Dissenting View on Petraeus Testimony
Interestingly, Col. Pat Lang, a staunch opponent of this war for as long as I can remember, offers one of the most generous assessments I’ve seen of General Petraeus’ testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. Contrary to the prevailing notion — mine included — that nothing new has come out, he found Petraeus deflecting credit that has been given to him on some key points and fighting against some of the conventional wisdom of the GOP hawks.
Beyond that, there’s no way to excerpt or summarize without simply pasting the whole post here. Just go read it instead.
Perhaps the problem is that the hype that presaged these hearings built up expectations to ridiculous levels. As Phil Carter puts it, “we basically thought Moses himself was bringing down the word of God on a set of tablets.” Perhaps disappointment was inevitable.
Phil’s right here, too:
Instead, we got a very workmanlike report from two men who remain incredibly, almost impossibly optimistic about the situation. I think their optimism is natural; a commander must project such confidence to his troops if he hopes to inspire them and lead them into harm’s way.
The idea that Petraeus and Crocker are lying administration shills is silly; optimism is just in their job description. But wishing doesn’t make things so, either.
If you are looking for new things. Petraeus also stated that the White House in no way interfered with his report, which is counter to your speculation running up to the report.
I think he said that his testimony was not run through the White House.
I’m reminded of DSquared’s One Minute MBA, or “Avoiding Projects Pursued By Morons 101”.
I really wonder who to believe. The General in charge of the operation or people who have no idea what Iraq looks like and have a vested interest in failure. Seems most of America believes the Genreal. Go figure.
James,
I admit to not remembering the exact language, but here is what you wrote.
The long-touted September progress report wherein counterinsurgency guru David Petraeus will tell us how the Surge is going won’t actually be written by Petraeus. And, no, it’s not just that he’s going to staff it out like he did the COIN manual he “wrote.†No, it’ll be written in the White House.
So whether is wasn’t “run throught the White House” or “Was without White House interference”, your earlier speculation that it will be ‘written in the White House’ doesn’t seem to hold water. You can count that as something new you learned.
Here’s what Petraeus said:
He doesn’t claim to have authored the report, merely his testimony on it.