Isn't lying to our Congress about alleged series of "Mission Accomplished"--which results in the loss of US soldiers and treasure, a betrayal?
Senator Joe Biden Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee stated :
BIDEN to Crocker and Petraeus: We're Back to Where We Started Before the Surge
little sustainable progress at the national level – and little evidence we'll see it any time soon."
BIDEN: "It seems to me that we are stuck where we started before the surge: with 140,000 troops in Iraq – and no end in sight. That is unsustainable for our
military and unacceptable to the American people."
The article "Congress To Hear Of Gains In Iraq -- Petraeus, Crocker To Face Impatient Lawmakers" states "In a reprise of their testimony last September, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker plan to tell Congress today and tomorrow that security has improved in Iraq and that the government of Prime Minister Nourial-Maliki has taken steps toward political reconciliation and economic stability.
But unlike in September, when that news was fresh and the administration said a corner had been turned, even some of the war's strongest supporters in Congress have grown impatient and frustrated.
"I think all of us realize we're disappointed at where we are," Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said at a hearing last week. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) asked, "How do we get out of this mess?" While the cost in U.S. lives and money increases, said another senior GOP senator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity: "We cannot . . . just say we're coasting through and waiting for the next president."
Among the questions these and other lawmakers said they plan to ask Petraeus and Crocker is why the United States is still paying for Iraqi domestic needs
ranging from military training to garbage pickup when the Maliki government has $30 billion in reserves -- held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the
Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland -- as well as $10 billion in a development fund, significant budgetary surpluses from previous years and a
projected 7 percent economic growth rate for 2008. Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Sen. John W. Warner (Va.), the panel's ranking Republican, who projected that Iraqi oil income would reach $56.4 billion this year, asked the Government Accountability Office last month to investigate how much money the Iraqi government has.
"I think it's a very significant issue that has not had sufficient exposure," Levin said in an interview. "They're perfectly content to watch us spend our
money while they build up these huge cash reserves from oil windfalls. It's a real stick in our eye, as far as I'm concerned."
The other day McCain was lying about the progress in Iraq and as the speech was being broadcast it was interrupted for viewers on the Cable channels by news of mortars exploding in the allegedly protected Green Zone. A little after sunrise on Easter Sunday, a mortar shell or rocket crashed into Paul Converse's trailer inside the Green Zone. Converse died the next day. What a sad event for Converse's relative left behind. McCain has been blathering about how safe Iraq
was. We can only surmise Converse didn't have such a secure feeling partially because of big bro 43's mini-me McCain.
The article continues "Lawmakers said they want to question Petraeus about the performance of Iraqi security forces in last week's military engagement between government forces and the Mahdi Army militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Basra. The fighting, along with continued intra-Shiite fighting in Baghdad that killed at least four U.S. soldiers over the weekend, has complicated efforts to portray Iraq as moving toward stability."
In the recent battle in Basra the US had to bail out the Maliki run Iraqi Security force precisely because Sadr's JAM was stronger. Big bro 43 and John McCain were lauding how effective the Maliki run Iraqi Security force was, but they aren't as strong as Sadr's.
Iran is controlling Iraq now. Rumsfeld said the last thing he would want in Iraq is another mullah run theocracy. It hasn't turned into that but only becasue the
same theocracy is running both countries.
The article continues "Petraeus is expected to cite Iranian assistance to Mahdi Army forces as another reason to carefully consider any further troop withdrawals. But U.S. intelligence officials have noted that Iran has also provided training and weapons to all Shiite militias, including those allied with Maliki. "One reality of Basra is that you have Iranian-influenced organizations fighting each other," said one intelligence official. "On multiple levels, Iran has its hooks" in all of them, the official added. While Crocker is expected to point to Iraq's passage of militia amnesty and a reversal of de-Baathification laws, along with legislation to authorize provincial elections in October, the Maliki government remains gridlocked on electoral procedures that must be agreed upon as well as on new oil legislation. At least one-quarter of cabinet seats remain vacant or are only nominally filled."
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