Schumer, Durbin, Reid Flinch as Petraeus Crosses Potomac
The clamor of Senators preaching the failures of our military leadership was as if they were Roman and Caesar just crossed the Rubicon. The Senators joined MoveOn.org in flooding the media with propaganda dispelling any successes anticipated in the report from General Petraeus, Commander of Multi-National Force Iraq . The report from the General was to be discredited at any cost lest the ability of the Democratic Congress to manage the conflict and to end it with the Bush Administration, whatever the repercussions, would be lost.
MoveOn.org placed a full page ad in the New York Times coinciding with todays appearance of General Petraeus in Congressional hearings titled “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” Among other allegations the ad states in a subtitle that Petraeus is “Cooking the Books for the White House,” all before a copy of the report was released or a word spoken on the House Floor.
In what Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) described as “an insult to the troops” Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY ) took to the Senate floor to give his assessment of the serge in Iraq. In direct contradiction of the facts he stated
“The violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al Qaeda, said to these tribes: ‘We have to fight al Qaeda ourselves.’”
In these Sunni strongholds tribal leaders came to reject al Qaeda intrusions and approached U.S. Marines for cooperation in eradicating their communities of the intruders.
As late as last Friday Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) was trying to cast doubts as to the General’s credibility:
“By carefully manipulating the statistics, the Bush-Petraeus report will try to persuade us that violence in Iraq is decreasing and thus the surge is working.”
Durbin claims to be in contact with civilian employees working on the report who, according to Durbin, have been reminded they need to produce a positive report.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid leads this coordinated effort saying “He’s [Petraeus] made a number of statements over the years that have not proved to be factual .” Without giving specific incidence of error he continues “… [Petraeus] will give us what he feel is the right thing to do in the report that is now not his report. It’s President Bush’s report.”
Detractors calling for a pull out or “redeployment”, as they prefer to call it, will want to compare events to the political benchmarks outlined by the Iraqi Government and ignore the military success of the surge and the benefits to local communities. The surge was to give the Maliki government the time to meet these benchmarks. What they won’t be able to ignore is the progress with the Sunni’s willing to engage in the political progress and combat insurgents in cooperation with U.S. forces over the last several months. Similar rejection of Shia insurgents has occurred in the south. The Madi Army has basically stepped down removing check points and ending opposition to Coalition Forces in the region.
Hearings are under way on the House floor today and will continue in the Senate tomorrow and will include testimony from and Ryan Crocker, Ambassador to Iraq. I suspect only those who want to continue the effort to bring about a secular Iraq will find anything encouraging in the hearings. Congressional Democrats hoping to convince Republicans on the fence to vote for troop withdrawals will give their best efforts discredit Petraeus and Crocker in the Congressional halls as they have in the press leading up to the hearing.
While the public overwhelmingly favors ending our involvement in Iraq the smear campaign conducted by the Democratic Congressional Leadership hasn’t convinced wavering Republicans or engendered any level of trust from the public. In the latest New Your Time / CBS News Poll, when asked to choose between the administration, Congress and military commanders, 21 percent stated they would trust Congress compared to 68 percent who would most trust the military commanders. Hopefully, Congress will listen instead of using the hearings for political posturing. [ro_12]