http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/ 15 en Copyright 2008 Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:03:06 -0400 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.36 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Okay, that's it. Two days, and what have we learned? I think what we know is that the war isn't going to change much until at least early next year. And maybe not even then. Rightly or wrongly, Gen. Petraeus has set us on a course for another several years in Iraq. After all, the military will tell you that successful counterinsurgency campaigns last five to 10 years. But what happens next year, especially if a new president decides to draw down? We may well find out. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/life_is_a_tale_told_by_a_blogg.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/life_is_a_tale_told_by_a_blogg.html Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:03:06 -0400 Gen. Petraeus, in an exchange with Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D.-Calif.) made his views on withdrawing from Iraq clearer. While he wants to get out of Iraq, he said, "What we want to do is come home the right way," without jeopardizing the gains made, he said, after being pushed. I think this is a bit farther than he went yesterday when Sen. Lindsey Graham (BFF - McCain) tried to draw him out. Petraeus is clearly is no fan of Sen. Obama's notion of pulling out perhaps a brigade a month (by mid-summer, we'll have 15 combat brigades in Iraq). http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/petraeus_digs_in_his_heels.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/petraeus_digs_in_his_heels.html Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:05:51 -0400 As I listen to Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.) talk about Iran and its malign actions, it strikes me that Republicans in these hearings have been running against Iran, while Democrats have been running against the Iraqi government. Rep. Russ Carnahan (D.-Mo.) spoke earlier about "a mounting backlash to the Iraqis not standing up." http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/dems_vs_maliki_gop_vs_iran.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/dems_vs_maliki_gop_vs_iran.html Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:56:18 -0400 Say what you will, Rep. Ron Paul (R.-Texas) is a clear speaker. He just asked a boatload of powerfully put questions. Among them: --"What is moral about demanding more needless sacrifice"? --"The Iraqi government . . . is an ally of the Iranians." So why do we support it? --If Iraq, our ally, has diplomatic relations with Iran, why don't we? --What would we think if Iran occupied Mexico? (I think that was his question.) --"Since no one can define winning this war, just who can we expect to surrender?" He said he knew they didn't have time, in his five minutes, to answer all those. But he said that one he did want to hear from them now about was this: "Does the administration have the authority to bomb Iran without further congressional approval?" Both Petraeus and Crocker sidestepped the question, saying that it was outside their purview, which http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/ron_paul_speaks.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/ron_paul_speaks.html Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:42:10 -0400 That was a tough exchange. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) put a very sharp point on his question about why we are in Iraq. One family in his district lost a son in Iraq this week, he said. "What has all this been for?" he asked Petraeus. "What is winning?" Petraeus did his best to answer. We are fighting, he said, for the national interest, and for regional stability in the Middle East. We are "trying to achieve . . . a country that is at peace with itself and its neighbors," and can govern itself. "We're not after the Holy Grail in Iraq, and we're not after Jeffersonian democracy," he said. This strikes me as a real reduction of U.S. goals from President Bush's talk of victory and democracy. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/downsizing_the_goals_in_iraq.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/downsizing_the_goals_in_iraq.html Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:15:50 -0400 If next year conditions in Iraq are about as they are now, and U.S. troop levels are cut quickly, then civil war and perhaps regional war would follow, Crocker just told Rep. Dan Burton (R.- Ind.). This is the strongest criticism I've heard from Crocker or Petraeus of the approach to Iraq that Democratic presidential candidates have offered. "You would see a spiral down, and that would lead to expanded sectarian conflict," Crocker said. "It would bring the neighbors, especially Iran, into the fight. And it would create a space for al Qaeda." Rep. Brad Sherman (D.-Calif.), the next questioner, seemed to sense that Petraeus would answer differently. So, he asked, if a Democrat is elected president in November, would he begin planning for a drawdown. "I can only work for one boss at a time," Petraeus responded. "I'm actually very uncomfortable, candidly, with where the conversation is going." http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/crocker_predicts_catastrophic.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/crocker_predicts_catastrophic.html Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:03:48 -0400 General Petraeus just "jokingly" compared the tribes of al Anbar province to the families on "The Sopranos." Each tribe, he said, seems to have a trucking business, a construction business, and an import-export business. It really is more than a joke. I remember walking into one of Saddam's palaces, with its cheap painted gold furniture and huge ugly chandeliers, and thinking, Oh, this country was run by a big version of Tony Soprano. The Sopranos, of course, had a finale. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/petraeus_does_pop_culture.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/petraeus_does_pop_culture.html Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:48:41 -0400 One of my favorite actors was Slim Pickens -- not just in 'Dr. Strangelove,' but also in 'Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.' I was just thinking of him because of how slim the pickings are in this fourth hearing. Sometimes I feel like I've heard it all before -- and I have. The words all begin to run together --"difficult," "challenging," "fragile," "reversible." But part of the interest of reporting is how surprising life can be. So stick around. Here is a transcript of the opening statement from Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.), acting chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/havent_we_heard_this_all_befor.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/havent_we_heard_this_all_befor.html Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:36:45 -0400 And the House Armed Services hearing is concluded. I thought this hearing produced less than I expected. Petraeus and Crocker have an excuse: They are tired. But why do House hearings seem less coherent than Senate hearings? The members here had almost as much time to ask questions. I'm off to set up my laptop in the hearing room for the House Foreign Relations Committee. Here is a complete transcript of the hearing. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/three_down.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/three_down.html Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:34:08 -0400 I think that what is going on in these hearings is that General Petraeus really thinks that it is going to take another three or four years to get Iraq to where he thinks he might be able to say it has reached a state of "sustainable security." But he doesn't seem to really want to say that. That strikes me as somewhat too cautious. He has taken risks in Iraq -- putting former insurgents on the payroll, putting U.S. troops out to live among the population -- but seems risk-averse in his testimony. Why don't members of Congress pin him down on this? I don't know. It could be that they don't know to ask the question, or they think he will just dance away from it, talking about conditions and such. Or it could be that they really don't want to hear it, because it could turn into http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/whats_going_on.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/whats_going_on.html Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:54:46 -0400 The most recent mental health survey of U.S. troops in Iraq found that their morale is improving, General Petraeus just said. He noted that after years of decline, reflecting the difficulty and duration of the war, that "morale actually went up" in the most recent survey, which he said was conducted last fall. (The Army and Marines usually release these--but several months after they are done. I don't believe last fall's is out yet.) Morale is up, he said, because of "the sense they have that they are making progress. . . . If you feel like you're making progress, obviously, you feel better about what you're engaged in." Referring to his own mood swings, Petraeus said of being in Iraq that "it's a roller coaster existence." http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/petraeus_us_troop_morale_impro.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/petraeus_us_troop_morale_impro.html Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:35:32 -0400 As predicted, the House Armed Services Committee is pushing Petraeus a little harder on troop cuts. Specifically, when will he begin considering reductions beyond the current ones that between now and this July will take the U.S. back to around the pre-surge level of about 133,000 troops. "We are already identifying areas" where additional cuts might be made, Petraeus told Rep. Skelton. There are "four or five" such areas, he said. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/petraeus_pushed_harder_on_troo.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/petraeus_pushed_harder_on_troo.html Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:13:21 -0400 While Petraeus and Crocker repeated their statements (for the third time!) I just checked through some of my favorite blogs -- Small Wars Journal, its rogue cousin Abu Muqawama, and Juan Cole's Informed Comment. The first two are military-oriented. Cole, by contrast, is a bit of a leftie, and gets bashed pretty frequently from the right. So be forewarned, if you need it. In his blog today, he pursues Ambassador Crocker's comments about the "Lebanonization" of Iraq. Today's newspapers don't seem to pick up on those comments, but they intrigued me, in part because Crocker has served in Beirut and knows whereof he speaks. Also, to have the U.S. ambassador to Iraq warn that Iraq may be headed in that direction strikes me as, well, scary. Cole's take is this: "If we make an analogy to Lebanon, we can see that a foreign military occupation never resolved Lebanon's problems. Kissinger http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/from_baghdad_to_beirut_part_ii.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/from_baghdad_to_beirut_part_ii.html Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:00:52 -0400 Today the House of Representatives has the advantage the Senate had at last September's Petraeus-Crocker hearings: It goes second. That means they can try to get beyond the basics that were laid down in yesterday's hearings of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. More specifically, I think members of Congress are likely to press Gen. Petraeus more on the conditions he is trying to achieve in Iraq, and how long he thinks it will take to achieve them. The dirty little secret is that military professionals think that getting to a sustainable, secure Iraq is going to take many, many years--and still may not happen even then. I'm also looking for a slightly different tone in today's hearings. If yesterday was really about presidential politics, today is likely to be more about what the home folks are saying. Being around the Senate sometimes feels to me like visiting http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/day_two_of_no_way_out.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/day_two_of_no_way_out.html Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:08:41 -0400 "We're six years into this," Biden, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, just warned Petraeus and Crocker. "We're way beyond the early stages." And then he gaveled the hearing closed. As far as hearings go, that's two down, and two to go. My feeling at the end of the day was that as congressional hearings go, it wasn't bad. Part of the function of hearings is to collect information, but they also provide a chance for senators to talk and listen to each other, indicating where they stand, and where they might be going. That said, I think I learn more in five minutes on the ground in Baghdad than I would in five days of hearings here. But then I am a military reporter. I am sure political reporters would pick up on all sorts of vibes here that I don't get. For those of you who sent http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/end_of_the_day.html http://blog.washingtonpost.com/iraq-debate/2008/04/end_of_the_day.html Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:51:12 -0400