WASHINGTON – President Bush’s nominee to be the next commander in Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, told Congress on Tuesday that the situation there is dire and poses “tough days” ahead, but he pleaded for time to begin executing a new strategy.
Petraeus, a Princeton University doctor of philosophy who developed the Army’s counterinsurgency warfare manual, is expected to win Senate approval this week.
“The situation in Iraq is dire. The stakes are high. There are no easy choices. The way ahead will be very hard,” he said. “But hard is not hopeless.”
If confirmed, Petraeus would represent the first step in a restructuring ordered by Bush as part of his new strategy to send in 21,500 additional U.S. troops.
Asked by Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., if passage of a resolution denouncing the new Bush strategy would show the enemy that the American people are divided, Petraeus said yes, it would.
After senators objected, Petraeus backed away. When Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., tried to get him to take another swipe at the resolution, Petraeus said: “Learning that mine fields are best avoided and gone around rather than walked through on some occasions, I’d like to leave that one there, senator.”
In the Army’s academic journal, Petraeus has argued the most important goal in a counterinsurgency is making the population feel safe. And on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, he said that would be the cornerstone of the new strategy.
He said the violence in Baghdad amounted to “soft ethnic cleansing” and described the risks taken by ordinary Iraqi citizens every day as “incalculable.” The erosion of security, he argued, had become the primary challenge.
So rather than focusing on training Iraqis, the new priority would be improving security in Baghdad. The new strategy, he argued, was as important as the additional forces.
“The objective will be to achieve sufficient security to provide the space and time for the Iraqi government to come to grips with the tough decisions its members must make to enable Iraq to move forward,” he said.
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