It was The Washington Post that first quantified General Petraeus’s remarkable ascension. President Bush, who mentioned his new Iraq commander’s name only six times as the surge rolled out in January, has cited him more than 150 times in public utterances since, including 53 in May alone.
As always with this White House’s propaganda offensives, the message in Mr. Bush’s relentless repetitions never varies. General Petraeus is the "main man." He is the man who gives "candid advice." Come September, he will be the man who will give the president and the country their orders about the war.
And so another constitutional principle can be added to the long list of those junked by this administration: the quaint notion that our uniformed officers are supposed to report to civilian leadership. In a de facto military coup, the commander in chief is now reporting to the commander in Iraq. We must "wait to see what David has to say," Mr. Bush says.
Wait all you want. This is the policy: Iraq is our war. Keep the war alive until it’s their war...until 2009. That’s why he is the Deus Ex Machina Generalissimo, come to win? Or something else?
Who knows how long he will last? But Petraeus' rapid rise to the top may have more to do not with protecting the troops or winning the war, but more about protecting Bush. So the good General may be the last best hope of grabbing Bush's nuts out of the fire; but the question is- why? Will he actually win this or stabilize the situation? Look at his actual track record.
The magazine noted that the general’s pacification of Mosul was "a textbook case of doing counterinsurgency the right way."...Mosul, population 1.7 million, is now an insurgent stronghold, according to the Pentagon’s own June report.
Given Petraeus’ 2004 testimony saying Iraqification was working and we would stand down as they stood up, we shouldn’t have had to put in any surge if any of what he said was correct the first time.
Gen. Peter Pace was pressed in a Pentagon briefing this month, that the number of Iraqi battalions operating independently is in fact falling — now standing at a mere six, down from 10 in March.
But while General Petraeus successfully subdued Mosul, he didn’t catch everything going on.
Mr. Allawi writes that the embezzlement of the Iraqi Army’s $1.2 billion arms procurement budget was happening "under the very noses" of the Security Transition Command run by General Petraeus... Mr. Allawi contrasts the "lyrical" Petraeus pronouncements in The Post with the harsh realities of the Iraqi forces’ inoperable helicopters, flimsy bulletproof vests and toy helmets. The huge sums that might have helped the Iraqis stand up were instead "handed over to unscrupulous adventurers and former pizza parlor operators."
General Petraeus, our savior du jour is running into his own ironies. He cites soccer games as "astonishing signs of normalcy" Then last week 50 Iraqis nationals celebrating the team that placed in the Asian Games were killed by a car bomb.
Petraeus should just shut his mouth.
As everyone knows, Bush listens to his commanders. Until they disagree. General John Abizaid and General George Casey were replaced when they questioned the surge. General Eric Shinseki was replaced for not agreeing with Rumsfelds idiot combat operations ideas. As long as he is agreeing
"The most credible person in the fight at this moment is Gen. David Petraeus," he said, in National Review’s account.
Petraeus is being groomed.
Or set up.
He keeps to his talking points on pres conferences whereas Peter Pace tended to contradict and correct Rumsfeld. Not surprisingly, Petraeus is starting to sound like he is being coached by Karl Rove, once a truth-teller, he is now saying that the Sunni-Shia Civil War is not unlike the beginnings of our own republic.( You remember the horse drawn carriage bombs? Don’t you? ) He is beginning to repeat wingnut talking points including the meme that Al Queda that attacked us on 9/11 has some connection with the same people who are fighting us in Iraq.
Wow. This administration just corrupts absolutely.
It’s not bad enough that Bush continues his lies with the Al-Quaeda/Iraq connection, He mentioned Al Qaeda 95 times and no mention of Pakistan or Pervez Musharraf Then Bush Administration intelligence officials contradicted Bush’s own assessments. By the way, you can safely hold your breath until Musharraf is history.
One thing is for certain, Rich believes that Petraeus is not the hero in waiting. This is simple- his ascension is for a simple reason. He is being set up as the scapegoat when it all falls down.
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