What Crocker and Petraeus Didn’t Say 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 […]
As I watch these hearings in the little window on the side of my computer screen [Biden sparring with Petraeus. Kind of whining.], I keep thinking about Kings. I remember when I took history, all we talked about was the Kings and the Queens, the Kaisers, the Emperors, the Popes, and the Generals. It seemed […]
Our current course is hard. The alternatives are far worse. Ambassador Crocker I don’t question that Ryan Crocker believes what he said. In fact, I was very impressed with his clear assessment of the Iraqi ethos… Evaluating where Iraqis are today only makes sense in the context of where they have been. Any Iraqi under […]
‘Six Months’ Without End 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 […]
The hearing moved me in directions I did not expect. I hope that it moved others too. Our problem is not the War in Iraq itself. Our problem is our leaders – the President and Vice President. They’ve pushed us around about this long enough. Petraeus’ graphs points out one very important fact. Our conduct […]
Executive Summary The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. There is no path that can guarantee success, but the prospects can be improved. In this report, we make a number of recommendations for actions to be taken in Iraq, the United States, and the region. Our most important recommendations call for new and enhanced […]
I wasn’t going to do this, micro-dissect the numbers. I was going to leave that to the pundits with more access to the facts and figures than I have. But I’ll respond to this one as it stands and pretend it’s correct. In March 2003, we invaded Iraq. This graph shown by General Petraeus shows […]
Petreaus and Crocker have a couple of really difficult jobs, but they seem to actually believe they can tease the Iraqis into having something of a non-ethno-sectarian government. I liked them. They seemed competent. Crocker’s comment, "Our current course is hard, the alternative is much worse" summarizes their presentation and their recommendations. It’s hard to […]
This Is The Week When Nothing Will Happen "Watershed"? "Pivotal"? "D-Day for Iraq Policy"? Oh, puhleez. President Bush’s prime time stay-the-course speech has already been written. Public opinion has already concluded that the Petraeus report will sugarcoat the statistics, that the Crocker report will move the goalposts, and that "victory" in Iraq will be no […]