General Petraeus

The Mittster is now claiming John McCain came up with the whole surge.

So why do these Republicans show such little respect for David Petraeus, and why don't the wingnuts who were pushing for Petraeus to run for President come out in his defense? This shows the lack of respect for our military from the right.

During Petraeus' testimony on the Hill, he constantly referred to the terrible state Iraq was in during 2006, and even went as far as referring to it as a "civil war". Last night Dan Abrams took us down memory lane to 2006 and showed how many times Bush, along with the rest of the administration, denounced it being a civil war and talked about how great things were in Iraq.

So now the question must be asked to both Petraeus and Bush; who is the liar? Someone clearly is. The American people, the troops and the Iraqi people deserve the truth in this war. The liar of what is happening needs to be exposed. For some reason I doubt that liar is the one in a military uniform.

The administration just loves David Petraeus

The Pentagon is considering Gen. David H. Petraeus for the top NATO command later this year, a move that would give the general, the top American commander in Iraq, a high-level post during the next administration but that has raised concerns about the practice of rotating war commanders.

A senior Pentagon official said that it was weighing “a next assignment for Petraeus” and that the NATO post was a possibility. “He deserves one and that has also always been a highly prestigious position,” the official said. “So he is a candidate for that job, but there have been no final decisions and nothing on the timing.”

Now if Petraeus is doing all these wonders in Iraq, then shouldn't they wait until they are 100% certain Iraq is stable before pulling him out? It sounds like the Pentagon is more worried about one man than an entire military.

Instead of debating Iraq, they choose to go after a political ad. A political ad has never killed anyone. Iraq has killed thousands. Now there is even more evidence that they should have done their job on debating Iraq. Today's Washington Post has a front page article on how Petraeus did cook the books. He did go before Congress and lie about the numbers. He did betray us.

On Sept. 1, the bullet-riddled bodies of four Iraqi men were found on a Baghdad street. Two days later, a single dead man, with one bullet in his head, was found on a different street. According to the U.S. military in Iraq, the solitary man was a victim of sectarian violence. The first four were not.

Such determinations are the building blocks for what the Bush administration has declared a downward trend in sectarian deaths and a sign that its war strategy is working. They are made by a specialized team of soldiers who spend their nights at computer terminals, sifting through data on the day's civilian victims for clues to the motivations of killers.

Now this is something that we have known about. The media has been reporting this variation in numbers for the past couple months. Now here is where it gets interesting:

Apparent contradictions are relatively easy to find in the flood of bar charts and trend lines the military produces. Civilian casualty numbers in the Pentagon's latest quarterly report on Iraq last week, for example, differ significantly from those presented by the top commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, in his recent congressional testimony. Petraeus's chart was limited to numbers of dead, while the Pentagon combined the numbers of dead and wounded -- a figure that should be greater. Yet Petraeus's numbers were higher than the Pentagon's for the months preceding this year's increase of U.S. troops to Iraq, and lower since U.S. operations escalated this summer.

Let's put this in laymen terms. You started running the widget sales division of Acme this year. It is time to give the board a progress report on how sales are going. To make you look better to the board, you decide to report that less widgets were actually sold before you took over and then inflate the sales numbers during your reign.

How would the board treat you if they found out? Simple - you would be out of a job. This is the same that should happen with David Petraeus.

The Government Accounting Office is even having problems saying if violence is down or not:

In an Iraq assessment released this month, the Government Accountability Office said it "could not determine if sectarian violence had declined" since the U.S. troop buildup began in the spring and saw no decrease in overall attacks against civilians as of the end of July. The GAO recommended that the administration expand its statistical sources to include "all relevant U.S. agencies" and that it use "broader measures of population security" to establish trends. An unpublished, classified annex to its report listed the sources of differing agency opinions and provided more detail on the kinds of measurements the GAO thought should be included.

So Congress needs to tell the White House that there will be no more money until they are given factual data. I know the Republicans will try to kill this, but now is the time for politics. Harry Reid must show courage and make the Republicans filibuster. Let the cameras show them pulling in the roll-a-way beds and the Republicans trying to obstruct legislation on Iraq. It is simple - the people voted the Democrats in so we could see a change in Iraq. The Republicans are obstructing that, effectively punishing the voters for not voting for them. It is time for the Democrats to show the American people what traitors the Republicans are.

There was a lot of attention give to General Petraeus saying he didn't know if Iraq was making us safer. For those that missed it, here it the clip from yesterday's Senate hearing:

This was a very damming answer and could be detrimental to the warring morale of our troops. For their commander to say he "doesn't know" if their sacrifice is making their country safer speaks volumes. His explanation of not thinking about that is also very poor. I doubt there is a person in this country who hasn't asked themselves that very question. It amounts to our very purpose of being there. It also is one of George Bush's key reasons of the war. How many times do we hear Bush or other supporters saying "If we leave Iraq today they will follow us home".

Even more profound is the day that this horrible statement was made on. Yesterday was the 6th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. For 4 1/2 years since those attacks, our nation's military has been focused on a war, in a nation, that has nothing to do with the attacks - and for what? The people who killed almost 3,000 of our citizens is still on the run and this idiot is sitting before Congress saying that the last 4 1/2 years has not made us safer?

Petraeus did not only betray us with this comment, he betrayed the soldiers, who are sacrificing tirelessly for this war.

Speaking of betrayal and Petraeus, there has also been a lot of talk about the Move On ad. Republicans are out there quickly yelling that Democrats should denounce Move On. Here we go again with the morbid hypocrisy that is constantly exhibited on the right. Again on the anniversary of 9/11, Ann Coulter was speaking in the "Freedom tour", with people like Rudy Giuliani. This is a person who said the widows of 9/11 cherish their husbands death. What hasn't the GOP denounced those statements? I guess they believe the same thing Coulter says. After all - that is what their own rules dictate in this.

This comes as no surprise. A new poll shows a majority of Americans believe Petraeus won't be give a factual view of Iraq:

Most Americans think this week's report from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus will exaggerate progress in Iraq, and few expect it to result in a major shift in President Bush's policy. But despite skepticism about the Petraeus testimony and majority support for a U.S. troop reduction in Iraq, there has also been a slight increase in the number who see the situation there as improving.

The findings, from a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, underscore the depth of public antipathy toward the Iraq war, the doubts about the administration's policies and the limited confidence in the Iraqi government to meet its commitments to restore civil order.

Fifty-eight percent, a new high, said they want to decrease the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. And most of those who advocated a troop reduction said they want the drawdown to begin either right away or by the end of the year. A majority, 55 percent, supported legislation that would set a deadline of next spring for the withdrawal of American combat forces. That figure is unchanged from July.

Petraeus is already trying to make the situation sound better than it is. The Iraqi's have failed to meet a vast majority of the benchmarks set. It is also worth reminding everyone that these benchmarks weren't set by politicians here at home. They were set by the Iraqi government and the White House. This means they are failing their own standards. We can't be expected to continue support for such failures. The cost to the American people is too high for that. Instead the Democrats need to listen to the American people, not the Republicans, and start forcing an end to this disastrous experiment George Bush has conducted.

And this is not coming from the New York Times or the Washington Post. This story is coming from the Marine Corps Times:

A key aide says Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s relations with U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus are so poor the Iraqi leader may ask Washington the withdraw the well-regarded U.S. military leader from duty here.

The Iraqi foreign minister calls the relationship “difficult.”

Petraeus says his ties with al-Maliki are “very good” but acknowledges expressing “the full range of emotions” on “a couple of occasions.”

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who meets together with al-Maliki and Petraeus at least weekly, concedes “sometimes there are sporty exchanges.”

That should really lead to credibility problems with Petraeus and will make one wonder even more how truthful his report will be in September.

There are also more troubles brewing in the Iraqi government. It looks like everything is on the verge of collapse now:

Iraq's dwindling Shiite-led government and its largest Sunni bloc stepped up their war of words on Saturday, amid a crisis which some lawmakers warned could bring down the ruling coalition.

Sunni ministers are boycotting government business, and the deepening crisis has cast doubt on the US-backed regime's ability to push through reforms designed to reunite the war-torn country.

Washington has demanded that series of law and constitutional amendments be passed to appease Sunni resentment and end faction fighting, as the programme was supposed to proceed alongside a surge of US troops into the country.

On Saturday, the main Sunni bloc in the coalition reacted angrily to a rebuke from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's spokesman, who had accused its ministers of disrupting legislation and had implied they were corrupt.

So while all this happens our soldiers are still stuck there dying. Since the entire Iraqi parliament is getting ready to take a month off, it looks like there will be no political benchmarks met by the September report. I still say our Congress should show responsibility and call of their August recess and keep debate going on Iraq. That or they need to put on some gear and go relieve some of our troops.