As per my post yesterday on the real chronology of the surge, I criticized the tendency of McCain to claim all credit for security improvements in Iraq. The surge was a part of that improvement, to be sure, but the majority of the solution came from events outside the control of US troops: the Anbar Awakening that began months before the surge, Sadr’s ceasefire and, sadly, the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad. I hoped that the media would start to challenge McCain on this assumption.
Oddly enough, CBS’s Katie Couric apparently posed this exact question to John McCain. The answer was shocking – perhaps so shocking that CBS actually scrubbed the answer from the final production. But as Keith Olbermann noticed on the CBS website, the original response is still there. Here’s how the section went:
Couric: Senator McCain, Sen. Obama says, while the increased number of U.S. troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that?
McCain: I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane (phonetic) was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history. Thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership, and the sacrifice of brave young Americans. I mean, to deny that their sacrifice didn’t make possible the success of the surge in Iraq, I think, does a great disservice to young men and women who are serving and have sacrificed.
They were out there. They were protecting these sheiks. We had the Anbar awakening. We now have a government that’s effective. We have a legal system that’s working, although poorly. And we have progress on all fronts, including an incredible measure of security for the people of Iraq. There will still be attacks. Al Qaeda’s not defeated. But the progress has been immense. And to not recognize that, and why it happened, and how it happened, I think is really quite a commentary.
A matter of history, huh?
As Olbermann himself mentions, the McFarland statement on the Anbar Awakening was issued in September of 2006. The beginning of the Anbar Awakening actually dates to August 2006 when dozens of tribal leaders met in Anbar to plot out an anti-Al Qaeda strategy. The surge did not begin until January 2007 and did not reach fruition until about June 2007.
As I mentioned yesterday, Petraeus was astute enough to back the Anbar Awakening and try to replicate it in Baghdad. He did, in fact, support the sheikhs, although Petraeus’s predecessor did too. Still, the surge did not lead to the Anbar Awakening. That is getting the chronology completely backwards.
It would be like saying that the 9/11 was a retaliation for the removal of Saddam Hussein. It would be as if the US Civil War was caused by the Great Depression of the 1930. It is completely wrong.
Why did McCain say this? Was it just another gaffe like the Iraq-Pakistan border? I think not. The Iraq-Pakistan border reference was a classic slip of the tongue – totally innocent. But this is not innocent as McCain even referred to the whole notion of the Anbar Awakening preceding the surge as a “false depiction of what actually happened.”
I can’t stress enough how infuriating this is. The only word that describes this is that John McCain is lying. He is stating something he knows not to be true. He is so desperate to accentuate the value of the surge that he actually ascribed events predating the surge to the surge itself.
John McCain knows darn well what happened in Iraq in 2006 and 2007. To his credit, he was probably over there then. He did not forget this critical chronology. He wasn’t unaware of it. He knew that the surge started well after the Awakening began – and didn’t take full hold until the Awakening was largely complete in Anbar. And yet he chose to lie about this moment.