That's More Like It!The Senate grills Petraeus and Crocker.
By Fred KaplanPosted Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2007, at 6:30 PM ET
The highlight of today's Senate hearings—and these were substantive hearings, unlike Monday's dispirited charade in the House—came in the afternoon, before the armed services committee, when Republican Sen. John Warner asked Gen. David Petraeus whether the current strategy in Iraq "will make America safer."
Petraeus replied, "I believe that this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq."
Warner repeated his unanswered question: "Does that make America safer?"
Petraeus said, "I don't know, actually. … I have not stepped back. … I have tried to focus on what I think a commander is supposed to do, which is to determine the best recommendations to achieve the objectives of the policy for which his mission is desired."
Two things stand out in Petraeus' response. First, he refused to indulge in President Bush's spurious rhetoric about how we're fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here. Second, he was, in effect, telling the senators: I am doing what soldiers do; I am trying my best to accomplish the mission; the mission is related to the policy, and the policy isn't mine.
Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and his fellow witness, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, did their best all day and yesterday to put the most hopeful face on the grimness before them. But, to their credit, they stopped short of lying.
Republican Sen. John McCain, one of the committee's more hawkish members, asked Crocker what degree of confidence he had that the leaders of the Iraqi government will take the steps toward political reconciliation that they've promised to take.
Crocker hesitated, then replied, "My level of confidence is under control."
At this morning's hearing, before the Senate foreign relations committee, Petraeus said that he couldn't foresee the future beyond next summer and that he would return with an updated report next March.
The Democratic chairman, Sen. Joseph Biden, asked Petraeus whether he would recommend a continuation of the strategy—with 130,000 to 160,000 U.S. troops shooting and dying in Iraq—if the situation next March were the same as it is now.
Petraeus replied, "That's a really big hypothetical." Biden said, "I don't think it's a hypothetical." So Petraeus stepped up and answered the question. He said, "I'd be very hard-pressed to recommend that, at that point."
Photograph of Gen. David Petraeus by Susan Walsh/AP.
COMMENTS
Remarks from the Fray:
This whole business of having Patraeus testify before congress is an interesting example of American style militarism in action. The president has been very skillfully using the military as a shield against criticism that would otherwise be directed at him, and as a prop for his own lack of direction and the public's lack of trust in him. In other words, the military is being used as a PR machine and a foil for the commander in chief -- as opposed to a warfighting role. Note the careful phrasing of the CinC, who has repeatedly said things like "the military's strategy" and "we'll le the military decide" and "soldiers and not politicians should decide" --- as though the CinC/President were somehow divorced from the military he runs and not accountable for it. The military is being pawned off as an independant (and exalted) entity, when in reality it is merely an arm of the executive.
I have to give Patraeus credit, he is in a tough spot. He's trying to be loyal to a boss who ultimately wants him to step beyond his role. As the article properly notes, when Patraeus was asked if fighting in Iraq is "making us safer" he basically answered that it was beyond his ken, and that he was simply doing the mission he had been assigned (tame Iraq) as best he could. I can't find a handy cite, but I seem to recall an incident during WWI when "Blackjack" Pershing was about to head to France to head the American army in the field. A reporter asked him "Why are American boys going to be fighting in France?" To paraphrase, Pershing replied "Why? Don't ask me why. If you want to know WHY ask the president. My commander has issued me orders, and I have a duty to follow them." Back then it was a lot more clear - the military was a tool of politicians (president and congress), who were then accountable to the American people for the strategies and polices put in place. President Wilson didn't expect his general to serve as a mouthpiece for his (the president's) policy and strategy choices. And Pershing felt that arguments over the "why" of the war were for politicians and their constituents, not the military.
Simply, we don't need Petraeus being grilled. We need the President being grilled. And every time the president tries to distance himself from military decisions or prognostication he should be pointedly asked "Hey, aren't these YOUR people? Don't they do what YOU tell them?"
I wonder why Patraeus has so much trouble envisioning the future when it comes to achieving benchmarks for the government or Iraqi military, but can clearly forsee disaster if we withdraw. Why is one future so cloudy and the other so clear?
Isn't this occupation just delaying the inevitable conflict between Iraqis that will lead to a lasting resolution? Soon after we left Vietnam the nation stabilized and the NVA defeated the Cambodian Khmer Rouge. Now we have normalized relations. What would have happened if we stayed like Bush said we should. Would we still be there dying for a failed government in a fractured nation?
Ok, we're all in the throes of information overload from Petreaus and Crocker, and the various talking heads picking apart the scarce facts of the situation. Surge is working, surge is sorta working, surge is not working the way it needs to, confidence in the surge, troop drawdown, oooook.
The consensus on the real long-term issue, political reconciliation, is that the Iraqi government is "dysfunctional." I'll believe that, if only because it seems self evident, but does anyone else think that the actual goings-on of the Iraqi parliament and the state of political negotiations has been woefully underreported? Or at least reported without detail?
The parliament was out last month, so that partially explains the gap. But if you gave me a quiz on who's talking about what and how far along they are in the discussion... I'd fail rather poorly. I think most of us would. Yes, they need to pass an 'oil law.' But what has been proposed? What would be the outcome of the various plans? Is constitutional reform an issue being discussed? How so? Did the partial Sunni walkout ever end?
Does anyone have any links\publications that do a half-decent job of following what is undoubdtedly the central question in Iraq?
Same old same old mainstream line about dems lacking 60 votes to block a filibuster and the 67 necessary to override a veto. What isn't mentined in the story line on how Bush wins even while losing points today is the fact that Congress is not required to give him the supplemental funding he needs to continue to this policy.
But then what am I, a hayseed from Wisconsin, thinking? The democratic leadership is so tepid, remember the softball hearings in the House yesterday, and fearful that its tenuous hold on the so called levers of power would collapse in 2008 if it acted so boldly as to send and resend supplemental funding legislation with benchmarks to the president, and let him take the heat. Ooops, there I go again, imaging that Congress should have the same capability as the administration in bringing its story to us voting hayseeds!
The highlight of today's Senate hearings—and these were substantive hearings, unlike Monday's dispirited charade in the House—came in the afternoon, before the armed services committee, when Republican Sen. John Warner asked Gen. David Petraeus whether the current strategy in Iraq "will make America safer."
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Remarks from the Fray:
This whole business of having Patraeus testify before congress is an interesting example of American style militarism in action. The president has been very skillfully using the military as a shield against criticism that would otherwise be directed at him, and as a prop for his own lack of direction and the public's lack of trust in him. In other words, the military is being used as a PR machine and a foil for the commander in chief -- as opposed to a warfighting role. Note the careful phrasing of the CinC, who has repeatedly said things like "the military's strategy" and "we'll le the military decide" and "soldiers and not politicians should decide" --- as though the CinC/President were somehow divorced from the military he runs and not accountable for it. The military is being pawned off as an independant (and exalted) entity, when in reality it is merely an arm of the executive.
I have to give Patraeus credit, he is in a tough spot. He's trying to be loyal to a boss who ultimately wants him to step beyond his role. As the article properly notes, when Patraeus was asked if fighting in Iraq is "making us safer" he basically answered that it was beyond his ken, and that he was simply doing the mission he had been assigned (tame Iraq) as best he could. I can't find a handy cite, but I seem to recall an incident during WWI when "Blackjack" Pershing was about to head to France to head the American army in the field. A reporter asked him "Why are American boys going to be fighting in France?" To paraphrase, Pershing replied "Why? Don't ask me why. If you want to know WHY ask the president. My commander has issued me orders, and I have a duty to follow them." Back then it was a lot more clear - the military was a tool of politicians (president and congress), who were then accountable to the American people for the strategies and polices put in place. President Wilson didn't expect his general to serve as a mouthpiece for his (the president's) policy and strategy choices. And Pershing felt that arguments over the "why" of the war were for politicians and their constituents, not the military.
Simply, we don't need Petraeus being grilled. We need the President being grilled. And every time the president tries to distance himself from military decisions or prognostication he should be pointedly asked "Hey, aren't these YOUR people? Don't they do what YOU tell them?"
--fozzy
(To reply, click here.)
I wonder why Patraeus has so much trouble envisioning the future when it comes to achieving benchmarks for the government or Iraqi military, but can clearly forsee disaster if we withdraw. Why is one future so cloudy and the other so clear?
Isn't this occupation just delaying the inevitable conflict between Iraqis that will lead to a lasting resolution? Soon after we left Vietnam the nation stabilized and the NVA defeated the Cambodian Khmer Rouge. Now we have normalized relations. What would have happened if we stayed like Bush said we should. Would we still be there dying for a failed government in a fractured nation?
--Lid
(To reply, click here.)
Ok, we're all in the throes of information overload from Petreaus and Crocker, and the various talking heads picking apart the scarce facts of the situation. Surge is working, surge is sorta working, surge is not working the way it needs to, confidence in the surge, troop drawdown, oooook.
The consensus on the real long-term issue, political reconciliation, is that the Iraqi government is "dysfunctional." I'll believe that, if only because it seems self evident, but does anyone else think that the actual goings-on of the Iraqi parliament and the state of political negotiations has been woefully underreported? Or at least reported without detail?
The parliament was out last month, so that partially explains the gap. But if you gave me a quiz on who's talking about what and how far along they are in the discussion... I'd fail rather poorly. I think most of us would. Yes, they need to pass an 'oil law.' But what has been proposed? What would be the outcome of the various plans? Is constitutional reform an issue being discussed? How so? Did the partial Sunni walkout ever end?
Does anyone have any links\publications that do a half-decent job of following what is undoubdtedly the central question in Iraq?
--jwschmidt
(To reply, click here.)
Same old same old mainstream line about dems lacking 60 votes to block a filibuster and the 67 necessary to override a veto. What isn't mentined in the story line on how Bush wins even while losing points today is the fact that Congress is not required to give him the supplemental funding he needs to continue to this policy.
But then what am I, a hayseed from Wisconsin, thinking? The democratic leadership is so tepid, remember the softball hearings in the House yesterday, and fearful that its tenuous hold on the so called levers of power would collapse in 2008 if it acted so boldly as to send and resend supplemental funding legislation with benchmarks to the president, and let him take the heat. Ooops, there I go again, imaging that Congress should have the same capability as the administration in bringing its story to us voting hayseeds!
--Joe Maassen
(To reply, click here.)
(9/13)