Congress, Not Bush, Mandated White House Author Upcoming Iraq Report
Friday, August 17, 2007 at 10:03PM Bottom Line Up Front: Democrats do what they do best; mislead on anything Iraq.
Typical. Leftists and Democrats are accusing the White House of scripting the upcoming so-called Petraeus report on the surge for GEN Petraeus, painting him as a yes man for the administration saying Bush will write the report, not Petraeus. It is CONGRESS who decided the White House and not GEN Petraeus would pen the report.
The left is also lying about upcoming testimony in September. Harry Reid accused the White House of not allowing GEN Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Crocker to publicly testify calling it a cover up. The fact is that both Petraeus and Crocker WILL BE PUBLICLY TESTIFYING before Congress. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe denied there had been an attempt to limit testimony by Petraeus and Crocker:
"General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker will testify to the Congress in both open as well as closed sessions. It's unfortunate that anyone would suggest that they would not do that; trying to start a fight where there really isn't one, because this has always been the plan."
The liberal rhetoric, like this disgusting example below, goes something like this:
By Dan Froomkin
The "Petraeus Report" -- the supposedly trustworthy mid-September reckoning of military and political progress in Iraq by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker -- is instead looking more like a White House con job in the making.
The Bush administration has been trying for months to restore its credibility on Iraq (as well as stall for time) by focusing on Petraeus -- President Bush's "main man" in Iraq -- and his report to Congress. But now it turns out it that White House aides will actually write the "Petraeus Report," not the general himself.
And although Petraeus has a long history of literally and figuratively playing the good soldier for Bush, it appears that the president still doesn't trust him enough to stay on message under the congressional klieg lights.
Julian E. Barnes and Peter Spiegel wrote in yesterday's Los Angeles Times: "Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government."
Is Dan Froomkin stupid or has he succumbed to liberalitis? Hard to tell, but one thing is sure; liberals will do anything to promote failure in Iraq.
Here is the Congressional mandate on the Iraq Report for September:
Amendment 2 to the Senate Amendment to H.R. 2206
TITLE I—SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS FOR DEFENSE, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, AND OTHER SECURITY-RELATED NEEDS
(A) The United States strategy in Iraq, hereafter, shall be conditioned on the Iraqi government meeting benchmarks, as told to members of Congress by the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and reflected in the Iraqi Government’s commitments to the United States, and to the international community, including:
1. Forming a Constitutional Review Committee and then completing the constitutional review.
2. Enacting and implementing legislation on de-Baathification…….
3. against members of the Iraqi Security Forces.
Etc….
(B) The President shall submit reports to Congress on how the sovereign Government of Iraq is, or is not, achieving progress towards accomplishing the aforementioned benchmarks, and shall advise the Congress on how that assessment requires, or does not require, changes to the strategy announced on January 10, 2007.
(2) REPORTS REQUIRED.
(A) The President shall submit an initial report, in classified and unclassified format, to the Congress, not later than July 15, 2007, assessing the status of each of the specific benchmarks established above, and declaring, in his judgment, whether satisfactory progress toward meeting these benchmarks is, or is not, being achieved.(B) The President, having consulted with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Commander, Multi-National Forces Iraq, the United States Ambassador to Iraq, and the Commander of U.S. Central Command, will prepare the report and submit the report to Congress.
(C) If the President’s assessment of any of the specific benchmarks established above is unsatisfactory, the President shall include in that report a description of such revisions to the political, economic, regional, and military components of the strategy, as announced by the President on January 10, 2007. In addition, the President shall include in the report, the advisability of implementing such aspects of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, as he deems appropriate.
(D) The President shall submit a second report to the Congress, not later than September 15, 2007, following the same procedures and criteria outlined above.
It's sickening how, with a straight face, Democrats launch their "Petraeus is just a yes-man for the administration" and "BUSH is writing the PETRAEUS' report!" campaign to mislead America. But this is what we’ve come to expect from the left side of the aisle.
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Reader Comments (12)
And they're just getting started.
Going to be a long month coming...
AubreyJ.........
This is not good news, Amy. We were looking forward to hearing from Petraeus on this matter, not the White House! This is a really stupid move! :(
Not to worry, Gayle. Check this out:
1) Harry, it isn't a civil war... how can anyone take this jerk seriously if he continues to perpetuate such erroneous information?
2) The White House was made to issue the report by CONGRESSIONAL MANDATE. This is on cover up.
3) Petraeus and Crocker will both be testifying publicly.
The Democrats are outright lying about this because since the surge is successful, they have nothing else to do but confuse the public with smoke and mirrors. I cannot believe these people aren't struck by lightening. They are as corrupt as they come.
I love the "liberalitis" line! But it's not funny how the Dems will stop at nothing to torpedo our successful efforts in promoting near-victory in Iraq.
Great work here!
Good news in Iraq, any, is badnews for democrats. There only way to victory is a defeat in Iraq. So they think. So the lies and the untruths be told. How they lie out right these days is a mystery to me too Amy. If you can tell me why they do it, share it please!
What is your opinion on this Amy?
August 19, 2007
Op-Ed Contributors
The War as We Saw It
By BUDDHIKA JAYAMAHA, WESLEY D. SMITH, JEREMY ROEBUCK, OMAR MORA, EDWARD SANDMEIER, YANCE T. GRAY and JEREMY A. MURPHY
Baghdad
VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)
The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.
A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.
As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.
Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.
However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.
In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a “time-sensitive target acquisition mission” on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.
Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.
Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in constant flux.
The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.
Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington’s insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made — de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government — places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.
Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.
At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. “Lucky” Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.
In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, “We need security, not free food.”
In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.
Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.
We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.
Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.
ben, I don't know what Amy's opinion is but mine is never write anything during the tail-end of a 15 month slog in a battlefield away from family and friends. You are too close to the subject matter. For example, the passage that begins, "A few nights ago..."
I can understand their need to get it out but I don't understand why the NYT decided it was a good piece to publish for the masses. Well, I guess I do but that's another angle, isn't it?
When my son came back from Iraq the first time, he wrote a very long story about his time over there and a lot of it was negative, very negative. Reading his story, I had doubts about whether going to Iraq had been the right thing to do, however, given time and distance from his experiences, he had a different take on it. Subsequent tours to Iraq broadened the positive aspects.
While I don't dismiss the authors' feelings about their experiences, I do dismiss NYT's publishing of it. The anti-American, anti-war pandering of the NYT makes me sick to my stomach. It's no wonder their readership has gone downhill. I wish they'close up shop here in the states and go somewhere else besides America, since they hate us so much.
Or was it Newsweek? I forget which but I had already read that article. Neither rag is worth the paper it's printed on these days.
ben, I'll read it in a minute and comment.
I think Steph makes a very good point in noting who these gentlemen turned to to print their opinions.
1) They are welcomed to their opinions. They should abstain from making definitive statements like:
Their end-all pronouncment about ongoing operations is far-fetched. They served in an area in which the surge had not yet materialized; Sadr City. The effects of the surge are just now taking place as these soldiers leave.
GEN Petraeus has no vested interest in advising these soldiers to continue on in a winless situation. He has said many times that he wouldn't have taken command in Iraq if he didn't believe it was winnable.
Interestingly enough, liberals, sucking up this op-ed with a straw, are the same ones who call enlisteds uneducated with just a high school education... which is, of course, no education at all... until NOW when these soldiers spoke against the war. Shocker.
I think soldiering is terribly hard, taxing work. I think that there is a reason why commanders command and soldiers take orders and carry out the mission. These soldiers who wrote the op-ed aren't overseeing the entire operations and see the hardships of Sadr City rather than the successes in provinces all around them.
I don't blame them for their opinions. I question the wisdom of publishing such a piece, but perhaps they want to be discharged from the military. For some reason the military has become very tolerant of this sort of thing.
Miss Amy and all
My response did not link so I will just say quickly that these young men are just that young. We need to be here until the Iraqi People are strong enough to stand up to the terrorists and fight back effectively. Those men are very brave and are doing things that I never did in twenty years in the army. I hope that the New York Treason Times falls into the bay and I hope that those young men get a better perspective as time passes.
GBY
Thank you.
Craig M
I read the article; it is a well written piece. I believe at least one of those soldiers has a higher degree than a high school diploma or is an avid reader. I hope the editor did not edit the piece before printing it. In some of my past posts, I mentioned that the majority of soldiers have a high school diploma only. And, I stand by the idea that in a 21st century, having only a high school diploma is unacceptable. And, if all of the authored soldiers have a higher degree than a high school diploma, then I congratulate and honor their intellect.
PC, yes, one does have a Masters. But since you dismiss high school education as legitimate education (which is pretty arrogant but to each his own), you must respect GEN Petraeus' opinion of the war. Here's some his bio:
Meanwhile, most of the soldiers who wrote the piece have high school educations. You paint yourself into a corner when using education as the litmus test for the weight of one's opinion. All commanders are highly educated and Petraeus, Odierno, Lynch, Simcock, etc., etc., all have extensive education.
As does Bush.