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Monday, August 06, 2007

Heckuva job, Gen. Petraeus
Posted by Jill | 9:41 PM
Early on Saturday morning, Wesley Clark was on fire as he demanded that George W. Bush stop hiding behind David Petraeus. Petraeus has been a sort of president without portfolio in recent weeks, the Holy Grail of Iraq, the repository for the hopes of any kind of a legacy for the man who decided to invade Iraq without planning for the aftermath of the war.

The Republican meme has been to wait for David Petraeus to report in September. General Petraeus knows best. General Petraeus is the man on the ground. General Petraeus will make it OK.

"All We Are Saying . . .Is Give Petraeus a Chance", wrote Fred Kagan and William Kristol in January.

But Glenn Greenwald wrote last month that Petraeus' record doesn't necessarily warrant this kind of confidence:


Despite the Mandate Orthodoxy that Gen. Petraeus be treated as the Objective, Unassailably Credible Oracle for how we are doing in Iraq and whether we are winning, his track record of quite dubious claims over the last several years about the war strongly negates that view. It ought to go without saying that no military commander -- particularly in the midst of a disastrous four-year war -- is entitled to blind faith and to be placed above being questioned. It is not only proper, but critically necessary, to subject happy war claims from the military to great scrutiny.



In general, military commanders do not typically pronounce their own strategies to have failed; quite the opposite. The need for skepticism here is particularly acute given that there are plenty of Generals with equally impressive military pedigrees who disagree vigorously with Petraeus. War supporters -- who are attempting now to make criticisms of Petraeus off-limits -- long disputed the claims and views of Generals Casey and Abaziad, often quite vigorously, even insultingly. The statements about war from military commanders ought to be subjected to every bit as much scrutiny and skepticism as anyone else's.



But Petraeus in particular has demonstrated that his statements merit particularly potent scrutiny. So many of the misleading government claims over the past several years about The Great Victory we are Achieving in Iraq have been based upon optimistic claims from Petraeus that turned out to be highly questionable, to put it generously.




Neither does today's news:

The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.

The author of the report from the Government Accountability Office says U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

The United States has spent $19.2 billion trying to develop Iraqi security forces since 2003, the GAO said, including at least $2.8 billion to buy and deliver equipment. But the GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005, when security training was led by Gen. David H. Petraeus, who now commands all U.S. forces in Iraq.


Republicans keep worshipping these fake saviors. First it was that "Good Christian Man" George W. Bush, and now it's General David Petraeus. Anyone else seeing a pattern here? It takes an village...of incompetents....to raise a Brownie.

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