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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Friday, March 14, 2008

Petraeus previews his congressional testimony

Gen. Petraeus is scheduled to return to Congress next month for a second assessment of "the surge." He begins to lay the groundwork in a WaPo interview.
Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.....

While violence has declined dramatically since late 2006, when thousands of Iraqis were being killed each month, U.S. military data show that attacks on U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians have leveled off or risen slightly in the early part of 2008. "I don't see an enormous uptick projected right now,"....

Petraeus also said the United States would temporarily freeze further reductions in its troop presence to allow for a "period of consolidation and evaluation after reducing our ground combat forces by over a quarter." He said he would discuss the length and timing of what the military terms an "operational pause" during his testimony.

And, I would like to point out again that Adm. Fallon's sudden departure, effective Mar. 31, removes him from having to be involved in these Congressional hearings/reporting.

(Notable as Fallon apparently left over disagreements with Petraeus on Iraq.)

5 Comments:

  • Couldn't the now-retired Fallon, nonetheless, be called by Congress to testify? I mean, as an "expert witness" not as part of the administrations compulsory requirement to send him to the hill.

    By Blogger -epm, at 8:51 AM  

  • Yeah he could. But he could also be on vacation and I don't think they really want a fight over him.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:05 AM  

  • So at this point everyone -- Repub, Dem and W -- are just running out the clock. The Dems will settle for a stalemate and wait for President ??? to take office and go from there.

    By Blogger -epm, at 9:16 AM  

  • A positive report is supposed to help McCain.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:37 AM  

  • EPM, yeah, the Dems don't want to appear to be fighting over Iraq, they've already got that vote. And, they're pretty happy with the current war attitude.

    ....

    Anon, yeah. I'll be very curious to watch how the Bush admin shapes their releases to help him come summer/fall.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 11:49 AM  

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