William said:

If we don't announce immediately that every last American will be gone from Iraq within some reasonable number of Friedman Units -- say two or three -- and announce it in a way which forecloses any speculation on our hidden motives, we aren't likely to be able to open meaningful discussions with anyone. If we do announce a date certain for our departure, the Saudis, the Iranians, the Turks, the Israelis, and most especially, the Iraqis themselves will be very eager to speak with us. We can then make our apologies, offer reparations, encourage the regional powers live up to their responsibilities, whatever you wish.

I have read in several places recently that "the Democrats" have seen the light and understand that we'll be in Iraq for the next decade or so.

Absolute Insanity.

Scott Ritter wrote recently:

There is no reason to believe that the compliant war facilitators who comprise the “anti-war” Democratic majority in Congress will do anything other than give the president what he is asking for. No one seems to want to debate, in any meaningful fashion, what is really going on in Iraq.

What is going on, among other things, is a humanitarian disaster appears to be approaching one of those "tipping points" after which things get much worse.

"WE" have to get out so that help can get in... and it really hardly matters in the bigger scheme of things whose help it is.

What's going on is "ethnic cleansing" where whole neighborhoods are cleansed of their minorities, displaced, impoverished. The better off left earlier -- now Sunnis are leaving Baghdad for Fallujah which pre-Fallujah I and II was estimated to have a population of 250,000, became a ghost town, a wreck, a shell, and now is estimated to have a population of 300,000+ because of internal displacement and Sunnis seeking shelter with family. Sunnis can now only feel relatively safe in Sunni towns. Finding numbers on Fallujah is damn near impossible ... I was unable to find out if the destroyed sewage, electrical and water delivery systems (post Fallujah II) had been miraculously been replaced (they had been deemed unfixable).

The United Nations has promised "more help" ... promising to almost double their personnel which will still, irrc, be under 100. (At the time they were bombed, irrc, they had over 300 in Iraq).

I was a "you break it, you own it" advocate ... after a year, I came be believe that WE could not fix Iraq ... we could only pay for others to do so and promise not to interfere ... that we would likely need to channel promised funds to a third-party oversight organization. Allowing Iraqi crooks to steal billions of reconstruction dollars is part of the problem.

I haven't found any group willing to take on this challenge (as Voices in the Wilderness and other took on the deprivations caused by the sanctions)... but I don't think the problems of Iraq can wait for Americans to care they're hungry, thirsty, diseased and dying.

where and who are they? what are they doing?

I thought the female senator who remarked on having received Petraeus' previous very positive briefing a year or so ago, only to find his "optimistic" predictions did not come to pass ... handled it infinitely better.

I think calling a public figure a liar is tricky business unless you can prove it ... and it's very rate that you can somehow prove what a person "believes to be true" ... Being wrong is not the same as lying ...

Expecting a life-long military man (or most people) to have some sort of "objective" or unbiased opinion about a project that is "their baby" is expecting a great deal ... better to expect a "company man" and deal with the information presented.

I do think that Iraq is like the elephant and the 9 blind men ... in that it is possible different people -- even operating in the same locale at the same time -- to receive very very different impressions.

In turn, Petraeus is the "big guy" that all his underlings want to please as well and he WANTS to succeed.

As I said yesterday, I thought the ad was dumb, wasteful even ... the choir was not served by practically being told to dismiss Petraeus' report as another dog-and-pony show ... and I'm doubtful that many others bothered to read the rest of the(better than the headline suggested) ad.

The republican response was predictable ... though I had expected all the candidates to be pressed to repudiate MoveOn's "tactics" and was dreading that... but I haven't seen or heard more on this as of yet. I'm sure Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough are "all over it" ...

Juan Cole thinks we should all be wishing Petraeus every success, as it may take some serious pressure off the next president. I agree.

I also think that Petraeus's report has given the war some "new lease on life" that many many (including myself) feared ...

I think most of the questioners have been well informed and un-snowed... the problems of Iraq remain the same ... the results of the surge are disappointing .. I haven't heard champagne corks popping or "Happy Days are Here Again" echoing from the outer chambers...