General Petraeus gets Iraq wrong

In today’s confirmation hearing, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) asked Gen. Petraeus if he believes central terror threat to the U.S. comes from South Asia — and not Iraq. While Petraeus defended the Iraq war, claiming it is al Qaeda’s “main effort,” he said the “organization of an attack” would come from the “strengthened” al Qaeda in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan:

REED: In fact, Admiral Mullen has stated, “If we’re going to pick the next attack on the United States, it would come out the FATA.” Do you agree with those intelligence assessments?

PETRAEUS: I do, Senator. Clearly, al Qaeda’s senior leadership has been strengthened in the FATA, even though their main efforts still is assessed to be in Iraq by them, as well as by us. But the organization of an attack, if you will, would likely come from the FATA.

Jesus Christ! Iraq is al Qaeda’s main effort? Are you kidding me?

Iraq’s fight is, has been, and will be a Sunni minority that used to be in charge and hates being on the outs versus a Shia majority that used to be oppressed by the Sunni, but are now in charge and exacting revenge against the Sunni who oppressed them. In addition to that, there are Shia religious fundamentalists who want a clerical state with ties to Iran.

Al Qaeda is in AFGHANISTAN! Afghanistan is NOT in Iraq.

We did NOT go to war in Iraq because were were looking to bring al Qaeda to justice after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. We went to war in Iraq because Saddam had WMDs, or WMD programs, or the ability to reconstitute WMD programs, or the intent to reconstitute WMD programs…

Now, General Petraeus surely knows better than to say stupid things like this, which help the Bush administration continue the false conflation of Iraq and al Qaeda. His problem is that he’s all to willing to suck up to the President and the Secretary of Defense, either for his own advancement, or out of some misguided sense of loyalty.

A major problem with today’s military, aside from the Bush administration’s stupid and flawed Iraq policy, is that leaders with integrity have felt compelled to retire, or have been fired for not falling in line with the administration.

General Petraeus ought to be ashamed and he ought not to be confirmed. I have no doubt, though, that the Democratic Senators who SAY they’re against the President’s Iraq policy will vote to make Petraeus the CENTCOM commander, and he’ll continue doing Bush’s bidding. Petraeus will continue implementing the flawed Iraq policy and the Democrats will continue saying they’re against it. In short, nothing will change.