Ooops

Throughout Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, the Republican nominee has wrapped himself in the mantle of U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, proclaiming himself the leading advocate of the former commanding general in Iraq who devised last year’s controversial troop surge. Yet during a talk Wednesday about Iraq at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington policy organization, Petraeus repeatedly made statements that bolstered the foreign-policy proposals of Sen. Barack Obama, McCain’s Democratic rival, or cut against McCain’s own lines.

  Washington Independent

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Blah, Blah, Blah...

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said he expects to recommend additional cuts in U.S. troop levels there this fall. Petraeus said he would assess conditions before his departure in September, when he is scheduled to take over the U.S. Central Command.

"My sense is I will be able to make a recommendation at that time for further reductions," Petraeus said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing yesterday on his nomination to the post that would put him in charge of U.S. military operations from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia.

  WaPo

Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt, too.

Petraeus declined to estimate the size of a troop cut. "I don't want to imply that that means a BCT [brigade combat team] or major combat formation, although it could," he said, referring to units that could total as many as several thousand troops.

But a couple of guys could get to go home.

Reduce. Surge. Repeat.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Looking for Some Reality

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warned Army Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on Thursday not to "put a shine on recent events” in Iraq when they testify before Congress next week.

“I hope we don’t hear any glorification of what happened in Basra,” said Pelosi, referring to a recent military offensive against Shiite militants in the city led by the Iraqi government and supported by U.S. forces.

  Politico

She especially doesn’t want them to leave out the part about Iran’s influence in brokering a ceasefire agreement between al-Sadr and the Iraqi government. Something tells me they might be forced to acknowledge it, but they’ll still be polishing that shine.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

In Praise of Petraeus

In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.

Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say.

  IPS News

The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, expressed long-term interest in running for the US presidency when he was stationed in Baghdad, according to a senior Iraqi official who knew him at that time.

Sabah Khadim, then a senior adviser at Iraq's Interior Ministry, says General Petraeus discussed with him his ambition when the general was head of training and recruitment of the Iraqi army in 2004-05.

"I asked him if he was planning to run in 2008 and he said, 'No, that would be too soon'," Mr Khadim, who now lives in London, said.

  UK Independent

Of course, it's all hearsay.

How's That Surge Going?

You know there was a speech last night, and the reason that I haven't been posting anything more about this whole hoopla is that there have been (nor will be) any surprises. Exactly what you think is happening, is happening - things are going from bad to worse in Iraq and the chickenhawks here are telling you everything they are doing is successful and they just need some more time and money.

But you can read the details of all the testimony and speeches at TPM (although I don't see anything about John Edwards' response, which turns out to have been a two-minute ad : "no timeline, no funding, no excuses" - transcript here) or, as outlined at Whatever It Is, I'm Against It, with wit and humour, which is the only way to get through this with your sanity in tact.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Holy Joe Is Ready to Go

"Is it time to give you authority, in pursuit of your mission in Iraq, to pursue those Iranian Quds Force operations in Iranian territory, in order to protect Americas troops in Iraq," Lieberman (I-CT) asked at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of US troops in Iraq, demurred, but did not shoot down the idea of an expansion into Iran.

"I think that really the Multinational Force Iraq should just focus on Iraq and that any kinds of operations outside the borders of Iraq would rightly be overseen by the Central Command," Petraeus said.

  Raw Story

Just part of the ramp up to Iran.

Controlling the Show

Ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern was among the protesters booted from the Petraeus hearings.

“Swear him in.” That’s all I said in the unusual silence this afternoon as first aid was being administered to Gen. David Petraeus’s microphone at the hearing before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees.

It had dawned on me that when House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, invited Gen. Petraeus to make his presentation, Skelton forgot to ask him to take the customary oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I had no idea that would be enough to get me thrown out of the hearing.

I had a flashback to a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in early 2006, when Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, reminded chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, that Specter had forgotten to swear in the witness, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; and how Specter insisted that that would not be necessary.

Now that may, or may not, be an invidious comparison. But Petraeus and Gonzales work for the same boss, who has a rather unusual relationship with the truth.

  Consortium News

I missed that about Specter and Gonzales.

Petraeus tried to square a circle in his very first two paragraphs.

In the first, he thanks the committees for the opportunity to “discuss the recommendations I recently provided to my chain of command for the way forward.” Then he stretches credulity well beyond the breaking point—at least for me:

“At the outset, I would like to note that this is my testimony. Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself. It has not been cleared by, nor shared with, anyone in the Pentagon, the White House, or Congress.”

Is not the Commander-in-Chief in Petraeus’s chain of command?

As Harry Truman, D-Missouri, would have said, “Does he think we were born yesterday?”

Well, he was talking to Congress.

Ooops

In the hearings' most stunning moment so far, Sen. John Warner (R-VA) asked Gen. Petraeus if success in the Iraq war will make America safer. His response -- by far the most surprising moment of the hearings -- was a blunt "I don't know." This is the first time that any general officer, let alone the commanding general in Iraq, has ever equivocated on whether success in Iraq will contribute to U.S. security.

  TPM Muckraker

Will we be safer? That's the same as asking if they'll follow us home, isn't it? And General Petraeus doesn't know if success will keep that from happening. I guess they'll have to put him back on Fox News so somebody can help him clear that up.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Update: He didn't have to wait for Fox, Senator Evan Bayh (D - yes, that's D - Indiana) helped him out.

The "Petraeus" Report

No surprises here.

Petraeus said that in order to preserve the gains made in security, he's recommended drawing down one brigade combat team -- about 5,000 troops -- by December, with the remaining 25,000 or so troops of the surge out by July 2008. Any further draw-downs will have to wait for his further assessment -- coming in March 2008. So March 2008 is the new September 2007.

  TPM Muckraker

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Leaked Report to "Lock In" the Bad News

"Bring me the head of whoever leaked this one!" Bush can be heard to be screaming in the halls of the White House.

Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.

The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq.

[...]

A GAO spokesman declined to comment on the report before it is released. The 69-page draft, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is still undergoing review at the Defense Department, which may ask that parts of it be classified or request changes in its conclusions.

[...]

Asked to comment on the GAO draft, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, "General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker are there on the ground every day in Iraq, and it's important to wait to hear what they have to say."

  WaPo

And so, after the "Petraeus" report, Bush is going to ask for $50 billion more to press the war in Iraq, and Congress will give it to him.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Waste of Breath

The White House is already downplaying Sen. John Warner’s (R-Va.) suggestion of a small drawdown by Christmas. Asked whether Bush would leave the door open to setting a timetable, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, “I don’t think the president feels any differently about setting a specific timetable for withdrawal. I just think it’s important that we wait right now to hear from our commanders on the ground about the way ahead.”

  The Carpetbagger Report

John Warner, who cheered on the invasion of Iraq and who said the arrest of Saddam Hussein justified the invasion, is finally catching on. However, even though Mr. Warner wants only a small number of troops withdrawn in time for Christmas only to send the Iraqi government a message that we won't wait forever for them to get their act together, George will be waiting for the Petraeus report before he makes any decision. A report that George himself will write.

Thanks for your input Senator Warner. Now sit down.

Iraq Report

A roadside bomb on Monday killed the governor of Iraq's Muthanna province, making him the second governor in as many weeks to become a casualty of violence between rival Shiite Muslim militias in southern Iraq.

[...]

In a joint statement, Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee's chairman, and John Warner, R-Va., the committee's senior Republican, said that while a surge of U.S. troops had tamped down violence in some parts of Baghdad, there was no sign of political reconciliation between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite rivals and "we are not optimistic about the prospects." They said U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker shared their views.

Levin later told reporters during a conference call from Tel Aviv that he believed the Iraqi parliament should replace Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. "The Maliki government is nonfunctional and cannot produce a political settlement because it is too beholden to religious and sectarian leaders," Levin said.

  McClatchy

Oh, and we thought it was going so well.

It seems Senators Levin and Warner aren't the only ones jumping the gun on General Petraeus' (September 11) report.

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day.

Read more of this article in the NY Times written by a group of soldiers who are there.

Incredible

General Petraeus will give his report on....wait for it....September 11.

Suppose that was one of Karl's brilliant moves?

They're laughing at you, you know.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

The "Petraeus" Report

“I believe Congress ought to wait for General Petraeus to come back and give us assessment of the strategy that he's putting in place before they make any decisions." -- George Bush, July 10, 2007

By now you've probably heard the news that the report on Iraqi progress we've been expecting in September from General Petraeus is actually going to be written by the White House, with "input" from "officials throughout government."

  TPM

And why not? Petraeus would have just had to write what they wanted him to anyway. On the other hand, they let Gonzo pretend he's coming up with his own material.

I seem to recall Bubble Boy getting testy with members of the press about waiting until we hear from Petraeus. TPM has a list of quotes from the WH indicating the report was to be coming from Petraeus.

I just watched the McNeil/Lehrer report* with a panel discussion of the "progress" since the "surge", and it was unanimous: the surge was meant to hold down violence so that the political process in Iraq could have a chance to work; but not only is the political situation not getting any better, it's actually deteriorating. I have a feeling that the "progress report" next month is going to cite everything but the political situation.

The Petraeus report angle was just a ploy to quiet the Democrats. They always fall for it.

But don't worry. We'll have Iran to work on soon enough.

*Okay, it was probably the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. I don't know; it was a PBS show, and actually there wasn't any Jim Lehrer, either. There was a woman hosting it. She was talking with Juan Cole, Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer, an ex-Iraqi ambassador and some other ex-diplomat. So do you really want to take my word for anything?

Update: Well, you don't have to. I found the transcript: Online NewsHour

And here is Juan Cole's closing summary:

I think that we've got excellent personnel in Iraq. Ryan Crocker is an experienced ambassador to the region. General David Petraeus is among our best officers, especially on counterterrorism. But the task that they have been given is just insuperable.

You know, the number of Iraqis killed went up 25 percent in July over June. The number of troops killed in July was twice what it ordinarily has been in July. It depends on how you look at these numbers. There have been fewer big bombings; although, there still are big bombings, but there have been more people killed by sniper fire.

So the violence has not subsided, and the guerrilla resistance in the Sunni Arab regions is still very powerful. And there's no sign of a political solution to this thing, which is the only real solution to this kind of guerrilla war. So I'm afraid I don't think, if the report is honest, we're going to see a lot of progress here.

And now we know who's writing the report, we can be pretty certain it won't be honest.

Department of Lost and Found

The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.

  MSNBC

Some of 190,000. That's a lot of weapons. In fact, that's 30% of the weapons we supposedly distributed to the Iraqi forces in the past three years. Nice work. And we're being told it's the Iranians who are supplying the enemy.

It seems that the lion's share of the missing weaponry happened when General Petraeus was in charge of security training. You know General Petraeus - he's the guy who's supposed to report in September on how the surge is going and offer recommendations (and already says he doesn't think that he'll have anything "definitive" to report, so I wonder what kind of recommendations he might have to give: I recommend you give me more time?). He's the guy Iraqi President Maliki wants Bush to replace. He's also the guy who said that he thinks the key to success is "disrupting the attacks." Kind of stacked the odds against that outcome for himself by losing track of those weapons, didn't he?

I'm sure he'll think of some way to spin it all, though. After all, he's the guy who thinks we've been there so long that the Iraqis think we're liberators again.

"There is a period of omnipotence. There was a period in the beginning when there was a ‘golden hour’. Inevitably, it does not matter how much you were viewed as a liberator, over time you will be seen as an occupier. The interesting dynamic here is that we have been here long enough to become liberators again for certain sectors of the population, those that are affected by extremism."

  Think Progress

Loo-oooney Tunes.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

We Need an Extension

Here's another surprise for you...

For months September has been cast as a pivotal time for determining the course of the war in Iraq, yet a top general now says a solid judgment on the U.S. troop buildup there may not come until November.

[...]

"In order to do a good assessment I need at least until November," said [Lt. Gen. Raymond] Odierno, a deputy to Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq.

  Yahoo

Well, we want him to do a "good" assessment.

You were surprised, weren't you?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

A Moment of Reality

General Petraeus thinks, "This effort may get harder before it gets easier."

He also acknowledges that it's going to take an "enormous" commitment - over time. And he thinks Syria and Iran - particularly Iran - are being "exceedingly unhelpful."

His assessment of the "key to success" is "disrupting [the] attacks."

What was it the kids used to say about grasping the obvious?