BETRAEUS BS FROM THE PAST

(h/t Bloomberg)

At the National Press Club on 9/12/07, Gen. Betraeus said that the Shiite internecine conflict in the South was no big deal:

QUESTION: As you know, General, the security situation in Basra in the south has become quite complicated with a violent power struggle going on between two Shiite factions and the British in the process of drawing back.
Can you foresee a situation where American troops may have to be committed to that area? And if so, if that were to come to pass, would that affect your ability to carry out the kinds of U.S. drawdowns that you laid out in your congressional testimony?

PETRAEUS: I don't envision that.
I could envision, perhaps, some small special forces participation along with the Iraqi special operations forces, which we have actually built up down there recently. And they've operated in and out of there at various times all along, together with British special forces, as well.
There clearly is a competition ongoing in Basra between the Fidhila Party, the Supreme Council and the Sadr parties and militia.
But interestingly, there is an accommodation down there right now that is the kind of Iraqi solution to problems in the south that, you know, is mildly heartening, I guess is the way to put it.

At a meeting of the Senate FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE on 9/11/07, Betraeus had this to say:

GEN. PETRAEUS: Basra province, very, very important to Iraq, of course; the ports, the oil, and all the rest of that all flow through there. The British did a good hand-off to a force that was trained and equipped and certified to hand off the palace. They had earlier handed off the logistical base and other bases, consolidating at the airport. They have a number of important tasks there. In fact, I will go home, or -- yeah, it is home now, Iraq -- I'll go back to Iraq through London and talk to them, with the Ministry of Defense and the prime minister, to discuss the tasks and make sure we have a common sight picture on that.

Beyond that, Prime Minister Maliki put a pretty strong -- a very strong four-star general down there as the Basra operations command commander several months ago. That has already had a salutary effect.

There's no question but that there is a competition down there between the Fadhila Party, the Supreme Council, the Badr Corps, and certainly Sadr's party and militia. Interestingly, there have been deals there recently, and the violence level has just flat plummeted. It's included some release of some Jaish al-Mahdi figures -- again accommodations between all of them.

Again, for the Shi'a south, that's probably okay. These are Iraqi solutions for Iraqi problems. The problem is that that does not necessarily transfer to a province that has mixed ethnosectarian identities such as Diyala, Baghdad or some of the others.

From the Senate ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE, 9/11/07:

GEN. PETRAEUS: Well, it's largely because that's a Shi'a area, and there has not been the kind of sectarian violence. There's just basically one sect. There is a pocket of Sunnis down there, but there has been general coexistence down there, by and large.

So you literally just don't have the same -- that particular challenge in Basra or in the other southern provinces. There is intra-Shi'a fighting that goes on, but that is something that, in general, the Iraqis have shown an ability to resolve in a way that they have not been able to deal with the very heightened sectarian violence in particular that took off into mixed areas in the wake of --

From JOINT HEARING OF THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEES, 9/10/70:

GEN. PETRAEUS:Well, as I mentioned, there's a very substantial number of Iraqi battalions, especially Iraqi army battalions, that are very much in the fight. ... Indeed, in many cases, regardless of what their operational readiness assessment may be, there may be no coalition assistance whatsoever in some of the southern provinces that have moved to provincial Iraqi control, for example.