GEN. PETRAEUS, OUT OF TOUCH???

I read Petraeus' testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee and I came away with the impression that he's out of touch. Consider this exchange he had with a noted War Whore:

SEN. LIEBERMAN: And you have said that you believe this new way ahead for Iraq that has been presented, with military, economic and political components, is in fact a new and different strategy for Iraq than what has been tried thus far. Is that correct?

GEN. PETRAEUS: I believe it is, yes, sir. There are cases in Iraq where this has actually been conducted in the past. Fallujah, which remains to this day since it was liberated and has become one of the better gated communities in that region, is an example of that; Tall Afar is another example, although again, we have to continue to watch the hold and build piece of that.

I've noted before that Tal Afar is still a dangerous place and I've found some articles about the situation in Fallujah:

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)

January 9, 2007
Tuesday

BOMB KILLS ARMY MAJOR IN IRAQ
CHICO HARLAN, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE

Months before his death, Army Maj. Michael Lewis Mundell said that those around him, the insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq, "will cut your throat just as soon as look at you."


Christian Science Monitor
December 12, 2006, Tuesday
In Fallujah, Marines bring goodwill, but trouble can follow
Scott Peterson Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Death threats - and increasingly murder - are common against anyone seen to be cooperating with the US.

The wariness that greeted this civil affairs unit two weeks ago points to the difficulty faced by US forces as they search for a balance between rebuilding and bringing security to a city where insurgent attacks are on the rise.

The dangerous city has claimed 10 marines' lives in a month from snipers and roadside bombs.

For two years, strategic rebuilding has been complicated by frequent rotation of Marine units. Today, it is made more difficult by increasing violence and insurgent numbers - Iraqi contractors and workers are frequently killed - and a Marine presence that has shrunk to less than 300.

Christian Science Monitor
December 6, 2006, Wednesday

Fallujah's city council battles to hold its ground
Scott Peterson Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

...the mayor of Fallujah lashes out at his city council: Insurgent violence is growing, he tells them, and they're not trying to stem the tide. "You haven't done anything," says Jassim Bedawi. "When Sheikh Kamal and Sheikh Hamza got killed, what had you citizens done to prevent their deaths?"

Issues of life and death occupy him and a number of city councilors who meet every Tuesday ...

Two years after US marines invaded Fallujah to force out insurgents who had made the city off limits to US forces, militants are filtering back into the city...Since August, they have waged a campaign of intimidation that has left two key councilmen and the deputy chief of police chief murdered

Petraeus also had a disturbing tendency to say he didn't know to questions I would assume he would have easily known the answers to. Here are a few examples:

SEN. LEVIN: So it's not a disagreement over whether it's important to succeed, whether -- it's not a disagreement whether failure is going to hurt in a whole host of ways. The question is, whatare the Iraqis going to read into increased American presence in their neighborhoods?

What are they -- what will they take from that? Now, my understanding is, the prime minister of Iraq went to Jordan and proposed to the president, our president, that they take over, the Iraqis take over the security of Baghdad. Is that your understanding?

GEN. PETRAEUS: Sir, I've heard press reports of that. I don't have firsthand knowledge of that.


SEN. LEVIN: Have the Iraqis asked us for more American troops? I know they're supporting the president --

GEN. PETRAEUS: Sir, I don't know.

SEN. LEVIN: Okay. You don't know if they've asked us for more --

GEN. PETRAEUS: I do not know, sir.

SEN. REED: But at this point, it seems to you to be progressing rapidly, or --

GEN. PETRAEUS: No, sir, I'm not so sure. And again, it's hard from this distance --

SEN. REED: Right.

GEN. PETRAEUS: -- to get a real feel, or the real granularity of what's going on. There clearly is additional ethnic displacement, soft ethnic cleansing, whatever term you want to use. How prevalent that is is hard to tell, again, for me from this distance.