Iraq & Petraeus’s September Surprise
General David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, may have a surprise up his sleeve when he gives the much anticipated September progress report on the war.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Petraeus will recommend removing American troops from several areas where commanders believe security has improved, possibly including Al Anbar province where much has been made of tribal leaders uniting against Al Qaeda, and turning over security in those areas to Iraqi forces.
This partial pullback would not trigger a drawdown of U.S. troops, who would be redeployed to other areas, but will finally show if the surge is indeed working as the White House, Republicans and an increasing number of Democrats maintain.
Previous efforts to hold areas cleared of insurgents have failed miserably, and claims that the Iraqi army and other security forces are much improved will be quickly put to the test.
If they fail that test, which I have no choice but to believe they will, then that will effectively put the lie to the notion that the surge is succeeding and it will be back to Square One.
Speaking of surprises, there is a humdinger near the bottom of the LAT story: Despite President Bush’s repeated statements that the September report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, it will be written by the White House.
This is because the enablers on Capitol Hill passed legislation that leaves it to the president on how to interpret the report’s data, so you can expect that what constitutes progress will be more fiction than fact.
7 Responses to “Iraq & Petraeus’s September Surprise”
How to separate fact from fiction is always the question. Beneath every interpretation is actual data. If you can find it. If there is any actual data. Maybe all you get is interpretation.
I read a report from McClatchy this morning about the difficulty in finding data. Here’s a quote from near the end:
Well, I have no idea why part of that is bolded, but the part that’s bolded isn’t what I’d emphasize. What I’d emphasize is this:
Interesting and sad point George.
It bears repeating that the potential genocide that the pro-war types are using as a reason to stay in Iraq has already been going on. If our troops can’t stop it, why should they stay?
It bears repeating that the murders and robberies that the supporters of the Chapel Hill police department are using as a reason to fund that department are already going on. If the police can’t stop those robberies and murders, why should we still fund the police department?
If 20-30 people were found dead in the streets of Chapel Hill each day, I’d say they’d probably need a new police department or more police. But the citizens should be the ones asking for or demanding those changes.
Our military in Iraq has not been particularly effective at stemming the violence nor is its presence welcomed by the local population (with the exception of the Kurds in the north). And don’t forget that our presence has also created violence on it’s own, not to mention the influx of American weapons.
What gives us the right to stay there under those circumstances?
Our military is not a police force, especially for other countries. It cannot do the job that is necessary, especially since a large majority cannot communicate in the language of those they are policing. In the end this is just exacerbating the problems.
I would hope that Congress DEMANDS the day by day numbers that the Report uses to support it’s conclusions. This would means dates, numbers, locations of every single “fact:” so everything can be double checked. If Patreaus’s report were an academic paper or even a corporate strategy analysis, every single “fact” would have to be supplied so peer review was possible.
Iraq and our onging strategy there is far, far too important to this nation to allow any “spin” . Thus it should be analyized as if our life depended on it, because lives are truly at risk.