Damning With Faint Praise: The Patraeus Report

[Darth Rotor]

I imagine a veritable firestorm of discussion will accompany the recent testimony of General Patraeus before Congress recently.

I listened to almost all of it, on C Span, (I was also working) and missed some due to grandstanding of the 9-11 remembrance day crowd, and had two points to share.

Most of what I was listening for was in what the General did NOT say. His report is using more recent metrics than a couple of previous drafts, and the GAO report, which colors (by the delta in either five of nine weeks) how one characterizes trends.

What he didn't do was point to the fall as typically being a rather bloody time in each of the last three years, and the fall approaches us. So, what some took as optimism looked to me like a combination of guarded optimism and an exercise left to the reader, since he did not, and I listened for this hard, he did not prognosticate that these trend lines would keep trending down.

The other thing he didn't say, however, was the most important.

That the surge will, when complete, have lasted about a year. His drawdown plan reduces by next summer the troop levels to what they were at the end of 2006.

Is that progress? For people being deployed, probably not.

His remarks, without saying it explicitly, points to something else that Congress will hopefully confront: if you want tangible political results, you will need to be in this for the long haul. If the security that allows meaningful political progress in Iraq is to be achieved, he just told Congress that there will be as many troops in Iraq in July 2008 as there were in July of 2006.

One of the Congressmen brought up the cost, and the projected cost from the Budget Office, of another 600 billion dollars based on 4-5 years more of this, and he asked the General, but it seemed to me he was asking the President and the American people: "Will it have been worth it?"

The reply from the General and Ambassador Crocker told me that the Bush Administration intends to go to its terminal day with over 100,000 troops in Iraq, and to be stubbornly attempting to transform Iraq until the torch is passed.

Will Congress keep funding this?

There are a few more days of this testimony, but I won't be able to see it until well after the fact.

1. "The Surge" (regardless of how it was sold) is a year long effort.

2. President Bush intends to will this war to his successor, in whichever party.

What will Congress do now?

DR

[Katana]

Will it have been worth it?

In terms of monetary costs and lives lost?

That really is the question.

How will we ever know?

What does the future hold that could tell us?

Such a simple question, yet one so breath-takingly hard to answer.

[Puppycow]

Will it have been worth it?

In terms of monetary costs and lives lost?

That really is the question.

How will we ever know?

What does the future hold that could tell us?

Such a simple question, yet one so breath-takingly hard to answer.

The war itself or prolonging it for 4 or 5 more years?

I think the answer to both questions is no, although I am almost certian about the former, less so about the latter.

The war can hardly result in anything significantly enough better than the staus quo ante to be worth the incredible cost. We had been containing Saddam at a cost of about 1.5 billion per year. We could have done that for over a century before we approached the costs already incurred. Desert Fox worked much better than the intelligence community realized, effectively ending Saddam's WMD programs. UN Inspections were actually working, although the neocons refused to believe that. Thus, it is already a strategic failure. Still, some failures are worse than others.

Now I think we need to let Iraqis sort this all out among themselves. Even if the resulting state is not to our liking, we will be able to deter it at less cost than continuing this failure.

[stanleywinthrop]

Now I think we need to let Iraqis sort this all out among themselves.

And what if letting the "Iraqis sort this all out among themselves" involves the deaths of millions?

[Tumblehome]

And what if letting the "Iraqis sort this all out among themselves" involves the deaths of millions?


Like the American Civil War? The general consensus seems to be that that was worth it.

[bozothedeathmachine]

Like the American Civil War? The general consensus seems to be that that was worth it.

And which third party invaded the US, thus triggering the civil war?

[Puppycow]

And what if letting the "Iraqis sort this all out among themselves" involves the deaths of millions?

That would be a tragedy, but as long as Americans aren't doing the killing, it isn't primarily our fault. Put it down to religious and ethnic hatred. Besides, the Iraqis want us to leave. A majority support attacks on US troops. It is not possible to defend the very people who are attacking you.

[bozothedeathmachine]

Besides, the Iraqis want us to leave.

It seems to be almost common knowledge that the Iraqis was the US out, but I'm curious who the "Iraqis" are in this case.

- The Iraqi government? I doubt it. They know how screwed they are when the US pulls out.
- The Shia? - they outnumber the Sunni, so it's likely they'll get the lion's share of whatever is left. Not to mention Iran will have their back.
- The Sunni? - Maybe peeved at the US for ruining their party? Think they can take care of themselves?
- The general public? - Is a "general public" distinguishable from the previous 2 groups?

Iraq is pretty much doomed to their own devices.

[Puppycow]

Both conservative George Will (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/10/AR2007091002065.html?hpid=opinionsbox1) and liberal Eugene Robinson (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/10/AR2007091002066.html?hpid=opinionsbox1) rightly point out that the surge has failed according to Petraeus' and Bush's own criteria.

Before Gen. David Petraeus's report, and to give it a context of optimism, the president visited Iraq's Anbar province to underscore the success of the surge in making some hitherto anarchic areas less so. More significant, however, was that the president did not visit Baghdad. This underscored the fact that the surge has failed, as measured by the president's and Petraeus's standards of success.

Those who today stridently insist that the surge has succeeded also say they are especially supportive of the president, Petraeus and the military generally. But at the beginning of the surge, both Petraeus and the president defined success in a way that took the achievement of success out of America's hands.

The purpose of the surge, they said, is to buy time -- "breathing space," the president says -- for Iraqi political reconciliation. Because progress toward that has been negligible, there is no satisfactory answer to this question: What is the U.S. military mission in Iraq?

Many of those who insist that the surge is a harbinger of U.S. victory in Iraq are making the same mistake they made in 1991 when they urged an advance on Baghdad, and in 2003 when they underestimated the challenge of building democracy there. The mistake is exaggerating the relevance of U.S. military power to achieve political progress in a society riven by ethnic and sectarian hatreds. America's military leaders, who are professional realists, do not make this mistake.

The next six months in Iraq are crucial -- and always will be. That noise you heard yesterday on Capitol Hill was the can being kicked further down the road leading to January 2009, when George W. Bush gets to hand off his Iraq fiasco to somebody else.

It's clear by now that playing for time is the real White House strategy for Iraq. Everything else is tactical maneuver and rhetorical legerdemain -- nothing up my sleeve -- with which the administration is buying time, roughly in six-month increments.

. . .

One funny thing about the improved security situation that Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker described: Iraqis don't seem to have noticed.

In a poll of Iraqis commissioned by ABC News, the BBC and the Japanese network NHK -- released yesterday before Petraeus's testimony -- 31 percent of Iraqis said security in their local areas had worsened over the past six months, as opposed to just 24 percent who said it had improved. A full 61 percent said security had worsened in the country overall, against only 11 percent who said it had gotten better. Only 22 percent said things in general were going well in Iraq (down from 44 percent in November 2005), and just 23 percent thought things would get better over the coming year (as opposed to 69 percent in 2005).

Some 63 percent of Iraqis polled said the U.S. invasion was wrong, 47 percent said that coalition forces "should leave now" and 57 percent said attacks on U.S. forces were "acceptable."

Never mind what the Iraqis think. On with the new new strategy, which is to bypass the national government and work from the bottom up, making deals with local power brokers. That should be good for, what, another six months?

[Tumblehome]

And which third party invaded the US, thus triggering the civil war?


Well, the end result doesn't depend on how it starts. Things would get settled one way or the other. And it didn't take a third party for the U.S. to settle its dispute. They did it on their own. Maybe that's why it's lasted for so long.

[stanleywinthrop]

That would be a tragedy, but as long as Americans aren't doing the killing, it isn't primarily our fault. Put it down to religious and ethnic hatred. Besides, the Iraqis want us to leave. A majority support attacks on US troops. It is not possible to defend the very people who are attacking you.

Whether you agree with the orgional invasion or not, it is a fact. Do you not believe that the U.S. bears some responsibility of the future of those people. Is it correct for the U.S. to roll in, cause a huge mess, throw up it's hands a few years later, leave, and let the genocide roll?

[Daylight]

Darth

The main, and even more important, thing you missed, not one speaker mentioned the “War on Terror”. If we are not fighting the “war on terror” over there, there’s no reason for us to be there.

[WildCat]

And it didn't take a third party for the U.S. to settle its dispute. They did it on their own. Maybe that's why it's lasted for so long.
France was showing a willingness to join the Confederate cause, only their hapless defeat in Mexico ended those ambitions. And Britain built several warships for the Confederacy, they liked that Confederate cotton. But then the British grain crop came up short, and suddenly the British needed US wheat more than CSA cotton. And the Emancipation Proclamation made it clear to the British public that to join the Confederacy would mean fighting for slavery.

[Bikewer]

Regarding the much-touted "progress" in the Anbar province.... The administration has been going on for some weeks now about the previously-nasty Sunni in this area uniting with our forces against the Al Qaeda In Iraq group.
However, an analyst I just listened to indicates this may be less of a good thing than appears at first blush.
The Sunni are still firmly convinced of their "right" to govern, and in using US assistance to oust the Shia-leaning Al Qaeda fighters, they can now concentrate (with the aid of equipment and munitions given them by us...) on returning to the effort to drive their "allies of the moment" out of the country.

[Darth Rotor]

Darth

The main, and even more important, thing you missed, not one speaker mentioned the “War on Terror”. If we are not fighting the “war on terror” over there, there’s no reason for us to be there.
You are wrong. I heard quite clearly that one of the Congressman made that precise complaint, so I could not have missed it. What you missed is that this was not testimony on 'The War On Terror' but rather the mission in Iraq. (FWIW: As far as I am concerned, the Iraq War was, if intended to be a step in the War on Terror begun in Afghanistan, a profound strategic error, but that wasn't what the topic of the brief was.) Go move the goal posts somewhere else, thanks.

General Patraeus, as he pointed out again and again to Congressmen, is not the National Command authority, and as such he confined his testimony to his assigned mission.

I think I counted five different questioners that asked him geo-strategic questions. In each case he pointed out what his mission is, and that such questions were better directed to Admiral Fallon (US CENTCOM commander) and the JCS, Sec Def, and the NCA. No matter, such Congressional hearings are often seen as a chance to shoot the messenger. A few rounds were sent his way. I just wish I could listen to the rest of the testimony and questions from both committees, but alas am not in a position to do so.

His mission is the problem in Iraq, regardless of how else it is related to US policy, and that is what he briefed. He was IMO 100% correct to confine his remarks to his lane, to his mission, and would have been guilty of a gross foul of addressing regional issues (CENTCOM's and States lanes) or higher level strategic matters. Ambassador Crocker had a bit more latitude as a member of State and due to his diplomatic role, but again, was best served by staying in his lane.

General Patraeus' comments in Iranian involvement and assistance to various militias and terror groups were, if you watched the whole testimony yesterday, confined to their actions and impacts in Iraq.

DR

[Darth Rotor]

Regarding the much-touted "progress" in the Anbar province.... The administration has been going on for some weeks now about the previously-nasty Sunni in this area uniting with our forces against the Al Qaeda In Iraq group.
However, an analyst I just listened to indicates this may be less of a good thing than appears at first blush.
The Sunni are still firmly convinced of their "right" to govern, and in using US assistance to oust the Shia-leaning Al Qaeda fighters, they can now concentrate (with the aid of equipment and munitions given them by us...) on returning to the effort to drive their "allies of the moment" out of the country.
Indeed, the Sunni are on their own side.

One of the Congressmen yesterday made mention, or maybe it was a news commentator (I was in another room and listening only), of the ethnic cleansing currently going on in Iraq, and in particular in Baghdad. Newsweek recently had a piece on this, and Ralph Peters' article on that matter was a topic of discussion on this board a couple of weeks ago.

It is a point well worth examining in some depth. What is being set up by its own momentum, rather than by any American design, is a slow but steady partition, a segregation, of Iraq into blocs.

I just realized that the General made little to no mention of the Kurdish areas, other than to make some points about how well one particular mission in the Kurd area went, which makes a third major matter that he did not address yesterday.

The looming partition of Iraq as a very real outcome of our actions there, and the follow on opportunities taken by various tribes and factions, was the 800 pound gorilla in the room not acknowledged. He is operating under the guidance, as I understand it, that his mission is tied to the implicit assumption that Iraq will remain a pluralistic nation state with its borders as they were in 2002. That assumption is, much to my concern, one of many made by the administration that wished away nation building as a mission in Phases III and IV of OIF.

This does not give me a warm and fuzzy.

In response to puppycow: Will and Robinson rightly take the President and General to task on the matter of success by their own metrics, particularly if the expectation of success was a short term improvement in the political climate. If President Bush presumed that he could influence that over the course of a half a year, he was deluding himself. While General Patraeus noted "progress" neither he nor Ambassador Crocker declared success. Ambassador Crocker flatly stated "I cannot guarantee success in Iraq."

Was the Surge predicted to be a success by 15 September, and of course, what does "success" mean? Based in the remarks yesterday, that seems an inference made by many, to include people in the administration, this spring.

The General's recommendations for drawdown by next summer to the levels previous to the surge is indicative of a strategy of a deliberate counter insurgency. Too bad the denial stage in Washington lasted two and a half years.

FWIW, Ricks, in Fiasco, made the observation that counter insurgency campaigns tend to take between 9 and 11 years. (I just realized a weird irony in that assessment. Today is 9-11)

With that in mind, General Patraeus being the latest proponent of COIN in the US military, yesterday's brief was confirmation that someone in Washington has committed the US to an operation that will last into the next decade. This takes me back to my question in the OP: will Congress and the American people fund that, and will they trust their government and military with the blood and treasure to do that?

Based on recent polls, I'd say the answer to that is NO.

So, what to make of the report? I don't think the General is oblivious to American public opinion, so what assumptions is he, and his staff, making? I will hazard a guess: CENTCOM and MNCI are making the assumption that Congress will keep funding whatever troop level they ask for in the near term, and they are, and their successors, going to keep on "drawing down" troop levels at the glacial pace the General mentioned yesterday. That means that a couple of years from now, the US will still have about two divisions still in Iraq, segregated on large bases in a way similar to PSAB in Saudi Arabia up until 2003. I am not convinced the American people are interested in that use of their military.

Sending one MEU home (without replacement) in a few weeks. That's about 2,000 people. Out of 160,000, that is not a very large slice of the pie. A brigade home by Christmas, another 4000 or so, not to be replaces. What is 6/160? By July, 30/160. At that rate, 30 months until they are all home.

As to Mr Robinson's closer:

Never mind what the Iraqis think. On with the new new strategy, which is to bypass the national government and work from the bottom up, making deals with local power brokers. That should be good for, what, another six months?
This matter was addressed, and the open question remains what degree of Federalism is appropriate to Iraq. Democracy, or at least representative government, grows best from the ground up. The top down insertion of parliamentary government was not working so well, perhaps the "ground up" method is the better approach. (It seems obvious that the Bush Team's goals is laying a bit of parliamentary democracy on Iraq. ) Put in tennis terms, always change a losing game plan, don't change a winning one. What seems to have been done over the past year is, at long last, steps toward changing a losing game plan. A bloody expensive lesson in getting it wrong/right, no doubt about it.

The General Mentioned about two million refugees (people who fled the country) and about two million "internally displaced." As percentage of the population, originally about 25,000,000, that's almost one in six people in Iraq have lost or left their homes since March of 2003. Compare the Katrina (Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama) refugees of 2005 as a percentage of population, and you'd have to displace ten times as many as lost their homes here to get a sense of how deep into Iraq the upheaval has reached. Putting that back together cannot be done in the short term, and the Surge can't solve that massive damage to Iraq.

DR

[stanleywinthrop]

You are wrong. I heard quite clearly that one of the Congressman made that precise complaint, so I could not have missed it. What you missed is that this was not testimony on 'The War On Terror' but rather the mission in Iraq. (FWIW: As far as I am concerned, the Iraq War was, if intended to be a step in the War on Terror begun in Afghanistan, a profound strategic error. ) But that wasn't what the topic of the brief was.

General Patraeus, as he pointed out again and again to Congressmen, is not the National Command authority, and as such he confined his testimony to his assigned mission.

I think I counted five different questioners that asked him geo-strategic questions. In each case he pointed out what his mission is, and that such question were better directed to Admiral Fallon (US CENTCOM commander) and the JCS, Sec Def, and the NCA. No matter, such Congressional hearings are often seen as a chance to shoot the messenger. A few rounds were sent his way. I just wish I could listen to the rest of the testimony and questions from both committees, but alas am not in a position to do so.

His mission is the problem in Iraq, regardless of how else it is related to US policy, and that is what he briefed. He was IMO 100% correct to confine his remarks to his lane, to his mission, and would have been guilty of a gross foul of addressing regional issues (CENTCOM's and States lanes) or higher level strategic matters. Ambassador Crocker had a bit more latitude as a member of State and due to his diplomatic role, but again, was best served by staying in his lane.

General Patraeus' comments in Iranian involvement and assistance to various militias and terror groups were, if you watched the whole testimony yesterday, confined to their actions and impacts in Iraq.

DR

I think Patreaus is a quietly brilliant intellectual warrior. He is a primary author of the Army and Marine Corps Counter Insurgency Manual (http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24fd.pdf) which (correctly IMHO) asserts that an effective counter-insurgency program must be 80% political and 20% military (historians in the crowd may recognize that this premise orginated with a fellow by the name of Mao). This lesson was tragically ignored for the first 3 years of our presense in Iraq. This manual has some thought provoking statements such as "the more you protect your force, the less secure it becomes" and "the more force you use, the less effective it becomes".

Another initiative not often talked about in the MSM is current in-country programs to deal with captives. Here is an interview (http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTQxN2VlOTY0MjliM2I4OTY2NGU1ZmY1NWVmMDgzNDQ=) with Senator Lindsay Grahm (who also is a reserve USAF Jag Colonel and has served as such for short periods in Iraq).

An excerpt:


SEN. GRAHAM: We put the detainee in school, teach them to read and write, then bring in moderate clerics who will actually sit down with the detainees and go over the Koran with them: Reading passages that the insurgents use on the streets. The clerics will say, “Here’s what they [the terrorists] say it says. Here’s what it actually says. Read it for yourself.”

We’ve also created a vocational program. We’ve established brick factories at the internment facilities, so that they can learn to make bricks, develop a skill.


SMITH: So we are educating and teaching job skills to the reconcilable.

SEN. GRAHAM: Yes, so they won’t have to go back to the fight for economic reasons. Now, we don’t know what percentage of the detainees are reconcilable. But it’s probably going to be 35 to 40 percent.


SMITH: What is the guarantor program?

SEN. GRAHAM: Alright, I’ve said that Gen. Petraeus is Pres. Bush’s U.S. Grant. But I think Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone [deputy commanding general, Multi-National Force–Iraq for Detainee Operations] may be our Lawrence of Arabia. His guarantor program is evidence to me that we are finally getting it: We’re finally understanding Iraq. His program is forward-leaning. He sees the prison system as an extension of the war: Basically taking counterinsurgency into jails. And with this many people in prison, it’s important we do that.

[Beerina]

That would be a tragedy, but as long as Americans aren't doing the killing, it isn't primarily our fault. Put it down to religious and ethnic hatred. Besides, the Iraqis want us to leave. A majority support attacks on US troops.

Correction: A majority say they support attacks on US troops.

Hmmm. I'm an Iraqi not fortunate enough to live in the green zone. Someone asks me if I support attacks on US troops. My thought process: "Hmmmm. If I say yes, the US troops won't come kill me. If I say no, Al Whoever or the local terrorist warlord wannabee may very well come and kill me, just like they did the guys on the next street over, leaving a sign that read 'to teach you a lesson'."

"Why, yes. Yes I do support attacks on US troops!"

[Gurdur]

...And Britain built several warships for the Confederacy, they liked that Confederate cotton.
You're completely werong on motive; the Brits did it for the cash, and any sympathy for the South had completely different reasons than cotton.
But then the British grain crop came up short, and suddenly the British needed US wheat more than CSA cotton.
Simply not so.
And the Emancipation Proclamation made it clear to the British public that to join the Confederacy would mean fighting for slavery.
Actually, that was pretty explicitly clear to the Brits way before the Emancipation Declaration. See British publications 1860 to 1863.

[Gurdur]

I'm an Iraqi not fortunate enough to live in the green zone.

If only. It would certainly cure you of your ad-hoc-rationalizational libertarianism.

[Puppycow]

FWIW, Ricks, in Fiasco, made the observation that counter insurgency campaigns tend to take between 9 and 11 years. (I just realized a weird irony in that assessment. Today is 9-11)


And, often does not end successfully for the occupier (Algeria, Vietnam)

10 years would put us at 2013, so the next president would have to be fully committed to it. I won't claim to be sure, but I believe that prolonging the occupation will not yield a better end state. And the presence of US troops doesn't actually do much to reduce the overall level of violence because it does not encourage the Iraqis to take the initiative in finding a political solution.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Against the back drop of someone claiming to be willing to give an honest Iraq report and for all the fake outrage the Republicans are trying to rally against the "General Betray Us" ad Moveon put out, I saw an event which was boringly choreographed complete with a Bush photo op following the report, on 9/11 (gee what a coincidence :rolleyes: ). How is anyone supposed to believe this was a meaningful report? Do you find yourself taking it seriously given the production factor with graphs to show us the important data and the obvious fact you heard nothing you couldn't have guessed the day before the report?

Call me skeptical that this was even a real report.

Information I get on Democracy Now is a report. There are interviews of people who are living among the Iraqis, who wrote books like Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/29/151212) which exposed the full extent of the mistakes Bush made not just in failing to control the looting and disbanding the Baathist military after the initial invasion, but also of the utter incompetence of the team he sent to rebuild the Iraq government, a team that included 20 year olds whose only qualification was being born again, and Poet & Novelist Sinan Antoon on the U.S. Destruction of the Iraqi State, His Latest Novel and the Sad Statement that Iraq Was Better Under Saddam Hussein (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/06/1359238&mode=thread&tid=25). I watch Petraeus and it just looked sooo staged. Did you really feel you were getting an update? Were you being informed? Was there anything said you couldn't have guessed would be said?


This is what DN had on this morning on their coverage of Iraq: September 11th, 2007, EXCLUSIVE Report From Iraq: U.S. Fueling Sectarian Civil War in Anbar by Funding Former Insurgents to Fight Al Qaeda (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/11/1424208&mode=thread&tid=25)When Gen. David Petraeus spoke of success stories in Iraq, he largely focused on the situation in Anbar province where former Sunni insurgents are now fighting Al Qaeda alongside U.S. troops. In a U.S. broadcast exclusive, we air a report from Anbar by independent filmmaker Rick Rowley that exposes how the U.S. is fueling sectarian civil war in Iraq by funding the former Sunni insurgents.

And last week it was, September 5th, 2007, The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror: ACLU Head Anthony Romero on Civilian Killings in Iraq, Domestic Spying, Torture, John Walker Lindh and More (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/05/1422253&mode=thread&tid=25)The American Civil Liberties Union is making public nearly ten thousand pages of documents chronicling civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. The files include courts martial proceedings and military investigations regarding the possible wrongful death of civilians. The ACLU obtained the records from the Department of the Army after filing a Freedom of Information Act request over a year ago. But the Department of Defense has so far refused to comply with the FOIA request. The ACLU is now filing a lawsuit demanding the Pentagon release the documents.

And a couple weeks back it was, August 21st, 2007, "Iraq Does Not Exist Anymore": Journalist Nir Rosen on How the U.S. Invasion of Iraq Has Led to Ethnic Cleansing, a Worsening Refugee Crisis and the Destabilization of the Middle East (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/21/1349252&mode=thread&tid=25)Nir Rosen is an independent journalist and the author of "In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq." He is a fellow at the New America Foundation and has reported extensively from Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003. [includes rush transcript]

Earlier this year Rosen wrote a cover story for the New York Time Sunday Magazine called "The Flight from Iraq." He estimated that up to 50,000 Iraqis were leaving their homes each month.

uly 19th, 2007
Despite Reports Showing Nearly Half of Foreign Militants in Iraq Are Saudi, White House and Lawmakers Keeping Sights on Iran (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/19/1455225&mode=thread&tid=25)The Los Angeles Times is reporting nearly half of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops in Iraq have come from Saudi Arabia – one of Washington's closest allies in the Middle East. U.S. officials have so far refused to publicly criticize Saudi Arabia's role in Iraq, focusing instead on Iran. We go to Baghdad to speak to L.A. Times correspondent Ned Parker. We’re also joined by Toby Jones, a former Persian Gulf analyst with the International Crisis Group and history professor at Rutgers University. [includes rush transcript]

* Ned Parker. Staff writer with the Los Angeles Times, reporting from Baghdad.

* Toby Jones. Persian Gulf analyst with the International Crisis Group from 2004-2006. He is completing a fellowship at Swarthmore College and will be teaching history at Rutgers University this fall.


Did Patraeus tell us any of these things in his report:
July 12th, 2007, "If Soldiers Came From Another Country And Did This To My Family, I Would Be An Insurgent Too” – War Vet Describes Iraq House Raid (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/12/1726248&mode=thread&tid=25)?
Or this, July 12th, 2007, Iraq War Vets Describe "Brutal Techniques" Used by U.S. Military Against Iraqi Civilians (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/12/1726251&mode=thread&tid=25)?
Or this, July 12th, 2007, The Other War: Iraq Veterans Speak Out on Shocking Accounts of Attacks on Iraqi Civilians (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/12/1335208&mode=thread&tid=25)?
Did he tell us they were addressing these problems and what they planned to do about them? Did Patraeus even acknowledge such problems were occurring?


I did think Hilary's speech was good. I thought Boxer's question, "Can you really say it will be worth the tremendous cost?" was good. Did Patraeus answer anything unexpected to that question? Patraeus claims the surge is working but defines success in terms of the body count, not in terms of actual measures of progress in Iraq.

And even the Democrats were completely silent on the oil problem. No one mentioned anything about
July 6th, 2007, Founder of Iraq Oil Workers Union Rejects U.S.-Backed Oil Law as "Robbery" (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/06/1359232&mode=thread&tid=25)As the Iraqi cabinet approves part of a controversial oil law, we speak with Faleh Abood Umara, the general secretary of the Federation of Oil Unions and a founding member of the oil workers union in Iraq. He calls on Iraqi lawmakers to reject the legislation. We also speak with Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, president of the Electrical Utility Workers Union and the first woman to head a national union in Iraq. At least not while I was watching.


Bush has turned every event into a photo op, a staged town meeting, an uninformative report with some meaningless redundant information. But the progress by the Iraqi government? Not much to say. The growing readiness of the Iraqi troops and police? Lipstick on a flat graph. How the real problems like unemployment, corruption, or basic services are being addressed? Not that I heard. It was not a real report, a real questioning. It was posturing, propaganda and a staged prelude to a Bush photo op today pretending to be gathering the facts to make all his 'decisions' which everyone knows were made long before anything Bush learned in the last couple days from his faked 'fact finding tasks'.

Want to know if the surge is accomplishing anything? If so you would likely have been disappointed if you thought this report was supposed to inform you.

[Skeptic Ginger]

And what if letting the "Iraqis sort this all out among themselves" involves the deaths of millions?This is the typical argument, we stay and the civil war drags on, we leave and there are all these dire predictions and all the while only a few people are really informed of the problems, the fact Bush refuses to address the real problems with real solutions. Everyone wrings their hands and says all we can do is stay or leave.

That is a lie.

We can quit trying to get a 70% piece of the oil reserves for private American and British oil companies, we can follow the money and take it back from those who gained it via corruption, we can fire Haliburton and other Bush crony companies and hire Iraqis to rebuild their country, and with the money that will save we can actually rebuild the infrastructure. We can build real hospitals and actually fund their operations so instead of an empty non-functioning Laura Bush maternity hospital we actually provide maternity care for these people. (Afghanistan has THE HIGHEST maternity death rate in the world and we built them a hospital they have no means to run*.) We could provide all sorts of medical services just with our military mobile units alone. The critically ill and injured could be treated on ready functioning hospital ships. And, "Mr Bush, tear down that permanent military base."

I could type another page about what we could do besides staying or leaving. I have been typing this same stuff on these forums for years and a few people are also suggesting these answers. We just need more people to repeat the same things. The snowball hasn't gotten much bigger yet. But I still think it can.



*MOTHERLAND AFGHANISTAN, by Catherine Gund, Sedika Mojadidi and Jenny Raskin, February 13, 2007 (http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/motherlandafghanistan/index.html)
Nearly one in seven Afghan women die in childbirth. MOTHERLAND AFGHANISTAN introduces the women behind these devastating statistics. Afghan American filmmaker Sedika Mojadidi examines her father's works as an OB/GYN as he struggles to make a difference, first at Kabul's recently renamed Laura Bush Maternity Ward and then in an isolated provincial hospital, where patients often travel for several days to get treatment.

[a_unique_person]

Will it have been worth it?

In terms of monetary costs and lives lost?

That really is the question.

How will we ever know?

What does the future hold that could tell us?

Such a simple question, yet one so breath-takingly hard to answer.

In fact, that is the easiest question to answer. The number of lives lost is much bigger than would otherwise have been the case, the money spent is going to be 1 or 2 trillion dollars, ( I like the way it so hard to pin down a trillion), to achieve absolutely nothing.

[stanleywinthrop]

and with the money that will save we can actually rebuild the infrastructure.
Who will rebuild the infrastrutcure? It'll have to be the Iraqis, because no foreign companies would without U.S. protection. Do you think the Iraqi sectarian violence would magically dissapear after U.S. troops left? I'm sure that if we left, all we would have to do is fork over a few billion to Iraq, and everybody would drop thier weapons and grievances and turn to rebuilding the nation. I wish the world worked that way.

We can build real hospitals and actually fund their operations so instead of an empty non-functioning Laura Bush maternity hospital we actually provide maternity care for these people. (Afghanistan has THE HIGHEST maternity death rate in the world and we built them a hospital they have no means to run*.) We could provide all sorts of medical services just with our military mobile units alone.
Great idea. I'm sure insurgents would leave our military medical people alone if we didn't protect them.
The critically ill and injured could be treated on ready functioning hospital ships. And, "Mr Bush, tear down that permanent military base."
another fantastic idea. I'm sure our two hospital ships (http://www.msc.navy.mil/inventory/inventory.asp?var=Hospitalship) with a grand total of 1000 bed space per ship would be plenty to handle all the critically ill and injured from an Iraqi civil war. How would these patients get to the hospital ships?

[davefoc]

And what if letting the "Iraqis sort this all out among themselves" involves the deaths of millions?

And what if letting the "Iraqis sort this all out among themselves" saves millions of lives?

It is just as easy to imagine scenarios where that is true as to imagine scenarios where it isn't true. The question is what will happen if the US gradually withdraws from Iraq using a strategy similar to the one put forth in by the Iraq Study Group and what will happen if the US continues down the path it is on now.

Your comments suggest you think things will be better if the US continues to do what it is doing. Everyday as a result of that strategy thousands more Iraqis are displaced from their homes, more American soldiers are killed, more Iraqi civilians are killed, and more weapons are provided to different Iraqi factions. Every day the number of people who have reasons to hate the US increases. And every day no progress is made toward any kind of political solution.

Of course, this is not all bad from the Bushco perspective. Every day this fiasco goes on is another day they can avoid admitting the depths of their colossally corrupt and inept handling of the war, every day is another opportunity to enrich their corporate cronies with lucrative contracts and every day is another day to fire up their political base with pro-war sloganeering.

But apparently you see benefits beyond the narrow self serving ones that seem to be driving Bush administration policy. What are those benefits? Clearly, there is no indication that the American occupation is making Iraqis better off right now, but perhaps you see a time in the distant future when after years and years of American occupation the hearts and minds of the various Iraqi factions will have been won over and they will live in peace and harmony with each other. Is there any information that suggests that the American led occupation is having the effect of imparting peace and harmony?

From the beginning the reconstruction and the political stabilization of Iraq were Iraq problems that needed Iraqis to solve them. But this reality didn't fit with the need of the Bush administration for ego gratification or their desire to create opportunities for corporate cronies. So they embarked on a policy whereby the US government did what Iraqis needed to be doing and then after the US government had created the enormous disaster that is Iraq today the Bush administration used its own failures as an excuse to remain in Iraq indefinitely.

Kind of brilliant in an evil sort of way, but why are there people left who find anything that the Bushco spinmeisters put out about Iraq credible? Isn't five years of half truths, lies, failed predictions, and massive human tragedy enough to have eliminated the last vestiges of credibility from the sorry band of hucksters and incompetents that has been the Bush administration? The only thing clear about this whole sad mess is that Bushco will continue to serve their own narrow interests regardless of the damage done to the US and Iraq.

[stanleywinthrop]

And what if letting the "Iraqis sort this all out among themselves" saves millions of lives?

It is just as easy to imagine scenarios where that is true as to imagine scenarios where it isn't true. The question is what will happen if the US gradually withdraws from Iraq using a strategy similar to the one put forth in by the Iraq Study Group and what will happen if the US continues down the path it is on now.
You seem to be confused about the path the US is going down now. You also have misinterpreted the motivations for posting that question. It was directed at the "we should all leave Iraq NOW" folks, and not those arguing for an approach suggested by the Iraq Study group that you mentioned.




But apparently you see benefits beyond the narrow self serving ones that seem to be driving Bush administration policy. Boy you do one hell of a lot of generalzation about my beliefs and point of view. On what do you base this?

From the beginning the reconstruction and the political stabilization of Iraq were Iraq problems that needed Iraqis to solve them.

agreed, but they haven't. What now batman?
But this reality didn't fit with the need of the Bush administration for ego gratification or their desire to create opportunities for corporate cronies. So they embarked on a policy whereby the US government did what Iraqis needed to be doing and then after the US government had created the enormous disaster that is Iraq today the Bush administration used its own failures as an excuse to remain in Iraq indefinitely. You have cleverly focused on the reasons and motivations that brought us into Iraq. But whether you agree with those or not, you have to fast forward your mind 4 years to the current situation--one hell of a mess that is looking for excuses to degenerate into a slaughter. Your hatred of Bush is not helpful to solving the current problem. The fight you are looking for will take place in history books.

Kind of brilliant in an evil sort of way, but why are there people left who find anything that the Bushco spinmeisters put out about Iraq credible? yeah, Gen "Betray Us" right?
Isn't five years of half truths, lies, failed predictions, and massive human tragedy enough to have eliminated the last vestiges of credibility from the sorry band of hucksters and incompetents that has been the Bush administration? The only thing clear about this whole sad mess is that Bushco will continue to serve their own narrow interests regardless of the damage done to the US and Iraq.

A lot of hatred and critiscm here, and very little about how to solve the problem. Sorry, as much as you would like it, if Bush keeled over from a heart attack tonight, the problem in Iraq would still be there tomorrow. If we had a special election tonight and replaced the entire administration overnight, the problem in Iraq would still exist.

[Daylight]

You are wrong. I heard quite clearly that one of the Congressman made that precise complaint, so I could not have missed it. What you missed is that this was not testimony on 'The War On Terror' but rather the mission in Iraq. (FWIW: As far as I am concerned, the Iraq War was, if intended to be a step in the War on Terror begun in Afghanistan, a profound strategic error, but that wasn't what the topic of the brief was.) Go move the goal posts somewhere else, thanks.

General Patraeus, as he pointed out again and again to Congressmen, is not the National Command authority, and as such he confined his testimony to his assigned mission.

I think I counted five different questioners that asked him geo-strategic questions. In each case he pointed out what his mission is, and that such questions were better directed to Admiral Fallon (US CENTCOM commander) and the JCS, Sec Def, and the NCA. No matter, such Congressional hearings are often seen as a chance to shoot the messenger. A few rounds were sent his way. I just wish I could listen to the rest of the testimony and questions from both committees, but alas am not in a position to do so.

His mission is the problem in Iraq, regardless of how else it is related to US policy, and that is what he briefed. He was IMO 100% correct to confine his remarks to his lane, to his mission, and would have been guilty of a gross foul of addressing regional issues (CENTCOM's and States lanes) or higher level strategic matters. Ambassador Crocker had a bit more latitude as a member of State and due to his diplomatic role, but again, was best served by staying in his lane.

General Patraeus' comments in Iranian involvement and assistance to various militias and terror groups were, if you watched the whole testimony yesterday, confined to their actions and impacts in Iraq.

DR

Darth

I’m talking about the people there to testify.

General Patraeus job number one is to fight the 911 terrorists aka “War on Terror”. That is what we, the American people, were told why we invaded (along with the other 30+ lies by Bush and friends).

[stanleywinthrop]

Darth

I’m talking about the people there to testify.

General Patraeus job number one is to fight the 911 terrorists aka “War on Terror”. That is what we, the American people, were told why we invaded (along with the other 30+ lies by Bush and friends).

Actually Patraeus area of responsibility begins and ends at the Iraqi border.

One could argue as to whether the Iraqi struggle is part of the "War on Terror", but what is not for debate is the fact that the war on terror extends far beyond the Iraqi frontier.

ETA: *hint: look up "chain of command"

[davefoc]

Thank you for your responses stanleywinthrop,

I think that there is some validity to your criticisms of me. Some of my thoughts about what you said:

You seem to be confused about the path the US is going down now.

Perhaps I am. I see the surge as pretty much just more of the same except with a few more troops. I do agree though that the Bush administration has made some low key attempts to change direction a bit including meetings with some of Iraq's neighbors as recommended by the ISG.



You also have misinterpreted the motivations for posting that question. It was directed at the "we should all leave Iraq NOW" folks, and not those arguing for an approach suggested by the Iraq Study group that you mentioned.
I think that there are very few people in the get out immediately group. It is probably not possible logistically and even if it were most people would like to see if there wasn't some useful role the US could play as Iraq transitions to Iraqi control. I think the characterization of the opposition to staying the course as generally favoring immediate withdrawal is just a canard put forth by the we want to keep doing the same thing crowd to illegitimately characterize the people that are opposed to their policies.




Boy you do one hell of a lot of generalzation about my beliefs and point of view. On what do you base this? My generalizations of what you believe were based on your posts in this thread and your use of what I considered to be bogus argument for staying the course. If I misunderstood what your beliefs were I am sorry.



agreed, but they haven't. What now batman?
You have cleverly focused on the reasons and motivations that brought us into Iraq. But whether you agree with those or not, you have to fast forward your mind 4 years to the current situation--one hell of a mess that is looking for excuses to degenerate into a slaughter. Your hatred of Bush is not helpful to solving the current problem. The fight you are looking for will take place in history books.

yeah, Gen "Betray Us" right?
Many small issues here, none of which might be of much general interest:
1. hatred of Bush - I don't generally think that I hate Bush but by some definitions I think that is a somewhat fair characterization. I think Bush (probably driven mostly by Cheney) has used the war to corruptly benefit cronies (a very high crime in my mind), I think Bush has routinely used the government for the benefit of his partisan cronies in way that suggests that he sees the US assets as his own personal ones. I think that Bush attempted to undermine the rule of law and the very fabric of our democracy with the firing of the US attorneys. I think Bush has routinely engaged in highly corrupt behavior in the formulation of domestic policy including things like the medicare drug bill. But I don't have the deep emotional dislike of Bush that I would reserve the use of the word hate for. I would hate somebody that harmed my daughters. I don't feel like that about Bush.

2. Past doesn't matter, regardless of how we got here, we're in a mess now and we need to deal with that problem.

I agree, except that the people who got us in to this mess are still in charge and I think it is reasonable to be very skeptical of people who have such a deeply vested interest in trying to validate their previous decisions. I think it is particularly reasonable to be skeptical of those people when they do not show signs of introspection or objectivity about their past actions.

3. General "Betray US". Mostly, I thought that campaign was counterproductive and childish. I do think that it is not without intellectual content though. Petraeus has been presented as an independent judge of what is going on and what path the US should follow. But is he? He didn't present a balanced picture. His presentation was just a pitch that presented the evidence that most favored the administration's view. If it had been made clear that he was just another administration pitch man then I think he should be cut some slack. That's his job and he was doing it in the best way he could. But he needs to make clear that he is functioning as a paid advocate and not as an independent citizen speaking the truth as he best knows it to his fellow citizens if he is not to be judged harshly for acting like a paid shill.



A lot of hatred and critiscm here, and very little about how to solve the problem. Sorry, as much as you would like it, if Bush keeled over from a heart attack tonight, the problem in Iraq would still be there tomorrow. If we had a special election tonight and replaced the entire administration overnight, the problem in Iraq would still exist.No one knows exactly what would happen with a new administration. I think things would get better but I concede that they might get worse. As to how to solve the problem, I thought Skeptigirl made some reasonable suggestions. In general, I think it has been essential for awhile that the US take steps to make it clear that its stay is not open ended and to begin to schedule transition dates for US forces from referees in a civil war to gradually more limited roles until the US presence ends. I think the thing standing in the way of that are the Cheney/neocon dreams about the long term presence of the US in Iraq to protect US oil interests and to protect Israel and the fear the Bush administration has of doing anything that begins to admit what a monumental disaster they have created.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Who will rebuild the infrastrutcure? It'll have to be the Iraqis, because no foreign companies would without U.S. protection. Do you think the Iraqi sectarian violence would magically dissapear after U.S. troops left? I'm sure that if we left, all we would have to do is fork over a few billion to Iraq, and everybody would drop thier weapons and grievances and turn to rebuilding the nation. I wish the world worked that way.


Great idea. I'm sure insurgents would leave our military medical people alone if we didn't protect them.

another fantastic idea. I'm sure our two hospital ships (http://www.msc.navy.mil/inventory/inventory.asp?var=Hospitalship) with a grand total of 1000 bed space per ship would be plenty to handle all the critically ill and injured from an Iraqi civil war. How would these patients get to the hospital ships?


[And I add this quote from your reply to Davefoc]A lot of hatred and critiscm here, and very little about how to solve the problem. Sorry, as much as you would like it, if Bush keeled over from a heart attack tonight, the problem in Iraq would still be there tomorrow. If we had a special election tonight and replaced the entire administration overnight, the problem in Iraq would still exist. So let me address the last paragrapht first. I don't recall reading anything earthshaking in your suggestions for problem solving or did I miss something? I read your posts as saying all we can do is stay and continue doing what we know hasn't worked. And of course the mess will be there after Bush leaves. He has no plan and can't see the massive mistakes he has made so it is unlikely he will correct any of them before he leaves office.

As to the rest of your blind reaction to my post, let's start with the principle I noted above. If your plan doesn't work, it makes no sense to just continue it. What fear of change makes people think that continuing a failed plan is better than trying an unknown plan? Bush and his propaganda machine have convinced everyone there is only staying or going. That machine covers up the mistakes. But it isn't the cover up of failure that Bush wants. It's cover up of the goals he and the NeoCons have which they don't want to give up. If people knew the goal was big oil contracts, they might not send their kids to die for this. And Bush's goals are not preventing terrorist attacks in the US. If Bush wanted to do that we wouldn't have a wide open southern border and there would have been proper safety measures addressing cargo container ships and a number of other gaps in our country's armor.

As to who would rebuild Iraq? Iraqis. What is so hard about that? If you were better informed you would know about the problem of unemployment in Iraq and the foreign contractors Bush brought in who in turn brought in cheap foreign labor to take jobs Iraqis could have done except then the foreign contractors' massive profit margins would have been less.

Our military could stay until these problems were addressed and then I guarantee you half the insurgency would end right there. What makes you think I said we should leave and....? I said leaving and staying were not the only things that could be done.

The other half of the problem is more complicated. We have essentially armed all sides, Sunnis and Shiites alike. And we've done little to ease ethnic tensions. But ethnic tensions are rooted in other troubles and if people have a decent life, education for their kids, health care, hope, then ethnic tension subsides. We won't know until the other problems are addressed how much of a civil war will be left unless we address the other problems.

As to the medical care, I don't understand your gripe. I'm just saying start providing some health care for these people. I am not saying my suggestions are the only ones or even the right ones. But right now, we aren't doing much of anything for these people except occupying their country and probably killing as many people as we might be preventing someone else from killing.

[stanleywinthrop]

Thank you for your responses stanleywinthrop,

I think that there is some validity to your criticisms of me. Some of my thoughts about what you said:



Perhaps I am. I see the surge as pretty much just more of the same except with a few more troops. I do agree though that the Bush administration has made some low key attempts to change direction a bit including meetings with some of Iraq's neighbors as recommended by the ISG. You and the majority of the public have missed some key events in U.S. policy in regard to Iraq. Not that I hold this against you, the general public is unschooled when it comes to military tactics and apropros of the current discusssion--counter-insurgency tactics. However, and I'll agree this is quite tragic, the Bush administration (specifically Rumsfeld) was largely ignorant of it as well. This changed with Rumsfeld's departure and the appointment of Patreaus. As I have pointed out elsewhere Patreaus is the primary author of the new counter-insurgency manual (http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24fd.pdf). This strategy is typically boiled down to a few soundbites by the MSM, and it's subtleties are largely lost on the general public. I invite you to read this manual and learn about what U.S. troops are actually doing in Iraq. Should you read this manual and would like to discuss its contents, I would be delighted to oblige. But trust me, as a person speaking from personal experience, things are being done quite differently today than 3 years or even 10 months ago in Iraq. There is a city called Ramadi that in 2005 a short walk without a platoon of marines or soldiers could pretty much guarantee death, today can americans can walk about the city without fear of being shot at. Sure you'll say its one city, but an entire province (Al Anbar) has changed like that. Sure it's one province, but many experts are saying this movement is spreading to the rest of the country.


Many small issues here, none of which might be of much general interest:
1. hatred of Bush - I don't generally think that I hate Bush but by some definitions I think that is a somewhat fair characterization. I think Bush (probably driven mostly by Cheney) has used the war to corruptly benefit cronies (a very high crime in my mind), I think Bush has routinely used the government for the benefit of his partisan cronies in way that suggests that he sees the US assets as his own personal ones. I think that Bush attempted to undermine the rule of law and the very fabric of our democracy with the firing of the US attorneys.
sorry to interupt, but just to keep the facts straight, U.S. attornies serve at the president's pleasure. This means that if Bush doesn't like one's choice of tie he can dismiss him. That's the law. I think Bush has routinely engaged in highly corrupt behavior in the formulation of domestic policy including things like the medicare drug bill. But I don't have the deep emotional dislike of Bush that I would reserve the use of the word hate for. I would hate somebody that harmed my daughters. I don't feel like that about Bush.
I'm not going to defend bush even against your somewhat fiddling of the facts here, the fact remains that Bush's motivations for going into Iraq, right or wrong is yesterday's box score. The history books are where this arguement will be joined.

2. Past doesn't matter, regardless of how we got here, we're in a mess now and we need to deal with that problem.

I agree, except that the people who got us in to this mess are still in charge and I think it is reasonable to be very skeptical of people who have such a deeply vested interest in trying to validate their previous decisions. I think it is particularly reasonable to be skeptical of those people when they do not show signs of introspection or objectivity about their past actions.

3. General "Betray US". Mostly, I thought that campaign was counterproductive and childish. I do think that it is not without intellectual content though. Petraeus has been presented as an independent judge Who said independent? What's being said is that he, as the Commanding Officer in Iraq, is the most QUALIFIED judgeof what is going on and what path the US should follow. But is he? He didn't present a balanced picture. His presentation was just a pitch that presented the evidence that most favored the administration's view. If it had been made clear that he was just another administration pitch man then I think he should be cut some slack. Just another pitchman? The man in charge in Iraq, just another pitchman????That's his job and he was doing it in the best way he could. You clearly have no idea what a U.S. Army 4-star general's job is. But he needs to make clear that he is functioning as a paid advocate Your military bashing is getting a little old at this point. Military members, not privates, not airmen, not sargeants, and not generals are not paid advocates for politicians
and not as an independent citizen You were expecting a 4-star General to speak as an "independant citizen"????? beyond the fact that he is not even a private citizen it truly amazes me that you expected a general to speak as such speaking the truth as he best knows it to his fellow citizens if he is not to be judged harshly for acting like a paid shill.


No one knows exactly what would happen with a new administration. I can tell you one thing that won't happen. Iraqis won't lay down thier arms and have a group hug and start singing kum-by-ya. The problems will still exist.

[davefoc]

stanleywinthrop,
Until you said this I thought there was a possibility that this was a discussion between thinking people:

sorry to interupt, but just to keep the facts straight, U.S. attornies (sic) serve at the president's pleasure. This means that if Bush doesn't like one's choice of tie he can dismiss him. That's the law.

It is not the law that the POTUS can use the government to serve his personal interests, no matter how many times this phrase is thrown out there to justify it. The most likely situation is that the POTUS conspired with others to use the US attorney's office to further their personal agenda by firing or threatening to fire US Attorneys. This is not something he is allowed to do as a matter of law. It was treason by any measure and it is exactly the kind of action that the US criticizes tin pot dictators for. You would understand this if you could remove yourself for a moment from your partisan bubble.

On the subject of Patreaus: One of the things often quoted from his work is that counter insurgencies require one soldier for every 40 civilians in the occupied population. Is this not a requirement now? Is this the same Patreaus that just before the last election in 2004 wrote an op-ed about how well stuff was going in Iraq? First, it looks like he wasn't right and that might cause one to question his credibility a bit here. But secondly and more importantly in this situation it suggests some partisan leanings by General Patreaus that at least should serve as a warning about how independent his judgment is now. And of course even if Patreaus did not report directly to the president, and he had not been so wrong previously, and he had not acted in a partisan way previously the fact is that what he has provided by way of his reporting to congress was in no way a balanced view of the situation.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Stanley, the fact you don't get the issue with the attorney firings tells me you are fooled by the slogans and party line into not looking at the actual facts. You see the smokescreen and miss what is behind it.

[davefoc]

I hadn't read the move on ad when I commented on it. Here's a link to it:

http://pol.moveon.org/petraeus.html

Seems pretty much in keeping with what others had written on the Patreaus report. Probably wasn't a good idea to make the childish play on words about Patreaus' name because it was certain to be picked up on by people looking to malign the messenger rather than to face facts about what a frigging mess this is and about the fact that it is getting worse all the time.

I noticed that leftwing kook, George Will, was less than supportive of the overall Patraeus message also:

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/will091207.php3

[Darth Rotor]

General Patraeus job number one is to fight the 911 terrorists aka “War on Terror”. That is what we, the American people, were told why we invaded (along with the other 30+ lies by Bush and friends).[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]
You are wrong, yet again.

Admiral Fallons' job, as the Commander of US Central Command, is to fight the regional part of the War on Terror. This includes operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and elsewhere in the Middle East. Another Unified Commander, the Commander, Special Operations Command (another CINC) is also assigned those missions globally. In some missions, SOCOM is the supported commander, and in most of the missions in the CENTCOM AOR, he is a supporting commander. I am referring to formal military command and control relationships here.

General Patraeus is specifically assigned solely to the efforts in Iraq. Admiral Fallon is his direct superios in this effort. For example, if (God forbid) anything happens vis a vis Iran in the near future, that is a mission of Admiral Fallon's that is not within General Patraeus' lane. It is in the Fifth Fleet Commander's lane, and in CENTAF's lane.

With that summary of the current chain of command, and mission responsibility, I will remind you that the next echelon up is the National Command Authority (or perhaps that nebulous War Czar guy whose position is not referenced by any statute I am aware of). The NCA is the Sec Def and the President. Patraeus' next echelon down is LT Gen Ordierno, as I read the org chart. Odierno, oddly enough, was the 4th ID commander in 2003. That unit's operations caused considerable hate and discontent while undertaking its assigned mission in Northern and Central Iraq. I hope he has gotten with the COIN program, or this fall is going to get ugly, and we are talking butt ugly here.

You have yet to get the basics right. I have offered you a chance to get educated. Please accept it.

DR

[Darth Rotor]

You and the majority of the public have missed some key events in U.S. policy in regard to Iraq. Not that I hold this against you, the general public is unschooled when it comes to military tactics and apropros of the current discusssion--counter-insurgency tactics. However, and I'll agree this is quite tragic, the Bush administration (specifically Rumsfeld) was largely ignorant of it as well. This changed with Rumsfeld's departure and the appointment of Patreaus.
Technically, the appointment of Secretary Gates, and Patraeus appointment as a subordinate to Gates. ;)
But trust me, as a person speaking from personal experience, things are being done quite differently today than 3 years or even 10 months ago in Iraq.
It is not in the nature of a wide variety of people on this forum to trust anyone's experience. This is a pity, but interference in one's emotionally clung to position is so inconvenient in some such cases. B)
Ramadi observation
The unknown, at the moment, is whether or not this is a long term change. 'Twould be nice if it were, but I ain't holding my breath. If this fall passes without the usual autumnal upswing in violent activity in Iraq, that would break a four year pattern. Then, one might come to Congress in December, and brief progress of a more substantial sort: political progress. ( Hello Sec Def/Sec State, what's your calendar look like in December? )

It seems to me that General P briefed progress along these lines: "The femoral artery was bleeding, we have applied direct pressure. No longer bleeding." (Yes, grossly simplistic.)
Who said independent? What's being said is that he, as the Commanding Officer in Iraq, is the most QUALIFIED judge Just another pitchman? The man in charge in Iraq, just another pitchman????
You have correctly summarized the opinion of Congressman Lantos, Senator Clinton, Senator Reid, and a few others. Is some defense of their distaste for this hearing's output, the General first briefed Sec Def and the Pres, and one might well presume was provided with some guidance on which points ought to be emphasized. The briefing was a political event, so one could expect political influence on it.

IMO, the person missing from this briefing was Secretary Gates, and I am still puzzled at his not being there. The Congress went three deep in the Chain of Command for this briefing, and as I understand it did so due to the Executive Branch choosing to so reach down for it's presenter.

I think the idea was to have as little filtering as possible with the General's testimony, but even so the harshest critics assumed fiddling. Given the rhetoric from Bush and Co over the past four years, I can't say I am surprised at their reaction. No matter how perfect his testimony is, was, or might have been, General P was set up for derisive responses by the political conditions on the ground in Washington, and there is no way he was going to avoid that. I think he handled that facet of it with considerable grace.
You clearly have no idea what a U.S. Army 4-star general's job is. Military members, not privates, not airmen, not sargeants, and not generals are not paid advocates for politicians.
Excepting a certain four star Air Force General I could name.

DR

[Cain]

Not sure if this has been posted already because I have heard the idea floating around for some time. Patrick Cockburn in _Counterpunch_, "President Petraeus?"

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

Sabah Khadim, then a senior adviser and spokesman at the Iraqi Interior Ministry, says that Gen Petraeus discussed with him his long term ambition to be president when the general was head of training and recruitment of the Iraqi army in 2004-5.

“I asked him if he was planning to run in 2008 and he said ‘no, that would be too soon,” said Mr Khadim who now lives in London.

Gen Petraeus has a reputation in the US army for being a man of great ambition. If he succeeds in reversing America’s apparent failure in Iraq he would be a natural candidate for the White House in the presidential election in 2012 or beyond.

[Darth Rotor]

Not sure if this has been posted already because I have heard the idea floating around for some time. Patrick Cockburn in _Counterpunch_, "President Petraeus?"
Another reasonably ambitious, eloquent, intelligent and camera friendly general who recently explored Presidential politics was Wesley Clark. He had mostly successful missions on his resume, and you will note he is not in this race. (My friends who worked on his staff indicated to me they'd not vote him in for dog catcher. Perhaps his public and private personae don't match.)

I am not surprised by General P's reported ambition. Given his role in Iraq, I will not hold my breath on him making good a run at a nomination, much less a presidency, in 2012 or 2016. The taint of the Iraq war, regardless of how well he personally may have performed in his various roles, will likely be a downer in an election.

DR

[Cain]

He's boosting the public's view of how Bush is handling the war. Part of Clark's problem, I think, is that he ran as a Democrat even though (what I heard) he would have identified as a centrist Republican. I think Gen. Colin Powell would have been electable. I think a general has better chances in the GOP.

[Daylight]

You are wrong, yet again.

Admiral Fallons' job, as the Commander of US Central Command, is to fight the regional part of the War on Terror. This includes operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and elsewhere in the Middle East. Another Unified Commander, the Commander, Special Operations Command (another CINC) is also assigned those missions globally. In some missions, SOCOM is the supported commander, and in most of the missions in the CENTCOM AOR, he is a supporting commander. I am referring to formal military command and control relationships here.

General Patraeus is specifically assigned solely to the efforts in Iraq. Admiral Fallon is his direct superios in this effort. For example, if (God forbid) anything happens vis a vis Iran in the near future, that is a mission of Admiral Fallon's that is not within General Patraeus' lane. It is in the Fifth Fleet Commander's lane, and in CENTAF's lane.

With that summary of the current chain of command, and mission responsibility, I will remind you that the next echelon up is the National Command Authority (or perhaps that nebulous War Czar guy whose position is not referenced by any statute I am aware of). The NCA is the Sec Def and the President. Patraeus' next echelon down is LT Gen Ordierno, as I read the org chart. Odierno, oddly enough, was the 4th ID commander in 2003. That unit's operations caused considerable hate and discontent while undertaking its assigned mission in Northern and Central Iraq. I hope he has gotten with the COIN program, or this fall is going to get ugly, and we are talking butt ugly here.

You have yet to get the basics right. I have offered you a chance to get educated. Please accept it.

DR

Thanks for the put down Darth, yet again. You seem to do this when you don’t like certain points of view posted by others.

Chain of command, remember this. Bush said, “War on Terror”. The s---- flows down hill. Admiral Fallon’s job is “War on Terror”. General Patraeus job is “War on Terror”. It goes all the way down to the guy on KP peeling potatoes in Iraq, his job is “War on Terror”.

You did a good job using your put downs and miss-direction BS to cover my original point. Not one person testified about how they were fighting the “War on Terror”. It was the Congressmen, (most likely incredulous it wasn’t mentioned since Bush said that’s why we’re invading) who had to bring it up. That is a significant point, which you seemed to want to cover up.

[Oliver]

Patraeus is just a patsy - or as Bush would probably put it...

xiuRhy4CqzU

[Skeptic Ginger]

Petraeus is just a patsy despite claiming to be independent.

Watch the last third of Jon Stewart's video clip from 9/11. The link goes to the video index (http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=&ml_collection=&ml_gateway=&ml_gateway_id=23786&ml_comedian=&ml_runtime=&ml_context=show&ml_origin_url=/shows/the_daily_show/index.jhtml&ml_playlist=&lnk=&is_large=true) so link to the 9/11 clip from there, "Iraq me Dave Petraeus".

Stewart matches Petraeus' words to Bush's. Petraeus is really independent, :rolleyes: not.

[KoihimeNakamura]

Stewart is also a comedian. Reliable source of investigation? Not.

How about you post a boiled down reason why you think he's just a patsy? Otherwise, it's a wild accusation.

[Darth Rotor]

Bush said, “War on Terror”. The s---- flows down hill.
Dear ignoramus: The war on terror has a variety of parts being played by a variety of players. The part General P plays concerns Iraq, and he thus confined his remarks to his mission.

Sh++ may flow downhill, I've seen the waterfall of feces a few times in my day, but the US Army has a rule of thumb, and a good one, that is as follows: stay in your lane. If you are a private, and are talking to the media, or Congress, speak about your mission, not someone else's.

Admiral Fallon’s job is indeed “War on Terror,” CENTCOM edition. General Patraeus' job is “War on Terro,r”Iraq subset, of Admiral Fallon's larger job. Patraeus is not the guy to testify on the Horn of Africa mission, for example. Not his lane.
It goes all the way down to the guy on KP peeling potatoes in Iraq, his job is “War on Terror”.
Your attempt to replace something of substance with a sound byte is pathetic. The put downs are well deserved.

The potato peeler's job is potato peeling, not policy formation. Congress would not expect the potato peeler to be answering broad policy questions outside his potato peeling and food services core competency, any more than they ought to ask Patraeus to answer for HIS BOSS in areas where he does not have specific mission responsibility.

Admiral Fallon can answer for his role, and will when he is called to testify before Congress. You can expect that to happen, just as General A was called before Congress when he was CENTCOM commander.

What General P's brief was not was a one size fits all brief on all matters WoT. It was a brief on Iraq, the mission he is responsible for, in Iraq.

That's it. You are wrong, on the same topic, for the third time in a row.

DR

[Darth Rotor]

Petraeus is just a patsy despite claiming to be independent.

Watch the last third of Jon Stewart's video clip from 9/11. The link goes to the video index (http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=&ml_collection=&ml_gateway=&ml_gateway_id=23786&ml_comedian=&ml_runtime=&ml_context=show&ml_origin_url=/shows/the_daily_show/index.jhtml&ml_playlist=&lnk=&is_large=true) so link to the 9/11 clip from there, "Iraq me Dave Petraeus".

Stewart matches Petraeus' words to Bush's. Petraeus is really independent, :rolleyes: not.
Any claim General P made to being "independent" were spurious. What he appeared to be saying to the House was that no one put words in his mouth, which is probably true enough, but he can't present himself as "independent" for the simple reason that he isn't.

His mission is directly derived from the policy of the Bush administration through the CENTCOM commander (the Unified CINC) and his efforts on the ground are (if things go as they are supposed to) linked to trying to apply the tools in his box to influence events that will have a political effect. It was most correct that he and the Ambassador were both testifying, since both of them, under their cabinet leaders, are attempting to achieve things that will have beneficial outcomes for the policy made by the "decider" which would be President Bush.

What was being done with his testimony was, as I see the play, to preclude testimony to the Congress being filtered by at least two layers, of Admiral Fallon and Secretary Gates.

Independent? No. That hardly fits the reality of his mission, or job description.

Patsy? That's a cheesy ad hom, once again.

ETA: A thought to make a bit more sense of this hearing. Here is what I think:

1. What he briefed Congress was less than what he briefed the President. By that I mean that, when he briefed the Sec Def, President, and VP, when he was done, some of what that brief contained were relegated to "back up slides" to be pulled out if a question on that matter was raised.

2. Political gamesmanship: two points here.

a. One is, Patraeus was chosen as messenger due to the strong support he got from both sides of the aisle upon his appointment. Since he was generally seen as a good choice, he, rather than Sec Def Gates was sent to testify, with the intent of setting a trap, which some of the Dems fell into. They took their frustration with the Executive Branch, of which General P is a part, out on him, when their real irritation is with Bush and Cheney. In doing so they looked petty, in particular Representative Lantos who called the General a BS artist before he had said word one.

b. The game of vague expectations was in play. When General P was confirmed and headed over to Iraq, and the Surge was announced, there was some implied message that he'd report back in September, which some people parlayed as "he'll tell us everything is going well" or "everything will be all right." It seemed to me, just the House, I did not see the Senate edition, that he was being called a bad messenger because he was not telling people in Congres what they wanted to hear.

If John Kerry were President, and had chosen to continue on roughly the same course from Nov 2004 to now, I have every confidence that had he chosen this tactic for having the General brief the Congress, the GOP reps would have similarly taken the piss out of the messenger for not telling them what they wanted to hear.

DR

[Skeptic Ginger]

Stewart is also a comedian. Reliable source of investigation? Not.

How about you post a boiled down reason why you think he's just a patsy? Otherwise, it's a wild accusation.Patsy is the wrong word choice, I shouldn't have followed Oliver's lead.

A better word choice would have been suck up. Petraeus may believe in himself, but a review of statements he has made and reports about the views of other Pentagon leaders discussing Iraq reveal Petraeus spewed the Bush party line in his public interviews and isn't really doing much more than that now.

You could assume Petraeus just happened to be on the side Bush preferred in the debate among the military over how to proceed in Iraq, conveniently earning him a promotion and another star. There's no way to know if Petraeus' position came before or after he knew Bush's position. But you can see a history of white-washed public interview answers from Petreaus which is as I said, essentially the same pattern continued in his 9/07 report.

New York Times; 01/05/07 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/world/middleeast/05military.html)WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 — President Bush has decided to name Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus as the top American military commander in Iraq, part of a broad revamping of the military team that will carry out the administration’s new Iraq strategy, administration officials said Thursday....The changes are being made as the White House is considering an option to increase American combat power in Baghdad by five brigades as well as adding two battalions of reinforcements to the volatile province of Anbar in western Iraq.

Mr. Bush, who said Thursday that he would present details of his overall strategy for Iraq next week, and several top aides held a video teleconference on Thursday, speaking with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq and his top deputies about plans to add forces in the capital and other matters. ....

The Iraq commander post is considered a four-star general’s command, a promotion that would add a star to General Petraeus’s shoulder.

NY Times, 01/06/07 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/world/middleeast/06petraeus.html)As a supporter of increased forces in Iraq, General Petraeus is expected to back a rapid five-brigade expansion, in sharp contrast to his predecessor, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., who has been openly skeptical that additional troops would help stabilize the country....

The overarching goal of the American military operation may be altered as well. Under General Casey, the principal focus has been on transferring security responsibilities to the Iraqi security forces, so American troops could gradually withdraw. Now, the emphasis will shift to protecting the Iraqi population from sectarian strife and insurgent attacks....

...there has been a lively debate behind the scenes about the best way to achieve the United States’ objectives in Iraq — or at least to preserve a measure of stability as sectarian passions threaten to engulf the country.

At one end of the spectrum have been General Casey, Gen. John P. Abizaid, the head of the United States Central Command, and Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who is in charge of training Iraqi security forces.

They have advocated plans to hand over security responsibilities to the Iraqis while gradually reducing American forces and shrinking the number of American bases in Iraq, as conditions permit. Their argument has been that a lengthy expansion of American forces in Iraq will simply put off the day when Iraqis take more responsibility for their security.

Taking a different view, other officers have argued for sending more troops while stepping up economic efforts, the better to apply the military’s new counterinsurgency doctrine. Progress in stabilizing Iraq, they argue, will come only when the Iraqi public does not feel that it needs militias or insurgent groups to ensure its security, and when it concludes that its basic economic needs are being met.

Training and advising the Iraqi forces should continue to be an important priority, these officers have argued, but the Iraqis cannot be expected to shoulder the brunt of the security effort so quickly.

General Petraeus has been squarely in this camp, as was reflected in the military’s new counterinsurgency field manual. [I don't see any other names mentioned on Petraeus' side.]

The United States has sought to apply the basic lessons of counterinsurgency operations in Baghdad before — most notably during Operation Together Forward II, the second phase of an effort begun over the summer to reduce violence in Baghdad.

But that effort foundered when the United States and Iraqi authorities failed to marshal sufficient forces to hold neighborhoods after they were cleared of insurgents and militias, and when the Iraqis failed to follow through with the job and reconstruction programs that were intended to win over Iraqi citizens.... [and there is little reason to expect anything has changed today, more military to hold the neighborhoods, but no Iraqi forces to follow through]

Here is Petraeus' own words, 2004 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49283-2004Sep25.html)Now, however, 18 months after entering Iraq, I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up.

The institutions that oversee them are being reestablished from the top down. And Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously in the face of an enemy that has shown a willingness to do anything to disrupt the establishment of the new Iraq. ...

...Nonetheless, there are reasons for optimism. Today approximately 164,000 Iraqi police and soldiers (of which about 100,000 are trained and equipped) and an additional 74,000 facility protection forces are performing a wide variety of security missions. Equipment is being delivered. Training is on track and increasing in capacity. Infrastructure is being repaired. Command and control structures and institutions are being reestablished.

Most important, Iraqi security forces are in the fight -- so much so that they are suffering substantial casualties as they take on more and more of the burdens to achieve security in their country. Since Jan. 1 more than 700 Iraqi security force members have been killed, and hundreds of Iraqis seeking to volunteer for the police and military have been killed as well.

Six battalions of the Iraqi regular army and the Iraqi Intervention Force are now conducting operations. Two of these battalions, along with the Iraqi commando battalion, the counterterrorist force, two Iraqi National Guard battalions and thousands of policemen recently contributed to successful operations in Najaf. Their readiness to enter and clear the Imam Ali shrine was undoubtedly a key factor in enabling Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to persuade members of the Mahdi militia to lay down their arms and leave the shrine. ...

Considerable progress is also being made in the reconstruction and refurbishing of infrastructure for Iraq's security forces. Some $1 billion in construction to support this effort has been completed or is underway, and five Iraqi bases are already occupied by entire infantry brigades...

In an interview with Petraeus in 2005 (http://www.csis.org/media/csis/events/051107_petraeus_transcript.pdf) Petraeus keeps up the rosy reporting....Well, here's the bottom line up-front for you. The Iraqi security forces are in the fight; they are fighting for their country. They are, as this notes, increasingly leading that fight. And I will show that quantitatively, how that is tracked with some of these measures of progress. I'll show you how the numbers, if you will, of trained and equipped -- and again, that's the key; it's not just that they are -- went through training, it's that they completed it, they're still serving, and they have the basic equipment necessary for their task.
We have focused increasingly on police, and now more and more on logistical and combat support unit development. So we're talking about engineers; artillery will be coming. A variety of the logistical support elements -- there are transportation battalions, for example, now; there are military police, and a variety of other skill sets that are needed beyond just those of infantry, which was the initial focus.
And now, increasingly, the main effort is becoming institutional capability. So we're really raising it up now -- the battalions, the brigades, the divisions -- that process is all moving along quite well. And the focus now is on ensuring that the pieces that must support these battalions, brigades and divisions are strengthened so that the capability and capacity, for example, of the two ministries -- Defense and Interior -- are at the level required so that soldiers are paid on time,...

Petraeus in 2006 (http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,455199,00.html) was a little more honest about the situation, or maybe he was actually starting to get the real picture....Petraeus: That was and remains a massive undertaking and even I myself have doubts about whether I really understood the magnitude of it, as it is such a vast endeavor. You know, people look at this in theory and think, well, we're dealing here with the training of a couple of battalions -- give them rifles, vehicles, materials, stuff like that, rebuild their infrastructure. But it has cost $2 billion so far -- and that's real money.

And that's the easiest part of it, actually. The hard part is building the institutions to support the new security system, and I'm not only talking about logistics here. I'm talking about the policies, the big over-arching ideas, I'm talking about the set of values on which this system is built. These are questions that are constitutional almost by nature. And I'm talking about ministries, communications systems, depot and maintenance programs, branch schools and training centers, airfields, naval bases, barracks and so on.

As you know, the key problem that Iraq has to resolve today is the constitutional issue involving oil. And there's a wide range of constitutional issues to be solved as well: What power does a province governor have? What power does an interior minister have over the governors? Who gets to hire or fire the police chief? Who's in charge of training the police? The army? Where do they train? Do you need more national training centers? These questions are very challenging in any country, but they are particularly challenging when you have sectarian violence.

SPIEGEL: Did you have good support from the Iraqi government as you were trying to build up the security forces?

Petraeus: You're always wrestling with competing tensions, without question. There are always tensions between Iraqi national feelings, ethnic groups, religious groups, political parties, you even have to deal with family and clan structures -- that is simply part of the Middle Eastern culture. The desire and the goal is to find people who think of themselves as Iraqis first. That's a pretty tough challenge, and it's particularily tough when there's sectarian violence emerging as has been the case, particularly, since the bombing of the Shia mosque in Samarra some 9 months ago (more...).

SPIEGEL: What's your outlook for the Iraqi force and the whole security system of the country?

Petraeus: I think you actually have to ask: What's the outlook for the Iraqi national government. You know, I don't have any doubt, and I think we have shown, and the Iraqis have shown, that they can train battalions, brigades, and divisions, they can train national police, which is more challenging, but that's all doable.

The question is: How long will it take the national unity government to truly foster a sense of national unity and to give the Iraqi security force members a sense that they are fighting for Iraq, for their Iraq rather than drifting off to militias or into sectarian groups or whatever it is. That is the challenge right now for Iraq.

We keep coming back to this national unity issue, that really is the so-called "long pole in the tent." When it comes to building up ministries and their apparatus, when it comes to recruiting civil servants, you name it, all critical paths run through that critical factor....

But in June of 2007 at the start of the surge, Petraeus (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1963400.ece) is back to the Party line. It's all about fighting terrorism as if as-Qaeda and WMDs were the reason for the Iraq war all along. What is your priority in the surge operation?

"It is to disrupt al-Qaeda and its ability to conduct sensational attacks and to try to continue the cycle of violence, which they have been trying to do all along. In addition, they are attempting try establish a real al-Qaeda sanctuary in Iraq, a caliphate."

What about the US military operation currently underway in Diyala province (northeast of Baghdad)?

"Zarqawi (the former al-Qaeda leader in Iraq) stated that he intended for Baquba (the capital of Diyala) to become the new capital of his caliphate in 2006 shortly before he was killed. The downward spiral of Baquba began in late summer last year. You get a cycle where al-Qaeda moves in, they put down some roots, they intimidate the security forces, which means the security forces and the Coalition get less intelligence which means their operations are less effective. It just sort of goes down. We have seen it in other provinces. As al-Qaeda were pushed out of Anbar province this year in mid-March, more of them moved across to Diyala." ...

Your mission sounds like a long one, what about the informal deadline set by your return in mid-September to report back to the Congress in Washington?

“That is a deadline for a report not a deadline for a change in policy, at least not that I am aware of. Ambassador Crocker and I intend to go back and provide a snapshot at that time, however focused the photograph is at that time and begin to describe what has been achieved and what has not been achieved and also to provide some sense of implications of courses of action. Neither of us is under any illusion.”...

Are you concerned about the tactic of arming groups that previously opposed you?

"You want locals to establish local security. In Anbar Province tribes have always been important. You can't ignore the tribes, they are of enormous importance…If you have a police support unit, you put them through a 40-hour course we call them police auxiliary in the US. You want to tie them in. Get them on the payroll. Then you can get them to enlist in the army. Those are working. They swear allegiance to Iraq. Those oaths mean something to people who put premium on honour."

Aside from military operations, how much progress has there been on the political front?

“That is ultimately what gives you hope. You can have operational successes, but what sustains those is progress on the political front. It is reconciliation. The coming together of various parties and sectarian groupings in Iraq. What happened in Anbar was political. What the military action did was capitalised on a political sea-change, where the tribes changed from being on the fence or tacit support for al-Qaeda to active opposition. That is an enormous political change. That enabled military operations to have the support of the population.”...

What about political reconciliation at the national level?

“Some of legislation is more important than others. For example the oil law has an enormous far-reaching long-term effect. The idea of enshrining in law the idea that the oil revenues of a country are to be shared equitably with all Iraqis. That is a very significant development. It is huge. It is in the framework. They are very, very close on this. Long term it is hugely important both to the economic revival of Iraq and to keep the country together as one. Sorry but I am not so gullible as to believe this tripe. Petreaus and the rest of them have been claiming everything is coming up roses since 2004 yet here we are, no roses, just more claims.

But that last paragraph about the oil law takes the cake. As a general surely Petreaus can't claim to be uninformed about that oil law. It is not intended to divide up the oil resources among Iraqis. Iraqis stand to keep only 10-12% of their oil profits with all the rest going to foreign oil companies who have already signed the contracts with the Iraq Oil Ministry to go into effect as soon as the law is passed. But the Iraqi Parliament is proving to not be so anxious to sign Iraq's oil over to the corporate bullies. And that is one big obstacle keeping us in Iraq. It also happens to be one big elephant in the room which Petraeus conveniently didn't mention in his supposed 'honest' Sept. report on the Iraq situation. No Bush influence there, heck no. :rolleyes:

Like I said earlier, if you want a report about what is going on, certainly you aren't going to get it from Bush or Petreaus. Just look at their actions regarding the freedom of information in Iraq itself. How can you look at this kind of censorship then just believe these jerks when they make public proclamations?

Censorship in Iraq (http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/22.html)From the beginning, Pentagon decisions seemed to run counter to its well-publicized intention to create a free Iraqi society. Early last year, rather than hiring a media outlet to run the IMN, the Pentagon chose a defense contractor, Scientific Applications International Corp. (SAIC), instead. With SAIC’s orientation leaning more toward information control than information dissemination, it is hard to see how they were going to create a public broadcasting-style multimedia operation in post-war Iraq. The IMN was created in April, 2003, and it was not long before journalists hired by the SAIC realized their double role. The occupying authority told them to stop conducting man-on-the-street interviews, because some were too critical of the American presence, and to stop including readings from the Koran as part of cultural programming. IMN TV was also forced to run an hour-long program on recently issued occupying authority laws despite objections from Don North, a senior TV advisor to the IMN station.

Additionally, coalition forces were ordered to seize the only TV station in Mosel Iraq because they had televised some programs from the network Al-Jazeera in its broadcast. The independent station had lost its cameras to looters so they had turned to a mix of Arabic news channels and NBC to continue broadcasting. The Commander of the 101st Airborne Division, Maj. Gen. David Petraeus gave the order to seize the station. But in a surprising show of bravery and professional ethics, Major Charmaine Means, the head of the Army public affairs office in Mosul, would not agree to the seizure, saying that to do so would mean the station would be intimidated into airing only material approved by the U.S. Military. She refused twice to follow her superior officers’ orders, after which she was relieved of her duties. The station was eventually taken over by coalition forces. IMN has said that it would like to take over the offices in Mosul. IMN's having direct control over the facilities would give the American authority a broadcasting foothold in northern Iraq. ....

UPDATE BY CHARLIE THOMAS: After Major Charmaine Means was relieved of command, she was reassigned to a stateside post at Fort Bragg. Maj. Gen. David Petraeus was promoted to Lt. General and is back in Iraq in charge of training all Iraqi military and security forces.

Since the seizure of the Mosul TV station, the whole world has become aware of the illegal actions of the U.S. in Iraq. Fresh reports of violations of the Geneva Convention are frequent. Col. David Hogg, in an off-the-cuff remark, noted that U.S. forces routinely take hostages: “...his troops picked up the wife and daughter of an Iraqi lieutenant general. They left a note: ‘If you want your family released, turn yourself in.’” (Washington Post, July 28, ‘03). Article 34 of the Geneva Convention is specific: "The taking of hostages is prohibited."

Many news outlets reported that U.S. forces kept sick and injured civilians away from the hospitals during the siege of Falluja, but none noted that this behavior is a war crime.


And here's Petraeus' rosy report from a week ago: Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq; General David H. Petraeus, Commander, Multi-National Force-Iraq; 10-11 September 2007 (http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/Petraeus-Testimony20070910.pdf)the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met.

...Based on recent decisions by Prime Minister Maliki, the number of Iraq’s security forces will grow further by the end of this year, possibly by as much as 40,000.


The recommendations I provided were informed by operational and strategic considerations. The operational considerations include recognition that:
• military aspects of the surge have achieved progress and generated momentum;
• Iraqi Security Forces have continued to grow and have slowly been shouldering more of the security burden in Iraq;
• a mission focus on either population security or transition alone will not be adequate to achieve our objectives;
• success against Al Qaeda-Iraq and Iranian-supported militia extremists requires conventional forces as well as special operations forces; and
• the security and local political situations will enable us to draw down the surge forces.
My recommendations also took into account a number of strategic considerations:
• political progress will take place only if sufficient security exists;
• long-term US ground force viability will benefit from force reductions as the surge runs its course;
• regional, global, and cyberspace initiatives are critical to success; and
• Iraqi leaders understandably want to assume greater sovereignty in their country, although, as they recently announced, they do desire continued presence of coalition forces in Iraq in 2008 under a new UN Security Council Resolution and, following that, they want to negotiate a long term security agreement with the United States and other nations.
Based on these considerations, and having worked the battlefield geometry with Lieutenant General Ray Odierno to ensure that we retain and build on the gains for which our troopers have fought, I have recommended a drawdown of the surge forces from Iraq. In fact, later this month, the Marine Expeditionary Unit deployed as part of the surge will depart Iraq. Beyond that, if my recommendations are approved, that unit’s departure will be followed by the withdrawal of a brigade combat team without replacement in mid-December and the further redeployment without replacement of four other brigade combat teams and the two surge Marine battalions in the first 7 months of 2008, until we reach the pre-surge level of 15 brigade combat teams by mid-July 2008.

I would also like to discuss the period beyond next summer. Force reductions will continue beyond the pre-surge levels of brigade combat teams that we will reach by mid-July 2008;....To say I'm skeptical of Petraeus is a gross understatement. And to claim Stewart is not well informed and that his satire reflects that would also be a mistake. Just because something is called news doesn't make it so and just because news is presented in satirical format doesn't mean one cannot recognize the facts within the satire.

[stanleywinthrop]

]To say I'm skeptical of Petraeus is a gross understatement.

Of course you are. His 36+ years of service to his country under (count em') 7 different presidents are but a joke to you. You think he his another bush appointed lackey, but I'm willing to bet he has been standing on the wall for most if not all your life.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Of course you are. His 36+ years of service to his country under (count em') 7 different presidents are but a joke to you. You think he his another bush appointed lackey, but I'm willing to bet he has been standing on the wall for most if not all your life.And you apparently didn't see anything I posted which clarified and supported my conclusions.

Just because someone has accomplished things in their life, or just because they are highly skilled at some or many things does not mean they are not acting in their best political interests when interacting with the public.

My complaints about Petreaus are that his report was a meaningless whitewash. It was not an actual honest assessment of the facts about our current action in Iraq. Address my supporting evidence, not your incorrect assessment of my personal political leanings. Address the whitewashed Sept report and what it leaves out. Address how Petraeus has made previously 'later proven wrong rosy statements' about the way the Iraq war was progressing.

If you heard any of the Bill Moyers program on selling the Iraq War perhaps you noted he referenced "expert" after "expert" which have been paraded by the news media who turned out to be completely wrong in their predictions about how the war would progress. Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard said he doubted the Shiites and Sunnis would end up in a civil war, Cheney said the insurgency was in its last throes >2 years ago and Rumsfeld said he doubted the war would last 6 months. Yet none of these people have been called to account for such inaccurate statements. And here is Petraeus who made the same rosy predictions in public interviews in the past, which were completely off the mark, making yet another rosy prediction.

And you Stan, are offended I am pointing Petraeus' past BS out as evidence I am skeptical this Sept report is anything actually worth taking seriously. I don't care what the man's accomplishments are, frankly. I am concerned with assessing the real situation in Iraq based on reliable information. I am concerned that so many people, yourself included apparently, are willing to buy the fairy tale regardless of the fact it doesn't really have a happily ever after ending.

[Darth Rotor]

Just because someone has accomplished things in their life, or just because they are highly skilled at some or many things does not mean they are not acting in their best political interests when interacting with the public.
See my note above on the "back up slides" remark. Since the general was the appointed spokesman for the executive branch, the executive branch got a first look at his brief, and I am pretty sure his comments were abbreviated based on guidance from the executive branch. That is an exercise of civilian control of the military. He still was using his own words, but not "all" of his own words.
My complaints about Petreaus are that his report was a meaningless whitewash. It was not an actual honest assessment of the facts about our current action in Iraq.
I heard his words. I do not find "dishonest" an accurate assessment. At worst, his remarks were incomplete, particularly as I noted above -- the look into the fall, and the usual upswing in activity that comes each fall.
Address the whitewashed Sept report and what it leaves out. Address how Petraeus has made previously 'later proven wrong rosy statements' about the way the Iraq war was progressing.
"Whitewash" is your characterization, based on your viewpoint, and dare I say, bias.
If you heard any of the Bill Moyers program on selling the Iraq War perhaps you noted he referenced "expert" after "expert" which have been paraded by the news media who turned out to be completely wrong in their predictions about how the war would progress. Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard said he doubted the Shiites and Sunnis would end up in a civil war, Cheney said the insurgency was in its last throes >2 years ago and Rumsfeld said he doubted the war would last 6 months. Yet none of these people have been called to account for such inaccurate statements.
Irrelevant to Patraeus' brief. He is not responsible for Bill Kriston, nor any of the other self appointed suits "with the answer." :p His brief was focused on Iraq, the surge, its progress, and his recommendations for when it, the Surge, can subside. Given the short shrift people like General Shinseki got from this administration, I am at sea as to whether or not the administration will, or will not, act on any of his recommendations.
And here is Petraeus who made the same rosy predictions in public interviews in the past, which were completely off the mark, making yet another rosy prediction.
Rosy is your characterization, and amounts to sarcastic hyperbole. It was guarded at best, in its optimism, with the easily understood reality of numbers fairly leaping out an any informed observer.

Bringing home 2,000 Marines, real soon, without replacement.

Uh, out of 160,000, that is a rather small force reduction in the near term.
And you Stan, are offended I am pointing Petraeus' past BS out as evidence I am skeptical this Sept report is anything actually worth taking seriously.
BS?

What that he said was false?
I don't care what the man's accomplishments are, frankly. I am concerned with assessing the real situation in Iraq based on reliable information. I am concerned that so many people, yourself included apparently, are willing to buy the fairy tale regardless of the fact it doesn't really have a happily ever after ending.
Fairy Tale? Pardon the skeptical sector of my brain, SG, but your use of language is hardly neutral, hardly objective, and thus hardly creditable.

Do you have access to more accurate data than the general does, or did? How did you get it?

Did you forget that Ambassador Crocker was also testifying?

Did you hear Crocker's comment to the House near the end of the session, which was (I think I recall it word for word) "I (we) cannot guarantee success in Iraq." (Understatement of the month, IMO. :p )

Again, what was false about his, or the General's, testimony? Ambassador Crocker clearly indicated that the political element of what is going on needs, to put it mildly, a lot more work. (The recent mess regarding Blackwater and President Maliki's unhappiness with them is a shining example of that problem. Can't say as I blame him for his position. )

In my OP, I expressed an opinion that the report to Congress left quite a bit unsaid. What was very obvious about the actual words used was that the "surge" is a year-to-fifteen-months long increase in the troop level over the level of 01 January of this year. Was that, or was that not, what was discussed with Congress at the outset? (IIRC, the extensions to 15 months tours over 12 was announced in parallel with the "surge" decision.)

The other easy to discern message, an unspoken one, is that "the surge" is not a quick fix cure for all ills of American policy and efforts in Iraq. None of this should come as any surprise to anyone who has followed this war seriously since March of 2003.

Given the report, what remains to be answered is:

"Will Congress continue to fund" the troop levels that appear to be called for over the next four to five years? I say that not because I want to see Americans still deployed in Iraq for the next four to five years, not hardly, but the information campaign for the past three months continually hints at that timeframe.

"Called for" presumes, of course, that a sustained effort is to be made, at some cost, to undo (or to attempt to undo) the mistakes made from the outset, mistakes that have had the effect of forcing a "game of catch up" to be played, with American blood and treasure as the cost.

I heard a "sense of the Senate" speech a few days back about how Moveon.org were being jerks. OK, fine, posturing and rhetorical game noted, but I am a lot more interested in hearing a Sense of Congress proclamation that concerns

We, Congress, will keep paying this price since it is good for America for reasons

X
Y
and
Z

Or

We, Congress, will no longer pay this price, since doing so is not good for America for reasons

X'
Y'
and
Z'

I am still waiting for such a proclamation. The Democratic leadership of House and Senate has rather surprised me with its muted reaction. The criticisms of the President, or the General, don't answer the mail.

The report to Congress looks to be a fulfillment of an agreement, and no more. The drama has been added by a lot of parties who are at best observers. When the surge was proposed and agreed, to report on "how is it going so far" in Sptember. Report delivered. The report can't be any more than that, no matter how much you, I, anyone in Congress, or much of anyone else wishes that it were more.

It was a report limited in content and scope. It did not paint a rosy picture, not when the General stated that his phased withdrawal of brigades between now and next summer returns force levels to January 2007 levels.

If bringing the boys home was the promise, then "by Christmas this year" has not been met? What was the contract? What was the delivery date?

If you wanted the report to answer all questions on the present and future of Iraq, you are of course going to be disappointed. It didn't, and probably couldn't, answer those questions fully. It could only answer "how things are going so far." It did that well enough, but "so far" is a rather short term time horizon.

Your criticism isn't groundless, nor is all critique of the report groundless, but your seems to be hindered by a particular expectation being unmet.

What did you expect?

DR

[Skeptic Ginger]

It may be hard to explain my position to you DR because I can see from your post where we are seeing this from two different viewpoints. I am no more biased than you are, but we have different expectations and perspectives about the Petraeus report. And yes, I most certainly do have more information than Petraeus put forth, as does anyone paying attention to the situation rather than passively listening to the official line.

In brief, what did Petraeus say and what did he leave out? He gave his presentation limiting it to only the security issues in Baghdad. You seem to think that is fine, that's all his job requires.

What he left out was the fact that the additional security was intended to allow other actions to occur. None of those other actions did occur. Petreaus knows that, you yourself do not believe he is stupid and neither do I.

So was progress made? No. No real progress occurred. So how does that translate to some "success" of the "surge" as Petreaus implied by his report? Hooray, Baghdad is more secure. Are we any closer to leaving Iraq? Of course not.

Some troops are supposedly coming back that won't be replaced. Ever hear of raising prices so you can claim things are on sale when you lower them back to their original levels?

Do the Iraqis have water, electricity, jobs, health care, schools, and a police force that is trained and functioning and isn't corrupt and committing sectarian violence? Has Malaki formed a coalition of Sunnis and Shiites into a cooperative government? Can trade unions freely and legally form and is there an oil law which places the majority of the benefits of Iraq's oil resources in the hands of the Iraqi people instead of in the pockets of foreign corporations?

Those are the real measures of progress. The fact Baghdad was minimally safer for the last few months while a few extra US troops were there is not a measure of progress. Petreaus has to know that. Yet he didn't say more than a passing reference to those real measures of progress. That is what I mean by honest. If he were to give an honest assessment he would have addressed the fact the surge has had very little 'real' impact.

[Darth Rotor]

He gave his presentation limiting it to only the security issues in Baghdad.
That is only partly a correct statement. That is his mission, matters in Iraq. He did not confine his remarks to Baghdad, by the way, I heard the entire presentation to the House. He covered Al Anbar Province as well, and what he called a surprising bit of success in getting Sunni chiefs to come to the table. Details.
You seem to think that is fine, that's all his job requires.
You seem to be overlooking a critical part of his job. We have covered this before. It is called civilian control of the military. That he had to pre-brief the Administration means that it is very likely that some of what he briefed was not all of what could have been briefed. Let's suppose a bit of "Darth Editor" was embarked upon by everyone's favorite Dick. I don't think it's too much of a reach to presume that.

Is it your position that General P should thumb his nose at Bush, as MacArthur did to Truman? It is not mine. He can do NO GOOD for anyone if he is fired for pulling a MacArthur. He might be able to do some good if he stays on the job. His central job isn't as Powerpoint boy, his job is the mission in Iraq. As I said in another thread, who the hell wants that job? General P believes he can do some good. His report convinced me that any good won't happen quickly. (Funny old think, his COIN doctrine pub, recently published, suggests that is normal.)
What he left out was the fact that the additional security was intended to allow other actions to occur. None of those other actions did occur. Petreaus knows that, you yourself do not believe he is stupid and neither do I.
They did not occur yet, and may or may not come to pass, ever. Ambassador Crocker was most clear on that point.
So was progress made? No. No real progress occurred.
No True Scotsman.

Modest progress has been made, per the various statistics, but I am personally skeptical about it lasting beyond the beginning of autumn, and I am also cynical about war by metric. (McNamara and his fatuous "by every objective measure we are winning this war" comes to mind.) Due to typical patterns to date, my fear is that Groundhog day begins again in October.

If the modestly sloped trend line sustains into December, then one can be a bit more sanguine about what amount of progress has been made at that point. Again, both he and the ambassador were quite clear about how difficult, frustrating, and slow the political progress has been, and remains.
So how does that translate to some "success" of the "surge" as Petreaus implied by his report? Hooray, Baghdad is more secure. Are we any closer to leaving Iraq? Of course not.
Leaving Iraq is NOT HIS QUESTION TO ANSWER. That is a policy decision from your favorite guy, W, and his various civilian team, Gates, Condi, Cheney, and friends. He was correct to stay in his lane. If you wanted more, you mistake what the limits on his authority, and liberty to speak, are. Civilian control of the military, again. From the Constitution. If you want to crap on Bush and friends for hiding behind the General's uniform, feel free to. I'll not object.
Some troops are supposedly coming back that won't be replaced. Ever hear of raising prices so you can claim things are on sale when you lower them back to their original levels?
I have already covered this.
Do the Iraqis have water, electricity, jobs, health care, schools, and a police force that is trained and functioning and isn't corrupt and committing sectarian violence?
Not at a level I'd consider "success, by any objective measure." :p
Has Malaki formed a coalition of Sunnis and Shiites into a cooperative government?
Nope. The brief by the General and the Ambassador clearly stated the slow pace of meaningful political change.
Can trade unions freely and legally form and is there an oil law which places the majority of the benefits of Iraq's oil resources in the hands of the Iraqi people instead of in the pockets of foreign corporations?
That's not a military question, though it is IMO an important question. (Unabogie had a good link a while back regarding the activity of oil worker unions in Iraq.) That is also more in the Ambassador's political line of work.
Those are the real measures of progress.
Yes, I agree, in terms of Iraq returning from the refugee bleeding of the past four years. As noted, by the briefers, the political social progress was nothing to write home about.
The fact Baghdad was minimally safer for the last few months while a few extra US troops were there is not a measure of progress. Petreaus has to know that.
I am sure he does, and he did not appear to me to be making any statement of major change/progress, based on the slides and words he used.
Yet he didn't say more than a passing reference to those real measures of progress. That is what I mean by honest.
If you were honest, you'd admit that the political piece was Crocker's to brief, and that the political piece dominates, and that the security can only act as an enabler, and that the political/social piece moves slowly, if at all, for a whole host of reasons we have discussed before.

He stayed in his lane. Did you pay attention to the Ambassador's remarks? He was briefing Congress as well.
If he were to give an honest assessment he would have addressed the fact the surge has had very little 'real' impact.
No real Scotsman, part two. When both he and the Ambassador pointed to the political dominating in importance, and its agonizing pace, how can you claim he didn't address that?

Selective listening, or so it appears, on your part.

I think you and I agree, however, in general, that the gerneral's, and the ambassador's reports, and their ensuing discussions with Congress, ended up by what was said, and what was avoided, in damning the surge with faint praise, in terms of the surge's demonstrated success in converting and linking military/security action to tangible political results.

We were in Bosnia, the US, for 11 years.

What did you expect?

DR

[JoeEllison]

Of course you are. His 36+ years of service to his country under (count em') 7 different presidents are but a joke to you. You think he his another bush appointed lackey, but I'm willing to bet he has been standing on the wall for most if not all your life.

Wow, as though any of that matters. :rolleyes:

[Darth Rotor]

Wow, as though any of that matters. :rolleyes:
It matters when General P and his efforts are criticized due to him being characterized as some flunky of Pres Bush, or when General Zinni is poo poo'ed as "a Pres Clinton general" by neocon critics.

Those criticisms are attempts to poison a well, and are both dishonest and wrong. These labels rather miss the point, completely, and divert from what those people actually do, and why.

DR

[Skeptic Ginger]

Like I said, DR, we have a different view of the matter. If this was just some report on the security in Baghdad and not a report on the Iraq war situation, why did anyone even bother with it?

And my understanding of Petraeus pointing out the success in Al Anbar Province went along with the rose tinting of the report. There was no surge in Al Anbar. In fact, we are dealing with the supposed enemy there much to the chagrin of the Shiites we are backing in Baghdad. We are essentially arming both sides in a civil war with no regard for the long term effect of such a policy.

Here's a pretty neutral assessment of the situation. (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-anbar10sep10,1,6028485.story?coll=la-headlines-world&track=crosspromo) Other assessments I have read are nowhere near as kind.

[Skeptic Ginger]

It matters when General P and his efforts are criticized due to him being characterized as some flunky of Pres Bush, or when General Zinni is poo poo'ed as "a Pres Clinton general" by neocon critics.

Those criticisms are attempts to poison a well, and are both dishonest and wrong. These labels rather miss the point, completely, and divert from what those people actually do, and why.

DR
And this attitude of "how dare you criticize" stops legitimate debate about the shortcomings of the Petraeus report and stops legitimate debate about whether or not there is any real progress in Iraq, any real change aka "the surge", stops debate about whether or not this administration continues to blunder along, claiming to have heeded the advice of generals in the field. In reality Bush fired the generals who didn't support his plan and hired the lackey that did.

I know you don't like hearing that but it is a fact Petreaus was promoted, given an additional star, all because he echoed Bush's war strategy. It wasn't as if Bush sought out the most qualified man for the job and asked for his advice. Those commanders have all quit.

[Skeptic Ginger]

This is one of the better criticisms of the presentation, in that it covers one of the items left unbriefed.

The virtual ethnic cleansing has been covered in the US MSM. Last article I saw on it a few weeks ago was in Newsweek.

While I question their attribution of any general Iraqi optimism to Patraeus' presentation, and don't know how solid the poll is, it seems to fit similar polls in the past few years on the views of Iraqis polled.

Celebrate? I didn't see Patraeus celebrate much of anything. It was a very sober brief.

The language in this article is rather blatant, but the point is worth raising due to what was left out of the brief. Back to my thread title elsewhere:

Damning With Faint Praise Depending on how one looks at things, you could argue that either Pres Bush shot himself in the foot with the report, that he shot the General in the foot, or that the General shot himself in the foot, in the information campaign regarding Iraq.

DRThis post from Oliver's thread is more to what I have been saying (see bolded text). Why do you seem to get it there and fight everyone here?

[steverino]

And this attitude of "how dare you criticize" stops legitimate debate about the shortcomings of the Petraeus report and stops legitimate debate about whether or not there is any real progress in Iraq, any real change aka "the surge", stops debate about whether or not this administration continues to blunder along, claiming to have heeded the advice of generals in the field. In reality Bush fired the generals who didn't support his plan and hired the lackey that did.

I know you don't like hearing that but it is a fact Petreaus was promoted, given an additional star, all because he echoed Bush's war strategy. It wasn't as if Bush sought out the most qualified man for the job and asked for his advice. Those commanders have all quit.

Skeptigirl, I respect your willingness to dig deeper than most citizens to parse out the facts from the BS, but on an extremely practical matter, it looks like Hilary Clinton will become our next president. In your opinion, when this all falls into her lap, what do you hope she will do differently than the current administration?

[Darth Rotor]

And this attitude of "how dare you criticize"
Are you back to making things up? I don't take that attitude, I AM NOT RUSH LIMBAUGH! Got it?
I know you don't like hearing that but it is a fact Petreaus was promoted, given an additional star, all because he echoed Bush's war strategy. It wasn't as if Bush sought out the most qualified man for the job and asked for his advice. Those commanders have all quit.
Spin, SG, your spin.

It is a fact that Patraeus was a three star, a four star job was open, he wanted it, and he was selected.

It is a fact that the NCA dictates strategy (sometimes when listening to competent military advice, sometimes when ignoring it, and sometimes when following poor military advice) and that the military is charged with carrying out their part of it.

SG, I appreciate your deep objection to the war. Please do not let that principled objection induce you into falling into the "Clinton's General" trap of neocom thinking. This label was cast at your ally in objection to the Iraq war, General (ret) Anthony Zinni, who publicly opposed the war (perhaps for different reasons than you) from early on. He's been accused of being "a Clinton General" just as you are accusing General Patraeus of being a "Bush General."

!. It isn't that simple.
2. He's doing what he's supposed to do

Lastly, if you can point to falsehood in his testimony, I will join you in calling for a charge, under the UCMJ, of his making a false official statement.

DR

[Skeptic Ginger]

....

Lastly, if you can point to falsehood in his testimony, I will join you in calling for a charge, under the UCMJ, of his making a false official statement.

DRDo you consider only presenting a few facts that paint a rosier picture than reality a falsehood or not?

In the mean time, when I get back from walking my dogs I'll see how specific I can get.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Skeptigirl, I respect your willingness to dig deeper than most citizens to parse out the facts from the BS, but on an extremely practical matter, it looks like Hilary Clinton will become our next president. In your opinion, when this all falls into her lap, what do you hope she will do differently than the current administration?I have an opinion about what needs to be done differently, whether or not it will happen with a new President is hard to predict.

Regardless, it will be an improvement over this admin to have a more intelligent team in charge and a leader who isn't tied to the, "history will prove me right therefore I don't need an alternative strategy", mentality. If Ms Clinton chooses the right team to sort this out I expect they will be much better skilled at diplomacy and understanding the nuances of other cultures.

The problem is trying to predict if Ms Clinton is or is not committed to the oil companies and other corporate influences who are the main obstacles right now to letting go of the spoils and getting out. I'll be starting a new thread about this soon. Evo Morales, the President of Bolivia has been in town the last few days and he had something very profound to say. In May of 06 Morales nationalized Bolivia's natural gas resources (http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2006-05-01-bolivia_x.htm). Before that time according to his statement on the Daily Show (http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/index.jhtml), his country kept 300 million of the natural gas revenues, after nationalizing the resources they receive over 2 billion from the profits. The oil companies are still keeping 18% of the profits and a similar situation is true in Venezuela. People in Latin America are standing up to the corporate greed and the US is less able to intervene militarily and claim they are fighting communism.

It's a complex issue. There is the issue of corruption and competence so I am not saying the corporate pillaging of resources in poor countries was without needed investment in infrastructure and was one sided. But very little of the profits were reinvested in the countries from which the resources were taken. The consequences are that if you do that, at some point people will rebel. As long as you can keep those people oppressed, you delay the consequences. Currently, the corporations involved are not able to delay the consequences. The US is tied down in Iraq and cannot force Morales or Chavez to step down.

The problem in Iraq is the NeoCons wanted to implement that same horrible model which the US has been imposing on the world for a century. Big US or multinational corporations reap all the profit with no obligation to reinvest the money in Iraq. Brenner wrote an oil law that benefited foreign (to Iraq) oil corporations. The Bush administration doesn't want to give that up.

If Ms Clinton isn't in bed with the oil companies, there is a chance for a settlement. Add some skilled diplomats and there's a chance to head off a civil war. If she is perceived by the Iraqis as an agent of change there will be a window of opportunity. I believe she is smart enough to recognize that window. But I don't know how much into the corporate trough she is to predict what she will actually do. And since Ralph Nadar doesn't stand a chance, we have few other options.

The additional problem of the extremists, violence, multiple armed groups vying for power, corruption, motives for and a culture of revenge make it also hard to predict whether or not it is already too late to stop a civil war in Iraq. We'll have to see if a new president can convince the Iraqi people that we are no longer Bush's America, we are a good decent country again.

[davefoc]

I saw part of the Morales interview.

The crowd had a very positive response to his statement about how much more Bolivia was making after they nationalized the oil fields. And I don't know the facts of the situation, but it wasn't completely clear to me that this was such a hot idea.

If Morales broke deals with oil companies that had been entered into legitimately by prior Bolivian administrations, that sounds a lot like stealing to me and the end result for Bolivia of breaking international agreements might not be as good as it seems on first pass. It might not be all that easy to get oil companies to cooperate with a country that's going to steal their stuff once things start going well.

But if the agreements were entered into under questionable circumstances and what the Bolivian government did was to nationalize natural resources and not the oil companies themselves then maybe Morales did a good thing.

This is all a little off the topic of this thread, but if the Iraqi war has been lengthened because the US is trying to force the Iraqi government into what it perceives are sweetheart deals for the oil companies then the Bush administration is guilty of a great moral crime in my opinion. In the long term the Iraqi government will abrogate the agreements as Bolivia seems to have done and as other middle eastern countries have done so not only will the oil companies not benefit but the suffering of the Iraqi people will be exacerbated and more American soldiers will die.

Is it possible that the Bush administration is so cynical and corrupt that it might actually be attempting to use American military power to impose corrupt oil deals on the Iraqis to benefit Bushco crony corporations?

[Darth Rotor]

Do you consider only presenting a few facts that paint a rosier picture than reality a falsehood or not?
I did not see the picture he painted as in any way rosy. Did you see the same brief I did?

My OP is entitled "Damning With Faint Praise." What is the loss in translation here? I refer you, yet again, to civilian control of the military, which is exercised by the executive branch in operations, and by the legislature in appropriating funds and various regulations.

If you were looking for a man to come to Congress and say "We are going to fail no matter what we do" I think you rather miss the point of my observation above. It is self defeating to focus only on the negative when confronted with a difficult problem. See Psychology, 101.

Is there progress. Well, yes. Is it substantial enough to be happy about? Not so much, and hardly encouraging as of this writing. Will things improve more? To soon to tell, and therein lies a great deal of frustration, both among opponents of and supporters of this war.

Back to the OP: what is Congress going to do about it? Will they take action? If not, why not? One would presume that this was a decision brief, but perhaps not. Perhaps this brief was intended, from the outset, as a political dick dance. IF that is the case, whch it may or may not be, what was the point of wasting his time with that, rather than the job he has to do? If the Bush Team set this brief up for a political purpose, then the Sec Def could have given the brief and the General would remain in Iraq trying to do his damned job. If Congress so demanded this for its purposes, likewise. They could call on Sec Def to brief tham. I am even more inclined to see Bush and his team as hiding behind the General's uniform on this one, the more that I think of it, in a weird twist on a "support the troops" irony.

If they both did, then they are guilty of putting form over substance to the detriment of getting the mission accomplished, if it can be.

Sorry, I forgot myself, I am talking about suits here.

Never mind.
In the mean time, when I get back from walking my dogs I'll see how specific I can get.
What your dogs leave on the sidewalk is of finer quality that the utterances from Washington, lately.

DR

[Darth Rotor]

This is all a little off the topic of this thread, but if the Iraqi war has been lengthened because the US is trying to force the Iraqi government into what it perceives are sweetheart deals for the oil companies then the Bush administration is guilty of a great moral crime in my opinion. In the long term the Iraqi government will abrogate the agreements as Bolivia seems to have done and as other middle eastern countries have done so not only will the oil companies not benefit but the suffering of the Iraqi people will be exacerbated and more American soldiers will die.

Is it possible that the Bush administration is so cynical and corrupt that it might actually be attempting to use American military power to impose corrupt oil deals on the Iraqis to benefit Bushco crony corporations?
Didn't Haliburton leave when the Iraqi oil workers unions made it "too hard" for them?

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/08/19/IN69RI00G.DTL
Because of its actions, the oil workers union has become one of the strongest voices of Iraqi nationalism, protecting an important symbol of Iraq's national identity, and, more important, the only source of income capable of financing the country's post-occupation reconstruction
=====
When Halliburton Corp. went into Iraq in the wake of the troops in 2003, the company tried to seize control of wells and rigs, withholding reconstruction aid to force workers to submit. The oil union struck for three days in August 2003, stopping exports and cutting off government revenue. Halliburton then closed its Basra offices and left the oil region.
=====
The oil and port unions compelled other foreign corporations to give up agreements under which the U.S. occupation gave them control of Iraq's deepwater ports. Muhsin's electrical union is still battling to stop subcontracting in the power stations, a prelude to corporate takeover of a public resource.
Didn't Hunt cut his deal with the Kurds without any consultation with Bush and his gang? Newsweek's article on Hunt suggests that.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20920354/site/newsweek/

At least one top White House official was willing to express some skepticism. Asked by NEWSWEEK about the controversy at last Thursday's news conference, President Bush said, "I knew nothing about the deal. I need to know exactly how it happened. To the extent that it does undermine the ability for the government to come up with an oil revenue-sharing plan that unifies the country, obviously if it undermines it, I'm concerned." There is one way the president can find out exactly how the deal happened. He can call his old friend Ray Hunt and ask him.
That said, I agree with you about the long term problem of oil, nationalization, and the risks inherent in that. Those folks in Iraq aren't stupid, they realize how much they could potentially gain from reviving their moribund oil industry. (Who gets how much pie if an internal matter of course.) The issue at hand is in cutting a deal, which means that negotiation is involved, not a one way communication from foreign oil interests, be they American or otherwise.

DR

[Skeptic Ginger]

I saw part of the Morales interview.

The crowd had a very positive response to his statement about how much more Bolivia was making after they nationalized the oil fields. And I don't know the facts of the situation, but it wasn't completely clear to me that this was such a hot idea.

If Morales broke deals with oil companies that had been entered into legitimately by prior Bolivian administrations, that sounds a lot like stealing to me and the end result for Bolivia of breaking international agreements might not be as good as it seems on first pass. It might not be all that easy to get oil companies to cooperate with a country that's going to steal their stuff once things start going well.

But if the agreements were entered into under questionable circumstances and what the Bolivian government did was to nationalize natural resources and not the oil companies themselves then maybe Morales did a good thing.

This is all a little off the topic of this thread, but if the Iraqi war has been lengthened because the US is trying to force the Iraqi government into what it perceives are sweetheart deals for the oil companies then the Bush administration is guilty of a great moral crime in my opinion. In the long term the Iraqi government will abrogate the agreements as Bolivia seems to have done and as other middle eastern countries have done so not only will the oil companies not benefit but the suffering of the Iraqi people will be exacerbated and more American soldiers will die.

Is it possible that the Bush administration is so cynical and corrupt that it might actually be attempting to use American military power to impose corrupt oil deals on the Iraqis to benefit Bushco crony corporations?I recommend you read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" (http://books.google.com/books?id=nJFFrLX-924C&dq=&pg=PP1&ots=fxrDGecb8j&sig=8ib-zTYlJI0Hf9_1p0oqJMwOIe0&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fq%3Dconfessions%2Bof%2Ban%2Beconomic%2Bhi t%2Bman%26ie%3Dutf-8%26oe%3Dutf-8%26aq%3Dt%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26client%3Dfirefox-a&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title#PPP1,M1) for some of the history of how the US has coerced deals in Latin America for the benefit of US and other multinational corporations.

There are also 2 interviews with the author, John Perkins, on Democracy Now which you can read without reading the whole book.

Tuesday, November 9th, 2004; Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/09/1526251)

Tuesday, May 17th, 2005; Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/17/1420232)

The protests this week in Bolivia come as Latin America is seeing significant success among popular progressive movements. From Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Lula da Silva of Brazil to the changes of government in Uruguay and now Ecuador, there is a continent-wide trend that has Washington concerned. The US has long exploited countries throughout Central and Latin America for the natural resources, labor and land. Over the decades, this exploitation has been backed up by force and through devastating policies dictated to puppet regimes. Our next guest says he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries in Latin America and around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then taking over their economies. From 1971 to 1981, John Perkins worked for the international consulting firm of Chas T. Main. He described himself as an "economic hit man." He"s written a memoir called Confessions of an Economic Hit Man....

As for the Iraq oil law, there is plenty of information about it from anyone willing to investigate. But you won't hear much about it in the mainstream news. Considering how critical the oil law is to the US involvement in Iraq, the lack of media coverage is very disturbing.

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007; New Iraq Oil Law To Open Iraq's Oil Reserves to Western Companies (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/20/1523250)

It's still about oil in Iraq, LA Times; Dec '06 (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-juhasz8dec08,0,4717508.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail)...The U.S. State Department's Oil and Energy Working Group, meeting between December 2002 and April 2003, also said that Iraq "should be opened to international oil companies as quickly as possible after the war." Its preferred method of privatization was a form of oil contract called a production-sharing agreement. These agreements are preferred by the oil industry but rejected by all the top oil producers in the Middle East because they grant greater control and more profits to the companies than the governments. The Heritage Foundation also released a report in March 2003 calling for the full privatization of Iraq's oil sector. One representative of the foundation, Edwin Meese III, is a member of the Iraq Study Group. Another, James J. Carafano, assisted in the study group's work....

It's obvious we haven't sent the troops to Darfur or other countries that need democracy but don't have oil, yet the public just doesn't like to face reality.

And the US has been interfering in Democratic movements all over the world for a century whenever the local people elected a leader that stood up to the corporate greed. Iran was no exception in 53 when we saw to it Mossadeq was overthrown and divvied up the oil between US and British companies.

MOSSADEQ AND OIL NATIONALIZATION (http://countrystudies.us/iran/17.htm)...The administration of President Harry S Truman initially had been sympathetic to Iran's nationalist aspirations. Under the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, however, the United States came to accept the view of the British government that no reasonable compromise with Mossadeq was possible and that, by working with the Tudeh, Mossadeq was making probable a communist-inspired takeover. Mossadeq's intransigence and inclination to accept Tudeh support, the Cold War atmosphere, and the fear of Soviet influence in Iran also shaped United States thinking. In June 1953, the Eisenhower administration approved a British proposal for a joint Anglo-American operation, code-named Operation Ajax, to overthrow Mossadeq. Kermit Roosevelt of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) traveled secretly to Iran to coordinate plans with the shah and the Iranian military, which was led by General Fazlollah Zahedi....

Wiki on Mossadeq (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Mossadegh)

Always couched in the "fighting communism" lie, the real fight was against any country that dared to nationalize resources.

There is a difference between exerting national control over resources and communism. Of course the propaganda by the US to its own people has been so thorough, the public is mostly ignorant of the issues. It's one thing to have the government control all resources and industry. That is communism.

It's quite another to have foreign corporations pay off a few key officials and use the US and other government's military might to bilk countries out of their natural resources. Fighting against such practices is not communism. The US likes to blur the two. In the latter case you have mass poverty and corporations which do nothing to reinvest profits into jobs and infrastructure in poor countries. In addition, these corporations often cause massive pollution and exploit the workforce.

The difference in the Western world is we have some power to influence corporations and government. In poor countries people don't. International corporations are quick to take advantage of poor people in third world countries.

The idea the governments which nationalize private industry are ripping off these corporations is mostly false. Yes the corporations may have invested in infrastructure. In the case of both Venezuela and Bolivia, that was considered. The governments merely enforced a better profit margin for the country and a lower one for the corporations. The original deals had not been fair and were born in corrupt regimes. The private corporations were offered deals to continue to operate, they just weren't allowed to keep their outrageous profit margins.

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

What your dogs leave on the sidewalk is of finer quality that the utterances from Washington, lately.

DRPoint of clarification, I walk my dogs in the woods and I always pick up what they deposit. Otherwise your analogy is a fine one.

[Darth Rotor]

Point of clarification, I walk my dogs in the woods and I always pick up what they deposit. Otherwise your analogy is a fine one.
:clap:

I wish more of my neighbors were as good a neighbor/citizen as you. I keep getting these donated lawn ornaments, in the same tiresome configuration: residuous canus. :p

DR

[Skeptic Ginger]

Regarding Halliburton in Iraq, it seems if the scandals call too much attention to you, you simply make paper revisions in your corporate structure.

Update On Halliburton And Iraq; By Nikki Schwab; 9-20-07 (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/20/usnews/whispers/main3281537.shtml)

"It's remarkable that the world of contractors and subcontractors is so murky that we can't even get to the bottom of this, let alone calculate how many millions of dollars taxpayers lose in each step of the subcontracting process," Waxman said in his opening statement at the hearing in early February

[Skeptic Ginger]

:clap:

I wish more of my neighbors were as good a neighbor/citizen as you. I keep getting these donated lawn ornaments, in the same tiresome configuration: residuous canus. :p

DROK, this is a weird side track so my apologies. I was so annoyed at the daily deposits on my lawn a while back (there is a friggin woods with a trail head just 2 houses down, mind you) that I set up a video camera to see which dogs were doing it. Turned out it was the next door neighbor's dog who wasn't fenced in. They just let him out in the morning and pretended not to know where he went. It quit when I confronted them. There are occasional deposits now but not often enough to turn the camera back on.

BTW, the video camera was cheap ($60.oo) and now I just leave it in the window turned off as a deterrent.

[Darth Rotor]

Regarding Halliburton in Iraq, it seems if the scandals call too much attention to you, you simply make paper revisions in your corporate structure.

Update On Halliburton And Iraq; By Nikki Schwab; 9-20-07 (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/20/usnews/whispers/main3281537.shtml)
While I tend to share Waxman's frustration with the byzantine methods involved, I'll point out that the FAR, which are law written by Congress, are rather convoluted and confoundingly complex in many cases.

I'd love to see Congress lead acquisition reform that was able to resolve some of the problem he's now having to deal with.

On the other hand, as soon as one smart guy writes a law, another smart guy tries to find a loophole in that law. It's a never ending cycle, and Waxman surely knows this, given his background in both The Law and Congressional bill crafting.

Best of luck on the latest attempts at Reformation, Hank, you will need it.

DR