The surge has worked how?
In an exchange between Senator Warner and the General:
WARNER: I hope in the recesses of your heart that you know that strategy will continue the casualties, stress on our forces, stress on military families, stress on all Americans. Are you able to say at this time, if we continue what you have laid before the Congress, this strategy, that if you continue, you are making America safer?
PETRAEUS: Sir, I believe that this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objections in Iraq.
WARNER: Does that make America safer?
PETRAEUS: Sir, I don’t know actually. I have not sat down and sorted out in my own mind. What I have focused on and been riveted on is how to accomplish the mission of the Multinational Force in Iraq.
He expressed this same sentiment both days of the hearings so he obviously did not misspeak. So General, we’re not fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here?
Well General has the surge made our troops safer? Apparently not. Check this chartof Iraq Casualties.
According to Senator Chris Dodd: “Are the 30,000 additional American troops helping clear some insurgent-run neighborhoods in Iraq? Absolutely. But these insurgents just move elsewhere in the country. As one soldier told me at Walter Reed after the surge began an hour-and-a-half after our soldiers leave following a month’s work, the insurgents return. In an interview on CNN this summer, General Petraeus also confirmed that American forces had to return to some neighborhoods that had already been cleared. Little wonder one opinion poll conducted jointly by the BBC, ABC News and NHK of Iraqis revealed that approximately 70% of Iraqis believe security has actually deteriorated in the area covered by the US military surge of the past six months. This “whack-a-mole” strategy has led to the bloodiest summer of the war.”
“General Petraeus said at the outset of the “surge” that the point was to allow the Iraqi government some breathing room to come to some sort of political reconciliation. But this hasn’t happened – as many as 7 in 10 Iraqis believe the surge has made political accommodation more difficult.”
So there are more American casualties, the Iraqis don’t feel more secure and they don’t believe political reconciliation is likely to be accomplished.
But General you insist the surge has worked at the same time you suggest drawing the troops down to pre-surge levels. And when is that going to happen? Oh right before the next general election, interesting.
Via: The Huffington Post
What will Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, and Savage be talking about tomorrow?
