Petraeus

I did watch most of Petraeus' testimony. It was pretty boring. The House testimony was worthless. Ever be in a meeting with 20 people? Realize how little was done? Imagine one with 109. The Senate went into more depth but still there were people like Barbara Boxer (D-CA) who spent all of her time asking her first question (it was a good one) and needing to settle for his answer in writing.

Paul Rieckhoff writes This Is What We Waited For?.

Here's a nice critique of one of his slides. It looks like it shows troops coming home but not so much. There's only one date which is the first one and it's a date that's forced by "operational realities". It's actually a timeline because we don't have enough forces to keep up that level for longer. Oh and that date is next July. Anyone remember that the surge was supposed to be about 6 months? How did it become almost a year and half? Also the surge was in Baghdad. They keep talking about the success in Anbar. But didn't we mostly leave Anbar? Isn't it some evidence that leaving can bring "success"?

So what I heard was this. The military men described their mission. Some security aspects have been improved while others have not. We can keep this up for another year. The political progress hasn't happened yet. In order for it to happen we need stability and we don't have any other ideas for making progress. So continue or leave. Also completely missing was any thought of understanding how sunken costs factor into the decision. It's harder to stop a pointless exercise after you've been doing it for 5 years vs 3 months.