Little will be slipping down the old memory hole between now and the election in 2008, and we don't really give a damn who continues to vote for this incredibly vile war nor do we care which party they are in. They will pay for their continuing support of what is essentially the mother of all war crimes.
While the Bushites may have stopped using the term, "stay the course," that is exactly what they are doing in an effort to dump Junior's failures in someone else's lap.
By John M. Donnelly and Josh Rogin, CQ Staff
After the top U.S. general in Iraq recommended the withdrawal of some 30,000 troops by next summer, Democratic leaders now must decide whether to press for legislation that would bring troops home sooner.
In more than six hours of testimony Monday, Gen. David H. Petraeus told a joint hearing of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees that a Marine Corps unit that typically totals about 2,200 personnel can come home this month, and an Army brigade, about 3,500 soldiers, can return home in December.
His recommendations, which President Bush has indicated he will adopt when he reports to Congress on the progress of the war by Sept. 15, appeared to complicate the Iraq calculus for Democrats, who have been planning to introduce compromise legislation as soon as next week that would require the beginning of a troop reduction by the end of the year but would include no deadline for completing the withdrawal.
Petraeus’ recommendation also takes political pressure off Republicans, who had warned that they might break away from supporting Bush’s Iraq strategy if Petraeus could not show progress in his testimony.
Petraeus said that in 2008 he plans to bring home the remainder of the roughly 30,000 U.S. forces that Bush added this year in Iraq as part of his so-called surge strategy, which would reduce U.S. forces there to the pre-surge level of about 130,000. That decrease was all but inevitable, however, because the Pentagon cannot sustain the larger force without extending tours of duty, which officials have rejected.
But Petraeus, who testified along with the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, said he would disclose in March how soon U.S. troop levels could go below 130,000. A more rapid withdrawal would lead to “catastrophic consequences” in Iraq, he warned.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., responded that the Petraeus plan was too little, too late and called on the administration to pull out more troops sooner.
“The president promised the American people that this surge would be a short-term effort to provide space for political reform and national reconciliation in Iraq,” she said in a statement. “Today, despite overwhelming evidence that neither goal has been achieved, Gen. Petraeus testified that the surge would last at least until next summer. This is simply unacceptable.”
In the Senate, where Petraeus and Crocker are scheduled to appear Tuesday before the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, Democrats also expressed skepticism about their testimony.
“Nothing today suggested that President Bush’s eight months of escalation have done anything to achieve political progress in a deadly civil war,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
But translating such protests into legislation will be no easy task, and in coming days Democrats in both chambers will have to sort out their next steps. Although the defense authorization bill (HR 1585) is scheduled to return to the Senate floor next week, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has not decided whether to consider any Iraq-related amendments to it or to take up the issue in stand-alone bills. Democrats are mulling over several such measures.
Senate Democrats were expected to continue to put political pressure on the administration Tuesday, pressing Petraeus and Crocker not only to bring more troops home sooner but also to change the mission of U.S. forces in Iraq.
Changing the Mission
“The biggest [question] for me is: If they are asking for more time, it’s to do what?” said Ben Nelson, D-Neb., a Senate Armed Services Committee member who is leading moderates in an effort to write new Iraq legislation that would force a change in mission away from policing sectarian strife.
The challenge for Democrats will be to move beyond rhetoric. They had previously endorsed legislation that would set firm dates for starting a withdrawal of most troops this year and ending it in April. In recent weeks, they started drafting alternatives that would drop the end date.
Now Petraeus has pre-empted that idea by recommending that Bush begin a withdrawal this year.
As a result, Democrats in both chambers are expected to focus on how quickly troop levels can drop from the current level of 168,000 to 130,000 and then fewer. Many Democrats said Monday that although it may not be clear where they will end up legislatively, they are not going along with the schedule that Petraeus laid out.
“The battle lines are exactly the same,’’ said Louise M. Slaughter, D-N.Y., who chairs the House Rules Committee.
“If what Gen. Petraeus said is that things are getting better and let’s wait for next summer, we won’t go along with that,’’ Slaughter said as she entered Pelosi’s office for a late-afternoon leadership meeting to discuss Iraq strategy, among other topics.
Chief Deputy Majority Whip Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., said the 2007 part of Petraeus’ withdrawal plan is not sufficient.
“It’s a beginning, but it’s not nearly as big or as much as people would like to see,” he said.
Republicans, however, said the Petraeus plan represented a real change of course.
“I don’t think beginning the drawdown, particularly since some of it comes immediately, is saying, ‘Stay the course,’ ” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters in a conference call. “I think what it’s saying is that what we’re doing is successful.”
Hey, Mitch, If that is what it means why didn't Petraeus simply say that. What he said was that there would be a 30,000 troop draw down in June of next year. Due to troop rotations, that many troops would have to come home anyhow, or start losing their minds, committing suicide or war crimes. Petraeus said that he could request they be held over, so therefore it was a drawdown. Say what?
Only 5,700 personnel (not all combat troops) will be leaving this year. Wonder when they arrived in-country this time? This is all total B.S.; political cover for Goopers.
Petraeus undermined not only the Democrats’ budding legislation but also the criticism some of them had leveled against his credentials. Several Democrats had said Petraeus would be delivering a report written by Bush or that Petraeus had doctored data on security trends. MoveOn.org stirred partisan passions with a full-page New York Times ad questioning Petraeus’ veracity under the headline, “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?”
Petraeus began his testimony with a shot at such contentions.
“Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself,” he said as he began his remarks. “It has not been cleared by, nor shared with, anyone in the Pentagon, the White House or Congress.”
Petraeus appeared to successfully parry Democratic assaults on the surge strategy Monday, countering their claims of failure with statistics that showed a sharp decrease in violence over the past eight months. Crocker acknowledged that there had been little political progress by the Iraqi government, but he pointed to progress at the local level, where Sunnis have joined U.S. forces in the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq and have offered to join the Iraqi army and national police. He said the central government had responded by sending more money to Sunni areas.
Democrats also found it difficult to sustain their questioning because each lawmaker was limited to five minutes in the hearing, which more than 100 members attended.
Alan K. Ota, Adam Graham-Silverman, Bart Jansen, Kathleen Hunter and Edward Epstein contributed to this story.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
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