Move On

For half a year we were told that September would bring the report on the surge that would indicate whether or not we could withdraw.

Despite a volley of contradictory reports, the military's chief spokesperson testifies this week that we must "stay the course" and unequivocally support elevated troop levels in the occupation of Iraq until next summer.

The American people heard these kinds of arguments before. The Administration has no credibility when it comes to providing statistics and intelligence on conditions in Iraq, or elsewhere.

Petraeus has plainly compiled data selectively, just as the Office of Special Plans did in 2002, to make the Administration's case for protracted expenditures for the occupation.

The only progress the General has been able to hold up for scrutiny is in Anbar province, where the reduction in sectarian killings and attacks on coalition personnel have not been attributed by anyone to the surge in American forces. Elsewhere, sectarian killings have either continued as before, escalated, or created such devastation and refugee crises as to depopulate the areas where the killings were taking place before, thus causing a statistical downturn.

Finally, Petraeus is the same general who wrote a Wall Street "Journal" op-ed before the 2004 election saying that things were really improving in Iraq and we were about to turn the corner.

Neither Petraeus nor the other Administration leaders have any credibility on Iraq or other foreign policy matters. Neither Congress nor the American people should place the least credence in these hearings with General Petraeus, Mr. Crocker, and others.

What was to have been a short and inexepensive mission of regime change in a would-be prosperous country, has turned into an interminable, violent occupation, unimaginably expensive to the American people that has devastated Iraq, seemingly irreparably.

Are these actually people we are going to listen to in assessing the situation and planning our actions?

America used to be a country characterized by people of common sense.

"Fool me twice, shame on me." It's deja vu all over again.

We need a fully funded withdrawal from Congress. Let's see if they can at least get that right.