And what of the Pork?

I was wondering how (or if, even) the President would address the 20+ billion in pork the Democrats had slathered into the withdrawal Bill.

After dismissing their demands for declaration of failure and surrender to terrorist thugs, he spoke briefly on that topic:

Third, the bill is loaded with billions of dollars in non-emergency spending that has nothing to do with fighting the war on terror. Congress should debate these spending measures on their own merits -- and not as part of an emergency funding bill for our troops.

...$25 million for spinach farmers, $74 million for peanut storage, $120M for shrimp research, $283 million in income subsidies for dairy farms, $400 million to rural counties hurt by cutbacks in federal logging, $400 million in additional heating subsidies for the poor, and $1 billion to prevent or prepare for a possible bird flu epidemic.

Coincidence

San Fran Chronicle:

Democrats swear it's a coincidence that President Bush will get their bill calling for U.S. forces to be withdrawn from Iraq today on the fourth anniversary of his "mission accomplished'' ceremony after Saddam Hussein was ousted.

March 24, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - A sharply divided House of Representatives voted yesterday to order President Bush to bring combat troops home from Iraq next year - a victory for Democrats in an epic war-powers struggle and Congress' boldest challenge yet to the administration's policy.

March 25, 2007 -- BAGHDAD — Suicide bombers struck in force across Iraq on Saturday ...after days of relative calm...

Then, on the day they met with President Bush to discuss the Bill, another amazing al Qaeda attack coincidence cost 200 Iraqi lives

Reid, the Senate's top Democrat, described part of a meeting with Bush at the White House on Wednesday -- the same day bombs killed almost 200 people in Baghdad in the worst day of violence since a U.S.-backed security crackdown was launched there earlier this year.

Pray for the people of Iraq, and our troops there. They'll probably experience another coincidence soon.

Officer Testifies Against U.S. Military Jailer in Iraq

When you think nobody is watching...

BAGHDAD, April 30 — A senior commander in the American military’s main detention center here testified Monday at a military hearing that his predecessor, Lt. Col. William H. Steele, gave computer programs and other gifts to the daughter of a high-value detainee.

The commander, Lt. Col. Quentin Crank, whose military police unit took over for Colonel Steele’s at Camp Cropper in October 2006, said the gifts, which would be a breach of military law and Iraqi cultural norms, were given after Colonel Steele had moved to another assignment in Iraq. The detainee was said to be outraged by the personal contact with his daughter, telling American officials that Colonel Steele was trying to supplant his role as father.

A computer forensics expert testified that an IBM laptop recovered during the investigation contained classified material, 37 adult pornographic videos, 122 adult pornographic images and an e-mail message to an undisclosed person that “appeared to be adulterous in nature.” A second laptop, a Dell, contained the text of a secret document, the investigator said.

So we've got Quentin Crank testifying against Michael Steele in an article by Damien Cave.

Is this a court martial or a porno? And could you tell the difference?

Paging all Submariners!

OK, all you submarine types - time to show your historical knowledge and laugh at the situation I am in. I, an Army O-4 who really wants to make O-5, have exactly one paper left in my ILE-CC...and for some odd reason, I have chosen the development of submarines in the inter-war years. So for all you underwater types, I have the following author's works to help me through the briny deep of 1918-1939 submarine development; Gary Weir, Wilbur Cross, John Terraine, Michael Gunton and Richard Compton-Hall. Any of these laughable, mediocre or really good authors?

Who/what else should I find?

Please leave your underwater wisdom in the comments.

re: generalship

I know I am late to the Yingling Babblefest - but besides the huge amount of play his bit is getting - I just don't see much there there. Nothing new or shocking - especially if you know a little military history have read Nagl's Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam and Ricks' Fiasco.

The only meat I saw there was his discussion of GOFO reform - and that was after you had to plow through all the retro-fluffery above it.

His ideas on GOFO reform has spots of good ideas - but the core of it was rot. More Congressional influence on the senior officers? More political Generals & Admirals? Is that really what we want?

Now, if he wants to go after that Albatros of Goldwater-Nichols - well then we would have something!

On balance - yawn.

Generalship: Varsity Edition

While we've been discussing the circus, the professionals have been going back and forth about the new counterinsurgency manual. I've got a post at my place that shows the fight card.

War Criminals

via BBC 11 March 2006

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who has been found dead in his cell in the detention centre at The Hague, had been on trial on war crimes charges since 2001 The indictment said he was responsible for "the widespread killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats".

LONDON, April 30 (Reuters) - Britain's first convicted war criminal was sentenced on Monday to one year in jail for mistreating Iraqi prisoners in a case that exposed senior commanders to accusations they had authorised abuse. Corporal Donald Payne was also kicked out of the army

When a Corporal...involved in the beating death of a single prisoner is described as a "War Criminal"...how do we now describe people who are responsble for things like genocide? Those who ordered the deaths of millions are now in the same category as a Corporal whose actions resulted in the death of one.

Stout Little Ships

Saved cruisers damaged in battle. Delivered the goods on Iwo Jima. Broached on a beach, broken. Repaired, renamed. Rescued sailors and ships. Present when Andrea Doria sank. Rode "The Perfect Storm." Was called a "submarine"- but it wasn't.

Served this country for 50 years.

And that's just one of these stout little ships.

As set out here.

An academic exercise in preparing for a terrible, but important thing

Excellent advice that I hope I never need to put into play.

General Patraeus Redux

Via Stryker News an hour long interview with General Patraeus by Charlie Rose is here.

It is a full hour long...and even if a transcript were available..none of it could be excerpted responsibly.

Meanwhile, Back in Iraq

So - with the Commanding General in the U.S. this week, did the troops of MNF-I slack off?

Doesn't look like it:

32 Years Ago on April 29, 1975

April 29, 1975. Flying refugees out of Saigon as the NVA rolls in:

"When we got on the ship, the South Vietnamese were landing helicopters right on the deck," said Stewart, remembering his actions during the operation. "We'd take the people off and push the helicopters over the side. They tried to land (planes) on the ship and the Navy would wave them off. Then they'd ditch the planes into the ocean and jump out and the Navy would fish them out of the water. It was very hectic."

The planners anticipated they would be moving about 100 people out of Saigon, but when it was over, they had relocated 1,373 Americans and 5,595 foreign refugees.

There came a point during the night when the order was given to only take American citizens because the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong were getting close to the DOA compound and American Embassy.

"I can't imagine what it must have been like to have to look at those people, knowing that if they were caught they'd probably be killed," Buckel said. "As good a feeling as it must've been helping the ones they could, there also had to be a little bit of guilt there too."

Prelude to Victory

Operation Tiger April 28, 1944:

As noted here:

It was the costliest training exercise in all of World War II. As the bodies washed ashore in days ahead, the official count rose to 749.

The brave men who died that day contributed to the success in France six weeks later. Indeed their sacrifice was a Prelude to Victory.

Cross posted.

RE: Sounding the Bugle Re: failure day

October 4th, 1962

By Morris K. Udall

I'm proud and fortunate to be an American living in a 20th century society which enjoys more basic freedoms and more material wealth than any nation in the history of this earth. All of us can rejoice in the blessings we now have. Yet, I sense from my mail a great deal of worry and concern about the future of our country. This uneasiness seems to boil down to two conclusions which are drummed into our people from many sources: (1) We are gradually losing our free enterprise system to socialism; and (2) we are slowly, but surely, losing the cold war and will eventually live under communism.

Updated: * higlight change
The all is lost crowd has been babbling away for a very long time......sometimes one needs to just have faith that the product they are selling is a product people , given a choice want to buy.

Coming soon

From the folks who can't provide "news" without mis-quotes, distortions, and unnamed sources: Failure Day.

Bugler...

...sound retreat:

A British soldier who has just returned from Iraq yesterday described the situation in Basra as "hopeless and lost" and accused the Government of "trying to save face" by keeping troops there.
<...>
He called on Tony Blair to withdraw troops immediately.
<...>
"We're coming into the end game as far as I'm concerned. We're losing around four soldiers a month and it won't get any better.

"They've even started attacking our base at Basra airport now they've got proper artillery guns. Once that's gone there's nowhere left."

Pte Barton said in the 18 months between the end of his first tour of Iraq and his return this year the pressure on troops had increased hugely. The "Iranian influence" had given insurgents increasingly powerful and new weaponry, he said.

A reasonable discussion on this topic would include examination of Britain's intentions regarding Iran (given recent history), an appreciation of their steadfast commitment to the war on terror, an acknowledgement of the political realities confronting Tony Blair at home, and a valid explanation of the difference between complete pacification of an area and the return of responsibility of that area to Iraq. One is the goal of coalition strategy, ("The tipping point in the war in Iraq will not come from killing off insurgents - it will be achieved by replacing the Americans who are killing them with Iraqi forces capable of doing the same." I believe someone once said...) the other is beyond our control. (See Virginia Tech, for example.)

Meanwhile, Haider Ajina writes:

Greetings,

The following is an article form ‘Aswat Al-Iraq or “Voices of Iraq” from Apr 26, 2007

Al-Shuaiba airbase back to Iraqis for second time in 48 years

By Malik Saadon

Basra, Apr 26, (VOI) – Forty-eight years has passed between the handover of al-Shuaiba airbase from the British forces to the Iraqi Air Force (IQAF) in 1959 and its handover to the 10th division of the Iraqi army two days ago. During these 48 years the map of the world has changed, many concepts, ideas and theories have evolved, disproving others that scientists previously held true, but man's will to remain free and to be the master of his own land has not changed.

Appeal for Even More Re: Generalship

Chap asks, "Funnily enough I don't see anything about information war in the good LTCOL's article. Where's the IW/PA/PSYOPS love?"

Heh. I suspect that like me, Chap sees it between every line of the subsequent coverage. But perhaps I'm simply transferring my own suspicions...

Wow - here's a huge surprise. NPR did a story this week on military members "speaking out".

Members of the U.S. armed forces are prohibited from speaking out against the war in Iraq. The Uniform Code of Military Justice limits what soldiers may say about political issues.

But as opposition to the Iraq war mounts, some service members are finding ways to air their opinions. Some are speaking anonymously while others sign a petition.

"You know this isn't really what we signed up to do. This isn't really what I believe America is about," an Army intelligence officer says, speaking from his base in Iraq.

Comments like this would land him in a military prison if he were identified.

RE: Generalship (and Second Thoughts)

Four must reads sometime this week:
Retired LTC Yingling's article in Armed Forces Journal
Hugh Hewitt interview with Max Boot on Yingling’s article, via Instapundit
Greyhawk's reflections on Yingling's piece
Point of view contrary to Yingling from Neptunus Lex.

Call it all some considerations of the second draft of history, all relating to how we have conducted our military efforts in Iraq, how we’ve adapted, and where we stand now.

The mainstream media (MSM) delight in stories like this. They move from darling to darling, from one convenient message to another, and find ways to highlight and stress those particular threads of military commentary and opinion that supports their own biases, or the partisan aims of those they seek to assist.

I don’t want to insult or call into question the integrity of LTC Yingling, or impute ulterior motives to the particular timing of his article. I think Yingling accurately captures a strain of thought within the officer corps, particular for younger officers a level or two below those who have achieved the political stature of elevated senior rank. I say political because for those not as familiar with the world of the military, it may not be apparent the degree to which Generals and aspiring Field Grade officers by necessity excel as political animals.

I will certainly grant that, in hindsight, it will always be possible to find oppositional voices in military senior command who take positions contrary to those which ultimately prevail, and after the fact can seem deep wisdom indeed. Hindsight, after all, can always be measured as 20/20. I would even go so far to admit that a certain degree of hubris, institutional prejudices, vanity and pride underlay much military decision-making immediately leading up to our invasion of Iraq, and decisions in the first 3 years of executing the various components of our plans.

All that said I still have several big objections to his argument.

Bad results don’t necessarily indicate bad plans, or even bad decisions. Poor results are more often a failure of adaptability, not necessarily foresight. You can generally foresee all manner of possibilities, but leadership is a matter of making decisions, of choosing courses of action (COA) among alternatives. After the fact, it will always be possible to point at outcomes, and say, well, clearly, you should have opted for COA #2, or #3, or so on, rather than the one chosen.

Yingling describes the failures of Generals making decisions during the Vietnam War as inadequately preparing their forces for counterinsurgency. That may or may not be a complete picture of all that went on, and certainly doesn’t accommodate evolving thinking about Vietnam, that we may have won militarily but lost politically by giving way on PR and pulling out on the verge of victory. Sure, the results were disastrous, but was the disaster the fault of military operations, or the political decision-making that pulled US forces out, and then cravenly abandoned our allies in South Vietnam?

We fought a very tough and prolonged fight against a Filipino insurgency at the turn of the 19th century, and won against them, and the military created doctrinal components that were informed by those experiences. I think it reasonable that the US military was justified thinking they would prevail in Vietnam. Certainly, tactics and strategy could have evolved more, but the great unanswered question is what would have happened if we had held on longer, maintained support of South Vietnam? Our North Vietnamese enemies candidly admit they were near complete defeat and surrender shortly after Tet.

Again, we might grant Yingling his premise that the military didn’t exhibit sufficient foresight as the war in Vietnam continued, or didn’t adapt, or ignored warning signs and alternative courses of action. I don’t think it supports his conclusion, in any case.

I thought at the time and I think now that arguments by Administration detractors and in-house military critics that 300,000 to 400,000 troops would be needed to prevail in Iraq was a recipe for guaranteed paralysis. Say we ponied up that kind of force. How long would that big a force be needed to accomplish a “pacification” of the country? How many more casualties would the US have sustained with two to three times as many targets for IEDs and other suicide attacks?

How on earth does anyone think the US could implement that in the politics of the time? We’d see even worse conflict and obstructionism, only louder, more, and sooner. No, those kinds of troops levels would ensure that we would, in fact, choose not to go to war. That was the overriding intent of these estimates, anyway. Prove me wrong, but I think that would be perfectly logical based on the cynical Powell Doctrine. (We fight ONLY when we are certain of complete victory, not on necessity, nor on principle.)

If there is one truism in modern warfare, it’s that we don’t always get time and opportunity to choose a fight that is brought on you unexpectedly. We can’t always support or sustain overwhelming force, and we can’t control every eventuality or eliminate terror as PR and media tactic. Careful “pragmatists” like Powell and Shinseki would, by their doctrines, ensure we only take on boutique wars against very minor adversaries. That was the intent of Shinseki and others on this side of the argument, an argument for inaction and status quo. And the fatal fallacy of these arguments, are they don’t in any way answer what we face in AQ and similar global terror affinity organizations.

The example Yingling cites of Valmy is grossly inapt for our situation in Iraq. Valmy led to Jena because the Prussians did not see Valmy as a warning for what the future might hold, or their own vulnerabilities. You can argue that Secretary Rumsfeld (and the President) didn’t take a sober enough look at the security situation in Iraq, or change strategy, or prompt adaptation in the military. But you surely can’t view the surge, the substantive and impressive changes in strategy and tactics, and the orchestration of the surge by GEN Petraeus as an inability to reassess, and adapt.

Lastly, I find it incomprehensible that a military leader of advanced rank, a Brigade Deputy Commander no less, could thoroughly inform himself of ground truth in Iraq, and then honestly or accurately describe us on the verge of defeat, in any sense. We have difficulties transferring authority to Iraqis, building up their security forces (more so the Iraqi police versus the Army), and no one is happy with security, but this is not a military defeat.

We and the Iraqi forces we support have been unable to fully secure important population centers, and there are significant populations of potential adversaries not pacified. Terrorists are not fully eliminated nor prevented from conducting harassing operations. But this can be said about many places in the world. If a steady stream of foreign ideological suicides, or vulnerable innocents (children, handicapped, subjects of blackmail) can be kept available, this could be kept up indefinitely, anywhere in the world. It just happens that Al Qaeda wants to continue to focus on Iraq, because they believe they can thereby turn Americans against the war, with the help of the Democrat opposition and western media.

Links to Hugh Hewitt, Greyhawk, and Neptunus Lex, and more commentary, over at Dadmanly.)

Re:[96] Generalship and Congress

I wouldn't say anything against a gentleman from the 3rd Armored Cav. I do wonder about this idea, though: "To reward moral courage in our general officers, Congress must ask hard questions about the means and ways for war as part of its oversight responsibility."

Congressional confirmation procedures are something we've seen a lot of over the last several years. Does anyone really believe that these procedures ever, ever, ever even once, "reward moral courage"?

Let's say you want to be on the Supreme Court. Or an ambassador. Whatever. Does it help or hurt your chances if you've ever expressed strong opinions about any controversial topic?

Reward moral courage? That's the best way I can think of to make sure that no one of moral courge is ever considered for the post.

Re[95]: Generalship

Yeah, a civilian friend read the paper, and now I just had to post on it. Hawk's got the importance right--if you think this article is as Important as the papers say it is, you're being played for a sucker unless the papers get to drive the momentum enough for people to riff on the article.

Funnily enough I don't see anything about information war in the good LTCOL's article. Where's the IW/PA/PSYOPS love?

Update: One more thing. Seems as though GEN Abizaid fits LTCOL Yingling's model for the modern general...

Re:Quadruple Re: Generalship

Just a quick question...

If one knows that it will be 3-5 years before handing off to the ISF is feasable...and the maximum sustainable rotation is 15 Brigades...does one immediately engage in a policy that will require 21-22 Brigades until the ISF is capable of assuming command...or does one engage in "economy of force" for three to four years?

Just asking

Quadruple Re: Generalship

W. Thomas Smith Jr.

I think it is important to note that the officer criticizing American generalship is doing so in the Armed Forces Journal, which (according to the AP story) is published by Army Times Publishing Company, which publishes all the Military Times newspapers.

Armed Forces Journal and its Web site, armedforcesjournal.com, are published by Army Times Publishing Company, a part of Gannett Company, Inc.

Army Times Publishing Company is organized into three market sector groups to effectively cover the needs of the consumer and business-to-business communities served by its publications: 1. The Military Times Media Group, which publishes the Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Corps Times newsweeklies;
2. the Defense News Media Group, which publishes Defense News, Armed Forces Journal , Training & Simulation Journal, and C4ISR Journal (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance); and
3. the Federal Times newsweekly.

Also at The Tank, Gregory S. McNeal found AP coverage of Yingling's article, which claims that

In February, the U.S. forces launched the Baghdad security operation, which calls for deploying about 28,000 additional American troops as well as thousands of Iraqi soldiers. Most will try to secure Baghdad.

Yingling welcomed the change, but suggested it is too little too late.

But it certainly looks like Gannett is pushing this story hard.

The AP story also shoehorns in a reference to the Astroturf campaign "Appeal for Redress":

But public criticism from an active duty officer is rare and may be a sign of growing discontent among military leaders at a critical time in the troubled U.S. military mission here.

An anti-war group, Appeal for Redress, says about 2,000 active duty personnel and veterans have signed a petition calling for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

One of its founders, Navy Petty Officer Jonathan Hutto, has said 60 percent of the members have served in Iraq. There are about 1.4 million active-duty personnel in the U.S. military.

Which seems to be a trend.

Update: The Military Times papers ran a fluffer piece on Appeal for Redress a while back, too, without explaining the background on the group.

The MilBlogs Community Grows

...even faster than we knew:

A vibrant milblogging community in the People's Republic of China, where all manners of speech are closely monitored and controlled, may seem unlikely. Chinese milbloggers, however, have closely followed major defense and security developments both within China as well as abroad, from last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah to China's anti-satellite missile test in January.

Translations of Chinese MilBlogger names into English include Chinese Sword, Door of Green Dragon, Flying Flower Pursues Moon, Flying Fish, and Commanding Feather Eagle Wolf.

Wonder what they think of Harry Reid being a fan boy of one of their Generals?

Triple Re: Generalship

What Lex said. Seriously, go read it. It's of more general interest than you think. I mean, it's of interest to more than just Generals, and the general public should take a gander. You don't even need to review the source document or the WaPo piece first.

A few points, for info only, not directly related to the document or discussion thereof - though I will now quote it:

America's generals not only failed to develop a strategy for victory in Vietnam, but also remained largely silent while the strategy developed by civilian politicians led to defeat. As H.R. McMaster noted in "Dereliction of Duty," the Joint Chiefs of Staff were divided by service parochialism and failed to develop a unified and coherent recommendation to the president for prosecuting the war to a successful conclusion.

Re: Re: Generalship

You guys saw that too? I guess it's what all the cool kids are talking about.

For my own part, I thought that while the LTC made some good points, he was being a little hard on the elephants. Flawed assumptions were exposed, and poor decisions revealed, but only in retrospect - they were none of them "no-brainers."

And the COIN strategy that we have settled on is risky, frankly - we expose more troops in smaller numbers to a 360-degree threat axis. The fact that this the only strategy with good prospects for success now doesn't mean that it was blindingly obvious before.

More here, if you're interested.

We're Only Eight Days Out

Today is the last day to register for the 2007 MilBlog Conference. We will not be accepting on-site registrations.

In other MilBlog Conference news, we have just announced our Master of Ceremonies.

News of Afghanistan - the 55th edition

Kabul cricket supremacy, French military efficacy, Abdullah Abdullah breaking bad on Karzai and Canadian Parliamentary squabbling all found here.

Re: Generalship

"I think the case can be made that the ground commanders in Iraq before Gen. Petraeus lacked imagination and the ability to change tactics"

Agree that the case can be made. But...

The hour is late, but not too late to prepare for the challenges of the Long War. We still have time to select as our generals those who possess the intelligence to visualize future conflicts and the moral courage to advise civilian policymakers on the preparations needed for our security.

Why?

Surprise! (Okay, actually no surprise at all):

WASHINGTON - Hours before the House of Representatives narrowly passed a $124-billion bill to fund the war in Iraq, the commander of the multinational forces there delivered a classified briefing to Congress.
<...>
But at dueling Democratic and Republican news conferences after Petraeus' closed-door meeting with the House, it seemed as if the members had attended different briefings.

The General was clear on many points - including this one: "I have, as you know, in fact tried to stay clear of the political minefields of various legislative proposals and so forth..."

So - which side was closest to the truth? The answer will surprise you every bit as much as the story above.

A failure in generalship

The Deputy Commander of the 3rd ACR has an article in the new Armed Forces Journal that makes some interesting points, even though the Washington Post tries to stretch them into something they might not be. From the conclusion of Lt Col Yingling's article:

Iraq is America's Valmy. America's generals have been checked by a form of war that they did not prepare for and do not understand. They spent the years following the 1991 Gulf War mastering a system of war without thinking deeply about the ever changing nature of war. They marched into Iraq having assumed without much reflection that the wars of the future would look much like the wars of the past. Those few who saw clearly our vulnerability to insurgent tactics said and did little to prepare for these dangers. As at Valmy, this one debacle, however humiliating, will not in itself signal national disaster. The hour is late, but not too late to prepare for the challenges of the Long War. We still have time to select as our generals those who possess the intelligence to visualize future conflicts and the moral courage to advise civilian policymakers on the preparations needed for our security.

RE: Idiot of the Year

Soldier's Dad already responded here to Senator Obama. I posted some related thoughts over at Dadmanly.

Here's an excerpt:

Senator Barack Obama says that we are "one signature away from ending this war," making the remarkable statement in the first debate of democrats for the 2008 Presidential Election.

Not to be outdone in the visualize peace exercise, Senator Hillary Clinton repeated her promise, that "if George Bush doesn't end the war, as President, I will."

A central assumption of both of these naive positions is that the US fights "George Bush's war" in isolation. If we weren't there, nobody in Iraq would be blowing people up. If we weren't there, Iraqis would work out there differences. If we weren't there, terrorists would stop being terrorists, or at least, go on to unidentified other targets elsewhere in the world, but in places that we just don't need to worry about either.

You almost get the feeling this is all some made-up war, dreamed up on some ranch in Texas. Heck, the only reason Iraq has erupted in "civil war," to hear Surrender Democrats tell it, was out of spontaneous anger and hostility towards the US presence.

Readers of analysis that is actually informed by facts and reality, of course, know that both Iran and Al Qaeda have gone to extreme lengths to try to ignite a civil war between Sunnis and Shia in Iraq, but they have failed, in places, spectacularly, as we are seeing evidence of now. Sunni tribes and major leaders are turning against Al Qaeda. Shia have exercised amazing restraint in recent months, holding back from serious reprisals against Sunnis, not falling for the bait when terrorists attack Shia sites and neighborhoods. Al Qaeda has even taken to attacking former allies who now line up with the Iraqi Government, further alienating themselves from the Sunnis in Iraq.

People who really want to know what's happening in Iraq, read MILBLOGS, and consult experts like those at Strategy Page, or listen closely to what GEN Petraeus tells us. Not so Congressional Democrats, who skip out on briefings, grossly distort what he says, and declare that if the GEN shares any good news, he's lying.

Busy, Busy, Nancy

On the Petraeus briefing:

Still, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) did not attend. It was not clear where she was Wednesday afternoon. Aides did not return calls Wednesday.
<...>
“I think the speaker’s got better things to do, frankly,” agreed Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.). “They didn’t say anything they haven’t said in public.”

But here's what I wondered - who's this "they" Moran is talking about? It's an odd choice of word - sort of impies an "us vs them" thing. If it was a briefing given by Republicans I'd understand it - but this was General Petraeus.

Re: Re: Ware

His current "delusional" comments will almost certainly not be repeated in the cesspool of the Democratic Underground...

These stats

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has fallen from a 38 percent positive rating in February to 30 percent positive now. Well over half (56%) of adults currently view her job performance in a negative light, compared to just 45 percent who did so in February. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has also dropped. In February, 23 percent viewed him positively while 47 percent viewed his job performance negatively. Currently, over half (52%) see his job performance in a negative light while just 22 percent gives it positive ratings.

The stats may not play much at the Democratic Underground...but they will cause great concern in the Halls of Congress. To be in ones job for all of 90 days an find yourself in to 20% bracket in approval ratings is not a good sign for the Surrender in Shame caucus.

General Petraeus

"Iraq is, in fact, the central front of al Qaeda's global campaign."

"As I mentioned, we generally in many areas -- not all, but in many areas -- have a sense of sort of incremental progress. Again, that is not transmitted at all. Of course it will never break through the noise and the understandable coverage given to it in the press of a sensational attack that kills many Iraqis."

Q: You say that Iraq is now the central focus of al Qaeda's worldwide effort. Are you saying that al Qaeda in Iraq is now the sort of principal enemy of the U.S. forces stationed there?

A: I think it is probably public enemy number one.

Q (Off mike.) What would be the -- in your assessment as a military man, what would be the consequences on the ground in Baghdad if the United States was to pull back from its security mission in the capital by the fall, withdraw its forces, say, to the forward- operating bases in the capital and maybe withdraw from Iraq by the summer of '08? I'm not asking you about congressional legislation, about timelines. I'm asking you for your military assessment of the effects on the ground if the U.S. were to end its security mission in Baghdad in the fall, in terms of insurgent activity, the vulnerability of the population and sectarian violence.

GEN. PETRAEUS: I have, as you know, in fact tried to stay clear of the political minefields of various legislative proposals and so forth...

My sense is that there would be an increase in sectarian violence, a resumption of sectarian violence, were the presence of our forces and Iraqi forces at that time to be reduced and not to be doing what it is that they are doing right now.

Q (Off mike) -- progress are less than obvious to a person in the United States, much less Iraq or Europe. Is it possible that these things could improve while spectacular bombing attacks still occur in parallel?

GEN. PETRAEUS: Well, I think first of all -- look, I think you have to be realistic and acknowledge there is going to be a continuation of some level of sensational attacks. In an environment where to prevent those, you know, the Iraqi and coalition forces have to protect everything and they only have to attack one thing, some of that is going to happen.

...And actually, to be fair to the Iraqis, I mean they're an exceedingly resilient people. I actually the other night was talking to one of your colleagues from The Washington Post and talked about this idea that there is -- you know, we feel this incremental progress; it's very difficult to demonstrate. In fact, the progress is interesting, because it's a negative. It means nothing happened, in most cases. In other words, there were not sectarian murders. Whether that is newsworthy before it goes on for several weeks is obviously arguable.

But anyway, so what I asked was, "Hey, come on, it's about dusk, let's go -- we'll fly around the city a little bit." And we flew around. And so -- I mean, it was unbelievable.

This is a day in which I think there was a car bomb in Iraq, some of Iraq’s seven million citizens were affected by that, but you could not have told that from what we saw over the city. There were three big amusement parks operational. I'm talking about, you know, roller coaster kinds of -- these are not just a couple little merry-go-rounds in small neighborhood parks. Restaurants in some parts of the city were booming. Lots of markets were open. The people were on the street. There were -- there had to be a thousand soccer games ongoing. They're watering the grass in various professional soccer fields -- the soccer leagues.

You know, all of this is actually so foreign, I think, in the mind of most people who see the news and of course do see that day's explosion or something like that. And actually there is a city of seven million in which life goes on, and again, citizens are determined to carry on with their life.

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