He is in charge like they say. He is the guy who the bollets is flying ny.
Bush cloose him to lead teh war so he is theritht juy.
tinhs are gettom better over there, I better quit now caise the hydrocordone is kickin in big tikme.

The bottomline is the surge has no connection to political goals in Iraq, it still has strategic political goals, just not in Iraq. The surge is the military means to Bush's political ends at home.

Through Petraeus, Bush is locking in the congressional leaders and the Republican presidential candidates behind his policy. The general has been wound up as a mechanism for Bush's endgame -- perpetuating the president's Iraq policy until the conclusion of his term and assigning responsibility for "victory" or "defeat" to his successor.

up and put a coherent sentence together.  you are embarrassing yourself.

-- Modified on 9/13/2007 7:51:09 AM

He must be getting his info from the President.  

So what's new?  We can all SEE they don't know. We knew that 7 years ago.  That's the reason they're in charge, because they're the dumbest, most useless fucks we could find.

If this is what you think our Military leaders are capable of, these days, at this level. . . if this is how you think the military can be used. . . will allow themselves to be used? Then God help us if you or those like you ever get put in control of the military.

someday you may get good at it

you can't possibly be THAT naive.  Do you have NO concept of the interaction of politics and military operations throughout history?  

Maybe that's a rhetorical question.

I wanna be cummander in cheef so i can straten out all these USMC traitors!!!!!

I do I do I do!!!

-- Modified on 9/13/2007 7:37:00 PM

but that is the best I've seen you look for a long time.

But somethings never change.....because Jack is still an IDIOT!

FWIW i use City Source where all the 2 name HDH's are...

-- Modified on 9/14/2007 8:09:52 AM

By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 13 September 2007

The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, expressed long-term interest in running for the US presidency when he was stationed in Baghdad, according to a senior Iraqi official who knew him at that time.

Sabah Khadim, then a senior adviser at Iraq's Interior Ministry, says General Petraeus discussed with him his ambition when the general was head of training and recruitment of the Iraqi army in 2004-05.

"I asked him if he was planning to run in 2008 and he said, 'No, that would be too soon'," Mr Khadim, who now lives in London, said.

General Petraeus has a reputation in the US Army for being a man of great ambition. If he succeeds in reversing America's apparent failure in Iraq, he would be a natural candidate for the White House in the presidential election in 2012.

His able defence of the "surge" in US troop numbers in Iraq as a success before Congress this week has made him the best-known soldier in America. An articulate, intelligent and energetic man, he has always shown skill in managing the media.

But General Petraeus's open interest in the presidency may lead critics to suggest that his own political ambitions have influenced him in putting an optimistic gloss on the US military position in Iraq .

Mr Khadim was a senior adviser in the Iraqi Interior Ministry in 2004-05 when Iyad Allawi was prime minister.

"My office was in the Adnan Palace in the Green Zone, which was close to General Petraeus's office," Mr Khadim recalls. He had meetings with the general because the Interior Ministry was involved in vetting the loyalty of Iraqis recruited as army officers. Mr Khadim was critical of the general's choice of Iraqis to work with him.

For a soldier whose military abilities and experience are so lauded by the White House, General Petraeus has had a surprisingly controversial career in Iraq. His critics hold him at least partly responsible for three debacles: the capture of Mosul by the insurgents in 2004; the failure to train an effective Iraqi army and the theft of the entire Iraqi arms procurement budget in 2004-05.

General Petraeus went to Iraq during the invasion of 2003 as commander of the 101st Airborne Division and had not previously seen combat. He first became prominent when the 101st was based in Mosul, in northern Iraq, where he pursued a more conciliatory line toward former Baathists and Iraqi army officers than the stated US policy.

His efforts were deemed successful. When the 101st left in February 2004, it had lost only 60 troops in combat and accidents. General Petraeus had built up the local police by recruiting officers who had previously worked for Saddam Hussein's security apparatus.

Although Mosul remained quiet for some months after, the US suffered one of its worse setbacks of the war in November 2004 when insurgents captured most of the city. The 7,000 police recruited by General Petraeus either changed sides or went home. Thirty police stations were captured, 11,000 assault rifles were lost and $41m (£20m) worth of military equipment disappeared. Iraqi army units abandoned their bases.

The general's next job was to oversee the training of a new Iraqi army. As head of the Multinational Security Transition Command, General Petraeus claimed that his efforts were proving successful. In an article in The Washington Post in September 2004, he wrote: "Training is on track and increasing in capacity. Infrastructure is being repaired. Command and control structures and institutions are being re-established." This optimism turned out be misleading; three years later the Iraqi army is notoriously ineffective and corrupt.

General Petraeus was in charge of the Security Transition Command at the time that the Iraqi procurement budget of $1.2bn was stolen. "It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history," Iraq's Finance Minister, Ali Allawi, said. "Huge amounts of money disappeared. In return we got nothing but scraps of metal."

Mr Khadim is sceptical that the "surge" is working. Commenting on the US military alliance with the Sunni tribes in Anbar province, he said: "They will take your money, but when the money runs out they will change sides again."

Not exactly a news flash.

I'm thinking, disinformation?

I will be very interested to see if, after Iraq is wrapped up,  Petraeus remains in the military, and in what capacity. I imagine his "reward" will be impressive indeed, as he's already a 4-star. Or, if he retires, what he's going to reveal in his memoirs, if any are forthcoming, once freed from the obvious restraints of active duty.

This plot can definitely thicken.