9-13-07, 9:50 am

Republicans are mad about MoveOn.org's ad questioning the Bush administration's politicization of General Petraeus' congressional testimony. Fine. But that diversion doesn't help us understand what was in Petraeus' testimony.

In fact, the obsession with slamming MoveOn.org suggests that the GOP hasn't got many other talking points and is working hard to avoid serious debate both on the substance of what was in Petraeus' testimony and what was missing. Mainly, the Republican's diversion suggests they as a party are under sever pressure to stay the course while trying not to look like it.

By contrast, few congressional Republicans rose to defend President Bush, who, according to a CBS poll released on Monday showed that only about 5% of Americans find him most credible when it comes to the war.

Petraeus reported reduced numbers of 'security incidents' and strengthened security capacity on the part of Iraqis. He touted success in Anbar Province, where US military counter-insurgency tactics based on arming Sunni tribal groups convinced a handful of groups to side with the US against Al Qaeda.

Petraeus denied that the US had armed Sunni groups, but media reports quote Sunni leaders as admitting they received arms from US sources. Even Gen. Benjamin Mixon, US Regional Commander in Iraq, told CNN earlier this year that the US provided arms to Sunni groups.

Petraeus further insisted that violence is subsiding, though most serious analysis of his data disputes the methods of gathering and presenting the data. For example, Petraeus reported that the surge resulted in a large decrease in violence within Baghdad itself. Careful scrutiny of details, however, as Nancy Youssef and Leila Fadel of McClatchy Newspapers report, shows that population displacement (forced expulsion of Sunnis from Baghdad by Shia militias) is likely more responsible for temporary reductions in the number of incidents of sectarian violence.

The population displacement, in fact, may have derived in no small part by counter-insurgency operations Gen. Petraeus spearheaded in 2004 when he helped fund and arm Shi'ite militias that, according to , were 'operating as Shiite-run death squads. ... reportedly disappearing, torturing and murdering Sunni men.'

Reduced 'security incidents' apparently came as a result of US-supported ethnic cleansing and sectarian conflict.


Further, Youssef and Fadel write, even cursory examinations of Petraeus's charts showed that most of the types of violence he cites as having gone down in the past couple of months have really only been reduced to already intolerably high pre-surge levels.

More people than the antiwar left aren't buying Petraeus's and Crocker's claims. According to Newsweek, insiders in the Pentagon say the Department of Defense wants alternative proposals to Petraeus's sleek troop withdrawal recommendations and at least one report will 'recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.”

Newsweek also quoted an intelligence expert who works at the Naval War College as describing Petraeus's testimony as 'dodgy' and compared it to Colin Powell's UN testimony that help make a flawed and misleading case for going to war in Iraq in the first place.

According to the expert, inflated references to Al Qaeda, which represents only a tiny portion of the Iraqi insurgency (2-5%) and to Iranian interference were meant as a public relations effort to build support for continuing the occupation. That expert argued that contrary to the generally accepted view of Iranians promoting violence and chaos, some groups with Iranian ties are also responsible for stability in Shia dominated regions.

Former Coalition Provisional Authority official (turned Republican Party campaigner) Dan Senor, Newsweek further reported, saw Petraeus's troop withdrawal recommendations as a 'bone' to 'placate Congress' which is about to send troop withdrawal language to the floors of both Houses.

But Sen. Joe Biden cut to the chase, getting General Petraeus to admit that his recommendations for troop withdrawal were no more and no less the same as the current schedule for redeployment out of Iraq set by military planners and approved by President Bush at the beginning of the surge. In other words, the small troop withdrawal Petraeus recommended is not a change in policy.

One antiwar Republican Senator took aim at Petraeus's testimony. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NB) noted differences between Petraeus's optimistic claims and the findings of other US and independent commissions and agencies. Hagel further wondered if the failure to make headway in Iraq is something Americans will allow to continue. 'Is it worth it,' he asked, 'the continued investment of American blood and treasure?'

Other Republicans, however, offered little more than rhetoric about patience and waiting for change in Iraq. On the whole, they made no overt gestures at voting in Congress to change Iraq policy. They appear intent to stay the course. Even Republicans like Sens. Richard Lugar and John Warner who have voiced disapproval of Bush's Iraq policy have so far refused to vote for change.

In a sign that moderate Republicans are failing to rethink their positions on a serious scale, centrist Republican Rep. Christopher Shays (CT), speaking on the C-SPAN call-in show Washington Journal on Wednesday, argued ironically that as bad as it is going, the war in Iraq must go on because leaving would hand the country over to foreign intervention. One result, Shays opined, is that 'Iraq ... has about 20% of the world's oil. It's a huge amount to allow an unfriendly country to control.'

Antiwar Democrats expressed strong doubts about the basis for the optimistic view of Iraq offered by Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Petraeus. During the Senate hearing, Sen. Hillary Clinton said, 'I think that the reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief.' She added, 'Any of the metrics that have been referenced in your many hours of testimony, any fair reading of the advantages and disadvantages accruing post-surge, in my view, end up on the down side.'

On Monday in a television interview, Sen. John Kerry told MSNBC's Chris Matthews that the administration's public relations efforts promoted 'Vietnam-think.' During the hearing, Sen. Kerry recalled the political battles during the Vietnam era and the report of General William Westmoreland in 1967, which played a similar roles in that war as General Petraeus's in this war. Of that historical moment, Kerry said, 'almost half the names that found their way to the Vietnam wall after that testimony found their way there when our leaders had acknowledged, in retrospect, that they knew the policy was not working.'

Sen. Barack Obama strongly criticized holding the hearings on September 11th. Obama stated that the date was meant to draw a link between the 9/11 terror attacks and the rationale for the Iraq war. When questioned on that issue, Petraeus admitted that he saw no link between 9/11 and the Saddam Hussein regime.

Obama then followed up in a television interview emphasizing his strong support for legislation that would mandate a timetable to bring the troops home from Iraq. 'Having put an additional 30,000 additional troops in Iraq, we're still in the same position we were essentially in in June 2006.'

'The American people,' Obama added, 'at some point have a right to ask of their leadership in Washington and from the president when is enough enough?'

Obama pointed out that short of Congress forcing a change in policy, the Bush administration's plan is essentially to stay the course.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), who chairs the Senate Armed Services committee fired his own shot: Petraeus's testimony 'creates and provides an illusion of change in an effort to take the wind out of the sails of those of us who want to truly change course in Iraq.'

In a press conference on Capitol Hill, Democratic Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid described Petraeus's withdrawal recommendations as not going far enough. It 'is neither a drawdown or a change in mission that we need. His plan is just more of the same,' Reid said. 'It is unacceptable to the American people.'

Congressional observers say that legislation with timetables for bringing the troops home will be brought to the floor of both houses in the next few weeks for votes. Barring a large shift in votes by Republicans, especially in the Senate where 60 votes is needed to break a filibuster, it is likely that legislation that forces a change in policy, but doesn't mandate complete withdrawal or fails to deliver a mandatory deadline will garner broader support.

--Reach Joel Wendland at

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