Gen. Petraeus' Iraq Evaluation

Yesterday, General David Petraeus proved what a poised and patient and patriotic man he is.

WASHINGTON -- The top U.S. commander in Iraq told Congress Tuesday that hard-won gains in the war zone are too fragile to promise any troop pullouts beyond this summer, holding his ground against impatient Democrats and refusing to commit to more withdrawals before President Bush leaves office in January.

Army Gen. David Petraeus painted a picture of a nation struggling to suppress violence among its own people and to move toward the political reconciliation that Bush said a year ago was the ultimate aim of his new Iraq strategy, which included sending more than 20,000 extra combat troops.

Security is getting better, and Iraq's own forces are becoming more able, Petraeus said. But he also ticked off a list of reasons for worry, including the threat of a resurgence of Sunni or Shiite extremist violence. He highlighted Iran as a special concern, for its training and equipping of extremists.

In back-to-back appearances before two Senate committees, Petraeus was told by a parade of Democrats that, after five years of war, it was past time to turn over much more of the war burden to the Iraqis. Those senators said Iraq will not attain stability until the United States makes the decision to begin withdrawing in large numbers and forces the Iraqis to settle their differences.

Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, a longtime critic of the administration's war strategy, told Petraeus: "The American people have had it up to here."

Petraeus responded, "I certainly share the frustration."

But when it came to promising or predicting a timetable for further withdrawals, Petraeus didn't budge. He said he had recommended to Bush that he complete, by the end of July, the withdrawal of the 20,000 extra troops. Beyond that, the general proposed a 45-day period of "consolidation and evaluation," to be followed by an indefinite period of assessment before he would recommend any further pullouts.

The Dems kept pushing Petraeus to make predictions that are humanly impossible.

Of course, he didn't make any promises he couldn't keep. He's not a politician.

Sen. Carl Levin's questioning of Petraeus was absolutely idiotic:

In exchanges with several senators, Petraeus refused to say when he thought it would be safe to resume troop reductions beyond July without risking "fragile and reversible" security gains.

Asked Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee: "Could that be a month, could that be two months?"

Petraeus began to respond: "Sir, it could be less than that. It could be. ..."

Levin: "Could it be more than that?"

Petraeus: "It could be more than that. Again, it's when the conditions are met that we can make a recommendation for further reductions."

Levin: "Could it be three months?"

Petraeus: "Sir, again, at the end of the period of consolidation and evaluation. ..."

On they went in the same vein, even after a demonstrator — "Bring them home! Bring them home!" — interrupted the hearing and was escorted out.

When Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., started in again later, Petraeus said it would defy logic to establish a timetable before knowing what conditions will be like this summer.

"If you believe as I do — and the commanders on the ground believe — that the way forward on reductions should be conditions-based then it is just flat not responsible to try to put down a stake in the ground and say this is when it would be or that is when it would be," Petraeus said.

Levin was such a fool to press Petraeus.

He clearly said it's impossible to establish a timeable because it's dependent on conditions on the ground.

How difficult is that to understand?

When the Battle of the Bulge began on December 16, 1944, could commanders have declared that troops would be withdrawn by January 1, 1945?

That's ridiculous. The troops were withdrawn when the battle was won.

Of course, a predetermined timetable can be established in war, but that pretty much rules out victory. It certainly puts it in serious jeopardy.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The message to Congress and the American people from the U.S. commander in Iraq boiled down to this Tuesday:

Too much has been achieved to get out.

And not enough has been achieved to get out.

"We haven't turned any corners. We haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. And the progress, while real, is fragile and is reversible," Gen. David Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services committee in the first of three highly anticipated hearings Tuesday and today on Capitol Hill.

"Obviously, I think that there is a way forward," said the general, whose appearance attracted a huge media throng and a corps of protesters who periodically sang, hoisted signs and called out their opposition to the war.

It was a familiar case for U.S. policy that drew a familiar set of reactions, with supporters of the war convinced that the surge has produced vital security gains that would be imperiled by withdrawing too soon, and opponents complaining that it has failed to achieve the political progress that was its chief rationale.

...Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold, a member of the foreign relations panel and vocal opponent of the war, said the much larger al-Qaida threat was in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not Iraq. And he contended the war was helping Osama bin Laden achieve his stated goal of bankrupting the U.S.

"For us to somehow believe that staying in Iraq is not playing into his hands I think is a mistake," said Feingold.

While Petraeus pointedly defended the mission in Iraq, he said policy-makers were confronted with tradeoffs.

"Iraq has entailed huge cost. Our men and women in uniform have made enormous sacrifices: over 4,000 of them the ultimate sacrifice. And the expenditure has been very substantial in numerous other respects, including the strain on the overall force and the opportunity cost in terms of not being able to focus more elsewhere," he said.

"Having said that, there is no longer a ruthless dictator in Iraq who threatened and invaded his neighbors and who terrorized his own people. Beyond that, the seeds of a nation's democracy have been planted in an Arab country that was the cradle of civilization. And though the germination of those seeds has been anything but smooth, there has been growth," said Petraeus. "I recognize that the overall weighing of the scales is more than difficult, and believe it is best done, at this point, by someone up the chain with a broader perspective. Ultimately, it can only be answered by history, once the outcome in Iraq has been determined."

Feingold is so hawkish when it comes to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and so clueless when it comes to the consequences of a premature withdrawal from Iraq.

As is usual in the case of hearings like this, there's so much political posturing.

It's a shame that the quest for victory in Iraq is a partisan issue.