Now, not only is Patraeus not writing his assessment, the WH now doesn't want him to give a public testimony. Maybe O’Hanlon and Pollack can help write the report? -- An Early Clash Over Iraq Report Specifics at Issue as September Nears By Jonathan Weisman and Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, August 16, 2007; Page A01 Senior congressional aides said yesterday that the White House has proposed limiting the much-anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill next month of Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to a private congressional briefing, suggesting instead that the Bush administration's progress report on the Iraq war should be delivered to Congress by the secretaries of state and defense. --------- White House officials suggested to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week that Petraeus and Crocker would brief lawmakers in a closed session before the release of the report, congressional aides said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates would provide the only public testimony. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/15/AR2007081501281.html
Still waiting on an answer. Anyone care (or dare) to reply? C'mon now, don't be chicken. mc mark, your post makes me wonder if the administration is still putting it's own short term political gain over long term GOP political health.
It matters because the Iraqi government is not a dictatorship under Malicki...and just like we have had bad Presidents,....say Carter, it passes and the framework of a reasonably fair government is a long term ideal in the land/backyard of middle-eastern terrorist folk...A hope for a positive influence to the neighbors unlike Iran who is a a contributor to terroristic deeds....
^ Maliki's government might not be a dictatorship but the problem is whether it is functional at all.
For months the administration has dodged questions about the surge by saying, pleading for Americans and congress to wait for Patraeus' report. Now we find that Patraeus will not write the report and will not publicly testify on the surge. What is the administration trying to hide? Why are they afraid of what Patraeus has to say?
I think you meant to substitute "W" for "Carter." At any rate, Carter was #39 and Bush is #43. Maliki is #1 and was more or less put there by our #43.
Thanks for at least replying but you miss the whole point here. In the U.S, we've had a strong representative democracy for over 200 years. One bad president (or several) doesn't threaten that tradition. Iraq has no history of democracy or plurality. In fact, the pathetic government is giving democracy a bad name in the country. It can't decide whether to make a true commitment to embrace the Sunnis (which would tick off many Shias and perhaps make the government fall) or to just stay embraced by the Shia majority. This tells the factions their best course of action is to load up on ammo and prepare for battle because democracy doesn't work there. Answer my last question: Should the surge be made permanent? We all know the minute our troops start drawing down things will get uglier. Instead of a surge that is doomed to failure, the Bush-ites should admit their grand plan didn't work. The next step is to divide the country into 3 separate regions united by a limited federal government. The U.S. will maintain a limited military presence on the country for quite some time, especially in the Kurdish region. The only thing holding this up is the Bush-ites don't want to admit complete failure until after the 2008 elections. Last comment: The only thing that could hold Iraq together as a functioning, unified country is a heavy-handed dictator like Saddam, who, despite being a bloodthirsty vampire, was a secular (Sunni) Arab nationalist who was both anti-Al Qaeda and anti-Iran.
The problem though is that the US wasn't occupied by a foreign power and facing a civil war while Carter was president.
this has got to rock your world, mc rimfisher http://www.nysun.com/pf.php?id=60617&v=4803927811 [rquoter]Petraeus Will Send GIs Home General: Progress Means Fewer Troops Needed BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun August 16, 2007 The top American commander in Iraq is expected to tell Democrats in Congress part of what they want to hear next month when he briefs Washington on the status of the surge, namely that at some point American troop levels in Iraq will recede. In September, when General David Petraeus will give classified and unclassified testimonies and recommendations to Congress, he will stress that unprecedented progress has been made against Al Qaeda and Iran's network in Iraq, lessening the need for the current troop levels of approximately 160,000. At the same time, the general will warn that any military progress made against America's foes will be lost if the surge ends precipitously. Speaking to a small group of American reporters who accompanied him to the Amariyah neighborhood of Baghdad, General Petraeus said, "We know that the surge has to come to an end, there's no question about that. I think everyone understands that by about a year or so from now we've got to be a good bit smaller than we are right now," the Associated Press reported. A military officer working closely on the Iraq strategy yesterday elaborated for The New York Sun. This officer stressed that in regions such as Anbar province, where more than 30,000 Marines have brought relative peace and destroyed most of Al Qaeda's networks, there would likely be reductions in force. "In areas where there has been local political progress, where indigenous security forces have been successful and where many insurgents have joined the American side, there will be draw-downs of combat soldiers," this officer said. A senior scholar at the Brookings Institution, Michael O'Hanlon, yesterday said there could be room for moderate force reductions this time next year. "The number of troops is negotiable in Iraq, but the concept for the Bush administration is not negotiable," he said. "And the concept of course is dense overall force concentrations and an effort to partner with Iraqi security forces to overcome sectarian tendencies. There are places where we can do more of the advisory role, but implementing this uniformly across the country is not a realistic option." The military now estimates some 25,000 former Sunni insurgents have put down their weapons and joined the fight against Al Qaeda, a figure General Petraeus is expected to offer Congress when he descends on Washington in September. While Sunni insurgents in the past have switched sides and America has turned over neighborhoods and regions to an unprepared and infiltrated Iraqi army, the process for vetting the ex-terrorists is more complete now. For example, former members of groups like the Islamic Army of Iraq and the 1920 Brigade are biometrically tagged, making it possible for the American command in Iraq to know where they are at all times. In addition, an intricate process to collect accurate census information on these former insurgents, such as their extended family and place of residence, is completed before the old weapons are exchanged for American ones. Finally, while reconciliation has stalled at the national level, the military will claim success in establishing local governance councils to oversee the details of reconstruction. This strategy of paring down enemies to shrink the pool of terrorists attacking Iraqis and Americans was on display yesterday in Amariyah. General Petraeus visited the area to pay his respects to a former member of the Islamic Army of Iraq, whose nom de guerre is Abu Abed. According to the Associated Press, General Petraeus asked Mr. Abed to give an interview to a Sunni Arab television station, in which he promptly guaranteed the safety of the neighborhood's residents who had fled. According to the Associated Press, Mr. Abed joined the American side in reaction to the strict imposition of Islam from Al Qaeda in Iraq. "You have to pinch yourself a little to make sure that is real because that is a very significant development in this kind of operation in counterinsurgency," General Petraeus told the Associated Press. "It's all about the local people. When all of a sudden the local people are on the side of the new Iraq instead of on the side of the insurgents or even Al Qaeda, that's a very significant change." The emphasis on how success in turning the population against the enemy in Iraq is made possible in part by this year's troop surge will likely be a key theme in trying to persuade centrist Democrats to hold off on voting to end the troop escalation this fall. In some ways, however, it will compensate for what is likely to be a disappointing assessment from Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Mr. Crocker is expected to lower expectations for any prospect of a political compact from the national government, a point driven home in the last two weeks as Prime Minister al-Maliki's unity coalition becomes more tenuous with Sunni and Shiite Islamist defections. General Petraeus has some important factors on his side. A Gallup poll earlier this month found that 47% of Americans hold a favorable impression of the general, while only 21% of Americans have an unfavorable view of him. The general, who oversaw the drafting of the Army's first counterinsurgency manual since the Vietnam War, will also be running his own press strategy in Washington as opposed to delegating this task to either the White House or the Pentagon.[/rquoter]
Isn't this what a lot of the war proponents where complaining about? Setting a deadline for withdrawl. How do we not know then that any signs of progress are actually insurgents going underground to wait the surge out?
I assume since this is the only bolded section that this is what will rock our world. Curious. It doesn't say he'll be writing the report. It doesn't say he'll be giving sworn testimony in public (though I think he eventually will). All it says is that he will be "running his own press strategy." This should cause us all some concern. All he's required to do by law is to give a report to Congress. Why would a General need a "press strategy" when all he's supposed to be doing is delivering the facts and his military opinion to the elected representatives of the people of this country? And a small but telling point... in any other administration it would be the WH or the Pentagon delegating to a General, not the other way around. That paragraph reads as if the General fancies himself above the Joint Chiefs, Secy of Defense, and the President. Usually a no-no in our system.
The analog of Vietnamization comes to mind, where Nixon essentially b****ed and moaned about antiwar people wanting to leave Vietnam for his entire term, which we supposedly were on the verge of winning, and then came up with the sham story of handing the whole thing over to the Vietnamese as a way for him to finally accept that he was wrong, but to save face without having to admit that he was wrong. I guess this is a good sign? Of course everybody knows that the civil war is inevitable and will happen, and when it does the conservatives will try to rewrite history to blame it on the liberals. But at least a drawdown would be a tacit acknowledgement of reality, at least temporarily. And after the whole Rumsfeld ploy at the beginning of the war of saying that 'the generals all wanted to invade with a small force' when in fact it all came from him and the generals were almost in open revolt, I think we have a good reason to not put much stock in who they say is writing the report.
Everyone who doesn't only listen to conservative media.... The gears are already in motion to transfer blame to the next president. There's a general consensus that we can win Iraq by putting our full might into that region. Of course this would mean abandoning other security commitments and incurring heavier debts, but that fact will give rise to the Vietnam-like assumption that our hands were tied in this war. The revisionists will pile on the proportionate casualty rates and our sophisticated smart bombs that caused less collateral damage, all while polishing away the context. It's inevitable, and in this state of fractured media, people can hear details of what they want to hear. Speaking of historical context, Bush is sneaky enough to sandbag and stonewall not only to gamble on his future legacy but also to maintain profits his corporate buddies are reaping in the region. There's still tons of spoils to go around even in this condition, which is why security contractors like Blackwater are thriving in regional uncertainty. Unfortunately, it's the political legacy that will be recorded in the history books, but the greed factor is playing a larger role in our stay than stated. The parallel to Vietnam would end there.
and if you read the article, you'd have noticed he'll be speaking independently of the WH, or the pentagon for that matter.
Speaking of rocking worlds... http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/...do_not_trust_petraeus_to_assess_iraq_progress
