The Army Times just politely ripped McCain for not understand what General Petraeus does for a living. After 30 years working on this stuff, you'd think McCain would know better. Or maybe he's forgetting.
Speaking Monday at the annual meeting of the Associated Press, McCain was asked whether he, if elected, would shift combat troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to intensify the search for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
“I would not do that unless Gen. [David] Petraeus said that he felt that the situation called for that,” McCain said, referring to the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
Petraeus, however, made clear last week that he has nothing to do with the decision. Testifying last week before four congressional committees, including the Senate Armed Services Committee on which McCain is the ranking Republican, Petraeus said the decision about whether troops could be shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan was not his responsibility because his portfolio is limited to the multi-national force in Iraq.
Decisions about Afghanistan would be made by others, he said.
General Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker just spent two days on the Hill testifying before various Congressional committees. The spinning and misdirection required by members of this administration to make their policies appear even minimally rational continues to astound, and this latest round of dog-and-pony show didn't change that in the slightest.
It's unbelievably frustrating and depressing for those of us who closely follow this stuff to watch two well-educated, highly competent, patriotic Americans sit before Congress and the American public and dissemble, either for political reasons or because they simply don't have an accurate understanding of the situation. Petraeus said he wouldn't consider reinstating the surge, which flies in the face of administration claims that troop levels are determined on the ground (if we won't raise troop levels if "necessary" and won't reduce them even after these alleged security gains, what the hell determines the force structure?), and Crocker pretended that Iran isn't the main supporter of the political/militia group propping up our main man in Baghdad (ISCI/Badr and Maliki, respectively), just as two examples.
There were some good questions, and Senators Webb, Biden, Obama, and Clinton all demonstrated facility with complex issues, and even House members, usually less incisive than their Senate colleagues simply because they have fewer staffers to write questions and prep responses, did a good job. I mean, ultimately it isn't that hard to ask tough questions, considering how intellectually bankrupt the administration approach continues to be. But I doubt the past two days changed anything -- Republicans largely screwed up the facts and called Americans with doubts about the war unpatriotic, while Democrats tried again and again to get honest answer to reasonable questions, mostly to no avail, all as per the usual -- and since all of these things are mostly pre-planned and scripted, a continuation of status quo was predictable (and inevitable) anyway. And round and round we go.
By the way, Mark E. Rosenberg, 32 years old, of Miami Lakes, Florida, died yesterday in Baghdad from wounds suffered when his vehicle hit a roadside explosive device. He's one of 18 US troops who have been killed in the past four days alone, the deadliest such stretch since last summer.
In May of 2007 a group of "moderate" Congressional Republicans went to the White House and demanded that Gen. Petraeus become the lead spokesman on Iraq since in the White House there was "no longer any credibility." That raises a lot of legitimate questions in and of itself, but it's gone well beyond that. Ever since, President Bush has abdicated his role as Commander and Chief and simply said whenever asked that he would do whatever General Petraeus recommended. Even in regard to the most recent drawdown decisions, President Bush said to General Petraeus, "'If you want to slow her down, fine; it's up to you."
Now here's the problem – as General Petraeus has rightly admitted, he does not have responsibility for the direction of Iraq policy, much less the larger questions of national security such as balancing deployments in Afghanistan, or setting dwell times and ensuring America's readiness for other conflicts. This was revealed most poignantly when Petraeus conceded in the September hearings that he didn't even know if "victory" in Iraq, whatever that means and however remote it might be, would actually make us safer. But President Bush says that his decisions on Iraq are based entirely on what Gen. Petraeus says. So who's responsible for these other questions? Admiral Fallon and the Joint Chiefs are technically charged with that responsibility, but Fallon recently resigned after it became clear that his concerns were viewed as mere nuisances and the situation of having Gen. Petraeus with a direct line to President Bush, cutting Fallon out of the loop, was untenable.
A clumsy analogy: we are on a runaway bus, going down the highway. President Bush says he's not driving the bus, he trusts "his man" Gen. Petraeus to do that. But Petraeus says he's just supposed to press the gas peddle. Admiral Fallon just resigned after having his hand slapped every time he reached for the steering wheel. We're still losing an American a day, every day five U.S. soldiers try to kill themselves, every day PTSD sets in on thousands more and dozens more are horribly wounded, and yet the bus just keeps barreling down the road, passing by every exit as if sooner and later we'll magically just come to end of the road. Who's steering the bus?
Over the weekend, General Petraeus increased the belligerent rhetoric against Iran, claiming that Iran could be the biggest long term threat to Iraqi security. Iran, he explained, is getting weapons into Iraq, sending military and political officials into the country, and coordinating with militia groups.
This is pretty rich, coming from a military leader of a nation that . . . disburses an ungodly amount of weapons in Iraq (to the tune of $1.6 BILLION in contracts just last month), is occupying the nation and consistently meddling in military and political affairs, and is not only arming militia groups, but bragging that such programs to provide money and weapons to anti-government Sunni tribes are a huge success.
But leaving aside the hypocrisy, on the *very same day,* news came out that Iran had helped broker a peace deal between the two major Shia militias, the Badr Corps of SIIC (formerly SCIRI) and Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of SIIC, who is reportedly undergoing treatment for cancer in Iran, met with Sadr, a frequent rival for Shia following and control in Baghdad and oil-rich Basra province, to bury the hatchet. The plan reportedly has three primary elements: stopping the fighting between Iraqis, urging media to engender a spirit of friendship and forgiveness, and establishing commissions in each of Iraq's 18 provinces to oversee the peace initiative. The agreement was "in the spirit of" Ramadan, the Muslim holy month in which gestures of forgiveness and mercy are often made.
Now, who knows how long this agreement will last, or if it will even make an impact from the outset. Fighting between Mahdi and Badr has been fierce at times, and Hakim and Sadr are certainly rivals. On the other hand, they're also both Shia, both worked together in UIA (the umbrella Shia political party), and both cannot stray too far from Ayatollah Sistani, the highest-ranking Iraqi Shia cleric. There is at least equal incentive for the groups to cooperate as there is to fight. Further, if the "commissions" established in all 18 provinces have any substance, they might have the potential to become mini-governments in the absence of effective administration via the central government.
And again, they worked out the agreement in Iran. Not with U.S. officials (with whom Sadr refuses to deal), not with Saudi Arabia, not the UN. Iran. So when Petraeus says (quoting the CNN article, not the General directly) that, "sectarian fighting among militias fueled by Iran could be the biggest long-term challenge for Iraq," well, exactly what sectarian fighting among militias is he referring to? Why are these statement always so vague, so imprecise? *Which* militias? *Where* is Iran fueling fighting? I'm open to being convinced, but the dichotomy of Petraeus accusing Iran of fueling sectarian infighting at precisely the same time two major militia groups are agreeing to a peace accord in Iran doesn't bode well for his case.
I don't often find myself linking to conservative magazines, but this piece by Andrew Bacevich is a fantastic analysis of General Petraeus and his recent efforts in Washington and in Iraq. Bacevich is a renowned military historian and professor of international relations. A self-described "Catholic conservative," he is also one of the most insightful critics of Bush administration international policy, and has been for years.
This past May, his son, a 27-year-old Lieutenant, was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq.
Bacevich has impeccable credentials, a keen understanding of military and diplomatic affairs, and, one has to imagine, an extraordinarily heavy heart. He gets right to the crux of the matter when it comes to the Political General:
[I]n presenting his recent assessment of the Iraq War and in describing the “way forward,” Petraeus demonstrated that he is a political general of the worst kind—one who indulges in the politics of accommodation that is Washington’s bread and butter but has thereby deferred a far more urgent political imperative, namely, bringing our military policies into harmony with our political purposes.
Petraeus has chosen a middle course, carefully crafted to cause the least amount of consternation among various Washington constituencies he is eager to accommodate. This is the politics of give and take, of horse trading, of putting lipstick on a pig. Ultimately, it is the politics of avoidance.
A political general in the mold of Washington or Grant would have taken a different course, using his moment in the spotlight not to minimize consternation but to stir it up to the maximum extent. He would have capitalized on his status as man of the hour to oblige civilian leaders, both in Congress and in the executive branch, to do what they have not done since the Iraq War began—namely, their jobs. He would have insisted upon the president and the Congress making decisions that wartime summons them—and not military commanders—to make. Instead, Petraeus issued everyone a pass.
The entire piece is simply -- and rightly -- devastating.
Bacevich goes on to explain the most intellectually indefensible argument of Petraeus's testimony: after an (ostensibly) effective surge, supposedly fueled by increased troop levels, he didn't move to exploit the advantage. If the increase was really helping us "win" the war, an honest position would have been to ask for more troops. Exploit the advantage, if indeed there is one. Bacevich explains,
There is only one plausible explanation for Petraeus’s terminating a surge that has (he says) enabled coalition forces, however tentatively, to gain the upper hand. That explanation is politics—of the wrong kind.
Given the current situation as Petraeus describes it, an incremental reduction in U.S. troop strength makes sense only in one regard: it serves to placate each of the various Washington constituencies that Petraeus has a political interest in pleasing.
Indeed. It's really amazing that he has gotten such a pass on all of this; history, I think, will not be so kind.
Civilian casualty numbers in the Pentagon's latest quarterly report on Iraq last week, for example, differ significantly from those presented by the top commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, in his recent congressional testimony. Petraeus's chart was limited to numbers of dead, while the Pentagon combined the numbers of dead and wounded -- a figure that should be greater. Yet Petraeus's numbers were higher than the Pentagon's for the months preceding this year's increase of U.S. troops to Iraq, and lower since U.S. operations escalated this summer.
The charts are difficult to compare: Petraeus used monthly figures on a line graph, while the Pentagon computed "Average Daily Casualties" on a bar chart, and neither included actual numbers. But the numerical differences are still stark, and the reasons offered can be hard to parse. The Pentagon, in a written clarification, said that "Gen. Petraeus reported civilian deaths based on incidents reported by Coalition forces plus Iraqi government data. The [Pentagon] report only includes incidents reported by Coalition forces for civilian causality data."
By now everyone knows that our top general in Iraq, David Petraeus, has been personally devastated by an ad MoveOn published last week asking if Petraeus had "Betray[ed] Us" (a play on his name) by cooking the books on Iraq. (Petraeus has cooked the books before, most recently when he was in charge of training the still-non-existent Iraqi security forces and repeatedly lied about how well it was going, and got chewed out by Ambassador Negroponte as a result). To hear the Republicans talk (President Bush attacked MoveOn today in a press conference and the House and Senate Republicans want to pass legislation decrying MoveOn), Petraeus has been sitting in a tent in the desert crying his eyes out, unable to engage the enemy for an entire week.
Which leads me to ask a very serious and troubling question: If David Petraeus can't handle being called a name, how is he going to handle Al Qaeda?
PS The Senate just passed its legislation, with Hillary and the other Dem presidential contenders voting against it (hear hear) - well, that is, everyone except Obama, who voted for the Democratic alternative and then was a no-show for the vote on the GOP MoveOn-bashing bill.
UPDATE: Obama has released a statement about why he didn't vote on the GOP MoveOn-bashing amendment
"The focus of the United States Senate should be on ending this war, not on criticizing newspaper advertisements. This amendment was a stunt designed only to score cheap political points while what we should be doing is focusing on the deadly serious challenge we face in Iraq. It's precisely this kind of political game-playing that makes most Americans cynical about Washington's ability to solve America's problems. By not casting a vote, I registered my protest against this empty politics. I registered my views on the ad itself the day it appeared.
"All of us respect the service of General Petraeus and all of our brave men and women in uniform. The way to honor that service is to give them a mission that is responsible, not to vote on amendments like the Cornyn amendment while we continue to pursue the wrong policy in Iraq."
Didn't take long for Petraeus to start playing a numbers gain with the troop reduction in Iraq. Just because he said 30,000, doesn't actually mean the number will be 30,000. So what plan is Bush actually accepting tonight? All week we've been subjected to another Bush campaign of spin and deception. Bringing the troop level back to pre-escalation levels isn't really a reduction of forces anyway, but now it's not clear that's even happening.
I want to ask about the reduction in troops that you've talked about. I want to first make sure that I understand the numbers that you're talking about. It's been said that what you've described is a reduction in 30,000 troops. Is that, in fact, what you –
[Petraeus] What I've described is a reduction of five brigade combat teams, Army brigade combat teams, the Marine Expeditionary Unit, which actually is coming out this month without replacement, and two Marine battalions. Now, we want to take out other –
That's a little less than –
[Petraeus] Well, we have to do the math, candidly. We've got – I have not yet said how many thousands of troops. So when people have said 30,000, they're not quite accurate. It might be 30,000 — it might be quite a bit less.
[Petraeus] Well, we've got to determine what it can be. The mission so far, in a sense, was to figure out how to bring these down while sustaining the gains that our troopers and Iraqi troopers have achieved, and also, then, to figure out the larger picture of where else can you reduce forces — which is something we want to do anyway.
They have to do the math, all right. Bush is going to give a BIG SPEECH to the nation tonight accepting the Petraeus plan when Petraeus hasn't done the math on his plan yet.
From the party who still loves Oliver North, this should come as no surprise. Though this pretty much puts to rest any argument about whether Petraeus is "political" or not. You think? Besides talking about his own visions of glory in American politics, read the entire article which highlights - lowlights, actually - the miserably failed missions of Petraeus during his time in Iraq. (Note: The Independent is a perfectly respectable British newspaper and not a trashy tabloid.)
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....
For a soldier whose military abilities and experience are so lauded by the White House, General Petraeus has had a surprisingly controversial career in Iraq. His critics hold him at least partly responsible for three debacles: the capture of Mosul by the insurgents in 2004; the failure to train an effective Iraqi army and the theft of the entire Iraqi arms procurement budget in 2004-05.
Is this the kind of person we want to rely on for something as critical as whether or not to stay in Iraq? Let's hear more about the success of his Iraqi Army training programs, and about what happened to the US taxpayer funded military equipment, before we listen to Petraeus' reasons for why we need to stay in Iraq. When someone has been part of the problem, why should we suddenly expect them to be part of the solution?
NOTE FROM JOHN: The reason we're still in Iraq, the reason we can't withdraw (they tell us), is because the Iraq security forces aren't yet ready to stand up so we can stand down. Well, Mr. Petraeus was in charge of training those forces. I think it's time the Democrats held hearings on the status of the Iraq security forces and their training. And, gosh, I guess that means Mr. Petraeus would be a rather large subject of those hearings.
I guess this should go into the "I'm not sh*tting you" files. I really, really I thought I was done with this guy for a while, but he's like a zombie in Dawn of the Dead -- he keeps on coming -- no matter how much PR rot is occurring.
A press release from Idaho Senator Larry Craig on the Petraeus testimony the other day. I'm sure the GOP and Petraeus are happy about this endorsement.
Craig Reacts to Petraeus, Crocker Testimony General, Ambassador paint picture of progress in Iraq
BOISE, ID - General Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker testified before the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees today regarding the troop surge in Iraq.
"I was pleased to hear the forthright testimony before Senate committees today by General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker regarding the status of U.S. and coalition efforts in Iraq," said Idaho Senator Larry Craig.
"Unfortunately, many were quick to prejudge the surge, as well as the testimony of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker," Craig continued. "However, I believe their testimony told a positive story. Our soldiers are making progress on the ground to provide breathing room for the Iraqi government, and we have seen a significant decrease in violence across the country, and most importantly, in Baghdad. That being said, the Iraqi government must stand up and prove to their people that they can govern and secure their country from violence."
It proves that clinging to power is so embedded in this guy's thinking that he cannot imagine just lying low for a while.
Just got a note from someone on a listserv that the alternate headline for this article should have been: "Craig: Petraeus Does Not Blow." Oh, I wish I had thought of that one.
Jon Soltz from VoteVets weighs in on the "stunning admission" from General Petraeus that he doesn't know if Bush's Iraq strategy is making us safer. The transcript and video of that testimony from Petraeus are in a post below:
This exchange verifies the argument VoteVets.org has been making, that General Petraeus' job is not to take those things into account, and therefore the President is hiding behind General Petraeus.
Let me explain.
General Petraeus was given an order -- find a military solution for Iraq where there is none, and without concern for troop overextension or the larger war on terror. General Petraeus followed his orders, giving the president what he wanted to hear, and now the president will hide behind that to justify his failure as a commander in chief.
General Petraeus has a very limited area of concern -- the US military in Iraq -- and his testimony today reflected that.
When one looks at the grander scale, past just the military in Iraq, the picture is dismal, and becoming a critical danger. From the Government Accountability Office report to Congressional Research Service report to the report by General Jones, it is clear that there has been no political reconciliation overall in Iraq or increased security, despite our military's strongest efforts.
From Admiral Fallon to Admiral Mullen, those above General Petraeus in the chain of command are telling the president that this war is hurting our military and our global security. The president has chosen to ignore all of this, in favor of a report based on a false premise with faulty findings, signed by a General with a very limited scope of concern. Call it denial, or call it stubbornness, or whatever you want; it all boils down to the same thing -- this president still refuses to listen to those he needs to listen to, in favor of those who tell him what he wants to hear.
Unwittingly, General Petraeus just confirmed all of that in the exchange above, today.
This is HUGE. HUGE. Petraeus just completely undermined Bush's rationale for the escalation of the Iraq war. Senator John Warner asked a simple question --- and got a very telling and disturbing answer:
Senator Warner: Are you able to say at this time if we continue what you have laid before the congress here,this strategy. do you feel that that is making America safer?
General Petraeus: Sir, I believe this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq.
Warner: Does that make America safer?
General Petraeus: Sir I don't know actually. I have not sat down and sorted in my own mind what i have focued on and what I have been riveted on is how to accomplish the mission of the multinational force Iraq.
Hoping to have the video soon. But this is undoubtedly the news of the day.
If the Bush/Petraeus "course of action" is not ultimately making us safer, what the hell are we doing in over there? And, why are Republicans sticking with Bush's plan that doesn't make us safer?
Some Republicans in the Senate were actually challenging Petraeus today, according to Reuters:
The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, faced a tough challenge on Tuesday from both Republicans skeptical about war strategy and Democrats who want a swifter withdrawal of American troops
The bipartisan grilling of Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker in Congress raised questions about whether President George W. Bush could count on enough of his Republican colleagues for help in staving off Democratic demands for a faster pullout.
Bush is expected to give a speech later this week on Iraq but has shown no signs of ordering drastic troop withdrawals.
Petraeus insisted progress was being made under Bush strategy of temporarily building up troops this year to allow time for political reconciliation, an approach which is being strongly challenged in Washington.
Now, as we've seen with these Republicans many times, they talk tough for awhile, then fall right into line with George Bush. But, clearly, they are worried.
That's called perjury, in some parts. It's also called, someone in the Pentagon has Petraeus' number and is leaking information. Not so well respected after all, is he?
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....
Even some supporters of the surge effort wonder whether Petraeus isn’t thinking as much about selling the war as winning it....
John Arquilla, an intelligence and counterinsurgency expert at the Naval Postgraduate School, is even harsher in his assessment of Petraeus. “I think Colin Powell used dodgy information to get us into the war, and Petraeus is using dodgy information to keep us there,” he said. “His political talking points are all very clear: the continued references he made to the danger of Al Qaeda in Iraq, for example, even though it represents only somewhere between 2 and 5 percent of the total insurgency. The continued references to Iran, when in fact the Iranians have had a lot to do with stability in the Shiite portion of the country. And it's not at all clear why things are a little better now. Is it because there are more troops, or is it because we're negotiating with the insurgents and have moved to small operating outposts? On any given day we don't have more than 20,000 troops operating. The glacial pace of reductions beggars the imagination.”....
Petraeus called in a large press gaggle to observe training exercises at his local Iraqi military training academy. Later, back in Baghdad, Bremer shook his head and laughed indulgently. “He loves headlines,” Bremer said.
The Senate Democrats did a fact check of the testimony delivered by General Petraeus. It's a very good and thorough rebuttal to today's presentation -- and because of its relevance, we're posting the whole document:
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]
When I testified in January, for example, no one would have dared to forecast that Anbar Province would have been transformed the way it has in the past 6 months.
What Petraeus said 6 months ago at his confirmation hearing (via CQ, subscription only link):
"You've seen it, I know, in Anbar province, where it has sort of gone back and forth. And right now, there appears to be a trend in the positive direction where sheiks are stepping up, and they do want to be affiliated with and supported by the U.S. Marines and Army forces who are in Anbar province. That was not the case as little as perhaps six months ago, or certainly before that."
Not an outright lie, but still he's twisting his own words. He spun Anbar positively in January, now he's trying to pretend like the positive developments in Anbar are some kind of huge surprise that we had no inkling of back in January. The man simply can't keep his stories straight because he's always spinning.
I hear he did, and that he got an earful from US government officials about it. They told him to stop lying to the public and to congress and to the media, to stop falsely inflating the number of security forces he trained (but really didn't), to stop cooking the books about the situation in Iraq.
Petraeus has a reputation in the US government of being a yes-man who always presents a rosy picture, even when things aren't so rosy. Petraeus has a reputation for not telling the truth (especially when assessing his own work).
Hopefully, some member of Congress will ask Petraeus if he was scolded privately by Bush administration officials for cooking the books about Iraq's security forces. If he says no, I hear he'd be lying. And while testifying, that's a crime.
Craig Reacts to Petraeus, Crocker Testimony General, Ambassador paint picture of progress in Iraq