The Washington Post engages in some conservative bloodletting.
And elsewhereGeneral David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have provided the Bush administration with what, under the circumstances, can be considered dream reports about the military and political situation in Iraq. Neither report glosses over the difficulty of the situation. Both manage to see a silver lining to the black cloud. And this is why they are dream reports. Anything not recognizing the dire situation the United States faces in Iraq would not have had a speck of credibility. Anything failing to detect a glimmer of hope would have put President Bush in an untenable position.
The glimmer of hope is most easily visible to those who do not question the figures too closely, accept murky goals and ignore the negative and probably irreversible consequences of many steps on which supposed progress is based.
Many figures are unconvincing. There are discrepancies between the figures presented by Petreaus and those contained in the most recent Government Accountability Office report. The explanation given by the general to the Senate, that his figures reflect the changes of the last month and the GAO's do not, raises the question whether a month constitutes a trend in a highly volatile situation.
The goal against which success is measured remains murky: is it success in fighting al-Qaeda, is it decrease in sectarian violence, is it a functioning political system? Arguing, as Ambassador Crocker done, that it is progress that there is now a debate on federalism in Iraq--three and a half years after the old system was destroyed--is grasping at straws.
Most importantly, some of the so-called progress has consequences that will haunt Iraq for a long time to come. It is helpful in the short run that Sunni tribal militias are fighting al-Qaeda. Unfortunately, these tribal militias will be around for the long run, and turn against each other and the Shia militias. This is beginning to happen in Diyala Province. And while politicians endlessly discuss an oil law and make no progress, the Kurdish government is signing oil exploration contracts, most recently with Hunt oil, that will not be easily rescinded if the law is ever passed..
These are dream reports in more ways than one.
Marina Ottaway is the director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
From the actual hearing:Andrew J. Bacevich blogs for washingtonpost.com: "Petraeus seems to hope that with the passage of time, Iraqi political leaders will get their act together. But hope makes a poor basis for strategy.
"Petraeus's recommendation to kick the can down the road will suit the Bush administration, which is determined neither to confront nor to acknowledge responsibility for the debacle it has created. But his recommendation will not suit the soldiers he commands, the army to which he has devoted his life, or the nation he serves.
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The New York Times editorial board writes: "For months, President Bush has been promising an honest accounting of the situation in Iraq, a fresh look at the war strategy and a new plan for how to extricate the United States from the death spiral of the Iraqi civil war. The nation got none of that yesterday from the Congressional testimony by Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. It got more excuses for delaying serious decisions for many more months, keeping the war going into 2008 and probably well beyond.
"It was just another of the broken promises and false claims of success that we've heard from Mr. Bush for years, from shock and awe, to bouquets of roses, to mission accomplished and, most recently, to a major escalation that was supposed to buy Iraqi leaders time to unify their nation."
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Howard Fineman writes for Newsweek: "Bottom line: Americans will go to the polls on Nov. 4, 2008 with basically the same Iraq policy in place as we have now. All of the rest is the sound and fury of political positioning. If the American people want to end this war faster, they will have to vote to do so -- again, since that is what most of them thought they were doing in 2006."
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Nancy A. Youssef and Leila Fadel write for McClatchy Newspapers: "The Bush administration's top two officials in Iraq answered questions from Congress for more than six hours on Monday, but their testimony may have been as important for what they didn't say as for what they did.
"A chart displayed by Army Gen. David Petraeus that purported to show the decline in sectarian violence in Baghdad between December and August made no effort to show that the ethnic character of many of the neighborhoods had changed in that same period from majority Sunni Muslim or mixed to majority Shiite Muslim.
"Neither Petraeus nor U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker talked about the fact that since the troop surge began the pace by which Iraqis were abandoning their homes in search of safety had increased. They didn't mention that 86 percent of Iraqis who've fled their homes said they'd been targeted because of their sect, according to the International Organization for Migration. . . .
"Petraeus also didn't highlight the fact that his charts showed that 'ethno-sectarian' deaths in August, down from July, were still higher than in June, and he didn't explain why the greatest drop in such deaths, which peaked in December, occurred between January and February, before the surge began.
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Alissa J. Rubin and Damien Cave write in the New York Times from Baghdad: "The assessment that Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Iraq, gave to Congress on Monday left unmentioned or glossed over some of the most troubling developments of the past nine months. His portrait of Iraq did not include many of the signs of deepening divisions between Sunni Arabs and Shiites and within each sect, which have raised fears among many Iraqis that their country will fracture further.
"His testimony did not address the continuing wave of internal displacements, only glancingly mentioned Baghdad's starved infrastructure and said almost nothing about the government's inability or unwillingness to deliver services to other parts of the country as well.
"His description of the growth of provincial power neglected to mention its darker side: Some provinces are becoming rival power centers and could as easily contribute to the country's disintegration as to its stability."
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Ann Scott Tyson writes in The Washington Post that what Petraeus calls a "very substantial withdrawal" does no more than bring U.S. forces closer to the pre-surge level of about 130,000 troops by the end of next summer.
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"Neither Petraeus nor Crocker mentioned the nearly 4 1/2 years of U.S. military involvement that began with the March 2003 invasion; both seemed to date U.S. involvement in Iraq as beginning anew with the troop escalation that started early this year."
Engel: "The American people are fed up -- I'm fed up -- and essentially what I'm hearing from both of you today is essentially 'stay the course in Iraq.' How long can we put up with staying the course? Young Americans are dying in someone else's civil war, as far as I'm concerned. . . .
"You know, for years we keep hearing rosy, upbeat pictures about Iraq -- 'Victory is right around the corner; things are going well' -- and it never seems to materialize. General Petraeus, I have an article here called ' Battling for Iraq.' It's an op-ed piece that you wrote three years ago in The Washington Post . . . and I want to just quote some of the things you said. You said, 'Now, however, 18 months after entering Iraq, I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up.' . . .
"You talk about Iraqi police and soldiers, and you say they're 'performing a wide variety of security missions. Training is on track and increasing in capacity.' And finally, you said in this article -- op-ed piece three years ago, 'I meet with Iraqi security forces every day. I have seen the determination and their desire to assume the full burden of security tasks for Iraq. Iraqi security forces are developing steadily, and they are in the fight. Momentum has gathered in recent months.'
"So today you said -- and I'll just quote a few things -- 'Coalition and Iraqi security forces have achieved progress in the security area. Iraqi security forces have also continued to grow and to shoulder more of the load.' And finally you said, 'The progress our forces have achieved with our Iraqi counterparts, as I noted at the outset, has been substantial.'
"So I guess my question really is that, you know, why should we believe that your assessment today is any more accurate than it was three years ago in September 2004? Three years ago I was able to listen to the optimism, but frankly I find it hard to listen now, four years-plus into this war with no end in sight. Optimism is great, but reality is what we really need."
Petraeus's response: "I actually appreciate the opportunity to talk about that op-ed piece because I stand by it." His explanation: That the bombing of the Golden Dome Mosque in Samarra in February 2006 set everything back terribly.
But who's to say there won't be another unpredicted setback in the months and years ahead. Or, as Engel tried to ask Petraeus before running out of time: "Will we be saying the same thing three years from now?"
His reponse:Wexler: "In your testimony today, you claim that the surge is working and that you need more time. With all due respect, General, among unbiased, nonpartisan experts, the consensus is stark; the surge has failed based on most parameters. In truth, war-related deaths have doubled in Iraq in 2007 compared to last year. Tragically, it is my understanding that seven more American troops have died while we've been talking today. . . .
"I am skeptical, General. More importantly, the American people are skeptical because four years ago very credible people both in uniform and not in uniform came before this Congress and sold us a bill of goods that turned out to be false.
"This testimony today is eerily similar to the testimony the American people heard on April 28th, 1967, from General William Westmoreland, when he told the American people America was making progress in Vietnam. . . .
"We've heard a lot today about America's credibility. President Bush recently stated we should not have withdrawn our troops from Vietnam, because of the great damage to America's credibility. General, there are 58,195 names etched into the Vietnam War Memorial. Twenty years from now, when we build the Iraq war memorial on the National Mall, how many more men and women will have been sacrificed to protect our so-called credibility? How many more names will be added to the wall before we admit it is time to leave? How many more names, General?"
You mean, as a mouthpiece of the Administration? These guys have no shame.Petraeus replied: "No one is more conscious of the loss of life than the commander of the forces. That is something I take and feel very deeply. And if I did not think that this was a hugely important endeavor, and if I did not think that it was an endeavor in which we could succeed, I would not have testified as I did to you all here today."
Liberal blogger Brad DeLong writes: "If you had asked me six years ago what the odds were that Osama bin Laden would still be living out his allotted lifespan in the fall of 2007, I would have said that the odds were zero.
"No matter how feckless, incompetent, and stupid George W. Bush and his administration are, I would have said, nobody would let an Osama bin Laden kill 3000 Americans in an act of terrorism and survive.
"Silly me."
The Los Angeles Times editorial board writes: "America's 'war on terror,' which enters its sixth year today, now seems destined to redefine our nation for a generation or more to come."
The editorial decries the "harrowing consequences of a war waged by an administration that has misunderstood its enemy and its place in history. But the price of this president's military and domestic overreach has been highest in the loss of faith in America itself, in the values and institutions that have historically defined this nation. . . .
"No matter how much he insists otherwise, President Bush lacks [a] fundamental belief in American freedom. As a result, his war has not only subverted U.S. military interests but has undermined the liberties that make this a nation worthy of emulation. That is the tragic and true cost of these past six years."
