In a way Obama and his Democrats can’t stand - with victory:
General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, said declining violence in Baghdad raised the possibility that American combat troops could leave the capital by next summer.
Asked in an interview with the Financial Times whether it was feasible that US combat forces could leave Baghdad by July, he said: “Conditions permitting, yeah.”
His comments come as the US and Iraq hammer out the final details of a long-term security agreement that reportedly outlines a potential timeline for US combat troops to leave Iraqi cities by next summer, and the country by 2011.
“The number of attacks in Baghdad lately has been, gosh, I think it’s probably less than five [a day] on average, and that’s a city of seven million people,” said Gen Petraeus.
While declining to comment on the details of the security agreement, Gen Petraeus said US combat forces had already pulled back from cities in 13 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. The sight of US soldiers exiting Baghdad would be highly symbolic given the scale of violence that gripped the city in 2006 and 2007.
Is that unfair comment? No. Obama wanted the last US soldier out of Iraq on March 31st, which would have ensured defeat…and as Obama thought this was a good idea, he must think that US defeat is a good thing.
You wanted him, you got him, Democrats…are ya startin’ to feel like you’ve been ripped off?
Tags: 2008 Campaign, Defeaticrats, General Petraeus, Global War on Terrorism, Iraq Campaign, liberal lies
September 4th, 2008
At a town hall meeting in Reno, Nevada, John McCain made the follow statement and posed the following question.
Senator Obama has been to Iraq once. A little over two years ago he went, and he has never seized the opportunity, except in a hearing, to meet with General Petraeus, with General Petraeus! My friends, this is about leadership and learning.
[...]
Now, why is it that Senator Obama wants to sit down with the President of Iran, but hasn’t yet sat down with General Petraeus — the leader of our troops in Iraq?
Something tells me Obama would sooner sit down with Khalid Sheikh Mohammad than General David Patraeus.
Yesterday, RNC Chairman Robert M. “Mike” Duncan released the following statement:
“Barack Obama has only visited Iraq once – and that was 871 days ago. Despite lacking the experience and leadership to be Commander-in-Chief, Obama has done shockingly little to educate himself firsthand about the war in Iraq. Instead, he displays an arrogant certainty gained on the campaign trail. How would Obama make informed judgments in the future when he has not seen the situation in Iraq since the surge began? Why does Obama readily agree to one-on-one negotiations with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but decline one-on-one briefings in Baghdad with our military leaders? Obama’s failure to visit Iraq, listen and learn firsthand, and witness the surge’s progress demonstrates weak leadership that disqualifies him from being Commander in Chief.”
… amongst other things that disqualify him from being Commander in Chief.
The RNC has launched an online clock counting the days since Obama’s last visit to Iraq.
Jim Geraghty has more.
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Vets for Freedom chimes in with a devastating ad about Obama’s unwillingness to meet with those who know the truth about Iraq - our soldiers.
Tags: General Petraeus
May 29th, 2008
Nothing like going with a winner:
President Bush is promoting his top Iraq commander, Army Gen. David Petraeus, and replacing him with the general’s recent deputy, keeping the U.S. on its war course and handing the next president a pair of combat-tested commanders who have relentlessly defended Bush’s strategies.
Bush will nominate Petraeus to replace Navy Adm. William J. Fallon as chief of U.S. Central Command, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Wednesday. The command’s area of responsibility features some of the most vexing military and foreign policy problems facing this administration and its successor _ including Iran, Pakistan, Lebanon, parts of Africa and Afghanistan in addition to Iraq…
…Petraeus would be succeeded at a pivotal time in Baghdad by Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, who was the No. 2 commander in Iraq for 15 months. He has been credited by many with deftly managing security gains that Petraeus told Congress this month have opened a pathway for potential political progress in the country.
Gates said he hoped the Senate would act on both nominations by next month and expected Petraeus to switch to the Central Command job, which is based in Tampa, Fla., by late summer or early fall.
That is the point at which Petraeus is likely to make an initial recommendation to Gates and to Bush on whether conditions in Iraq are stable enough to permit a further reduction in U.S. troop levels.
At least we can rely upon it that whomever takes office in January will have the very best and most experienced advice available as they decide what to do about Iraq and the larger War on Terrorism in the future. Whether or not the advice will be listened to is, of course, unknown - though McCain is more likely to listen to wisdom than either Hillary or Obama, who would come into office entirely beholden to the kookiest of the kook left
As an aside, my view is that if things go as expected in Iraq over the next year (that would be American victory, for you lefties out there who are thinking it would be American defeat), then it would be entirely appropriate to give Petraeus a fifth star and make him a General of the Army.
Tags: Central Command, General Petraeus, Iraq Campaign
April 23rd, 2008
From The Mesopotamian:
I was watching the Interrogation of General David Petraeus and the ambassador. What struck me most was the attitude and words from some of the Democratic senators. It seemed as though the enemy for these ladies and gentlemen was not Al-Qaeda, the terrorists or people like that. All the venom and harsh words were directed against the Iraqi government and poor Al-Maliki, these seemed to be the more hated foes for them. Not long ago we used to hear complaints that the Iraqi government was Shiite dominated and unwilling to take action against Shiite Militias and such groups as the Mahdi Army. Well when Al-Maliki at last moved decisively against such groups, it seems that the move did not please much these critics. Although in Iraq itself almost all the political blocks excluding the so called Sadrist Current, expressed their total support for the move against the outlaws, and indeed a marked improvement of the political atmosphere between the factions has clearly taken place. Indeed the position of these Democrats strangely sounded almost similar to that of the usual chorus of America-haters who habitually bark out their prejudices and deliberate falsifications in various quarters in the Middle East in such media outlets as Al-Jazeera and the like.
One cannot but side with the actions of the Iraqi Government, although quite frankly, I think personally, that the genuine Sadrists should not be completely routed out. This would upset the “ecological balance” so to speak. I mean we must not forget that there are other beasts in the jungle that would probably create more dangerous threats if their natural enemies were totally annihilated. Nevertheless, the situation in Basrah was unbearable, and nobody can deny that. The city was overrun by a motley collection of all sorts of criminal gangs. Oil smuggling on an alarming scale, kidnappings, killings of prominent people – doctors, university lectures, lawyers etc., not to mention the horrific murders and mutilations of women sometimes with their children; all these horrors had become the sad reality of daily life in the unfortunate city. The government was bitterly blamed for not doing much to rescue this vital and only port city in Iraq. Indeed the action by Al-Maliki was long overdue and urgently needed. And in fact the Iraqi security forces did well and acted firmly and managed to restore some control in the city, although the problems have not been completely solved. In fact they achieved more concrete results than anything the British forces had ever managed during their presence in Basra.
The solution of the Iraqi situation cannot be helped by trying to find scapegoats and excuses to run away and escape. The formulae expounded by the Democrats amount to nothing but defeat and escapism. The problem is that this is a situation where defeat is fatal. If anybody thinks that the U.S. can run away this time, and sits safely and happily in tranquil isolation between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, is in grave error. Solutions can be found to reduce casualties and expenses, but the strategic involvement of the U.S. in Iraq is a necessary and sufficient condition to avert a disaster the scale of which boggles the mind…
I agree wholeheartedly.
HAT TIP: NRO’s The Corner
Tags: General Petraeus, Iraq Campaign, The Mesopotamian
April 11th, 2008
Yesterday morning I happened to catch Senator Levin’s mendacious and defeatist opening remarks at the Petraeus-Crocker hearings. I was very much saddened by his remarks - saddened that while our best and bravest and Iraq’s best and bravest are shedding their blood for victory, a US Senator could say this:
Even the few small political steps that have been taken by the Iraqis are in jeopardy because of the incompetence and excessively sectarian leadership of Mr. Maliki. Last week, this incompetence was dramatized in the military operation in Basra. Far from being the “defining moment” President Bush described, it was a haphazardly planned operation, carried out apparently without meaningful consultation with the U.S. military or even key Iraqi leaders, while Maliki made unrealistic claims, promises and threats.
Outside of being entirely divorced from reality, I additionally fail to see how insulting the Iraqi government and its military is going to help us prevail in Iraq. But that, of course, is the actual point for the Democrats - they don’t want us to prevail in Iraq because their entire political narrative for 2008 hangs on Iraq being a failure…if Iraq is other than a failure, then Democrats have no rationale for being elected in November. As has become all too common amongst Democrats, the power of the Democratic party trumps all other considerations, including those of basic decency. Fortunately, in General Petraeus we have a man who will tell us the truth:
Underpinning the advances of the past year has been improvements in Iraq’s security institutions.
An increasingly robust Iraqi-run training base enabled the Iraqi security forces to grow by over 133,000 soldiers and police over the past 16 months. And the still-expanding training base is expected to generate an additional 50,000 Iraqi soldiers and 16 army and special operations battalions through the rest of 2008, along with 23,000 police and eight national police battalions.
Additionally, Iraq’s security ministries are steadily improving their ability to execute their budgets. As this chart shows, in 2007, as in 2006, Iraq’s security ministries spent more on their forces than the United States provided through the Iraqi Security Forces Fund.
We anticipate that Iraq will spend over $8 billion on security this year and $11 billion next year. And this projection enabled us recently to reduce significantly our Iraqi Security Forces Fund request for fiscal year 2009 from $5.1 billion to $2.8 billion.
While improved Iraqi security forces are not yet ready to defend Iraq or maintain security throughout the country on their own, recent operations in Basra highlight improvements in the ability of the Iraqi security forces to deploy substantial numbers of units, supplies and replacements on very short notice. They certainly could not have deployed a division’s worth of army and police units on such short notice a year ago. On the other hand, the recent operations also underscored the considerable work still to be done in the area of logistics, force enablers, staff development, and command and control.
No, the Iraqi forces in Basra didn’t fight like Green Berets, Marines or Army Rangers - but they fought, and they won. In spite of Levin’s slander of the Iraqi army, it was Sadr and his goons who called off the battle, not the Iraqi army. We’re moving our troops out, we’re spending less of our money on the Iraqi army, and when Basra exploded into battle it was Iraqi soldiers who bore the brunt of the battle as Iraq’s political class united behind the Iraqi armed forces - in other words, everything the surge was supposed to accomplish was on bold display in Basra…and yet Democrats continue to denigrate the whole effort, and cast insult upon our Iraqi allies.
I’m heartsick over this whole thing, and I worry greatly for our nation - a great nation and little minds go ill together, and Democrats are ever more proving that they have the smallest minds possible; and they add to it a weak heart and cowardly desire to kowtow to our enemies, rather than fight them. They could win in November, and undo all that we as a nation have accomplished at immense expenditure of blood and treasure. All that has been fought for will be thrown away if Democrats emerge in control in January - Iraq will be passed on to Iran and the terrorists, Lebanon will revert to a Syrian colony and around the world nations confronting terrorism will seek to make the best deal they can, because they will rest assured that for all of America’s talk, we lack the will to stick it out until victory. We’ve only just now recovered that reliability as an ally we threw away in Vietnam, and Democrats are bent on throwing it away again - and this time for good.
If anyone out there thinks that a President Obama will be respected by our enemies and that our enemies will delightedly negotiate a fair deal with us, then you’ve got rocks in your head. Anyone who believes that is a purblind idiot - our enemies will rejoice that an ignorant tool of the kook left is in charge of America, and the only thing the varied tyrants out there will fear is that some other tyrant might gain a larger surrender from Obama than they will. Iraq is, indeed, the defining moment of our time - we either win this in Iraq, or suffer a crushing, global defeat. And the only way we can win this, dear friends, is for John McCain to be sworn in on January 20th. Remember that! McCain means victory; Democrats mean defeat - and not just defeat for the GOP, but defeat for America.
Tags: Carl Levin, Defeaticrats, General Petraeus, Iraq Campaign
April 9th, 2008
From the BBC:
Gen David Petraeus told the BBC he thought Tehran had trained, equipped and funded insurgents who fired the barrage of mortars and rockets.
He said Iran was adding what he described as “lethal accelerants” to a very combustible mix.
There has as yet been no response from Iran to the accusations…
…In an interview with BBC world affairs editor John Simpson, Gen Petraeus said violence in Iraq was being perpetuated by Iran’s Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guards.
“The rockets that were launched at the Green Zone yesterday, for example… were Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets,” he said, adding that the groups that fired them were funded and trained by the Quds Force.
“All of this in complete violation of promises made by President Ahmadinejad and the other most senior Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts.”
This makes sense - the Iranian leadership cannot afford American victory in Iraq, cannot afford a vibrant Iraqi democracy and would very much prefer some President other than John McCain in January, 2009…so, stirring up as much trouble as possible is in the Iranian government’s interest.
However this particular incident comes out, we must keep in mind that Iran’s government (to be very clear that its not the Iranian people) is an absolute and implacable enemy of the United States and its allies. We might not ever have to fight the Iranians (and I pray God this is so - Iran is America’s natural ally in the region, and it would give me great pain to see American soldiers fighting Iranian soldiers, spilling excellent Iranian and American blood due to the folly of a corrupt few in Tehran), but we must be on our guard at all times - and be ever willing to take the fight directly into Iran, if need be.
Tags: General Petraeus, Iran, Iraq Campaign
March 25th, 2008
General Petraeus previews his upcoming April report to Congress:
Petraeus said he also will consider the progress Iraqi security forces have made. “The Iraqi surge of 2007 was well over 100,000,” he said citing the growth of the nation’s Army and police force. “Added to that is the 90,000 Sons of Iraq – the concerned local citizens – who have added considerably. (These forces are) substantially ‘thickening’ our forces.”
The general said he also will consider Iraqi civilian deaths in formulating his recommendations. “If your focus is on securing the people, then it is a metric you have to pay attention to, and we do,” he said.
Crocker will lay out the developments in the political arena and describe the laws that have passed over the past couple of months. The ambassador will talk about the potential for provincial elections in the fall and describe the economic situation, Petraeus said.
The general said he will lay out his recommendations “for the process by which we’ll go about assessing conditions in the wake of the drawdown of the surge brigade combat teams.” The drawdown of the original surge forces is set to end in July. He said he will explain the factors he will consider in making recommendations on subsequent withdrawals.
The way ahead in Iraq will not be easy, the general said. “Each day something bad happens,” he said. “(But) the relative degree of the bad news tends to be less.”
Progress of Iraqi forces; progress of Iraqi politics; increasing safety for the Iraqi people - that is what will drive decisions on troop levels. Fortunately, at least as long as President Bush is in office, we don’t have to worry about decisions being driven by someone trying to pay off MoveOn for their support in the 2008 campaign. In the end, we’ve done a very good thing in Iraq, and its all coming together at an increasing pace - al-Qaeda is now being reduced to hiding behind the skirts of women in order to carry out their attacks, while the Iraqi people gain increasing confidence in the future. We keep at this and show we won’t quit until its all won, then all will come out right - give a signal that domestic American politics will drive military decisions, and this thing will fall apart on us overnight.
Tags: General Petraeus, Iraq Campaign
March 4th, 2008
