No need to wait for the official report. Nope. Petraeus already has his talking points down:
The U.S. troop surge in Iraq has thrown al Qaeda off balance and led to a reduction in sectarian violence and bombings, the U.S. commander in Iraq was quoted on Friday by an Australian newspaper as saying.
"We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress and we believe al Qaeda is off balance at the very least," General David Petraeus told the Australian in an interview after briefing Australia's defense minister, Brendan Nelson, in Baghdad.
Petraeus and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker will testify before the U.S. Congress on either September 11 or 12.
Petraeus says the sectarian violence is down, but that doesn't mean it's true. Ilan Goldberg found some abnormalities when looking at the numbers from the Pentagon on sectarian violence:
I really have no idea why these numbers are so inconsistent, but it does lead me to call into question the violence numbers that are being reported by the Administration, when it touts progress. Clearly certain types of violence have been taken out and others have been added. What we need is some transparency. Congress needs to take a very careful look at the numbers that come before it in September
Congress should take a very careful look at everything anyone from the Bush team says about Iraq.
