modest improvement in what was a completely chaotic situation, to the point where now we just have the levels of intolerable violence that existed in June of 2006, is considered success," he said. "And it's not.

This continues to be a disastrous foreign policy mistake."

I kept hearing that Petraeus was going to make it impossible for the anti-war Democrats to try and pass legislation to bring the war to a close because he was going to show tangible signs of progress that would cow them into submission.

I certainly did not hear anything that would preclude any kind of request for a clearer plan to bring our troops home and end the war, did you?

The "Petraeus report" might have convinced most Republicans, but not everybody.

"For months, President Bush has been promising an honest accounting of the situation in Iraq, a fresh look at the war strategy and a new plan for how to extricate the United States from the death spiral of the Iraqi civil war," The New York Times opened. "The nation got none of that yesterday from the Congressional testimony by Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. It got more excuses for delaying serious decisions for many more months, keeping the war going into 2008 and probably well beyond.

Sacramento Bee: "Petraeus and Crocker made it clear they see no need to recalibrate U.S. strategy in Iraq. So the choice remains: continue our current open-ended, ill-defined "stay the course" commitment in Iraq, with troop levels of 130,000 -- or begin a responsible, gradual withdrawal in concert with a serious diplomatic offensive."

The Guardian (London): "It was not Petraeus the professional soldier we were seeing yesterday, but Petraeus the political salesman, and his pitch - give us more time and the plan for regaining stability will work - is no longer credible."

Well it is nice to see that not ALL of the MSM is so easily dazzled by a military uniform and a chest full of decorations.

Senate Democrats refute the Petraeus talking points.

Today in his prepared remarks, General Petraeus made the following statements regarding sectarian violence in Iraq. Unfortunately, his remarks raise as many questions as answers.

General Petraeus Claimed the Pentagon’s Methodology for Tracking Sectarian Killings Was Reviewed By Two US Intelligence Agencies, But Did Not Name Them. In his prepared remarks, General Petraeus argued, “We endeavor to ensure our analysis of that data is conducted with rigor and consistency, as our ability to achieve a nuanced understanding of the security environment is dependent on collecting and analyzing data in a consistent way over time. Two US intelligence agencies recently reviewed our methodology, and they concluded that the data we produce is the most accurate and authoritative in Iraq.” [LINK]

• However, U.S. Intelligence Officials Questioned Pentagon’s Methods of Tracking Violence in Iraq. “The intelligence community has its own problems with military calculations. Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. ‘If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian,’ the official said. ‘If it went through the front, it's criminal.’” [Washington Post, 9/6/07]
  
• A Military Spokesman Admitted It Did Not Track Shiite-on-Shiite or Sunni-on-Sunni Violence. “According to a spokesman for the Baghdad headquarters of the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), those attacks are not included in the military's statistics. ‘Given a lack of capability to accurately track Shiite-on-Shiite and Sunni-on-Sunni violence, except in certain instances,’ the spokesman said, ‘we do not track this data to any significant degree.’” [Washington Post, 9/6/07]
  
• And, the GAO Found Claims of Decreased Sectarian Violence Could Not Be Verified. “On trends in sectarian violence, we could not determine if sectarian violence had declined since the start of the Baghdad Security Plan. The administration’s July 2007 report stated that MNF-I trend data demonstrated a decrease in sectarian violence since the start of the Baghdad Security Plan in mid-February 2007. The report acknowledged that precise measurements vary, and that it was too early to determine if the decrease would be sustainable.” [GAO Report: Securing, Stabilizing and Rebuilding Iraq, September 2007]
  

General Petraeus Claimed the Number of Car Bombings Has Come Down. In his prepared remarks, General Petraeus argued, “The number of car bombings and suicide attacks has also declined in each of the past 5 months, from a high of some 175 in March, as this chart shows, to about 90 this past month. While this trend in recent months has been heartening, the number of high profile attacks is still too high, and we continue to work hard to destroy the networks that carry out these barbaric attacks.” [LINK]

• However, The Military Does Not Include Car Bombings in Sectarian Violence Statistics. “According to U.S. military figures, an average of 1,000 Iraqis have died each month since March in sectarian violence. That compares with about 1,200 a month at the start of the security plan, the military said in an e-mailed response to queries. This does not include deaths from car bombings, which the military said have numbered more than 2,600 this year.” [LA Times, 9/4/07 ]
  
• And, The Number of Car Bombings In Iraq Was Five Percent Higher in July 2007 than in December 2006. The number of car bombings in July actually was 5 percent higher than the number recorded last December, according to statistics given to the McClatchy news organization, and the number of civilians killed in explosions is about the same. [McClatchy Newspapers, 8/15/07]
  

General Petraeus Claimed the Number of Ethno-Sectarian Deaths Has Come Down By Over 55 Percent. In his prepared remarks, General Petraeus argued, “The number of ethno-sectarian deaths, an important subset of the overall civilian casualty figures, has also declined significantly since the height of the sectarian violence in December. Iraq-wide, as shown by the top line on this chart, the number of ethno-sectarian deaths has come down by over 55%” [LINK]

• However, The Overall Death Toll in Iraq Has Risen. According to Iraq’s Interior Ministry, which provided figures to The New York Times 2,318 civilians died violently in the country in August, compared with 1,980 in July. Statistics compiled from Iraqi government sources by Reuters and The Associated Press also showed significant increases, although the precise figures varied. [New York Times, 9/2/07]
  
• And The Comptroller General Said There Were Various Sources of Violence Statistics in U.S. Government Which Did Not Agree. “Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers -- most of which are classified -- are often confusing and contradictory. ‘Let's just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree,’ Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.” [Washington Post, 9/6/07]
  

I must give a hat tip to our friends at Americablog. (If I don't, they pout.)

General Petraeus says surge working and we need to keep troops there. I swear you could have knocked me over with a feather.

The 30,000 additional troops deployed to Iraq in January could come home by next July, but further American withdrawals would be "premature," the U.S. commander there told a fractious congressional hearing Monday.

"Our experience in Iraq has repeatedly shown that projecting too far into the future is not just difficult, it can be misleading and even hazardous," Gen. David Petraeus said at a joint hearing of the House Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. "The events of the past six months underscore that point."

If you would allow me I will translate the above statement for you. What the General is saying is: "We have no idea what is going to happen next, or what to do about it."

Feel safer?

So the Petraeus report has finally arrived, and our long national wait is over, and we have learned.....nothing new. Violence is down in the sections where the troops were stationed. The government has made no new progress, and there is no idea when they will. If we bring our troops home we don't know what will happen to the country.

Well am pretty damn underwhelmed here. We waited all of these months for this?

You know I never thought I would remember fondly the day that Geraldo Rivera was about to reveal the secrets of Al Capone's vault. At least no American lives were lost during THAT debacle.