Gen. Petraeus: 'War Going Great, See You In Six Months'

If you were expecting any surprises from the testimony of Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker today, you were naive disappointed. It went down exactly as we'd been expecting since May, the last time the administration unleashed a massive PR campaign to buy time.

I only got to watch a small portion of the actual testimony (was at work), but it was enough.

In what right-wingers will surely claim was a massive coincidence, Petraeus echoed all of the White House's talking points about the war... isolated military actions more important than overall Iraqi situation, we're making great progress (the General used many charts to illustrate this, but of course couldn't reveal the data used to create them), and maybe some small troop drawdowns in April when we were literally going to have to reduce the #s anyway. Oh, and it's all Iran's fault too.

Gen. Petraeus also continued the administration's proud history of saying incredulous things as if there is no record of their past statements to debunk them (see examples- here, here, here, and here). Here's the first Petraeus example, from earlier this week-

The top American commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, has recommended that decisions on the contentious issue of reducing the main body of the American troops in Iraq be put off for six months, American officials said Sunday.

And here's a story from literally six months ago (in March)-

An elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.

Predictions for next March? They'll need another six months. This is their top scam.

Here's another example. Gen. Petraeus said today, quoting-

"When I testified in January, for example, no one would have dared to forecast that Anbar Province would have been transformed the way it has in the past 6 months.

And what did he say in said January testimony? This, again quoting-

"You've seen it, I know, in Anbar province, where it has sort of gone back and forth. And right now, there appears to be a trend in the positive direction where sheiks are stepping up, and they do want to be affiliated with and supported by the U.S. Marines and Army forces who are in Anbar province. That was not the case as little as perhaps six months ago, or certainly before that."

And they get away with these things because they think-- correctly, in many cases-- that no one is paying attention. But don't you dare question their credibility or honesty! Fox News says that makes Baby Jesus and the troops cry!

Finally, getting back to that issue of possible mid-2008 troop drawdowns, as I noted before, it would be a removal only of the #s added for the surge, because the Army cannot maintain these troop rotations past the Spring without busting. So it will have taken us well over a year to get back to where we were-- in regards to Iraq troop levels, the war debate, etc-- immediately following the '06 elections.

Which, of course, was the point of all of this in the first place.

[PS- Video clips: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.]