Democrats tell Petraeus that Iraq surge has failed

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2432438.ece

With more Senators questioning this afternoon, the Bush administration will suffer an even greater disgrace.

Bush doesn't recognize disgrace in himself and his best buds. He's shaky as to what constitutes a crime, where the line of the law is, never mind the spirit. And as an amoral psychopath, he couldn't care less.

The question is: What about the rest of the nation? Aren't there a majority on the side of law and morality and ethics and the Constitution? Or are we all psychopaths, now?

from Fire dog lake:

SEN. OBAMA QUESTIONS: Performance of our troops has been outstanding, and we thank them for their service. Also, both of you are doing the best that you can given an extraordinarily difficult situation. The mission that has been given to you is what is at issue inthe Senate — the question is one of strategy, not of tactics. Every time you have been asked a question of broader strategy, you’ve punted a little bit. But because, as Sen. Feingold pointed out, we do not have limitless resources, we have to assess our priorities — the costs as well as benefits — to pursuing a particular strategy. I think we should not have had this discussion on 9/11 — because it perpetuates the notion that what happened with Iraq somehow had something to do with what happened on 9/11. This isn’t to relitigate going into Iraq, but it is to sugest that had the American public and Congress understood then that after devoting $1 trillion dollars (optimistically what this will cost), thousands of American lives, the creation of an environment where al qaeda in Iraq could operate (because it didn’t exist there prior to our invasion), that we have increased terrorist recruitment around the world, that Iran has been strengthened, that Bin Laden and al qaeda are stronger now than at any time since 2001, that Iraqi reconstruction and their standard of living would continue to be lower than it was pre-invasion — if that had been the deal, msot people would have said that this was not a good deal. That this does not serve American strategic interests.

We have set the bar so low — that now we have only slightly less tolerable levels of violence than we did in 2006 — and it is not okay. What we are faced with now is how to make the best out of a horrible situation where we have bad options and worse options. This is not a criticism of either of you — but of the Bush Administration, whose policies ahve put us in this situation in the first place. How can we, in a bi-partisan way, best move this forward — the Bush Administration is not helping matters by dismissing criticisms.

The improvement, if at all, has been very modest. The movement in Anbar has nothing to do with the surge, it’s political. What we haven’t seen, most significantly, is any improvement in the political reconcilation question. We need to be clear and on the record with this, because it is in this context that we have to ask questions today. Back to the stand down when they stand up. Asks Petraeus about the counter-insurgency manual that he wrote — counter-insurgency will not work if the government doesn’t exhibit a will on par with ours. Crocker, you said that the patience of the American public is not limitless, but that seems to be exactly what you are asking for here today. What is the point where we say enough? If we are there a year from now, can you explain to me any set of circumstances, scenario, set of benchmarks where you might make a different recommendation? Crocker goes back to the Sununu response from earlier — says Iraq is ethno-sectarian competition for power and resources, and that we are hoping they will move more to a political arena and not to a violent one. Need to capitalize on political viability as security elements stablize, assuming they do.


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