Petraeus Testamony

So ends the second day of General Petraeus' testimony on the current status on the Iraq war. The assessment was that there is less sectarian violence, the lowest since July and everything is going in a positive direction since the "surge."

Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker was just as optimistic. The liberal left cried "boooo, boooo" and the republican politicians jumped on the opportunity to humiliate their democrat cohorts by trying to get them to sign on to condemning the MoveOn.org ad. Apparently MoveOn paid $65,000 for a page ad in the NY Times, basically condemning Patraeus, stating, "Cooking the Books for the White House" and asserts "General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts."


Preview: Petraeus Goes to Washington President Bush chose Gen. David Petraeus to take command of American forces in Iraq for several reasons. He cited Iraq combat experience and counterinsurgency expertise, but Mr. Bush also hoped that the American public would find the articulate general more persuasive than a president who had “been here too long.” The latest New York Times/CBS News Poll seems to confirm his thinking. ..


Watching the Iraq Hearings, Day 1 The Lede is following the Petraeus-Crocker hearings live with the help of Times reporters in Washington, including Thom Shanker, who is inside the hearing room. Even though the boiled-down version of their message is now well-known — military progress has been uneven and political progress unsatisfactory — we are expecting to learn much from the testimony of the two star witnesses, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. ...

Watching the Iraq Hearings, Day 2 Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker testified today in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee, and we followed the whole thing live with the help of Times reporters in Washington, including David Cloud, who contributed entries and reporting from inside the hearing room. On Monday, the two star witnesses argued to a House panel that military progress justified continued support for full troop strength in Iraq, despite little political progress. ...

Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker testified before a joint session of the House armed services and foreign affairs committees on Monday. In response to accusations that the General was a spokesman for the White House, Petraeus said that his testimony was purely his own, stating "as a bottom line up front, the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met." He talked of US troop levels beginning to fall by the summer of 2008.

The general presented slides depicting graphs to represent the progress that has been made since the "surge" was put into place, stating that"the nature of the conflict in Iraq, recall the situation before the surge, describe the current situation, and explain the recommendations I have provided to my chain of command for the way ahead in Iraq."

Petraeus' Testimony, Report To Congress on Iraq 9 pages pdf.

US Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker said a "secure, stable, democratic Iraq at peace with its neighbors is attainable." Further adding, "the process will not be quick, it will be uneven, punctuated by setbacks as well as achievements, and it will require substantial U.S. resolve and commitment." Both accounts depicted, overall, more pros than cons.

US Ambassador to Iraq: Ryan Crocker's Before Congress 9 pages pdf.

9/11 Anniversary, 6 years today

Today is the anniversary of 9/11. Some key things to contemplate as you go through life today.

• Those responsible - Al-Qaeda With center of gravity in Pakistan have an area of operation around the world, specifically: Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, United States, United Kingdom, Indonesia, Philippines, Jordan, Kuwait, Iran, Chechnya.


• State Sponsors - Formerly Sudan, Formerly Afghanistan. Not Iraq.


• Al-Qaeda's goal - To spread militant Sunni Islam worldwide


• Leader of Al-Qaeda - Osama bin Laden (full given name Osama bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden) a Saudi was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He is 50 years old, born 1957, is 6'5" tall at 160 pounds.


• Osama bin Laden's history - Veteran of Afghanistan-Soviet civil war (1980-1989). 9/11 Attack on the Twin Towers in NY 2001 with a death toll 2,973 . Two East African US Embassy Bombings in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1998. The FBI says 213 died at Nairobi, plus 12 at Tanzania, for a total of 225.

Who and what is Al-Qaeda? source

1) Al-Qaeda was formed in 1988 by veterans of the anti-Soviet civil war in Afghanistan, with the purpose of exporting the victory worldwide. At its core was Azzam and his deputy, bin Laden, who may have differed how best to proceed.

When Azzam was killed in 1989, bin Laden assumed full control of the organization.Though he was a Saudi, most of his senior leadership was Egyptian. Between 1991 and 1996, al-Qaeda was headquarted in Sudan, where it enjoyed friendly relations with the governing National Islamic Front. International pressure forced bin Laden to relocate back to Afghanistan in 1996, where it allied with the then-nascent Taliban. In late 2001, most of its training camps were destroyed, and the group became somewhat diffuse, with much of its leadership relocating either to Iran, the mountainous region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, or to Pakistan's cities.

Many of those work in Pakistan's cities were caught. The status of the leadership in Iran remains unclear. Al-Qaeda's purpose is to spread jihad worldwide through a number of means, including funding and training Islamic and ethnic guerilla movements, issuing propaganda aimed at inspiring freelance jihadists to commit acts of terrorism, and organizating and conducting complex attacks on countries it sees opposing it. The organization is funded largely by charitable donations, some intended, and some diverted by symathizers from poorly managed Gulf charities. Before 9-11, the organization had an estimated annual budget of about $30 million.

2) Al-Qaeda (Translated from Arabic: The Base) is an international alliance of militant Sunni jihadist organizations. Its roots can be traced back to Osama bin Laden and others around the time of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. Al-Qaeda's objectives include the end of foreign influence in Muslim countries and the creation of a new Islamic caliphate.

Al-Qaeda has been labeled a terrorist organization...Its affiliates have executed attacks against targets in various countries, the most prominent being the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Northern Virginia. Following the September 11 attacks, the United States government launched a broad military and intelligence campaign known as the War on Terrorism, with the stated aim of dismantling al-Qaeda and killing or capturing its operatives.

Due to its structure of semi-autonomous cells, al-Qaeda's size and degree of responsibility for particular attacks are difficult to establish. However, this may also be because its size and degree are exaggerated. Although the governments opposed to al-Qaeda claim that it has worldwide reach, other analysts have suggested that those governments, as well as Osama bin Laden himself, exaggerate al-Qaeda's significance in Islamist terrorism. The neologism"al-Qaedaism" is applied to the wider context of those who independently conduct similar acts through political sympathy to al-Qaeda ideology or methods or the copycat effect.

This part is important...

Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 had put the country of Saudi Arabia and its ruling House of Saud at risk as Saudi's most valuable oil fields (Hama) were within easy striking distance of Iraqi forces in Kuwait, and Saddam's call to pan-Arab/Islamism could potentially rally internal dissent.

In the face of a seemingly massive Iraqi military presence, Saudi Arabia's own forces were well armed but far outnumbered. Bin Laden offered the services of his mujahedeen to King Fahd to protect Saudi Arabia from the Iraqi army.

The Saudi monarch refused bin Laden's offer, opting instead to allow U.S. and allied forces to deploy on Saudi territory. The deployment angered Bin Laden, as he believed the presence of foreign troops in the "land of the two mosques" (Mecca and Medina) profaned sacred soil. After speaking publicly against the Saudi government for harboring American troops, he was quickly forced into exile to Sudan and on April 9, 1994 his Saudi citizenship was revoked. His family publicly disowned him. There is controversy over whether and to what extent he continued to garner support from members of his family and/or the Saudi government.

Shortly afterwards, the movement that came to be known as al-Qaeda was formed.

This is the issue that Osama bin Laden has with the United States. It is not because they "hate our freedom." It is not because "he wants to terrorize Christians." It is because he doesn't like us in his home land territory.

Yes, Saddam was a brutal and bloody dictator. But that was never the issue. Saddam and Iraq and Osama/Al-Qaeda are two seperate entities. Iraq did not attack the United States.