The Effort to Destroy General Petraeus

I don’t think there is any greater indication that General Petraeus is the right man for the job in Iraq than the absolute offensive the far left and their media allies have launched to destroy General Petraeus.  The full page advertisement that the George Soros funded leftist political group Moveon.org bought in the New York Times to slime General Petraeus is another example of this along with a host of other examples I have listed before. 

Now why is the left and their media allies trying so hard to destroy General Petraeus when they have never attacked other commanding generals in Iraq like they are Petraeus?  It is because the left is scared of him.  They see Petraeus as someone that can turn the effort in Iraq around and they must destroy him before he can do such thing.  The left needs a strategic defeat in Iraq in order to realize their own political ambitions in the 2008 presidential election.  Notice that none of the leading Democratic presidential contenders have condemned the actions of groups like Moveon.org to smear General Petraeus.  Barrack Obama’s campaign pretty much defended the add while Hillary Clinton’s campaign tried to change the subject:

Update at 3:35 p.m. ET. Democratic presidential campaigns begin to respond:

• Bill Burton, a spokesman for Sen. Barack Obama: "Sen. Obama’s question is not about Gen. Petraeus’s patriotism. It’s about his logic," Burton says in an e-mail response to a request from us for a comment about the MoveOn ad. "There’s no evidence that this surge is producing the political progress needed to resolve the civil war in Iraq, or that it will be accomplished through more of the same."

We’ve asked for comments from the campaigns of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards, and will pass them along after we get them.

Update at 4:15 p.m. ET. A response from the Clinton campaign:

"America’s troops have done all that has been asked of them and then some, but the reality is that there is no military solution to what is going on in Iraq, which is why our focus must remain on getting the president to change course," Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer says in an e-mail he just sent us. "It is unfortunate that Republican presidential candidates are focused on generating a political sideshow instead of discussing the president’s failed war policy. Senator Clinton is going to keep her focus where it should be, on ending the war." [Mark Memmott & Jill Lawrence, USA Today]

Let’s take a look at the claims from Moveon.org’s hit piece.  Here is their first claim:

General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was “tangible progress” in Iraq and that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.” And last week Petraeus, the architect of the escalation of troops in Iraq, said, “We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress.”

Notice the selected quotes by the Moveon.org advertisement.  When dealing with these leftist groups it is important to actually read in entirety what someone wrote instead of just believing the selected quotes from these people.  So let’s look at what Petraeus actually said:

Helping organize, train and equip nearly a quarter-million of Iraq’s security forces is a daunting task. Doing so in the middle of a tough insurgency increases the challenge enormously, making the mission akin to repairing an aircraft while in flight — and while being shot at. Now, however, 18 months after entering Iraq, I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up.

The institutions that oversee them are being reestablished from the top down. And Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously in the face of an enemy that has shown a willingness to do anything to disrupt the establishment of the new Iraq. [Washington Post]

Moveon.org got their quotes from an editorial that General Petraeus wrote for the Washington Post in September 2004 in regards to his job of reestablishing the Iraqi Army which he began in 2004.  Notice the quote "tangible progress" is not in regards to Iraq as Moveon.org claims but in regards to the Iraqi security forces that he was building from the ground up.  There has obviously been "tangible progress" in the Iraqi security forces considering there was nearly none when he took the job in 2004 due to Paul Bremmer’s decision to disband the Iraqi Army.  Now the Iraqi Army has been rebuilt to the point that now the city of Mosul the third largest city in Iraq is held by Iraqi security forces with the assistance of one US infantry battalion.  That is "tangible progress".  

Likewise the claim "Iraqi leaders are stepping forward" is also true.  There are hundreds of nameless Iraqis leading Iraqi Army units that are doing great work.  If you want an example of an Iraqi stepping forward than I challenge everyone to read Bing West’s book No True Glory and tell me that Lieutenant Colonel Suleiman al Marawi is not an Iraqi hero that was "stepping forward" in 2004 when General Petraeus wrote his editorial. 

Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed. Yet the General claims a reduction in violence.

What is interesting in each of the independent reports no where in them does the reports declare "the surge strategy has failed".  Here is what the GAO report says:

Reconciliation was also premised on a reduction in violence. While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, it is unclear whether violence has been reduced. Measuring such violence may be difficult since the perpetrators’ intents are not clearly known. Other measures, such as the number of enemy-initiated attacks, show that violence has remained high through July 2007.

I talk about the problems with measuring secretarian violence below but notice that the GAO report did not include August’s numbers:

If you look at the above graph attacks were high with the beginning of the Baghdad Security Plan in February along with the Surge Strategy beginning in June because the US forces went on the offensive.  When you go on the offensive you are looking to get attacked thus it should not be any surprise when the number of attacks rise.  Now in August the attacks have dropped significantly because the offensive operations were largely successful and gain are currently being consolidated. 

August’s civilian casualties dropped significantly as well despite the largest mass casualty attack ever in Iraq that killed over 500 people in the remote Yazidi enclave near Syria.

Obviously the GAO report does not support Moveon.org’s claims of "the surge strategy has failed". 

Let’s now look at the NIE report.  Here is the ultimate conclusion of the entire NIE report:

There have been measurable but uneven improvements in Iraq’s security situation
since our last National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in January 2007. The steep
escalation of rates of violence has been checked for now, and overall attack levels across Iraq
have fallen during seven of the last nine weeks. Coalition forces, working with Iraqi forces,
tribal elements, and some Sunni insurgents, have reduced al-Qa’ida in Iraq’s (AQI)
capabilities, restricted its freedom of movement, and denied it grassroots support in some
areas. However, the level of overall violence, including attacks on and casualties among
civilians, remains high; Iraq’s sectarian groups remain unreconciled; AQI retains the
ability to conduct high-profile attacks; and to date, Iraqi political leaders remain
unable to govern effectively. There have been modest improvements in economic
output, budget execution, and government finances but fundamental structural
problems continue to prevent sustained progress in economic growth and living
conditions.

We assess, to the extent that Coalition forces continue to conduct robust
counterinsurgency operations and mentor and support the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF),
that Iraq’s security will continue to improve modestly during the next six to 12 months
but that levels of insurgent and sectarian violence will remain high and the Iraqi
Government will continue to struggle to achieve national-level political reconciliation
and improved governance.

The NIE actually says that their are "modest improvements" and here is what it had to say about the counterinsurgency strategy of working with Iraqi tribal leaders:

The IC assesses that the emergence of “bottom-up” security initiatives, principally
among Sunni Arabs and focused on combating AQI, represent the best prospect for
improved security over the next six to 12 months, but we judge these initiatives will only
translate into widespread political accommodation and enduring stability if the Iraqi
Government accepts and supports them.

Here is what it says about changing the surge strategy:

We assess that changing the mission of Coalition forces from a primarily
counterinsurgency and stabilization role to a primary combat support role for Iraqi
forces and counterterrorist operations to prevent AQI from establishing a safehaven
would erode security gains achieved thus far.

If anything the NIE report is actually supportive of the surge strategy.  No where in the NIE does it say "the surge strategy has failed" as Moveon.org claims.  

The final independent report cited is the Jones Report.  This report was prepared by a team lead by retired Marine General James Jones.  This report is 152 pages and is actually quite good.  The report focuses on the status of the Iraqi Security Forces and is not a report used to judge the progress of the surge.  How Moveon.org can claim this report supports their claim that "the surge strategy has failed" is anyone’s guess.  This report is long and detailed which means most people in Congress probably will not read it which is a shame.  I however highly recommend everyone to read it in its entirety.

Here is what the report’s findings were in regards to the Iraqi Security Services:

Though the report was not commissioned to report on the surge strategy in Iraq in its last chapter beginning on page 125 the writers make note of things they felt were relevant to the national debate about Iraq that they saw during their three week visit to Iraq.  One of the things they commented on was the surge strategy:

"There are some encouraging indications of a positive trend in this region" is a far cry from "the surge strategy has failed" that Moveon.org claims. 

Now lets look at the claim in the ad attributed to the New York Times and the Washington Post:

That’s because, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, deaths by car bombs don’t count. The Washington Post reported that assassinations only count if you’re shot in the back of the head — not the front. According to the Associated Press, there have been more civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the past three months than in any other summer we’ve been there. We’ll hear of neighborhoods where violence has decreased. But we won’t hear that those neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed.

Here is what the New York Times actually said:

Nonetheless, some trends are down. The number of car bombs in Baghdad is an important measure, since many are directed at civilians and the overarching American goal is to break the cycle of internecine violence. In June, July and August of 2006, the average monthly number of car bombs in the Baghdad metropolitan area was 42. In 2007, however, the average for the same three-month period was 23, the same number as in 2005.

The number of deaths in sectarian violence is also a key indicator. According to the American military count, the August total for the 10 security districts in Baghdad was 321, down from 1,621 in December when such attacks were at a high. […]

American officials concede that it is not always easy to distinguish sectarian killings and criminally motivated murders. Victims from car bombs are treated as sectarian casualties if the attack appears to be directed at a sectarian or ethnic group. The August truck bombings that killed hundreds of Yazidis in northern Iraq and the July car bombs that killed many Kurds near Tuz, for example, were classified as sectarian attacks.

Casualties that result from fighting between groups, like the Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps, however, are not classified as sectarian, as they are the result of clashes between two Shiite organizations. But victims of all car bomb attacks and Shiite and Sunni infighting are included in the overall civilian casualty count. [Michael Gordon, New York Times]

This article is by Michael Gordon who has been an outstanding reporter for the NY Times in Iraq and you can clearly see that Moveon.org has totally mischaracterized his comments about classifying car bombs as secretarian violence or not. 

Now lets look at what the Washington Post article actually said:

The intelligence community has its own problems with military calculations. Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it’s sectarian," the official said. "If it went through the front, it’s criminal." [Karen DeYoung, Washington Post]

So if the military finds a body in the street with a bullet hole in the head there is no way to verifiably know how the person died, but much subjective analysis can be made depending on the area of operations.  If the area is known for secretarian violence and soldiers on patrol find five bodies with holes in the back of their heads that is a pretty good indication that they were probably killed by a death squad.  If soldiers on patrol find a body with bullets in the front of the head and lets say the guy has no wallet then an assumption can also be made that the person was robbed.  Can you be 100% certain it wasn’t secretarian violence?  No, but the bottom line is that the person is still be counted. 

Another thing that bothers me is that these hit piece articles from the media are almost always sourced by unnamed "senior intelligence officials".   Who are these people?  What access to military statistics if any do they have?  If you are going to slime someone in the pages of the Washington Post shouldn’t you have the courage to stand up and say who you are and what your qualifications are to slime them?  

Finally this what the AP article actually said:

However, figures compiled by the AP from police reports nationwide show that at least 1,809 civilians were killed across the country last month compared with 1,760 in July. That brings to 27,564 the number of Iraqi civilians killed since AP began collecting data on April 28, 2005.

According to the AP count, civilian deaths reached a high point during the wave of sectarian bombings, kidnappings and killings at the end of last year — 2,172 in December and 1,967 in the previous month. [Associated Press]

The AP is getting numbers from the same Iraqi police that the Jones Report already highly criticized as being unreliable and corrupt.  Additionally the AP’s reliance on their Iraqi police contacts has been unreliable in the past which was shown by the Jamil Hussein controversy where the AP’s Iraqi police contact fabricated stories about secretarian violence and burnt down mosques in Baghdad.  Are the AP’s civilian casualty numbers coming from Jamil Hussein as well?  They claim 1,809 civilian casualties in August which is up from their count in July.  As you can see below the US military is tracking about 1,600 deaths in August:

Also keep in mind that the August number is inflated by the over 500 people who died in the one Yazidi attack mentioned earlier.  Al Qaida targeted the Yazidi camp in the middle of no where because of the surge strategy pushing them out of the major population centers.  So the had to find some people to kill somewhere just so the AP can run an article like this one claiming civilian casualties are up.  The Yazidis were the easy target.  If that attack is prevented, suddenly you have an even much steeper drop of civilian casualties in August.   As I mentioned before soldier deaths are up compared to prior summers because there are more US soldiers in Iraq conducting offensive operations. 

I have clearly shown the entire premise behind the Moveon.org ad is clearly false and entirely a smear campaign against General Petraeus.  Like I said before the left and their media allies need to destroy Petraeus because they fear him and groups like Moveon.org are their preferred method to smear him.  Despite the totally factually challenged assertions in the Moveon.org advertisement none of the leading Democratic Presidential candidates will condemn this smear attack and defend General Petraeus.  This is just another example that the American left does not support the troops and they never have. 

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