WHOSE REPORT IS IT, ANYWAY? - DAN FROOMKIN (WASHINGTONPOST.COM, AUGUST 17):
The "Petraeus Report" -- the supposedly trustworthy mid-September reckoning of
military and political progress in Iraq by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and
Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker -- is instead looking more like a White House con job
in the making.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1601003_pf.html
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THE SUPPRESSION OF DAVID PETRAEUS CONTINUES - JONATHAN STEIN (MOTHER JONES,
AUGUST 16): You know how Gen. David Petraeus was supposed to write that
all-important September report, but won't? He's also the one who is supposed to
present it to Congress and the public. But looks like he won't. Military
officials are said to be "puzzled" that Condi Rice and Robert Gates will present
the report, and that Gen. Petraeus won't be allowed to appear in public at all.
For a guy that the administration has endlessly hyped, he sure doesn't get much
of a chance to show his talents to the world.
http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_m...uppression.html
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and THOM SHANKER
Published: August 18, 2007
WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 — The White House plans to use a report next month assessing progress in Iraq to outline a plan for gradual troop reductions beginning next year that would fall far short of the drawdown demanded by Congressional opponents of the war, according to administration and military officials.
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One administration official made it clear that the goal of the planned announcement was to counter public pressure for a more rapid reduction and to try to win support for a plan that could keep American involvement in Iraq on “a sustainable footing” at least through the end of the Bush presidency.
The officials said the White House would portray its approach as a new strategy for Iraq, a message aimed primarily at the growing numbers of Congressional Republicans who have criticized President Bush’s handling of the war. Many Republicans have urged Mr. Bush to unveil a new strategy, and even to propose a gradual reduction of American troops to the levels before this year’s troop increase — about 130,000 — or even lower to head off Democratic-led efforts to force the withdrawal of all combat forces by early next year.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of their reluctance to discuss internal White House deliberations publicly.
Administration officials involved in drafting the new strategy said the White House intended to argue that the troop increase ordered by Mr. Bush had succeeded on several levels in providing more security, with fewer sectarian killings and suicide attacks, and had established the conditions for a new approach that would begin troop cuts in the first half of next year.
At the same time, the administration will use the occasion to argue that vital American interests in Iraq and across the Middle East require a sustained commitment of American forces and that any rapid withdrawal would be catastrophic for the United States and its regional allies.
It remains unclear how deeply the Bush administration would be willing to reduce troop levels beyond the current level in Iraq; officials said Mr. Bush would not decide until the American commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, completed an assessment and presented a range of options on the size of the force and the risks associated with lower levels.
But senior officials have said that unless the president chooses to break a promise to limit deployments to 15 months and guarantee 12 months at home, or to send larger numbers of reservists to Iraq, the troop increase must end next spring.
“The surge, we all know, will end sometime in 2008, in the beginning of 2008, and we will begin probably a withdrawal of forces based on the surge,” Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 officer in Iraq, said Friday. “We must consider the complexity of the threat and deliberately reduce our forces based on the situation on the ground as well as the capability of the Iraqi security forces.”
General Odierno said the five additional brigades added this year under the president’s troop increase were likely to be withdrawn on a timeline parallel to their arrival in Iraq. Under this timeline, which is not yet the official plan, the troop increase would end by April with the five brigades leaving Iraq one each month, with American force levels returning to the troop levels existing before the increase by next August, he said.
Central to the internal debate on a “postsurge” strategy is the extent to which American troops would be able to ask Iraqi forces to take the lead on security missions in critical sections of the country, particularly in Baghdad. Many Democrats in Congress, and even some Republicans, have demanded that Americans hand over more security missions to the Iraqis.
Although no decision has been made about the full extent of the American combat mission next year, administration officials and military officers say the troops in Iraq would shift priorities to training and supporting Iraq forces. They said the large contingent of Special Operations forces now in Iraq would continue missions to capture and kill terrorist and insurgent leaders, and to disrupt their networks.
Under the new strategy, administration and military officials say, some American troops would be withdrawn from relatively stable regions in the Kurdish north and Anbar Province, and could be shifted to still-contested areas or into noncombat missions. But the officials say they expect the strategy to call for American forces to retain a leading role at least well into next year in the dangerous fight to maintain security in Baghdad and a strategic ring of communities in a band around the capital.
“That’s the center of gravity,” one official involved in the strategy discussions said.
Military officials said General Petraeus was still revising his calculations on what the exact mission of American troops should be, and how many would be required to carry it out. One senior administration official said the political debate focused too much on the overall number of Americans in Iraq. “It’s more than just the raw number of troops,” the official said. “It’s where they’re deployed and how.”
In a preview of the September report to assess progress, the administration said in July that accomplishments were satisfactory in nearly half of the 18 benchmarks set by Congress.
In recent weeks, several military, diplomatic and administration officials have sought to change the focus of the review, saying the official benchmarks might not be the best measures of success in Iraq, as they do not weigh factors like the growing power of local leaders and the willingness of the population to demand political reconciliation in the central government.
The administration’s planning comes as people on both sides of the debate over Iraq gird for a legislative fight when Congress returns from its summer recess, anticipating a series of progress reports on the administration’s troop increase.
Most Congressional Democrats have already called for the withdrawal of all American combat forces from Iraq beginning early next year. “After nearly five years, a half-trillion dollars and over 3,700 American lives, it is long past time for a change of direction in Iraq,” the Senate’s Democratic majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said in a written statement this week.
Senior administration officials are already making a stark case against any congressionally mandated withdrawal of troops. Arguing in a speech in New York on Thursday that chaos would follow an American withdrawal, the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, pointedly accused Democrats of ignoring positive developments on the ground in Iraq in their haste to end the American involvement.
“Unfortunately, a number of key Democrats, having perused polls indicating that the public has grown impatient or discontented with the war, have refused to contemplate victory,” Mr. Snow said in the speech, at the Union League Club.
He later expressed hope that the Democrats would “throw off election-season blinders and join us in finishing what the surge has begun.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/18/washington/18military.html?ei=5088&en=fb41ba83bb74aefa&ex=1345089600&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1187445805-D4AHRzvlDeLH9hXPIspnkg
August 18, 2007 7:04 AM
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