Petraeus and Crocker go to Washington

 

This past week Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker paid homage with their biennial hearing before Congress on the progress of the Bush Administration’s war in Iraq.

If you recall, back in January 2007 President Bush announced that he was sending an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq, which turned into more than 30,000 troops, in what Bush called a surge.

Bush said the surge was intended to quell the violence to allow the Iraqi government “breathing room” to govern and enact legislation that Bush outlined as benchmarks.

Bush set 18 benchmarks for the surge. At last September’s hearings only three of the 18 benchmarks had been reached.

 

In March 2007, Petraeus said that at the end of July of that year there would be a 45 day period to re-evaluate where things stand, which would be followed up by a September 2007 congressional hearing featuring testimony by Petraeus and Crocker.

Fast forward to April 2008. Petraeus and Crocker again go before Congress with updates on how things are going in Iraq.

An excerpt from Petraeus’s testimony last week: “Since Ambassador Crocker and I appeared before you seven months ago, there has been significant but uneven security progress in Iraq.

“Since September, levels of violence and civilian deaths have been reduced substantially, al-Qaida-Iraq and a number of other extremist elements have been dealt serious blows, the capabilities of Iraqi Security Force elements have grown, and there has been noteworthy involvement of local Iraqis in local security.

 

“Nonetheless, the situation in certain areas is still unsatisfactory and innumerable challenges remain. Moreover, as events in the past two weeks have reminded us and as I have repeatedly cautioned, the progress made since last spring is fragile and reversible.

“Still, security in Iraq is better than it was when Ambassador Crocker and I reported to you last September, and it is significantly better than it was 15 months ago when Iraq was on the brink of civil war and the decision was made to deploy additional US forces to Iraq.”

When Petraeus was questioned about when we might actually be able to withdraw troops beyond the 20,000 troops that Bush just announced, he said “that at the end of July of 2008, this year, there would have [to be] a 45 day waiting period to re-evaluate where we stand.”

I have a strong sense of Déjà vu.

 

A couple of things that were notably missing from these hearings: there was no longer any talk of benchmarks, and when Petraeus was questioned about eventually leaving Iraq, we learned that he doesn’t even have a plan to start the plan that would be used for a withdrawal at anytime in the future.

After the hearings, Bush made a speech and announced that troop deployments would change from fifteen-month deployments to twelve-month deployments starting August 1, 2008. Those that are there now or who will be deployed up to that date will have fifteen-month deployments.

Bush also announced that on the advice of Petraeus, no more troops will leave Iraq after July of this year, which will leave at least 140,000 troops in Iraq when the next President takes office in 276 days.