Petraeus Defends Iraq Testimony

(CBS)  While members of Congress were scrambling to respond to Gen. David Petraeus's testimony, Katie Couric sat down with the general in Washington earlier today.

The general has spent nearly 16 hours over two days before four different Congressional committees, armed with charts and graphs, to bolster his claims that security in Iraq is improving. He said he welcomed the chance to respond to critics who have accused him of cherry picking and twisting the facts.

Couric: So your response to charges that you all are manipulating data is what?

Petraeus: We have consistently measured, we haven't changed. If anything, we believe that we have more data because our forces live in the neighborhoods to a much greater extent than they did in the past and have more information as a result of that.

Couric: You got an earful yesterday from many members of the U.S. Senate. Foreign relations chair Joe Biden said, "Over 1,000 weekly attacks and you're calling that a success?" Armed services chairman Carl Levin said of reports of progress through the years, he described them as "a litany of delusions." Respected Republican Richard Lugar said, "It's not enough to council patience until the next milestone or the next report." Don't they have a point?

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Watch the full interview

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Petraeus: Well, I share the frustration, frankly. I think that Ambassador Crocker and I will leave Washington with a very heightened sense of the impatience.

Couric: Has it made you reconsider any ways to speed up this process?

Petraeus: Well, I mean, we have looked for every way we can and we will look for more ways, frankly.

Couric: President Bush will embrace your plan to bring troops home to the pre-surge level of 130,000 by the end of this summer. When can more troops be withdrawn?

Petraeus: I can project out that far to mid-July of next year and then around mid-March or so I would have a degree of confidence to project beyond that. So there will be continued reductions, but I just can't at this point, predict the pace of those reductions.

Couric:

When we walked around Fallujah

, you were pleased with the strides that had been made in Anbar Province in western Iraq. But you also discussed that challenges throughout the country when it comes to quelling the violence there. How can you have more security with fewer troops?

Petraeus: Well, by getting locals to do what happened in Anbar Province, by getting local security forces, Iraqi security forces to help thicken what we do, to augment and then to take over.

Couric: But your critics have said that this strategy is too open-ended, General, with no long-term plan. And this sort of time will tell, we'll see how it goes philosophy just doesn't cut it.

Petraeus: I think to try to look way out and say this is exactly what we're going to do in a country that has surprised us repeatedly just would not be responsible.

Couric: You cannot envision 100,000 U.S. troops in Iraq for the next 20 years.

Petraeus: No way.

Couric: What about five years?

Petraeus: I'm not going to hazard that kind of projection or prediction. I think it's actually irresponsible.

[seven-pesos]

only folks that believe that snake, bush, are those idiot slave state republican snakes...

you know...those idiot ignorant faith professing, bible thumping, flag waving, war making, bush loving pieces of anti-american, dumb dixie freaks...

bush''s kind of people.

the south elected bush,
the south supports bush,
the south loves bush.

war, hate, rednecks and reborns...

nothing good comes out of the south.

[drwhite48]

I just can''t understand the stupidity of the insurgents in Iraq. If they really want us to leave, all they have to do is lay low for 6 or 8 months. I mean, if in the next 8 months there was not one bombing, one firefight, we would be out of there. Maybe sooner. After we leave then they could blast the hell out of one another, proving to themselves that they are on the right side of God.

[why_not_nar]

My only point is a lot of effort is being expended in this blog. If the notion is to get out of IRAQ, any suggestions about what can be done to speed that up. And yes, the opinion of the American people can matter. We certainly did influence the ability to wage war in Vietnam, and yes, it was too late for the 50,000 who died. But does soomeone have a constructive idea?
Or is the only objective to bash as many people as possible?

[why_not_nar]

All of your name calling, pasting or rhetoric doesn''t change the facts much. the facts:
1. the country elected (or almost electing) this president.
2. yes, it is a personal war, that was not supported by facts of any kind.
3. yes, bush has done everything he can to trample on the US constitution
4. yes, oil mattered. it is little noticed by HUNT OIL, located where?, yes in Texas is currently negotiating a separate Oil deal with the Kurds as we speak. And yes, Bush or Cheney are somehow involved.
5. No Petraeous isn''t a Bush lackey. If you want to see what that is like, read the testimony of Westmorland in the Vietname war. When asked if his effort was make America safer, he told the truth. He said he did not know.
6. No, from what is going on, it look unlikely that 75% of the Senate (that is what is needed to overrule a Presidential veto) will vote against Bush.
So, what to do?
1. How us pass a law making it illigal for American Oil companies to negotiate with IRAQ in time of war.
2. Find a candidate who you could actually support.
3. If you want the troops out now, how many of you have written letters asking for that?

[lars008-2009]

Posted by brianbwb at 08:45 AM : Sep 13, 2007

your questions have been answered... you just don''t like the answer haji...

fascist nazi terrorislam is going to lose...

just like fascist nazi germany...

[prinzowhales]

Even the head of the 9-11 Commission says that its conclusions were ''far from the truth''.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/09/911_the_big_coverup.html

Now, the Bush syncophants who try to peddle the Official Lie will soon have to switch their story to whatever conclusion the Regime wants to sell next. These idiots are just like the American Communist Party USA that denounced Hitler up until the Hitler-Stalin Pact and then did an about face and screamed for war once Hitler pre-empted Stalin''s planned attack with Operation Barbarosa. They are slaves who despise truth.

Here is an article that gives us Fallon''s opinion of Barney''s nasty new pooch friend, General Betrayus.

http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=11606

This is a very weak and dangerous man and Fallon''s humiliation of him may well have been calculated to push him further into the lap of the Neo-Cons.

Also possible is that the reports that Fallon will not attack Iran and may well resign rather than follow such an order may well be a ruse de guerre...rather like the assignment of Patton to command the ghost army to throw the Germans off prior to D-Day.

[lars008-2009]

Posted by crater7 at 08:17 AM : Sep 13, 2007

the war is legal demonic-rat hero al bore says it is so...

the resumption of hostilities was only a matter of time since iraq broke the ceasefire agreement.....

blame saddam for iraq%u2026%u2026. Even clintoon and the dems wanted the resumption of hostilities back in 1998

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq''s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

Moreover, no international law can prevent the United States from taking actions to protect its vital interests, when it is manifestly clear that there is a choice to be made between law and survival. I believe, however, that such a choice is not presented in the case of Iraq. Indeed, should we decide to proceed, that action can be justified within the framework of international law rather than outside it. In fact, though a new UN resolution may be helpful in building international consensus, the existing resolutions from 1991 are sufficient from a legal standpoint. - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/gore/gore092302sp.html

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by lars008,

If I am wrong, then why is it you are still avoiding the questions put to you several times by myself and others over the past few weeks?

[lars008-2009]

Because, to people like the Belgian Bomber, lars008, the truth doesn''''t doesn''''t matter. They just want to see people different from themselves killed for no other reason than manic xenophobia, but don''''t have the grits to go do it themselves.
Posted by brianbwb at 08:05 AM : Sep 13, 2007

WRONGGGGGGGGGG that is what fascist nazi terrorislam is doing... but you knew that already... right haji...

hahahahaha

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by crater7

Forget it, dude, I have been asking that question for a couple of months now. He cannot answer it, as the truth about the real reasons for invading makes him, and the other pro war supporters worse than the so called "terrorists" they''re fighting.