What I got out of the Petraeus report:

[LSK]

.

What did you learn?

[wiggs]

1. That politicization of government by this WH extends to the military. nt

[LSK]

2. pretty much knew that already

You should have learned that when Shinseki got canned before the war.

[againes654]

3. Ummmm

that our government, and military doesn't mind lying to us.

[LSK]

4. you just learned that?

:shrug:

[againes654]

10. No

I have known, but that is still all I got out of his report. Nothing new.

[eleny]

5. That they never learned the lessons of Vietnam and guerrila warfare

[jillan]

6. That Petreaus and Corker don't believe in the Surge

They couldn't defend it. They beat around the bsh (no pun intended) in their answers.

They admitted that the success in Anbar Province was due to Iraqi citizens standing up.
That us being in Iraq has not made us any safer.
That Federalism may be our only hope - that Iraq will never be ruled by a central gov't.

I have to give a shout out to a majority of the Senators that participated in the hearings yesterday.
They asked great questions, showed emotion and nailed Petreaus and Corker to the ground.
Even some of the Repugs were great - it was Warner that drilled Petreaus on whether us being in Iraq
has made us safer.

[lapfog_1]

7. A number of things.

1. Anbar province is going to be a great tourist destination.

2. Petraeus did NOT arm the Sunni tribes in Anbar.
(of course, the fact that over 100,000 weapons of various types simply vanished without a trace from the American arsenal under his watch is purely a coincidence!)

3. Petraeus likes to read the quotes of Mark Twain. (I'm inferring this one)

4. Despite having not made any progress over the 7 months of the "surge", NOW the Malaki government will make great strides in national reconciliation for all Iraqis.
(which better include the oil exploitation err, I mean the oil revenue sharing agreement!)

5. Iraq is SO SAFE for western people that now you only need ONE regiment of marines with 2 black hawk helicopters to tour places outside the green zone.

:sarcasm:

(edit to add PS)

Oooh, oooh!!!

6. Violence and attacks on Allied forces are WAY DOWN, however, IED attacks on Americans using shaped charge IEDs supplied by IRAN are WAY UP!
(Don't you just LOVE contradictory statements given in testimony to Congress... that no one seems to notice!)

[Cameron27]

8. That most republicans in Congress will never

cross over and help the Democrats defund the war and get the troops home.

That Bush's legacy is apparently so important, a few of them are still trying to exonerate him for the invasion.

That we've got some damn good Democrats sitting in Congress, who are trying their best to end this war.

[GeorgeGist]

9. Gosh I thought it was just a review session ...

for what we already knew. What did I miss ... will it be on the final exam? Oh, shit